Tunis, Tunisia (PANA) - A suspected female terrorist from Tunis, whose identity has not been established, was arrested in Gafsa (South) on Friday night by Tunisian security units, a security source disclosed on Saturday
Delhi on Saturday recorded 494 cases of coronavirus disease and 14 fresh fatalities, official health bulletin stated. So far, 6,26,448 people have tested positive for the viral contagion in the national capital. The city-state has also recorded 10,571 deaths due to the disease outbreak.

Marking a steady decline in cases since December 24, Delhi has seen cases between 400 and 800 after the state authorities ramped up efforts to control the infection spread in the last week.

Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain said on Saturday the vaccine against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) will be provided free of cost to residents in the Capital as the day-long Covid-19 vaccination dry run began across the country. Yes, medicines and treatment are being provided for free in Delhi, anyway, Jain said when asked if the vaccine will be provided free of cost in the city, according to news agency ANI.

Also read: Will Delhi residents get Covid-19 vaccine for free? Health minister Satyendar Jain answers

Delhi had recorded its highest single-day spike till date  8,593 cases  on November 11 last year.

In a bid to prevent a surge in Covid-19 cases, Delhi had implemented night curfew in Delhi in view of New Years celebrations. Delhis health minister had said the Covid-19 situation is under control right now, but huge gatherings could spell trouble again, and therefore, the curfew has been imposed.

The national capital has also reported four new cases of the new Covid-19 strain which was first found in the UK. All four infected have been kept in a separate institutional isolation unit of the LNJP hospital premises.

On detecting the UK Covid-19 strain, Delhi had also issued to create separate institutional isolation facility in four private hospitals on payment basis, for international passengers who have travelled from or transited through the UK in the past four weeks ( November 25 to December 24) and tested positive.

These facilities are  Max Smart Super Specialty Hospital, Saket; Batra Hospital & Research Centre, Tughlakabad Institutional Area; Fortis Super Specialty Hospital, Vasant Kunj; and Sir Ganga Ram City Hospital.
Season 6B of Vikings finally premiered on Amazon Prime Video on December 30, and a lot of questions were answered. Did Ubbe (Jordan Patrick Smith) find the Golden Land? We have all the details you need to know about this son of Ragnar Lothbrok (Travis Fimmel).

[Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers from Vikings]

Jordan Patrick Smith in Vikings | Bernard Walsh/A+E Networks/History

Ubbe wants to find the Golden Land, but theres conflict

Fans know that Ubbe has had his mind set on finding the Golden Land since he first heard about it. He comes to Iceland to look for Floki (Gustaf Skarsgard), and thats where he meets someone named Othere (Ray Stevenson). The wanderer, whose real name he later says is Athelstan, tells them all about a land to the west, which he calls a Golden Land. Although Ubbe originally wants to kill Othere, he doesnt when his wife, Torvi (Georgia Hirst), convinces him not to.

However, the wanderer later confesses that he is actually a monk from England by the name of Athelstan. He says he took a wanderers name and became the man, Othere. He relays that the man was very ill and died soon after, but fans saw a scene of the man killing the real wanderer.

When its finally time to set out from Iceland, Ubbe and the others discover Greenland, which is far from Green. They decide to establish a settlement there, but the land is harsh, and when a whale washes up on the shores, a fight breaks out when Kjetill (Adam Copeland) claims it came on his property. People are killed, and Ubbe, Torvi, Othere, and the others get in the boats and sail out of there to safety. But in their haste, they forget necessary supplies, such as adequate food and water.

Georgia Hirst, Jordan Patrick Smith, and Ray Stevenson in Vikings | Amazon Studios

RELATED: Vikings: Could Ubbe Be the Next Ironside?

Ubbe questions Othere and how he could fight in such a way back in Greenland. He learns that he was trained to fight in Byzantium to serve in the emperors personal guard, as he only chooses Vikings for that purpose. He reveals he took Athelstans identity as a Christian monk. This all doesnt make Ubbe feel good about following Othere to find the Golden Land. Later, Othere even says he told him he was a Viking so Ubbe would know him and place him, so its really a mystery when it comes to this character and who he really is. Ubbe tolerates Othere, but just barely, since hes sick of all the lying. But he hopes Othere can still help them find the Golden Land.

Ubbe finds the Golden Land

Although they manage to catch some rain during a storm, things dont improve for the Vikings. Without proper food and water, people start to get sick, and even die. When a storm comes, Asa, Torvis daughter, gets swept overboard just after she sees Jormungandr, a sea serpent.

But when it seems like they wont make it, they finally find the Golden Land. The rich land is plentiful with food and water, but theyre not alone. The Vikings encounter Native Americans that they exchange gifts with. They even discover that their leader, Pekitaulet (Carmen Moore), can speak their language, and they soon learn why that is.

They find Floki

Gustaf Skarsgard in Vikings | Jonathan Hession/A+E Networks/History

It turns out Floki, whos been missing since season 5B, found his way to the Golden Land by boat, and the Native Americans helped restore him to health. When the Vikings are taken to Floki in episode 19, its a happy reunion for Ubbe and Floki.

But the happiness doesnt last. When one of the Vikings, Naad (Ian Lloyd Anderson) goes searching for gold, he kills one of the Native Americans, the leaders son, named WeJitu (Phillip Lewitski). Ubbe decides to blood eagle the Naad, but at the last minute, decides to slit his throat instead.

Ubbe stays there in the Golden Land with Floki, and the last scene fans get to see is the two of them talking on the beach. Ubbe asks if Floki has any advice, but the man he once knew has changed so much.

Advice? Floki asks. Always take stones out of your shoe. Thats good advice.

Did we do the right thing coming here? Ubbe asks.

What do you think? Floki asks him back.

Im not sure we had a choice, Ubbe explains. Floki says hes not sure about anything anymore.

Are the gods here? Have you seen them? Ubbe continues.

Dont bother me with that, he replies. What business is that of mine?

Ubbe says theres still so many thing he needs to know. You dont need to know anything, Floki assures him. Its not important. Let the past go.

They talk about Ragnar, and Floki says Ubbe looks like him. I dont care what you say. I love you Floki, Ubbe tells him.

The series ends with the two sitting on the beach staring at the water. Vikings may be over now, but fans can still rewatch the series to see it all again.
Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka of the Adoration Ministries, Enugu, has released his prophecies for the new year, especially about the administration o...





Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka of the Adoration Ministries, Enugu, has released his prophecies for the new year, especially about the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Mbaka warned Buhari to act fast and save his government from looming extinction.

The cleric spoke during the 2020 edition of his popular annual December 31 Crossover Night tagged, Cornucopia of New Miracles from God.

Mbaka said he got a divine ministration to warn the President Muhammadu Buhari government to be very careful, and change its policies to accommodate the youths without politicising their condition.

That the government should rise and urgently create jobs and innovate opportunities that would benefit the youths of the nation because they have suffered so much.

Dont politicise the condition of the youths, otherwise, they will arise and end the political system, Mbaka said.

Should the government fail to do so as soon as possible that time is coming when the youths will rise against the government, and that any attempt to stop them will end the government! He said.

Mbaka warned that the anger of God will soon fall on the government as there may be another protest from the youths.

He said: I can see a year ahead; it is not specific whether it is in 2021 that this will happen, but it is within a time in the time of life, that the anger of God will befall many people in the political circle because, they have looted so much and disgraced this nation enough.

Mbaka said that those who should be working to save the country have continued to loot it dry.

The cleric pointed out that politicians in the country had for long busied themselves in packing the nations commonwealth.

Recall that the outspoken Catholic priest had recently said that God was angry at the Buhari-led government for failing to address the numerous challenges facing the country.

The fiery prophet called on Buhari to apologise to Nigerians for leadership errors of the current government and that of past governments.

Also recall that Mbaka had foretold, in one of his church programmes, that Hope Uzodinma, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the 2019 election in Imo State, would be declared winner of the election by the Supreme Court.

Then the Supreme court on Tuesday 19th January 2020, declared Uzodinma as the duly elected governor of Imo State.

It, therefore, ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to withdraw the certificate of return from former Governor, Emeka Ihedioha of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and issue Uzodinma certificate of return as governor of the state.

Delivering the judgment, Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun said the votes due to Uzodinma and APC from 318 polling units were wrongly excluded and should be added.

Prior to the general elections in 2015, the cleric had also predicted that the incumbent President, Goodluck Jonathan will lose to the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Muhammadu Buhari.
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Air Task Force of Operation Lafiya Dole has destroyed a new Boko Haram settlement at Mana Waji in Borno, killing scores of the terrorists in massive air interdiction missions on Friday, the Coordinator, Defence Media Operations, John Enenche, in a statement on Saturday.

Mr Enenche, a major-general, said the air interdiction missions were conducted after series of surveillance revealed the settlement.

He said the series of aerial surveillance missions revealed that the new settlement was being used to store their weapons and logistics items and as well as plan and stage attacks.

Mr Enenche said the airstrikes were executed employing a force package of Nigerian Air Force (NAF) fighter jets and helicopter gunships.

According to him, on sighting the NAF aircraft, the insurgents were seen fleeing the location.

Consequently, in a preemptive move, the NAF attack aircraft engaged the new location in successive passes, leading to the destruction of some of the structures and logistics stores.

Several insurgents were also neutralised in the process, he said.

(NAN)
Many of us are hoping the rollout of a COVID-19 vaccine in Australia this year will bring us closer to life returning to normal. We are seeing pictures of jabs being administered around the world, from the US to Ireland, holding out the promise of protection from the virus. And the latest outbreak in Sydney is reminder of how vulnerable we remain until there is widespread and effective vaccination. It has prompted calls for the rollout to be brought forward.

But unfortunately we must deliver a reality check. Even when vaccination begins in Australia, it will not be a silver bullet.

Vaccination will not mean a swift return to life before COVID-19. Credit:PA

First, the vaccine will be rolled out in stages. This will delay some members of the community getting it until potentially much later in 2021 (the timeline is fluid).

Of course, there are good reasons why health care workers, those in aged care and other frontline workers will be the first immunisation cabs off the rank, but unless there is clear communication about this, there may be some very disappointed community members wondering what's gone wrong.
Wisconsin pharmacist Steven Brandenburg, 46, was booked on Thursday on the same charges

A Wisconsin pharmacist working at the Advocate Aurora Health Hospital in Grafton deliberately removed 57 vials of the moderna coronavirus vaccine from a fridge and left them out overnight knowing the vaccines would be 'useless' to those who received them.

57 people received the vaccine from the tampered vials at the hospital on December 26 before a further review saw them thrown away and an investigation into how the vials were left out began.

Aurora hospital then informed the police and Grafton and on Thursday the pharmacist was arrested.

The FBI and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are now also investigating.

The male healthcare worker has not officially been named. A roster of inmates at Ozaukee County Jail show that Steven Brandenburg, 46, was booked on Thursday on the same charges.

Brandenburg is also listed as a licensed pharmacist in Wisconsin.

According to Grafton, the pharmacist intentionally removed the vials out overnight on Christmas Eve, with the intent of destroying their effectiveness and making the people who received them think that they had been properly vaccinated when they had not.

He then replaced the vials back in the fridge on Christmas morning. A technician then reported the actions to his superiors.

Currently, the motive for such behavior is not known and law enforcement are trying to establish what triggered Brandenburg into such anti-social behavior.

According to Aurora, there is no other evidence to suggest any other doses of vaccine were subject to tampering.

Those who received the vaccine from the tampered vials have been notified and the company is working with Moderna and the FDA on a strategy to properly vaccinate those individuals however there should be no negative effects from receiving vaccines that were rendered ineffective.

Police arrested a Wisconsin pharmacist accused of deliberately spoiling 57 vials of the Moderna vaccine by taking them out of a fridge and leaving them out overnight before 57 people were given the 'ineffective' dose. Aurora Medical Center in Grafton

On Thursday, police arrested Brandenburg on charges of first degree recklessly endangering safety, adulterating a prescription drug, and criminal damage to property. He is listed as a pharmacist, although police have not officially named him.

The value of the spoiled vaccines is estimated to be around $8,000 to $11,000.

Dr. Jeff Bahr, president of Aurora Health Care Medical Group in Wisconsin, said Thursday that the culprit had not only taken the vials out of refrigeration overnight Friday as first thought but had also done so Thursday night - returning them to the fridge the next morning before anyone noticed.

The net closed in on the suspect when a pharmacist technician discovered the vials out of the fridge Saturday morning.

Because hospital officials were unaware they had also been left out the night before, some of the doses were presumed to be fine and were given to 57 people before the remainder was discarded.

The medical center originally thought the doses 'were inadvertently removed from a pharmacy refrigerator overnight,' but on Wednesday said the culprit had acted 'intentionally' and fired him, while Grafton Police and the FBI launched an investigation.

Bahr gave a press conference via Zoom Thursday where he revealed the culprit was a pharmacist at the hospital and gave further details on the saga.

He said a pharmacy technician first discovered 57 vials of the Moderna vaccine had been left outside the fridge in which they were being stored in the early hours of Saturday.

The technician returned the vials to the fridge and reported the incident to their superiors.

Bahr said the pharmacist responsible claimed at first they had simply made an 'inadvertent error' in leaving them out of the fridge when they were accessing other items in the same unit.

The vaccine can be kept outside of a fridge for up to 12 hours before it becomes ineffective.

Based on the belief that the removal was accidental and that the vials had been out of the fridge for less than this time, clinical leaders at the hospital 'determined that the vaccines were still able to be administered' that morning.

A total of 57 people were given their first dose of the Moderna vaccine on the morning of December 26 at Aurora Medical Center Grafton.

The remainder of the vials were then discarded after being 'rendered ineffective'.

Dr. Jeff Bahr, president of Aurora Health Care Medical Group in Wisconsin, revealed Thursday that the culprit behind the destruction had not only taken the vials out of refrigeration overnight Friday as first thought but had also done so the previous night - before returning them to the fridge before they were caught

But following an internal review, hospital staff grew 'increasingly suspicious' of the pharmacist's behavior over the next few days, according to Bahr.

He was suspended before finally admitting 'after multiple interviews' to 'intentionally removing' the vials from the fridge.

The pharmacist then also admitted that he had removed the vials from the fridge and left them out overnight Thursday but had returned them to the fridge Friday morning before anyone saw.

This meant the vials were actually ineffective or noneffective, Bahr said.

Bahr insisted there is 'no evidence' the ineffective doses may have harmed the individuals given them and the hospital is working with Moderna to formulate a plan for how those affected can be given an effective dose safely.

'The 57 have been notified,' said Bahr.

'There is no evidence that the vaccines posed any harm to them other than being potentially less effective or ineffective.

'Moderna reassured us there are no safety concerns with administering a vaccine that has been out of the fridge too long. We will partner with them and the FDA to figure out a strategy on the future vaccination of the affected 57 individuals.'

The hospital boss also said he is confident that no other vials other than the 57 had been spoiled because the hospital had not received any doses prior to the day in question.

There is also 'no evidence' he tampered with the vaccine in any other way other han removing it from the fridge, Bahr said, as he sought to reassure people that this was the work of one 'bad actor rather than a bad process.'

Grafton Police said the former employee of the Advocate Aurora Health Hospital in Grafton was arrested Thursday afternoon on charges of first degree recklessly endangering safety, adulterating a prescription drug, and criminal damage to property

Police and federal authorities launched an investigation Wednesday after the Wisconsin health system said the employee had admitted to deliberately spoiling 500 doses of coronavirus vaccine.

Aurora Medical Center first reported that the doses has been spoiled on Saturday, saying they had been accidentally left out unrefrigerated overnight by an employee at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton.

The health system said Wednesday that the doses of vaccine were deliberately spoiled.

In a statement late Wednesday, Aurora said the employee involved 'acknowledged that they intentionally removed the vaccine from refrigeration.'

Aurora said it fired the employee and referred the matter to the authorities.

'We continue to believe that vaccination is our way out of the pandemic. We are more than disappointed that this individuals actions will result in a delay of more than 500 people receiving their vaccine,' the statement said.

Police and federal authorities launched an investigation Wednesday.

The number of COVID-19 cases in Wisconsin continued to rise after dipping in early December.

The state Department of Health Services reported 3,810 newly confirmed cases on Thursday, marking the third straight day of rising daily infections.

The state has now seen 481,102 cases.

COVID-19 was a factor in 41 more deaths, pushing the state's overall death toll to 4,859. The survival rate remained unchanged at 99 percent.
They now live in memory. People like Veronica Alice Mildred Coody, one of the first Berkshire County residents to fall to COVID-19 last April.
Eklavya Singh Gaur (36), son of local BJP MLA Malini Laxman Singh Gaur, filed the complaint against the accused. The remarks were made at a comedy show in Indore

Indore: Munawar Faruqui, a stand-up comedian from Gujarat, was arrested along with four others after the son of a BJP MLA complained against him for alleged indecent remarks made against Hindu deities and Union Home Minister Amit Shah during a show at Indore in Madhya Pradesh, a police official said on Saturday.

Police said the comedy show was held at a cafe in 56 Dukan area of Indore on Friday.

Eklavya Singh Gaur (36), son of local BJP legislator Malini Laxman Singh Gaur, filed the complaint in this regard, police said.

Gaur said he and his associates had gone to the show as audience, where the comedian made the remarks. They objected to his comments and created ruckus over it. They also forced the event to stop.

"A case was filed late on Friday night against stand-up comedian Munawar Faruqui, a resident of Junagadh in Gujarat, and four Indore-based persons based on a written complaint filed by Eklavya Singh Gaur, who also submitted a controversial video footage of the comedy show," in-charge of Tukoganj police station Kamlesh Sharma said.

"All the five accused were later arrested," he said.

As per the complaint, "indecent" remarks were passed against Hindu gods and goddesses and Union Home Minister Amit Shah during the show, Sharma said.

Four other arrested persons were identified as Edwin Anthony, Prakhar Vyas, Priyam Vyas and Nalin Yadav, the police said.

All of them were booked under IPC sections 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), section 269 (unlawful or negligent act likely to spread the infection of any disease dangerous to life) and other relevant provisions.

Meanwhile, talking to reporters, Gaur said, "After purchasing the tickets, my associates and I went to the comedy show, where Faruqui was performing as the main comedian. The show mocked the Hindu deities by passing indecent comments. The Godhra incident and Union Home Minister Amit Shah were also mentioned inappropriately during the show."

"Such objectionable talks were going on during the comedy show. We made a video of them and stopped the show by taking the audience out of the cafe. Then we caught the comedians and organisers of the show and took them to Tukoganj police station," he said.

Gaur, who is also the convener of local outfit Hind Rakshak, alleged that the instruction to maintain physical distance was also not being followed during the comedy show and it was organised without the permission of the authorities.

At least 100 spectators were sitting in a small hall of the cafe, he said.

Some media reports said that the stand-up comedian was also thrashed by the workers of Hind Rakshak during the ruckus in the cafe.

However, Gaur denied the charge.
The leader of Delta Air Lines is telling workers that he expects some recovery from the coronavirus travel downturn by the spring.

CEO Ed Bastian writes in a New Years Day memo to employees that he expects 2021 to start with travel deeply depressed like it was last year. But as vaccines become more widely available, he expects a turning point especially in business travel. He says Delta should generate positive cash flow by the spring.

Bastian wrote that there is uncertainty over what travel demand will look like once significant numbers of people are vaccinated, and that Delta must be nimble and ready for change.

Just as weve never experienced a global pandemic in our history, weve also never had to create and execute a plan for recovery from one, Bastian wrote. Our success will depend on our collaboration, our willingness to be open to new ideas, our ability to adapt and our humility in recognizing that we wont always know the answers.

Air travel is less than half of what it was in 2019, but it has recovered a bit from a staggering 96% decline in mid-April of last year.

Its unclear just how quickly vaccines will be distributed across the U.S. Over the past few weeks, Trump administration health officials had talked about a goal of shipping enough vaccine by the end of the month to inoculate 20 million Americans. Earlier this week, the government said 14 million doses had been shipped, but only 2.8 million injections had been given. Officials said there is a lag in reporting vaccinations, but they are still happening more slowly than expected. They expect the pace will pick up next week.

On Tuesday, President-elect Joe Biden said the Trump administration is falling far behind and vowed to ramp up the pace once he takes office on January 20. In early December, Biden vowed to distribute 100 million shots in the first 100 days of his administration.

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

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(Bloomberg) -- At least three Chinese companies have put their plans to list in the U.S. on hold, heralding a slowdown in whats been a record start to a year for initial public offerings by mainland and Hong Kong firms.A bike-sharing platform, a podcaster and a cloud computing firm are among popular Chinese corporates holding off plans for a U.S. float, put off by recent market declines, souring investor sentiment toward fast-growth companies and lackluster debuts by peers like Waterdrop Inc.Hello Inc., Ximalaya Inc. and Qiniu Ltd. are postponing plans to take orders from investors, even though the three had filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission well over two weeks ago. In the U.S., companies can kick off their roadshows two weeks after filing publicly and most typically stick to that timetable.The recent broad market selloff, combined with the correction of the IPO market since the beginning of last month when some new issuers tanked during their debuts, may make the market conditions less predictable for newcomers who are physically ready -- meaning they have cleared all regulatory hurdles for IPO -- to get out of the door, said Stephanie Tang, head of private equity for Greater China at law firm Hogan Lovells. Some participants may choose to monitor the market for more stable conditions.The delays throw a wrench in a listings flood by Chinese and Hong Kong companies in the U.S. that already reached $7.1 billion year-to-date -- the fastest pace on record -- after booming in 2020. Demand for IPOs surged as a wave of global stimulus money, ultra-low interest rates and rallying stock markets lured investors despite Sino-American tensions and the continued risk of mainland stocks being kicked off U.S. exchanges.READ: Stock Markets Million Little Dramas Come Down to a Supply GlutThe S&P 500 Index capped its biggest two-week slide since February on Friday amid mounting investor concern over inflation and its impact on tech and other growth stocks. Chinas CSI 300 Index remains in a technical correction, having fallen 10% from a February peak, while the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index, which tracks Chinese companies listed in the U.S., has slumped more than 30% from its high that month.Waiting OnHello, which offers a bike-sharing platform plus electric scooters for sale, has delayed its planned launch and is still undecided on its prospective valuation given rising investor caution about new shares, Bloomberg News has reported. It had been planning to raise between $500 million and $1 billion in the offering, although the final number will depend on valuations, according to one person with knowledge of the matter.Online podcast and radio services startup Ximalaya and enterprise cloud services provider Qiniu have put their listings on hold after beginning to gauge investor interest at the end of April, people with knowledge of the matter said, asking not to be identified as the information isnt public.The sounding out of investors, or pre-marketing process, generally comes after filing for an IPO and before formal order-taking in a roadshow. Hello declined to comment while Qiniu didnt immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. Ximalayas IPO process is ongoing and the company will seek public listing at an appropriate time depending on market conditions, it said in response to questions.Weak DebutsThe poor performance of recent Chinese debutants has also sapped investor confidence. Insurance tech firm Waterdrop has plunged 38% from its offer price since going public earlier this month. Onion Global Ltd., a lifestyle brand platform, has fallen more than 8% below its IPO price.In fact, almost 59% or specifically 20 of the 34 Chinese firms that have listed in the U.S. this year are under water, data compiled by Bloomberg show, among them the two largest IPOs -- e-cigarette maker RLX Technology Inc. and online Q&A site Zhihu Inc. Of the ones that listed in 2020, just 40% are trading below their IPO prices.The recent volatility in global markets has spooked U.S. companies as well. They have also been delaying floats or facing weak debuts.For some, the current challenges faced by Chinese listing hopefuls are likely to be transitory, with the hotly-anticipated IPO of ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing Inc., which has filed confidentially for a multibillion-dollar offering, set to prove the real test of investor appetite for the China story.Apart from Hello and the two other firms that are said to delay IPO plans after kicking off their pre-marketing process, Chinese road freight transport platform ForU Worldwide Inc., which filed for a U.S. offering on May 13, and online education company Zhangmen Education Inc., which filed on May 19, are waiting in the wings though they have yet to pass the two-week hallmark.There is a natural strong growth in China which international investors will still want to invest in over the longer term, said Gary Dugan, chief executive officer at the Global CIO Office in Singapore.(Updates prices throughout, adds more details in the second-last paragraph.)More stories like this are available on bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.
Samantha Armytage tied the knot with millionaire businessman Richard Lavender on New Year's Eve, at his sprawling country property in Bowral, NSW.

And on Saturday, it was reported that the quaint ceremony was kept under wraps until the 'eleventh hour' - and none of Sam's Sunrise co-hosts attended her big day.

The Sydney Morning Herald's Private Sydney reports that the show's executive producer Michael Pell was not in attendance, and neither was her close pal and co-host David 'Kochie' Koch.

Secret: On Saturday, it was reported that Samantha Armytage and Richard Lavender's quaint ceremony held at his sprawling country property in Bowral was kept under wraps until the 'eleventh hour, 'with none of her Sunrise co-hosts getting an invite. Pictured on their wedding day

One pal that did get an invite, however, was socialite Skye Leckie, who helped match the couple together in 2019.

While not confirmed, it's believed the guest list was so small due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Daily Mail Australia have contacted a representative for Sam for further comment.

The news comes after the Channel Seven breakfast program - which she has co-hosted since 2013 - failed to mention the nuptials.

Nothing: The news comes after the Channel Seven breakfast show failed to mention the nuptials on their show, which she has co-hosted since 2013. Pictured with David 'Kochie' Koch

No mention: Fans were no doubt left disappointed by the lack of coverage, which was fronted by fill-in hosts Mark Beretta (right), Edwina Bartholomew (left) and Angie Asimus (centre)

There wasn't a segment dedicated to the wedding on Friday's program, which was fronted by fill-in hosts Mark Beretta and Edwina Bartholomew.

Viewers who had tuned in hoping for exclusive coverage of the wedding were no doubt left disappointed when it wasn't featured.

They may have to wait another week, or until Sam returns to the news desk alongside co-anchor David 'Kochie' Koch for the start of the 2021 ratings year.

Sam, 44, and Richard, 61, tied the knot at his 40-hectare property in the picturesque Southern Highlands on Thursday.

The happy couple: Sam and Richard, 61, tied the knot at his 40-hectare property in the picturesque Southern Highlands in NSW

The pair married at his home around midday, and then moved to a luncheon at the Centennial Vineyards Restaurant in Bowral.

The venue features a picturesque and rustic setting, a gorgeous outdoor courtyard, and even a helicopter landing site.

The intimate ceremony only featured a small number of guests due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with Richard's daughters, Sasha and Grace, believed to be in attendance.

Sam's father, Mac, was seated at the head of the table at the reception, while her younger brother, Charlie, sat nearby.

Put a ring on it: The 44-year-old Sunrise host only announced her engagement to Richard in late June, with the couple walking down the aisle just six months later

A source told Daily Mail Australia of the nuptials: 'Champagne was flowing, and at one point they had several waiters attending to their every need.

'However, they didn't get any VIP treatment, and while they were away from other guests, they were sitting among locals and tourists.'

A local from Burradoo said it was 'pretty much a "slap-on" lunch', adding that Sam looked relaxed as she 'rubbed Richard's back, chatting to guests'.

The newlyweds had arrived at the reception in a local taxi.

The popular host only announced her engagement to Richard in late June, with the couple walking down the aisle just six months later.
Since early 2020, there had been a growing buzz that the next celebrity couple to get married would be Richa Chadha and Ali Fazal. Then, in April, came a statement from the couple that they had postponed their wedding owing to the raging coronavirus pandemic.

Later, the couple revealed that they had pushed it further to 2021. However, through much of 2020, the Richa and Ali love story has more than charmed readers - from the funny manner in which Ali proposed to her to the similarity of their story with that of the controversial Tanishq ad. On his birthday on Saturday, heres a look at their cute romance.

Speaking to a bridal magazine, the couple had opened up about their story. They had indeed met during the making of Fukrey. Recalling the time when she realised she loved Ali and told him so, Richa mentioned how he took three months to profess his love for her. We were at my house watching the 1992 biographical comedy, Chaplin. I was happy to see him enjoy the movie and grateful to have found someone with similar tastes. That is when I said, This is really sweet, I love you to him. It took him three months to say I love you back to me.

However, one of the funniest moments in their romance has to be the way Ali proposed to her. She said: He had planned a romantic dinner on a small, secluded island in the Maldives. I thought it was for my birthday - I didnt suspect a thing. We had finished eating and were sipping champagne when Ali, being his spontaneous self, asked me to marry him. He didnt go down on his knee, nor did he have a ring but thats all right. After that, he took a 10-minute-long nap on the sand - I think it was because he may have been stressed about the proposal!

Richa had often called their relationship a miracle. She has maintained that one of the things that bound them is their similarity of interests. Speaking to Bollywood Life, she had said: The thing is, its nothing short of a miracle. That two people who have similar backgrounds, two normal, regular people from middle-class upbringings got together. Two people with a similar value system got in this pool of showbiz. We found each other and we are happy with each other. I think that itself is a huge miracle. And when that happened, I think I couldnt deny it that we were very...not just attracted to each other, but also understood each other on a fundamental level. Its great, you know.

Calling Ali liberal and progressive, she had told Bombay Times, I said its a miracle because its rare to find like-minded people who share certain core values and have similar interests like poetry, music, films and literature. Ali is also progressive and liberal. To find someone like that in your industry is rare. Also, we never expected to end up together. It happened organically.

But what aspect of Richa did Ali like the most? Speaking to a bridal magazine, for which they also did a photoshoot, he had said: She thinks I fell in love with her only because of her clumsiness - and it surely is one of the reasons. She is as clumsy as it gets. If she is eating, there will be glasses spilling, food will be all over the place, and cutlery will definitely fall. Her most embarrassing clumsy moment was in Venice. It was at a fine dining event and Judi Dench was sitting at the next table. Suddenly a bean went flying over - of course, it was from Richas plate. She calls it her Pretty Woman moment!

Also read: Ali Fazal on Mirzapur 2 boycott calls over his anti-CAA speech: I will not stop raising my voice. I am an artiste in a free world

Given that theirs would be an interfaith marriage, Richa had once said how their relationship was like the Tanishq ad, which released earlier this year, and had become controversial. Speaking to Mumbai Mirror, in another interview, she had said: My life is like that ad. Ive got so much love from Alis family, and he from mine. I feel sorry for those loveless people who have a problem with someone elses marital choices.

Follow @htshowbiz on Twitter

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Mainland lawyer no help at all to detainees

The family of the only woman among 10 young Hongkongers jailed on the mainland said the government-assigned lawyer refused to talk about filing an appeal. File photo: RTHK

The family of the only woman among 10 young Hongkongers jailed on the mainland over an apparent bid to flee to Taiwan has complained that government-assigned lawyers were no help at all.



Quinn Moon was jailed for two years this week for "organising the illegal border crossing" for 12 activists, with the others getting sentences of between seven months to three years.



Lawyers appointed by the families have been unable to represent the activists, who instead had lawyers assigned to them by the mainland authorities.



Moon's family said on Saturday they contacted the lawyer through WeChat after the sentence was handed down, asking to discuss an appeal.



"The lawyer failed to live up to his responsibilities. He only asked our family to write to Quinn directly to discuss, and he refused to meet her in person," the family said.



In a statement released by a concern group helping the families, Moon's family said the lawyer never spoke to them about anything regarding her case, and didn't even tell them when she was due in court until they asked.



State media had earlier quoted Moon as saying that she now understands how the mainland's justice system is fair, just and serious, adding that all her rights had been adequately protected.



The 12 Hongkongers, who either face protest-related charges in Hong Kong or had been arrested on suspicion of violating the national security law, were captured at sea by the Guangdong coast guard in late August.



Two minors were not charged and were taken back to Hong Kong, where they are now in quarantine. Police said they'll face extra charges for allegedly absconding.
As India will allow flights from the United Kingdom from January 8, checking of the passengers arriving at various airports will be tightened as the new strain of the mutant virus has triggered concern in India though it has not affected the daily caseload of the Covid-19 significantly. The health ministry has issued a detailed guideline meant for the passengers, airlines and the state governments.

Guidelines for passengers

1. All passengers travelling from the UK will have to submit self-declaration form on the online portal of Delhi Airport(www.newdelhiairport.in) at least 72 hours before the scheduled travel.

2. Passengers will have to carry their negative report of the RT-PCR test, which should have been conducted within 72 hours prior to undertaking the journey.

3. The copy of the report will have to be uploaded on the portal as well.

4. Passengers will have to undergo RT-PCR tests again upon arrival at their own cost.

5. If tested positive upon arrival, passengers will have to be quarantined accordingly.

6. Co-passengers and other contacts will also have to be quarantined if one tests positive.

Guidelines for airlines

1. Airlines will check every passenger and ensure that no one without the negative report gets to board the flight.

2. The airlines should explain this rule to passengers prior to check-in. The information should be displayed prominently in the waiting areas of the airports.

Guidelines for airports in India

1. Mandatory RT-PCR test for passengers arriving from the UK.

2. Adequate arrangements for passengers waiting for their RT-PCR test as well as test results.

3. Facility for isolation, if needed.

Guidelines for states

1. States will set up help desks at airports where passengers from the UK are arriving.

2. Those who test positive will have to be isolated at any institutional isolation facility which the state government will arrange for.

3. The state governments will earmark specific facilities for such isolation and treatment and take necessary action to send the positive samples to Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) Labs. If the passengers test positive for the new strain, they will remain at the isolation facility. If they test positive for the current SARS-COV-2 virus genome, then they may be allowed home isolation, depending on their health condition. They will be tested after 14 days again.

4. Those who are found negative on testing with RT-PCR at the airport would be advised quarantine at home for 14 days and regularly followed up by local authorities.

5. All contacts of passengers who test positive will be subjected to institutional quarantine.
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New Delhi: India has approved the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, paving the way for a huge immunisation campaign in the world's second-most populous country.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar told reporters on Saturday the vaccine had been given the green light on Friday, confirming what sources close to the matter had told Reuters.

It is the first COVID-19 vaccine to be approved for emergency use by India, which has the highest number of infections after the United States, and comes on the day the country is running a nationwide mock drill for vaccine delivery.

Javadekar said at least three more vaccines were waiting to be approved - local company Bharat Biotch's COVAXIN, Zydus Cadila's ZyCoV-D and Russia's Sputnik-V.

"India is perhaps the only country where at least four vaccines are getting ready," he said.

"One was approved yesterday for emergency use, Serum's COVISHIELD." he said, referring to the fact that the AstraZeneca/Oxford shot is being made locally by the Serum Institute of India (SII).

India's Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) is expected to announce the dosage and other details about the shot later. SII had applied for a two full-dose regime about 28 days apart.

The AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, which was granted its first approval by Britain on Tuesday, is cheaper and easier to use than some rival shots - major advantages in tackling a pandemic that has claimed more than 1.8 million lives worldwide.

However, it has been plagued with uncertainty about its most effective dosage ever since data published in November showed a half-dose followed by a full dose had a 90% success rate while two full shots were 62% effective.

India's regulator has also received an emergency-use application for the COVID-19 vaccine made by Pfizer Inc with Germany's BioNTech - the first shot to secure regulatory approval in the West.

India has reported more than 10 million COVID-19 cases, though its rate of infection has come down significantly from a mid-September peak.

The country hopes to inoculate 300 million of its 1.35 billion people in the first six to eight months of this year.

SII, the world's biggest producer of vaccines, has already stockpiled about 50 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford shot, which will be sold to the government at about 250 rupees ($3.42) per dose and 1,000 rupees on the private market.

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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Lieutenant Brian Kavanagh and Sergeant Andy Carty who have retired from the RDF.

Two long-serving members of the Reserve Defence Forces in Wexford recently hung up their uniforms for the last time.

Lieutenant Brian Kavanagh and Sergeant Andy Carty served a combined total of more than 80 years between them.

Unfortunately, due to Covid-19 restrictions, there were no hand shakes or stand-down ceremonies but it is hoped that a retirement event will be held at a later date.

Both men were based in Wexford Military Barracks and served in the 10th, 33rd and 3rd infantry battalions.

Sergeant Carty joined the Defence Forces in 1977. He received his recruitment training in Gormanstown Army Camp and completed his NCO's course in 1980 before progressing to the rank of sergeant.

He represented his unit on many occasions on weapons shooting teams and is deservedly proud of his all-army title for shooting.

He served as a driver for much of his career and his final post was as Acting Company Sergeant.

Lieutenant Kavanagh joined the force in 1981, completing his basic training at Gormanstown. After a few years, he was promoted to Sergeant and went on to complete officer training in Cathal Brugha Barracks, Dublin.

He took up the post of Platoon Commander in his home unit and also became recruitment officer for the unit.

Throughout their careers, the two men participated in many border duties, aid to civil power and full-time duties.

Wexford People
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Nothing comes free, even if its dollars from US COVID-19 aid bill View(s):

The recently passed USD 900 billion COVID -19 aid bill at US Congress showed how geopolitics works when it comes to Sri Lanka, located strategically in the Indian ocean making it an unavoidable player in the Indo-Pacfic policy of the US government.

There were no sugarcoating diplomatic words if Sri Lanka is to be eligible for any US assistance. It was very clear what was expected from us. The bill said funds may be made available if only, the US Secretary of State certified that Sri Lanka asserts its sovereignty against influence by the Peoples Republic of China and promote reconciliation between ethnic and religious groups particularly arising from past conflict,

The aid also comes with other strings attached such as; investigating violations of human rights and holding perpetrators of such violations accountable; addressing land confiscation and ownership issues; resolving cases of missing persons and reducing the presence of the armed forces in former conflict zones etc.

On the front of International Security Assistance, USD 15 million is to be allocated for the refurbishing of a high endurance cutter and USD 500,000 for maritime related professional security training and awareness programmes.

US Republican lawmakers ridiculed the 5600 page bill which they claimed was prepared in secret and made public only six hours before voting. They also alleged that the bill was prepared under the guise of COVID-19 aid for other countries but it only authorized USD 600 as direct stimulus payment to most Americans who have been affected by the global pandemic.

U.S. Senator for Kentucky Rand Paul took the matter to Twitter to list out what benefits are handed out to other nations in the bill while Americans are left with only USD 600. His list starts with Sri Lanka saying-USD15 million to buy high speed boats for Sri Lanka,

USD 130 million to promote democracy in Nepal. USD 15 million to promote it in Pakistan. Interesting, since we cant even seem to validate mail in ballots in the United States properly.

USD 33 billion to promote Democracy in Venezuela. That seems to be going well so far.

OH WAIT I FOUND IT. We are going to promote Democracy in America with USD 132 million in assistance for GEORGIA. No, wait, thats the former Soviet Republic, never mind. Senator Paul said.

Welcome to Sri Lanka, a land truly like no other!

Netizens are unique when it comes to taking matters to digital space with their creative memes and posts commenting on issues related to social issues, government policies etc.

This week, the focus was on  Sri Lanka welcomed COVID-19 virus from abroad at the airport with a grand welcoming ceremony referring to six Ukrainian tourists being tested positive shortly after arriving in Colombo on Monday. One meme declared- Sri Lanka is the only country in the world to do so while drawing an example of even neighboring India closing its gate for tourists till January 31.

Another meme took the matter to the next level recommending foreign tourists should be given the infamous locally made ayurvedic tonic-paniya at the airport since we are a long time away from receiving the COVID-19 vaccines anytime soon.

US, Maldives hold bilateral talks following trilateral talks in Colombo

The United States and the Maldives will conduct defence talks next week.

The move comes after the two countries signed a defence co-operation agreement in Washington DC weeks earlier.

The United States delegation to the talks is to be led by Anthony Tata, acting Under Secretary for US Defence Policy. It will also include US Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, Allaina B. Teplitz and officials of the Defence Section of the US Embassy in Colombo.

Last month, Colombo became the venue for tri-lateral talks including defence matters between Sri Lanka, Maldives, and India.

Ruwan Wanigasuriya gets plum position

Major General Ruwan Wanigasuriya has assumed duties as the Chief of National Intelligence (CNI), the topmost position in Sri Lankas intelligence community.

His recent stints included service as Security Forces Commander, Jaffna.

Another Waallooppillai makes a name, this time in queens country

Among those winning the Queens OBE awards this year was Conservative Party Advisor. Gaj Wallooppillai.

He began his career working for Conservative Party and former Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind.

The Wallooppillai Family is one of the old Tamil families and is a household name in Colombo after the famous Dr Wallooppillai, Sri Lankas leading cardiologist. (See others on ST2 Page 6)

Borrowing a leaf from Black Lives Matter

A Sri Lankan Muslim group lobbying in London for burials of Covid-19 victims of their faith have borrowed a leaf from the black community in the United States.

Their slogan  Sri Lankan Muslim Lives matter. This is much the same way the black community said Black Lives Matter.

Rivalry overtakes brotherhood unity

The moral of this story is how important political rivalry is than unity in the brotherhood.

In a Muslim area, not far from Colombo, the wife of a businessman died. They said it was old age. A ruling party politico helped and the burial ceremonies were held within hours.

The matter did not end there. The rival of the politico, also from the same community, was miffed that everything ended soon. He ensured there were complaints to the authorities.

The result  Police have begun a probe into the matter. Health officials say they had in the meanwhile conducted a check on the household of the deceased and found two suspected cases of coronavirus.

The probe goes on. So does the rivalry which has now reached newer heights.

More bickering, more losses for TNA

This week the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) lost control of two local bodies including the Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) to rival parties due to internal strifes. Party insiders blamed that the puppeteer behind the curtains is none other than party spokesperson M.A. Sumanthiran who they say pulled the strings accordingly.

Since the budget was defeated twice, previous Mayor E. Arnold was removed and fresh elections were held on Thursday. Earlier, Mr Arnold was recommended to the post by the TNA spokesperson himself but he was out of league after he sat on the Mayoral chair.

Meanwhile, another rival party Tamil National Alliance (TNPF) led by Kajendrakumar Ponnambalam also threw out JMC Councilor V.Manivannan soon after the polls citing he was no longer truthful to party principles. Councilor Manivannan secured youth votes for the party as he had a significant young voter base.

Mr Manvannan was prevented from attending Council sessions through a Court order over a legal dispute of his eligibility to contest elections. A resident of JMC filed a petition questioning his eligibility to be elected alleging he was not a resident within the municipal limits. TNA spokesperson was the lawyer representing the petitioner.

After he was thrown out of the party, Mr Manivannan was seen working with MP Sumanthiran as part of a lawyers group to appear in public litigation cases.

On Thursday, Mr Manivannan won by one vote. He secured 21 votes while ex Mayor Arnold who was nominated by the party again received one less. One TNA councilor abstained from voting, to ensure Manivann won the Mayoral seat. Sumanthiran MP visited his residence the following night after party supporters were up in arms saying the party will lose the Mayor post due to petty politics played by its leaders. As they say, in politics there are no permanent friends or foes but only permanent interests.
Islamabad, Jan 2 : In an all out crackdown against the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant groups, Pakistan counter-terrorism authorities have arrested Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the chief planner of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the LeT's current supreme commander of operations, on charges of terrorist financing.

Lakhvi was arrested by the Punjab province's Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), which has already filed over two dozen cases against Hafiz Saeed, JuD chief and mastermind of the Mumbai attacks, on charges of money laundering and terrorist financing.

As per reports, Lakhvi has been found guilty of extending financial help to terrorists through different umbrella businesses.

Reliable sources told IANS that Lakhvi has been arrested for running a dispensary and generating funds for the purpose of diverting the same to terrorists.

He was arrested through an intelligence based operation (IBO) by the CTD and was in reference to a case filed against him at the CTD police station Lahore.

Lakhvi's name is also present in the UN proscribed persons list.

He is a close aid to Saeed and has been involved in various operations of both the JuD and LeT.

As per details shared by the CTD, Lakhvi has been arrested on charges of terrorist financing.

His case will now be heard in the Anti-Terrorist Court (ATC) in Lahore.
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New Zealanders are being urged to do something different over this summer season, to help out local tourism operators.

Domestic tourism in January is forecast to outspend last year over the same period by nearly 20 per cent.

But even that would still be well short of the overall spend when including the amount spent by international tourists.

While the places traditionally favoured by New Zealanders are still expected to do well over Christmas, such as Northland, Bay of Plenty and Coromandel, it's the other locations which rely on international visitors which might struggle, such as Te Anau and Milford Sound.

That is why Tourism New Zealand has been promoting domestic travel ever since the shutdown, to try and get locals to go visit such places.

This summer, it's no different, with the organisation calling on Kiwis to try something new.

We recognise that over the Christmas period, in particular, and New Year's to a lesser extent, we have pretty habitual behaviour: we have the family gatherings and the traditional locations, says Tourism NZ chief executive Stephen England-Hall.

"I think it's important to recognise those entrenched behaviours are difficult things to shift.

"We're saying, why not add on something new, why not try something new. If you've always frequented Waihi Island in summer, maybe you should go ziplining."

Waihi Beach.



But whether such exploration and daring is aligned with what New Zealanders actually want to do, is another matter.

A report by Tourism NZ found what holidaying New Zealanders wanted were opportunities to relax and refresh.

Other aspects they were looking for were spectacular natural landscapes and scenery, and a chance to go somewhere they had never been before.

While the domestic spend for January is looking positive, there are worries it could dwindle for the rest of summer as people return to work.

"We would anticipate that February and March will be very soft in the tourism sector," says Stephen.

"Of course, traditionally, February and March are very popular months for international visitors.

"We would expect quite a few [tourism businesses] will find it very difficult to navigate that period of time."

It means operators are even more interested in the outcome of negotiations between Australia and New Zealand over the prospect of a trans-Tasman bubble, which could inject some much needed cash into the sector.

Special flight arranged from Wellington for wild foods festival

Air New Zealand is to operate a special flight between Wellington and Hokitika for the Wildfoods Festival in March.

The $300 return fare is designed to encourage North Islanders to take part in one of the West Coast's biggest events.

An airline spokesperson said events like the Wildfoods Festival give Kiwis a great reason to travel domestically and support the regions.

Westland Mayor Bruce Smith said it is great the national carrier is willing to supports festival with a special service and he looks forward to welcoming North Island guests.

RNZ
India conducted a massive nationwide mock drill on the Covid-19 vaccine administration at 286 session sites spread across 125 districts.

The exercise comes at a crucial stage as India is set to roll out the first vaccine shots to the public. An expert panel of the central drug authority has approved two Covid-19 vaccines  Serum Institute's Covishield and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin  for emergency use, reported Times of India.

They are both awaiting final regulatory nod. Two more vaccine candidates are in advance stages of development.

The government said that Saturday's dry run was conducted successfully across 125 districts in the country.

"Each district conducted the dry run at three sites or more which included a public health facility (district hospital/medical college), private health facility, and rural or urban outreach sites," a statement released by the government said.

It said that as many as 1,14,100 vaccinators were trained during the dry run while over 75 lakh beneficiaries have been registered on the Co-WIN software till date.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has identified 300 million people to receive the first doses of the vaccines.

The priority group is made up of 30 million health care workers, policemen, soldiers and volunteers, and 270 million vulnerable people - mostly citizens above the age of 50 and 10 million others with serious comorbidities.

The producers of three leading coronavirus vaccine candidates have applied for emergency use authorization, and all of them require two doses to provide sufficient immunity. That adds up to a total of 600 million shots, and Modi's government wants to complete the whole process by August, reported CNN.

As the country began its Covid-19 vaccine dry run from today before the roll out of a potential vaccine to the citizens, the Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan appealed to people not to pay heed to rumours about the vaccine.

He said that free coronavirus vaccines will be provided to 3 crore frontline workers in the first phase of the mega vaccination drive in India.

"In Phase I of Covid-19 vaccination, free jabs shall be provided across the nation to most prioritised beneficiaries that include 1 crore healthcare and 2 crore frontline workers," Vardhan added.

As a global hub for vaccine manufacturing, its mass production lines can churn out coronavirus vaccines - developed either by Western pharmaceutical companies or domestically - faster and cheaper than most other countries.

When it comes to the actual vaccination process, India already has a vast, established network under its Universal Immunization Program, which inoculates about 55 million people per year.

Modi has also suggested that the country can draw from its experience of organizing the world's largest democratic elections, adopting a whole of society approach that involves the participation of states, districts, civil society, citizens and experts.

Union minister Prakash Javadekar said India was perhaps the only country which is getting ready with four vaccines against Covid-19. The UK has given the nod to Pfizer and Astrazeneca vaccine.The US has approved the emergency use of Pfizer.

But India, as it already has three applications, is likely to get more than one vaccine for emergency use, the minister implied.

At present, six Covid-19 vaccines are undergoing clinical trials in India, including the frontrunners Covishield and Covaxin, stated Javdekar. Covishield is the Oxford vaccine developed by Astrazeneca and Punes Serum Institute of India. Covaxin is the indigenous one being developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research.

Apart from these two, there are ZyCOV-D being developed by Cadila Healthcare in Ahmedabad in collaboration with the Centres Department of Biotechnology, and in collaboration with the Centres Department of Biotechnology, and NVX-CoV2373, which is being developed by Serum Institute in collaboration with Novavax.
City approves first reading of temporary medical marijuana ordinance

With state officials still putting together the oversight rules for medical marijuana establishments, local governments need temporary ordinances.
Mid-Missouri kicks off the New Year with some ice. People share what it looks like outside their doors.
BBC broadcasters and presenters launched a bitter last-ditch onslaught against Brexit during the New Year schedules.

Britains long-awaited departure from the European Union on Thursday coincided with what critics described as ill-tempered tirades, offensive remarks and heavily biased reportage in the Corporations end-of-year programming.

Among those making comments that appeared to be aimed at the 17.4 million people who voted Leave were comedians Nish Kumar and Frankie Boyle.

Nish Kumar an appearance on Graham Nortons New Years Eve special (the show is seen above with Graham Norton)

Kumar, who hosts the BBC Two satire show The Mash Report, delivered his diatribe during an appearance on Graham Nortons New Years Eve special.

The 35-year-old began by describing long-time Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage as a sack of meat brought to life by a witchs curse, adding: Now we have finally completed Brexit, I predict we will have a taste for leaving things and will vote to leave more stuff, starting with the continent of Europe, then the United Nations and finally the Earth by strapping rockets under the country and blasting off into space.

Later on in the show, Norton showed Kumar a picture of Boris Johnson and his fiancee Carrie Symonds, saying: I cant believe that person is now running the country, and there she is standing next to Boris Johnson.

For his part, Boyle  who hosted a New Years Day edition of his BBC Two show Frankie Boyles New World Order  said: Having Brexit at the end of a year like this is like finding out your cancer has spread to the walls of your house.

He added that sooner or later the British will re-enter Europe  admittedly as refugees.

Kumar, who hosts the BBC Two satire show The Mash Report, delivered his diatribe during an appearance on Graham Nortons New Years Eve special

The anti-Brexit theme also reared its head in the BBC Scotland programme Breaking The News, which is available to viewers across the UK on the iPlayer service. Host Des Clarke concluded the shows review of the year by joking that those unable to take part in next years planned Brexit Festival would be able to recreate the experience at home by humming the national anthem while stamping on a croissant.

The fresh row over the BBCs approach to Brexit comes just four months after its new director-general Tim Davie said he wanted to bring in a better balance of satirical targets rather than constantly aiming jokes at the Tories.

It was not only the BBCs comedy stars who took a pessimistic view of the new trade deal with the EU  news correspondents also appeared to dwell on fears of more bureaucracy and damage to business. On the New Years Day edition of BBC Radio 4s Today programme, Business Editor Simon Jack spoke of firms facing a mountain of new paperwork if they wanted to export to the EU.

A bulletin on its News Channel the same day identified bureaucracy as one of the consequences of the new deal, while political editor Laura Kuenssberg also referred to extra paperwork when she quizzed Boris Johnson last Wednesday.

Frankie Boyle  who hosted a New Years Day edition of his BBC Two show Frankie Boyles New World Order  said: Having Brexit at the end of a year like this is like finding out your cancer has spread to the walls of your house'

On the Newscast podcast she said: There is a very, very, very long list of new kinds of paperwork that is coming into force for all different kinds of business, whether that is filling in customs forms or doing different kinds of extra paperwork if you want take your pet on holiday.

On the same podcast, Katya Adler, the BBCs Europe editor who has been accused of being pro-Remain, added: Its not true that there are no bumps in trade.

Last night, Peter Whittle, a member of the London Assembly and director of the New Culture Forum, said: Its no great surprise the BBC is losing public confidence. It can barely contain its hostility to Brexit and people have got wise to it.

On all the big issues such as Brexit and immigration, it is completely at odds with the majority in the country. And yet they have to pay for it.

A BBC spokesman last night said: The BBC is impartial on all topics and always features a variety of different perspectives  our Brexit coverage has been no different.

No wonder half of Britons feel national broadcaster doesnt share their values

By Chris Hastings for the Mail on Sunday

Nearly half of Britons believe the BBC no longer shares their values, according to a new poll.

Research by YouGov has revealed that 44 per cent of the public now think the Corporation represents their views badly.

Forty-eight per cent of older voters and 58 per cent of those who had voted to leave the European Union were unhappy with its overall direction.

The research, which was carried out on behalf of The Times, found that only four per cent of those questioned thought the BBCs values had become more like theirs, while 33 per cent said it had become less like theirs.

Forty-eight per cent of older voters and 58 per cent of those who had voted to leave the European Union were unhappy with its overall direction [File photo]

Older male viewers outside London and the South East were the most likely to be dissatisfied with the BBCs perceived values. The findings come at particularly sensitive time for the BBC. In November, the Government opened the latest round of licence fee negotiations and asked the BBC to submit a bid for the level of the fee from 2022 onwards.

Ministers have also appointed a ten-strong panel to review the long-term future of public-service broadcasting in the UK, fuelling speculation that the licence fee could be scrapped altogether in its current form.

Sir Robbie Gibb, a former No 10 director of communications who has been appointed to the panel, told The Times: These findings show why the BBCs director- general, Tim Davie, is right to make improving impartiality his No 1 priority.

Roger Mosey, a former head of BBC Television News, said: The BBC is more in tune with a metropolitan and more liberal audience than it is with the rest of the country. The positive thing is that Im certain Tim Davie is on the case.

Top of the agenda for me would be real devolution to centres outside London and a much deeper understanding of audiences.

Ex-BBC executive David Elstein, who went on to launch Channel 5, said: If people dont think you are impartial, and dont think you represent their views or culture, eventually it will become very hard to sustain the BBCs current funding model.

The new YouGov findings are believed to correspond to private research by the BBC that shows the Corporation is held in higher esteem by residents in well-off and more diverse neighbourhoods.

A BBC spokesman said last night: Recent research shows that people still connect with our core mission to inform, educate and entertain, and our purposes remain relevant.

Recently, over 90 per cent of people are using our services every week. We are valued specifically because we do not champion any party political positions.

However, the director-general has made it very clear the BBC must work hard to represent a very broad section of views, ensuring we continue to widen the number of perspectives across our output.
Ahead of the Centres seventh round of meeting with protesting farmers over the three farm laws on Monday, Union minister of state (MoS) for agriculture Kailash Choudhary said on Saturday a solution would come up during the talks and that the ongoing stir would end. Choudhary said the laws, which were passed in September last year, are for the farmers, who have been protesting against the reforms for over a month camping at several border points near Delhi and surrounding areas.

I am confident that in the next round of talks with farmers, a solution will be reached and the ongoing protest will come to an end. The three farm bills are in favour of farmers. They used to demand to get rid of the middleman and sell their produce at a rate of their choice, the minister was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Also Read| Farmers continue protests outside Delhi, say no question of withdrawing 2 demands

Choudhary also talked about the issue of contract farming in the farm reforms. In the new bill, there cant be an investigation against a farmer even if he is at fault. It also states there wont be any agreement regarding the land of the farmer. The bill is favourable for farmers and the PM wants them to become atmanirbhar, he said.

Regarding contract farming,in the new bill,there can't be an investigation against farmer even if he is at fault. It also states there won't be any agreement regarding land of farmer.The bill is favourable for farmers & PM wants them to become 'atma nirbhar':MoS Kailash Chaudhary https://t.co/b2397FCsDF  ANI (@ANI) January 2, 2021

The first five rounds of talks held between protesters and the government did not yield any solution. On December 30, the farmers unions decided to meet the ministers for the sixth time. However, the government only agreed to address two of the four issues raised by farmers, which were sparing heavy fines for stubble burning and continuing the current mechanism of giving subsidised power for agricultural use. Till now, there has been no final call on whether the reforms should be removed.

Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar had also said on Friday that the government was hopeful of a positive outcome during the January 4 (Monday) meeting but withheld a prediction whether it would be the final round of talks with the protesters. I cannot say for sure now. I am not an astrologer. I am hopeful that whatever decision would be arrived at (in the meeting) will be in the interest of the country and of the farmers, Tomar had said.

Also Read| Not an astrologer: Tomar on January 4 meeting, farmers to intensify protest if demands not met

On the other hand, representatives of farmers unions warned that they would intensify their agitation and take it to every corner of the country if the Centre fails to resolve their main issues of the repeal of the reforms and facilitating a legal guarantee for the Minimum Support Price (MSP) during the interaction. If the January 4 meeting with the government fails to end the deadlock, we will announce dates for shutting all malls, petrol pumps in Haryana, a farmer leader said.

The unions have further warned of a tractor march on January 6 from the protest site to the KundliManesarPalwal (KMP) Expressway and farmers protesting at the Shahjahanpur on the Haryana-Rajasthan border will be told to move towards the national capital.

(With agency inputs)
Frost Bank opened a new Financial Center on Dec. 22 in Kingwood. This is one bank of the 25-location regional expansion plan from 2018, according to a press release.

The Kingwood Financial Center offers the most up to date designs, including a welcoming greeter station. This is where bankers can assist customers with deposits, withdrawals, answer account questions, open an account or apply for a loan. The location offers a full range of financial services for both consumer and business customers according to a press release.

COVID-19: As Texas leaders claim COVID vaccines are sitting on shelves, hospitals and pharmacies beg for more

Frost operates 155 financial centers across the state, 54 of which are in the Houston region, as a 152-year-old bank with Texas roots. Three more locations are expected in the region in the next few months according to the press release.

The area is growing rapidly, and were proud to open another financial center that our new neighbors can be proud of, said David LePori, Houston Region President for Frost. Along with our new financial centers in Humble and Atascocita, the Kingwood Financial Center will extend Frosts value proposition to consumers and businesses that would have had to travel a longer distance to reach another Frost location.

The Kingwood Financial Center is located at 2710 W. Lake Houston Pkwy, Kingwood. Hours are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. The Smart ATM opens daily from 6 a.m. to midnight.

Local school district searching for next Superintendent

New Caney ISD is searching for the next superintendent and offers an open survey to those interested in participating in the selection. Nearby Crosby ISD is also in search of a new superintendent according to their website.

The survey will be open until Jan. 8 and asks questions regarding what the community and staff would like to see in the next leader of their school district. The survey is available online and should only take about 5 minutes to fill out.

To fill out the survey, follow this link here.

savannah.mehrtens@chron.com
Local faith leaders are ramping up advocacy for COVID-19 vaccines, hoping they can influence congregants who are particularly vulnerable to the disease or suspicious of the vaccines meant to combat it.

Skepticism about getting vaccinated is of deep concern to me, said the Rev. Scott Jones, bishop of the Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. And every leader with any credibility in any part of our community needs to use his or her voice and platform to encourage everyone to get vaccinated.

But it may not be an easy sell.

A November survey by Pew Research showed half of white evangelicals and 59 percent of Black Protestants said they definitely or probably would not get a vaccine. Roughly one-third of Catholics and white nonevangelicals said the same.

And in Black and Hispanic communities, many are old enough to remember instances in which minorities were targeted and abused under the guise of medical treatment.

By putting faces of faith with pro-vaccine messages, leaders hope to repair distrust that still lingers from things such as the Tuskegee Study, a 40-year experiment that began in 1932 and in which Black men in Alabama with syphilis were given placebos instead of treatment or experimented on in other ways without their consent.

We trust people, we trust our doctors and we trust our clergy, said the Rev. Luis Martinez, pastor of Cypress Trails Methodist Church.

Leaders, he said, need to be those who encourage the greater community by providing information and providing the assurances we already have with our clergy, our doctors and our community representatives.

Others argue for vaccines on moral grounds.

You have to be considerate of others, Lawrence Scott, pastor of Harvest Point Fellowship Church in Pearland, said he often tells members. And we, as Christians, have a responsibility to be stewards.

Scott said theres a diverse range of opinions among members of his predominantly Black church and that most concerns hes heard have been reasonable and relatively easy to resolve.

VACCINE TRACKER: How many Texans are vaccinated? Check our interactive map.

He has, however, said hes seen a few online posts from members sharing misinformation or outright conspiracy theories.

Its been a problem for many churches over the past year, as houses of worship remained shuttered and congregants were stuck at home, where they are more likely to be exposed to conspiracy theories via the internet.

But its not just a Christian problem: When the pandemic began, some local Muslims theorized that it was propaganda invented by other governments.

Many questioned the legitimacy of this disease, said Dr. Basem Hamid, who also helps issue guidance on faith questions as part of the Islamic Society of Greater Houstons fatwa council.

Last month, the council issued a fatwa stating that vaccines are in line with Islamic principles to preserve and protect human life and that neither the Pfizer nor Moderna vaccines were produced with stem cell research.

Catholic leaders have also weighed in on the concerns about stem cell research that they said offered an inaccurate presentation of Catholic moral doctrine. In a statement last month, Daniel DiNardo, cardinal for the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, wrote that there was a minor connection between both vaccines and abortion because they used tainted cell lines during lab tests but that it should not be the basis for refusing to receive the vaccine.

DiNardo wrote that a third vaccine, AstraZenecas, was morally concerning because of its use of stem cell research.

However, he continued, according to Catholic moral teaching, it is also acceptable to receive it for the sake of our own health and the health of others if it is the only vaccine available in a given place.

Elaine Howard Ecklund, director of of Rice Universitys Religion and Public Life Program, has written two books on the relationship between communities of faith and scientists.

Religious people generally trust science, but they are concerned about scientists and institutional science, she said.

She said COVID-19 presents a unique opportunity to bridge that gap by elevating the voices of scientists who are also people of faith.

When scientists are part of churches, they kind of leave their science identity at the door, she said. And thats unfortunate in usual times, but, perhaps, dangerous right now.

She also argued for getting vaccinated on moral grounds, noting the disproportionate rates of infection and death among communities of color.

This is really a matter of justice, she said.

robert.downen@chron.com
On the FactCheck page, The Associated Press tracks down some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals that were shared widely on social media. The AP takes those untrue stories, checks them out and sets the records straight in this weekly series of news articles.


Ireland plans to end a ban on travel to the country from Britain on January 6 and replace it with stricter Covid-19 testing measures as it seeks to stop the spread of a highly infectious new variant of the virus, Foreign Minister Simon Coveney was quoted as saying on Friday.

Ireland banned passenger flights and ferries on December 21. Some 30,000 people had travelled to Ireland from Britain in the previous two weeks, during which time the new variant was spreading rapidly in parts of Britain.

Passengers flying on non-essential business from Britain after Jan. 6 will need to produce a negative test taken three days before their flight, Coveney told the Irish Independent newspaper.

They will also be asked to restrict their movements for at least five days from their arrival and can move freely only if they then receive a second negative test.

"We're planning to end the travel ban with the UK on January 6 but replace it with a more restrictive set of travel regulations between Britain and Ireland," he said.

"We are anxious to move away from a travel ban, which we don't think is realistic and there does need to be travel facilitated between Britain and Ireland for lots of reasons."

Covid-19 is spreading rapidly again in Ireland and health officials have said that it has found seven cases of the new variant from 77 positive tests that subsequently underwent genomic sequencing.

Also Read: Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine Covishield may get emergency use approval today

Also Read: 'COVID-19 vaccine will be free across the country,' says Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan
Mike has reported on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem's wildlife, wildlands and the agencies that manage them since 2012. A native Minnesotan, he arrived in the West to study environmental journalism at the University of Colorado.
One Huntsville business rang in the new year with an actual dumpster fire. The Camp, a venue in Huntsvilles MidCity District, painted 2020 on a dumpster, filled it with wood and other combustibles, then lit it on fire at about midnight Friday with the assistance of the Huntsville Fire Department.

The burn was a central feature of The Camps New Years Eve celebrations, which also included a large outdoor party featuring champagne and music.

The Camp employees spray-painted 2020 all over the dumpster ... [It was] lit right at midnight, Lindsey Pattillo Keane, who said she is in charge of marketing and property activation for the MidCity development of which The Camp is a part, said Friday.

We just had it burn for a little bit and the fire department distinguished it after it burned down a bit. It ended up burning for probably about 15 minutes.

The event drew dozens of revelers  many of whom did not wear masks at points during the festivities  who stood and danced close to one another under a large outdoor tent, according to videos of the event posted online. Thats despite the fact that the Instagram post advertising the party stated that masks would be required.

The event drew criticism on social media, including from Indivisible Northwest Alabama, a self-described progressive, grassroots organization. In a Friday Instagram post, the political group called The Camps party a superspreader event and claimed the venue failed[ed] to recognize the role they are actively playing  to make things worse.

Asked about such criticism, Pattillo Keane said via telephone Friday that masks were required at the event.

We have masks required signs throughout the venue, she said. Were an entirely outdoor venue. It started sprinkling so people gathered more than we would have liked. But we require masks when people arent eating.
COVID-19 cases in Mexico City continue to increase, resulting in supply shortages in oxygen as reported by medical supply stores that refill oxygen tanks.

The Mexico City government has called citizens to go into total isolation as hospitals in the city become flooded with pressure due to an increase in the admission of COVID-19 patients.

According to federal data, over 85 percent of general care beds for COVID-19 patients in Mexico City are currently being occupied, while around 74 percent of those with ventilators are in use, as reported by Mexico News Daily.

Oxygen support is usually needed not only for people with COVID-19. But also for recovering patients who are still having intermittent problems with breathing.

Appeals of people asking for leads on where to buy and refill oxygen tanks have been usual on social media. Based on Google Trends, search terms related to oxygen and oxygen tanks surged in Mexico City, including in Mexico state, Chiapas, Campeche, and Tamaulipas.

Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said her administration aims to determine whether the prices of oxygen tanks and refills have gone up amid the increase in COVID-19 cases.

Meanwhile, the demand for oxygen as the coronavirus spreads through the capital of nine million residents has driven prices up and made lines long in stores supplying oxygen, according to an Associated Press report.

Related story: Unaccounted Cases: Mexico's COVID-19 Cases Are 30 Times Higher Than Reported, Experts Say





New Year's Day Line

In Mexico City, people stood in line to take advantage of a city offer of free oxygen refills for COVID-19 patients on New Year's Day.

One person took his place in line at 8 a.m., bringing three tanks he wanted for his sick relatives. He only had learned about the offer on its third day via Facebook.

Jorge Infante said that by getting his three tanks filled for free, his family would save about $45 per day.

Iztapalapa, the capital's largest borough, is one of the hardest hit by the pandemic. The area was also low on oxygen.

Carlos Morales, Iztapalapa's health director, said the economic conditions "are not first world."

"That means that people are suffering to get tanks," he said in a report. Morales further noted that they are trying to fill about 50 tanks per day.

Some residents also spent New Year's Eve in lines, waiting to refill oxygen tanks for relatives suffering from COVID-19. One person said that the price had risen two or three times.

Juan Jose Ledesma, a Mexico City retiree, got sick with his wife and son. He had to stay at home to consult a private doctor as the local hospital had no room due to many people coming in for treatment.

Ledesma said that he thinks about the rural area, where things are tougher, and people have to wait longer.

An employee in one oxygen refill store said there were times when so many people were waiting that they could not fill completely all of the canisters.

"There are times when we have to reduce the refill, so that everybody who is line can at least bring some oxygen home to their relatives," the employee noted.

Related story: COVID-19 Worsens Mexico's Existing Waste Problem
In the aftermath of the election, the Democrats who control the election machinery in the disputed states have gone out of their way to avoid scrutiny. Americans have been inundated with stories of shredded mail-in envelopes, lost thumb drives, wiped computers, and slow-walked requests for documents that states are required to preserve for post-election reviews. No state, however, has acted with such heavy-handed desperation as Georgia when it comes to hiding ballots. We've already reported here twice about the Georgia ballots, but the story keeps developing, and there's always more to tell.

On Wednesday, Susan Knox and Sally Grubbs testified before the Georgia Senate Judiciary Subcommittee. Grubbs reported that, because of the Wuhan virus, election counts were taking place in Jim Miller Park, which is not a secure government facility, but a fairground. For that reason, there's zero chance that it is a repository for ballots saved from past elections. That's why it matters that Knox saw workers wheel bin after bin filled with ballots to a shredding truck, which dutifully shredded them. These could only have been ballots from the 2020 election.

During that same hearing, Jovan Pulitzer hacked into the Dominion voting system in real time, showing that Dominion's CEO lied when he said the machines are not connected to the internet. After the hearing, the bipartisan Senate Judiciary Subcommittee unanimously passed a motion to embrace Jovan Pulitzer's proposal to audit Fulton County ballots to determine whether they had actually been mailed in or had been run off a pro-Biden photocopy machine.

The decision to audit the ballots triggered new activity. On Thursday, more news broke about Georgia destroying ballots. According to Pulitzer:

The very minute that order went through, and that order was followed, and all the legal notices were done, it didn't even take four hours later where moving trucks with this stuff was backed up to those buildings trying to get rid of the evidence.

By Friday, there was still more information about what was going on with the Georgia ballots. Patrick Byrne, the Overstock founder who recently discussed background information about the Russia hoax, announced that thanks to a tip, the people asserting fraud in Georgia were able to catch red-handed the effort to destroy fake ballots.

Here's Byrne's thread:

Rented Enterprise moving vans pulled up to the warehouse and began loading up. I will post that video promptly.  Patrick Byrne (@PatrickByrne) January 1, 2021

The video of the enterprise van is too big for me to upload right here. But trust me, there is a video of enterprise moving vans pulling up at 10 oclock at night, after the Senate subcommittee voted to investigate the stuff, and they got loaded up.  Patrick Byrne (@PatrickByrne) January 1, 2021

Oh, I guess I should mention: we grabbed samples of the fake ones.  Patrick Byrne (@PatrickByrne) January 1, 2021

I realize I buried my punchline: we grabbed samples of the fake ones!  https://t.co/7LAFtV2cmm  Patrick Byrne (@PatrickByrne) January 1, 2021

Did you catch that by now rote message from Twitter? "This claim about election fraud is disputed." If you follow that link, you get sent to a November 30 article saying, "Voter fraud of any kind is exceedingly rare in the US, election experts confirm." It's apparent that those experts haven't been hanging out in Georgia lately, where the evidence is so obvious that it constantly slaps you upside the head.

You may also have noticed that the boxes were addressed to Dwight Brower, at the Fulton County Department of Voter Registration and Election. Brower is one of the people who reported that there was a burst pipe at the State Farm Arena, which required stopping ballot-counting. That was a lie, and, without poll-watchers, the counting continued  including counting that repeatedly fed the same ballots through the system.

If what's happening in Georgia is innocent, Democrats should be proclaiming and explaining their activities from the rooftops. Instead, they're engaging in clandestine activity that simply reeks of guilt. I am anxiously awaiting further news about what the heck is going on in Georgia.

Image: Pallets of Georgia ballots. Twitter screen grab.
The farm protest has acquired the character of a mass movement. Its staying power, its deep roots in the rural hinterland of Punjab, and to a lesser extent Haryana, and its organisation, need to be lauded. The protests have helped bring the issue of agriculture and its future to the national centre-stage. This newspaper has defended the agricultural reforms, is opposed to mechanisms of protests that disrupt the lives of citizens, and believes that the farm groups need to adopt a more flexible approach rather than call for the outright repeal of laws  but that does not take away from the real or perceived apprehensions that farmers have articulated about their income security in the wake of the new laws.

But there is one, somewhat disturbing, quality of the discourse at the protest site and in Punjab that merits more scrutiny. Reforms will enable greater interface between industry and agriculture, and will allow corporates to get more involved in the various elements of farming. But farm groups have opposed this  fearing they would be left at the mercy of market forces. In the process, they have adopted a rhetoric that is opposed to Indian capitalism in general, and specific corporate groups perceived to be close to the government and beneficiaries of the governments approach in particular. This has even taken the form of calls for mass boycotts of corporate products and sporadic attacks on corporate assets.

The specific elements of how corporate capital should interact with private capital (agriculture, it is often forgotten, is the biggest capitalist enterprise in the country  it receives State support, but farming is private) and mechanisms by which the asymmetry between the two should be navigated need not detain us here. What is relevant, in the light of the blanket opposition to corporates, is the important role of capitalism.

There has been no democracy that has grown economically without corporate capitalism. It helps in modernising the economy and enabling the transition from rural to urban, and agriculture to industry and services, which are inevitable with growth. It generates jobs  and there is no other way to fix Indias unemployment challenge without a further impetus to private business. Large companies can operate on scale and become competitive both domestically and externally. A vibrant corporate capitalist base also leads to additional revenues for the State  which, in turn, can be used for greater welfare for the marginalised and creating a more level-playing field in terms of opportunities.

Contrary to what is often believed in India, corporate capitalism can even aid, rather than weaken, democracy. Take the United States (US). The authoritarian turn under President Donald Trump was fiercely resisted in the US not just because of its longer history of democratic institutions and stronger constitutional protection for free speech, but also because of the strength and resilience of American capitalism. Capital was not beholden to the State; key companies in the private sector (including some big tech firms) were able to resist Trump administration diktats and stood in favour of democratic restoration; the media could take a strong position because capital was autonomous of the State; and the right to work of those against the government did not get jeopardised. The role of capitalism in resisting the overreach of the State is often underestimated.

The problem in India is, of course, the practice of capitalism and the form it has taken. For one, an overbearing State has meant that the private sector needs the government at every turn in its operations. State discretion may have reduced since 1991, and regulation is, of course, essential. But given the role of corporate funding in elections, the political dispensation has an incentive in keeping a degree of control and has adopted a carrot-and-stick policy vis-a-vis capital.

The power of governments in shaping, enabling or blocking the growth of sectors, and within sectors, in shaping the performance of companies through regulatory tweaks and convenient policies is a reality, although this is often perceived to be exercised far more frequently than it actually is.

This tarnishes capitalism in general, for citizens then see a successful company not as a product of its excellence and service delivery, but as a beneficiary of government largesse. The other way in which the State can exercise power over private capital is through the use of its investigative agencies  wrongdoing and corporate misgovernance must be investigated of course but there can be selective application of this principle depending on whether a business is deemed friendly or not. Again, there is a perception that the State exercises this power more often that it really does. Corporate capital then is believed to be either aligned to the State or frightened of it.

But it is not just the State. Despite the reforms of 1991, and despite growing trust in businesses and businesspeople, there remains the impression that Indian corporate capital itself has skeletons in its closet, and is happy to have taken short cuts by managing the regulatory environment for benefits.

In this process, it has often been perceived as standing against citizen concerns on a range of concerns  from the environment to consumer rights. The fact that the private sector was associated, for a long time, in both popular culture and the countrys ideological make-up, as somehow unscrupulous hasnt helped.

All of this has contributed to a culture of what former chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian has termed as stigmatised capitalism. What we are witnessing today is a further stigmatisation of capitalism. This is unwise.

Yes, Indian capitalism needs reforms; the State must not be seen as favouring a set of companies over the others; capital itself must be accountable and follow the law in both letter and spirit. But by tarnishing capitalism itself, and thinking of all corporates as some kind of dark, evil force, the farmers movement is doing a disservice to Indias democracy and growth potential. India needs more, not less, of capitalism  clean, reformed capitalism.

letters@hindustantimes.com
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One word could easily sum up Queensland's news headlines across 2020: coronavirus.

But underneath the countless stories, live blogs, news clips and tweets, the story of who, not what, dominated Queensland news tells a more nuanced story.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk dominated news headlines across the state in 2020. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Data collated by media monitoring company Streem tracked the names reported daily in the Sunshine State's online and print headlines, from January to December.

Ash Barty took an early lead in story headlines in January as she came so close to her Australian Open dream and coronavirus was still just something to monitor as the mysterious virus spread overseas.
Actor Ali Fazal, who celebrates his birthday on Saturday, has revealed that work on his next, Codename Johnny Walker, will have to wait, at least until the UK opens up from its current, pandemic induced lockdown. Ali was recently seen in Amazon Prime original Mirzapur 2.

Ali is also looking forward to his upcoming Hollywood project, Codename: Johnny Walker. He will essay the titular role in the film that is based on the interpreter for the US Navy Seals on missions across Iraq, Johnny Walker . I had two projects that were to start in January and February respectively. But, UK is in lockdown again, and some of our cast members, including those who featured in Game of Thrones, reside there. Filming this movie will demand a bio-bubble. Our locations are not restricted to America or the UK alone, since it is based [on the] Iraq War. Locales will need to be zeroed in on with precision. The project has been pushed to the end of the year. We should be able to roll in September, he told Mid Day.

He is also all set for the release of Death on the Nile, the mystery thriller helmed by Kenneth Branagh. About the release of Death on the Nile, Ali told the tabloid, James Bond has been deferred, and so has Black Widow. We are now eyeing a September release, which is the hot season for big films. The team is confident of the movie. We have shot it on film. It is apt for the 70-mm experience.

Also read: Gautam Gulati quarantined in London after testing Covid-19 positive, says he is missing his mother

Ali has also been riding high on his projects back home. The second season of Mirzapur got mixed reviews and the audiences showered him with love. Talking about the success of the show, Ali had told Hindustan Times last week, I never expected this to become so huge. We definitely knew that it was something new and we were trying it. But at that time we were very few shows down in the world of OTT platforms.

I still remember a lot of people telling me that why are you doing this, focus on movies and I refused and used to tell them that my heart is in it and I would like to experiment with it and I think I can pull it off, he added.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

ott:10
Korean dramas would not be continuously successful without having a variety of unique stories with complicated yet interesting genres. Also, these dramas have managed to get everyone drawn into the world of Hallyu, and even the beautiful culture of Korea.

Viewers were able to see the history and culture of another South Korea through full-packed production from actors, staff, costumes, set, locations, and most especially an interesting plot that captured people's interest from all over the world.

With that being said, we have some good news to tell you. Did you know that one of the most-viewed Korean dramas were about fantasy romance? Maybe because it gives a new taste to the audience. For all fantasy-romance drama fans, one of the prominent creators of these genre is now looking forward in producing another fantastic series.

Writers Hong Jung Eun and Hong Mi Ran, also known as the Hong sisters, are now preparing to be back on the small screen with yet another fantasy romance drama. They have penned numbers of dramas already such as "You're Beautiful", "My Girlfriend Is a Nine-Tailed Fox", "The Greatest Love", "Master's Sun", "A Korean Odyssey", and "Hotel Del Luna."

In a recent interview with dongA, the Hong sisters shared that they will be doing another fantasy romance drama,"We are currently preparing for a new project, and we are now looking for actors with a goal to start filming in the first half of 2021."

The said project is rumored to have the title of "Reincarnation," which will be produced by Studio Dragon and will possibly be helmed by the former director of the drama "What's Wrong with Secretary Kim," Park Joon Hwa. The Hong sisters were also asked to share a glimpse of their new drama, and they said that it would be a fantastic historical romance drama about the growth and love of young sorcerers who can read the universe and its energy. They also added, "The story will be set 1,000 years ago and take place in the Northside of the Korean peninsula."

Hong Jung Eun and Hong Mi Ran described the project as a fantasy drama without a specific time, and they expressed that they are creating a whole new virtual world that is not in history, and they will tell new kinds of stories of the people living in that time.

After this revelation, viewers and fans of their previous works are already looking forward to the unique plot in store for the next project. It may still be a work in progress, but it will surely be another epic story in K-drama history.

Are you also excited to see this upcoming fantasy romance drama? Please share your comments with us!

For more K-Drama, K-Movie, and celebrity news and updates, keep your tabs open here at Kdramastars.

Kdramastars owns this article.

Written by Shai Collins.
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When caring people join together, roll up their sleeves and take action to make their community better, it's a beautiful thing, so say the Lions Club of Malahide.

Malahide Lions President, Bernadette Murray explained: 'When we heard that 'Ollies are off to the North Pole' we thought that it was a terrific idea. When we were told that Malahide Lions Club was to be a beneficiary of this project we were thrilled and so very grateful to everyone in Ollies.'

The Ollies referred to is St Oliver Plunkett's NS in Malahide who went on a virtual trek to the North Pole to raise money for the Lions Club and St Vincent de Paul.

Ms Murray said: 'There are two aspects to our work, we fundraise for local and national charities and we get involved in service projects in our local community. Every year we do our Christmas Appeal which allows us to distribute Food Vouchers to families in need. Among our many other projects, we host an annual senior citizens Christmas Party in the Grand Hotel and we organise a 'Service to the Community Award' with Transition Year students in Malahide Community School.

'Sadly, COVID-19 has forced us to put both of these projects 'on hold' this year. Our fundraising capacity has also been devastated by the pandemic which makes your donation of over 6,000 all the more special. It means we can continue to serve our community and to help those in need. 2020 has been a devastating year for so many people in so many ways and with your help we can help to alleviate some of the suffering out there.'

Fingal Independent
Recognising garment workers View(s):

On Wednesday, 83 employees of a garment factory at Avissawella had tested positive for COVID-19. On Wednesday, 83 employees of a garment factory at Avissawella had tested positive for COVID-19.

Ever since the Minuwangoda cluster broke out in Brandix factories earlier this year, the number of victims from factories in the garment sector has been on the rise and along with that, the poor women, who toiled hard for the benefit of others, have also had to face a different kind of stigmatization.

These women who were called juki girls or cornered with similar degrading labels are now facing a new kind of stigma as factory girls subjected to the pandemic. Society is not looking kindly at them or even empathising with their plight.

The fact is that as long as they are living in cramped accommodation, many in one room and having limited wash room and toilet facilities, they face the threat of being infected with COVID-19, however much precautions are taken.

Their entire workforce numbering nearly 350,000 in and outside investment zones and directly and indirectly, is much higher than the workforce on tea and rubber plantations managed by plantation companies. While estate workers have a strong political voice through trade unions like the Ceylon Workers Congress for instance, the union voice for garment workers doesnt have that kind of political clout. In the meantime, the umbrella Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF), is a powerful entity but essentially looking after the rights of employers.

As society blamed workers for spreading the virus, JAAF in a strong statement said recently: We are appalled at the outright attacks directed at the young men and women that form the crux of the apparel industry. The reality of living in a world plagued by a pandemic is that people will be afflicted with the disease. To singlehandedly lay blame at the hands of the people that represent one industry due to the presence of positive cases is reprehensible and a notion that must be rejected from the highest office of government to the individuals that make up society at large. If not for the young women and men who represent the apparel industry, the economy of this island would not be the same, particularly in a COVID-19 world that has dealt killer blows to economies across the planet.

As I reflected on these thoughts, my attention was drawn to the margosa tree where a conversation was taking place, very much on the same topic.

Pahu giya avurudda bohoma naraka ekak mage Prema nangita. Eyage garment factoriye wedata prashna godak. Eyage watupatath balapaala thiyenawa (It has been a bad year for my nangi Prema. Her work at the garment factory has been badly affected and their wages have also been affected), said Kussi Amma Sera.

Prashne wela thiyenne, me factori wala corona thiyena nisa. Meka kawada evara weida danne ne (The problem is that there are many COVID-19 cases in factories. When will this end), asked Serapina.

Mama balaporoththu wenawa 2021 meita wediya honda wasarak wei kiyala ape angalum karmantha wala weda karana kattiyata saha egollange pavul-walataa (I wish 2021 will be a better year for our garment workers and their families), said Mabel Rasthiyadu.

For the record, apparel exports for the period January to November 2020 fell by 22.38 per cent to US$4 billion from $5 billion in the same period in 2019. Earnings from textiles and garments increased by 5.2 per cent to $5,596 million for the whole of 2019 and a similar increase had been estimated for 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, throwing the entire economy off-gear. The industry has been aiming to accelerate Sri Lankas apparel sector to $8 billion by 2022.

Garment exports are the countrys second largest foreign exchange earner after remittances from migrant workers, another sector that is getting a raw deal from the government in terms of repatriation. Many of them are desperate to return home but short of cash due to the high cost imposed by the government on air fares and quarantine facilities, in most cases costing more than half a million rupees per person.

At that moment, the phone rang. It was Nana Mohideen, the jolly trader from Moneragala. Hellooo.., he said in his usual, jovial voice. Fineee, I replied in an equally happy tone. I was reading about the plight of garment workers particularly women and wondering what kind of society we have to degrade these workers with all kinds of names, he said.

Absolutely. Ironically, the two sectors that bring the biggest revenue to the country  migrant workers and garments  face a lot of stigmatization, I said, adding that one solution would be to provide decent housing to these workers in garment factories.

Thats a damn good idea, he said and we then discussed many issues and concerns and the hopes of everyone for 2o21.

As I said earlier, with workers in garment factories living in cramped, overcrowded conditions, the chances of contracting COVID-19 are greater even if they follow mask-wearing or hand-washing since keeping a distance between each other would be a tough call.

With accommodation being an issue, why not offer subsidized housing to workers through the construction of several housing units which could be partly paid for by the employer, the worker and the government? For example, each apartment building can have six floors, each floor with 20 units with two bedrooms, kitchen, living area and toilet with each unit occupied by four persons (two per room). This would total 120 units with four per unit, making it an apartment block for 480 residents. The industry together with the government can work out a funding package having joint custody of these units for which workers are charged a reasonable amount for occupation.

Accommodation is also a problem for the estate population and that is being addressed separately so that they live in decent housing. The same should apply to garment workers who are living in pitiful accommodation. The government needs to work together with the garment industry to come up with a housing solution on the lines suggested here.

As I watch Kussi Amma Sera waltz into the room humming the tune Piti Kotapan None, with my mug of tea, I remarked: Santhosha davas (Happy days).

Ow Sir, mama hithanawa me avurudda honda avuruddak wei kiyala (Yes Sir, I think this year will be a good year), she said.

Lets hope its a good year for both the migrant worker and the garment worker, on whom the country depends a lot but who dont get the recognition they deserve.
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operations commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, one of the alleged masterminds of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, was arrested by Pakistani authorities on Saturday on charges of involvement in terror financing, almost five years after he was freed on bail.

Lakhvis whereabouts had not been known since he was released on bail from a jail in Rawalpindi in April 2015. However, it was widely believed that he had continued playing a key role in directing the activities of the LeT even while he was in prison after being arrested in the aftermath of the Mumbai carnage.

A spokesperson for the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of Pakistans Punjab province said in a statement that Lakhvi was arrested on charges of terrorism financing during an intelligence-based operation conducted by the department.

Today, on 2 January 2021, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi was arrested in a case of terrorism financing registered by the CTD Punjab in Police Station CTD Lahore, the spokesperson said.

He is accused of running a dispensary [and] using funds collected for terrorism financing. He [and] others also collected funds from this dispensary and used these funds for further terrorism financing. He also used these funds for personal expenses, the spokesperson added.

Lakhvi, who is also a UN-designated terrorist, will face trial in an anti-terrorism court in Lahore, the spokesperson said.

There was no immediate reaction to the arrest from Indian officials. A person familiar with developments noted, however, that Lakhvi was arrested on terror financing charges and that there had been little progress in efforts to prosecute him for his suspected role in the Mumbai attacks.

Lakhvi was one of seven men arrested in the wake of the Mumbai attacks for allegedly helping plan, support and finance the terrorist assault on Indias financial hub that killed 166 people.

The arrest came weeks ahead of the Financial Action Task Forces (FATF) planned reassessment of Pakistans efforts to counter terror financing. In October last year, the multilateral watchdog retained Pakistan in its grey list for failing to fully deliver on an action plan to fight terror financing, and gave the country time till February to address what it said were very serious deficiencies.

Last month, LeT founder Hafiz Saeed was convicted for the fifth time on terror financing charges and given a jail term of fifteen-and-half years.

In November last year, Saeed was given two separate five-year prison terms under provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act for using and providing funds for acts of terrorism in two cases of terror financing. He was also given a six-month prison term for being a member of a banned group.

Saeed was also given two sentences of five-and-a-half-years in February 2020. The sentences will run concurrently.

While Lakhvi was in prison following his arrest in December 2008 for the Mumbai attacks, he spent his time at Rawalpindis Adiala Jail in relative luxury, according to a BBC report. He had separate rooms, access to a television, mobile phones and the internet, and received guests on all days. He also fathered a child while he was in prison.
A University of Scranton professor received a highly competitive, $600,000-plus grant to continue research on the upper and lower atmospheres and how energy moves.

The work could create a better understanding of radio waves and help with climate forecasting and even GPS signals.

Nathaniel Frissell, Ph.D., assistant professor of physics and electrical engineering, received the National Science Foundation CAREER grant that integrates original research on the effects of lower and middle atmospheric waves on ionospheric disturbances with course instruction and undergraduate and graduate research and education. The ionosphere, which extends 50 to 600 miles above the Earths surface, contains a high concentration of ions and free electrons and is able to reflect radio waves.

The five-year, $616,054 grant is available only to early-career, tenure track faculty members and must include tightly integrated research and education components.

Frissell will apply physics-based atmospheric/ionospheric models to extensive new data collected through an international collaboration of ham radio operators using personal space weather stations that he helped to develop in order to better understand the connection between ionospheric disturbances and atmospheric gravity wave sources.

The new funding supports two graduate research assistants at the university who will conduct data analysis and run models and code implementation using a new Linux-based analysis server that the grant will also fund.

I am excited about the opportunities this grant gives for scientific discovery, engineering development and the education and training of future technological leaders of America, Frissell said. This grant will bring new cutting-edge research to the University of Scranton while furthering Americas ability to lead in the fields of space science, space weather, climate and communications.

Frissells plans build on his previously awarded $1.3 million National Science Foundation grant to develop modular, ground-based space science observation equipment and software to collect and analyze data from an international network of amateur (ham) radio users. Those users include students in a newly formed radio club at the university.

Frissell will also introduce physics and engineering students to space physics research through an introductory physics course for first-year students and through an upper-level undergraduate course on space science and atmosphere.

Americas leadership in technology is due in large part to the work that goes on in places like the University of Scranton, U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-8, of Moosic, said in a statement congratulating Frissell. This kind of research not only moves us forward on innovation, the students who take part in it can then become part of a highly skilled workforce that attracts space and technology businesses to our area. I applaud Dr. Frissell and the University of Scranton for their pioneering work.
Peter Kay delighted on Saturday morning, as he made a rare return to the spotlight for a heartwarming chat with Cat Deeley on BBC Radio 2.

The one-off show featured the 47-year-old comedian at his jovial best as Cat filled in for Graham Norton following his departure from the show and before his replacement Claudia Winkleman makes her debut in the timeslot.

As funnyman Peter made his appearance on the show, fans took to Twitter in droves to express their joy, with one writing: 'How WONDERFUL to hear him on #Radio2 just now, very much missed & still as funny as ever, hope he does more soon!'

He's back! Peter Kay delighted on Saturday morning, as he made a rare return to the spotlight for a heartwarming chat with Cat Deeley on BBC Radio 2

Gushed another fan: 'So good to hear Peter Kay chattering away on the radiogram. Can't not smile. Missed his joyful laugh.'

Apparently moved by his presence, a third listener tweeted: 'Listening to Peter Kay on @BBCRadio2 is filling me with joy!'

Wrote another: 'How well does @peterkay_co_uk sound on @BBCRadio2 with @catdeeley pleasure to listen to. Thanks Peter, great way to start 2021!'

Peter cancelled a tour in 2017 and has rarely been seen in public since. He was last on TV in 2018 when he appeared in two special episodes of Car Share.

Stepping in: The one-off show aired on Saturday as Cat filled in for Graham Norton following his departure from the show and before his replacement Claudia Winkleman makes her debut

And while no mention was made of his reasons for bowing out of the spotlight during his chat with Cat, the pair kept the laughs coming with their interaction.

After greeting Cat as Catherine, the star admitted that he was 'sick to death' of people wishing him a Happy New Year.

He raised raucous laughter from Cat as he joked: 'You know when you get overwhelmed by texts, and you reply with copy and paste.'

The star also spoke about going to see the stage production of Mamma Mia!, cracking a joke at the expense of the film's star Pierce Brosnan.

Out of the spotlight: Kay cancelled a tour in 2017 and has rarely been seen in public since. He was last on TV in 2018 when he appeared in two special episodes of Car Share

Welcome back: As funnyman Peter made his appearance on the show, fans took to Twitter in droves to express their joy

After ribbing Cat for her West Midlands accent while pronouncing 'Mamma', he quipped: 'Pierce Brosnan's singing didn't work and they brought him back for the sequel!'

He said of the stage production: 'I went to see it and I loved it and I knew the stage manager and saw the girl who plays the lead character and said, "Congratulations on getting married!" I thought it was real!'

The pair spent much of their time together on-air chatting about music and mixtapes, while also listening to reworked versions of popular classic tracks.

He also revealed how he talked Cat into presenting his 2008 comedy show Britain's Got the Pop Factor... And Possibly A New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar Strictly On Ice.

Appearance: In April, he appeared on the BBC One show in a pre-recorded clip from his Bolton home to introduce a new version of his classic Comic Relief track This Is The Way To Amarillo

Thrilled: During the interview, no mention was made of Peter's reasons for bowing out of the spotlight, but listeners were still thrilled just to hear him on the radio

'I love music,' he said. 'I have very eclectic taste. I rang you to give you the big sell. You were in LA and I was trying to say I'd love you to do it and trying to talk you into it.'

After enjoying several minutes together on-air, Peter bid Cat a farewell, with the guest presenter sounding emotional as she said goodbye.

In April, Peter appeared on the BBC One show in a pre-recorded clip from his Bolton home to introduce a new version of his classic Comic Relief track Is This The Way to Amarillo.

Last year, Peter was forced to cancel his Dance For Life tour due to the Covid-19 outbreak, it would have been his first return to the spotlight after cancelling all of his work commitments in 2017 due to 'unforeseen family circumstances.'

Shame: Earlier this year, Peter was forced to cancel his Dance For Life tour due to the Covid-19 outbreak, it would have been his first return to the spotlight since 2017

Theatre trip: Peter was photographed on December 27 2019 when he headed to the Crewe Lyceum Theatre to watch X Factor's Chico and duo Canon and Ball in a production of Peter Pan

He said: 'Obviously this is disappointing news but well and truly justified given the circumstances. We'll get through this, together and then we'll all have a great big dance for life. Stay safe and look after yourselves and the people around you.'

The comedian is married to Susan Gargan, who he married in 2001. They have three children together  a 16-year-old son called Charlie Michael Kay and two younger children, who the pair have kept shielded from the public eye.

Since his self-imposed hiatus, the Lancashire-born comic has rarely been seen in public but has promoted charity events.

Peter's last stage appearance was when he spoke to an audience gathered to see a charity screening of his BBC comedy Car Share in April 2018.

The three screenings were to raise money for The Lily Foundation, supporting children with mitochondrial disease, that the Phoenix Nights star had 'first-hand experience of'.

Exit: Meanwhile, Cat was seen making her exit out of BBC's radio studios after the broadcast

Wrap: She wrapped up for the chilly weather in a red quilted coat, teamed with brown boots

Mask: Keeping her head warm with a black knitted beanie, she donned a protective face mask

Peter was photographed for the first time in eight months on December 27 in 2019 when he made an appearance at the Crewe Lyceum Theatre to watch X Factor star Chico and iconic duo Canon and Ball in a production of Peter Pan.

TV personality Chico posted a picture of the four men together on his fitness page with the caption: 'When Peter Kay pops in to see us #panto with the legends that are Cannon and Ball life is complete.'

On December 29 he was seen looking in high spirits as he smiled for a photograph at the final performance of Nativity! The Musical in London.

Kay posed for the snap alongside the show's director Debbit Isitt, who later posted the photo on her Twitter page alongside a caption about the star.

She penned: 'So lovely to see the brilliant comic genius Peter Kay and his lovely family tonight for our final show! What a lovely surprise for us all!'

Sunshine state: She recently relocated back to the UK following several years in Los Angeles

Hair we go: The star wore her honey tresses in a long sleek blowout for her day on the radio
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US: 1,100 pounds of methamphetamine found in watermelons

Tesla owners will be paid $ 16,000 each due to slow charging

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Armenian acting FM meets with ambassadors of CSTO member states accredited to Armenia

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Armenia police officer commits suicide, criminal case launched

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A 70-year-old farmer, who was part of the agitation against the farm bills at UP Gate in Ghaziabad, allegedly died by suicide in a portable toilet near the protest site on Saturday.

The police said the body of the deceased man was sent to Rampur in Uttar Pradesh, from where he hailed. A post-mortem will be conducted there

Some people found the body in the mobile toilet around 9am on Saturday. Thereafter, the police reached the spot and took away the mobile toilet for forensic examinations So far, we have not received any complaint, said Anshu Jain, circle officer (Indirapuram).

This is the second death at the UP Gate in two days. On Friday, a 57-year-old man from Baghpat had died at the spot due to health complications.

The police said the 70-year-old left behind a two-page note, written in Punjabi, where he said he wanted his last rites to be performed at UP Gate.

Farmer leaders, meanwhile, said the man was allegedly upset about the long movement and the governments indecision over the demands.

Rakesh Tikait, national spokesperson of the Bharatiya Kisan Union claimed 47 people have died so far at various protests sites since the farmers began their agitation against three contentious farm laws passed by Parliament in September last year.

We appeal to the farmers not to act in such a manner as protests or movements are not won by ending lives. They are won by staying alive and leading a collective fight. His cremation will take place at his native village, Tikait, said.
Seoul, Jan 2 : North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has sent a handwritten note to greet the people on New Year's, apparently skipping his trademark address on the first day of the year , the media reported.

"I sincerely wish all the families across the country greater happiness and beloved people, good health. In the new year, too, I will work hard to bring earlier the new era in which the ideals and desires of our people will come true," Kim said in the letter on Friday carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

"I offer thanks to the people for having invariably trusted and supported our Party even in the difficult times. Pledging once again that I will always remain faithful to the great people," he added.

It was the first time that Kim sent such a letter since taking office after his father and former leader Kim Jong-il died in 2011, reports Yonhap News Agency.

It also marked the first time that a North Korean leader sent New Year Day's greetings to his people since 1995.

Kim has delivered a televised speech on January 1 almost every year to put forth his annual policy plans and directions.

Kim, however, skipped such an annual address early last year, replacing his message with a speech at a party meeting held later.

The KCNA also reported that Kim has paid tribute to the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, where the bodies of his father Kim Jong-il and his grandfather and state founder Kim Il-sung lie in state, to mark New Year's Day.

He has visited the mausoleum every year on January 1 since taking power, except in 2018.
Brazil's COVID-19 death toll totalled 195,411 after 462 more patients died in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health said Friday.

Meanwhile, tests detected 24,605 new cases, bringing its total to 7,700,578.

While celebrated the New Year without festivities and fireworks amid the ravaging pandemic, local authorities were still struggling to prevent the public from flocking to beaches on New Year's Day.

In Riviera de Sao Lourenco, one of the most exclusive beaches in the southeast state of Sao Paulo, police even threw smoke bombs on the sand to keep beachgoers away.

has the world's second-highest COVID-19 death toll, after the United States, and the third-largest outbreak, after the United States and India.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
AMHERST  Homeless shelters in Amherst are full and the need is greater than available resources, warns Town Manager Paul Bockleman.

The Towns service providers have reached capacity at both sites operated by Craigs Doors indicating the wide need for housing in the area, Bockelman wrote to the Town Council ahead of its meeting Monday. This is similar to experience in other communities including Northampton, Greenfield, Holyoke, and Pittsfield.

There is a commitment to addressing the needs of the unhoused on a regional, instead of a town-by-town, basis, Bockelman wrote. It is important for the Town of Amherst to be part of that regional approach and that the State recognize its responsibility to being an active partner in meeting that need.

In another matter, the manager released the number of residents with COVID-19 symptoms tested for free last month. The town offered testing for individuals with symptoms and town employees. Asymptomatic testing is offered at the University of Massachusetts.

The first day of symptomatic testing, scheduled Dec. 17 but postponed until the next day due to a snowstorm, involved 74 tests completed in three hours. Testing on Dec. 22 had 87 people getting tested in a two-hour window.

The town was scheduled to offer free testing Dec. 29 as well but numbers were not provided.

Testing occurred at Mill River Recreation Area with assistance from the Public Works, Fire and Police departments. Amherst contracted with County Ambulance to do the testing.

The town has contracted with Family Outreach of Amherst for a social worker to assist families impacted by COVID-19, Bockelman said.

In the first two weeks of the program, about a dozen families were served, he wrote. Most are facing multiple issues such as job loss, food insecurity, health needs, and housing needs. The working poor are among the hardest hit members of our community. The upward trend for assistance is anticipated to continue.

Related Content:
A new coronavirus first appeared in Wuhan, China, about one year ago. It quickly spread around the world. The virus causes the disease COVID-19 which is blamed for causing more than 1.8 million deaths around the world and widespread economic damage.

Each nation has its own story of how it dealt with the spread of the coronavirus. News of promising vaccines and medicines are bringing hope, but a large increase in the number of cases remains a problem.

As 2020 came to an end, the Associated Press gathered stories about the crisis from its reporters in several countries. Here are shorter versions of what they wrote.

Brazil

In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro criticized quarantines. He said closing businesses would harm the economy and punish the poor. He did not take the virus seriously enough and claimed that nothing could stop 70 percent of Brazilians from catching it. He would not take responsibility when people became sick. Instead, Bolsonaro provided economic aid to ease the pain of the pandemic.

China

In China, workers have returned to factories and offices, students are back in the classroom and people are gathering at restaurants. In the cities, wearing a face covering is not required outside of subways and other crowded places. Life is back to normal in China, the country where the coronavirus appeared one year ago. China's ruling Communist Party has lifted some of the strongest anti-disease controls ever.

Germany

Germans eased restrictions in the summer. That was the result of widespread testing for the virus which won wide praise. It brought the number of daily COVID-19 cases down from a high of more than 6,000 in late March to the few hundreds by the warmer months.

But people stopped following the rules all the time, so the numbers began to climb to nearly four times the March daily record. Germany is now in a new lockdown as it tries to bring the pandemic back under control.

India

A nation of 1.3 billion people, India is likely to become the country with the world's highest coronavirus numbers. It established a nationwide lockdown early on. But the number of cases went up quickly as restrictions eased and its weak public health system struggled to deal with the situation. There are questions about its unusually low death rate. In addition, India's struggling economy recorded its worst performance in at least 20 years.

Iran

At the start, Iranian officials downplayed COVID-19. They denied the rising number of infections. They refused to close Muslim religious centers and delayed closing businesses. The coronavirus pandemic has worsened in Iran in the course of the year. Now the virus has sickened and killed top officials. It is perhaps Iran's greatest threat since the unrest and war that followed its 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Israel

Israel went into its second nationwide coronavirus lockdown in September. People observing the most traditional form of religion did not obey safety rules and crowded together for ceremonies and services, so COVID-19 cases continued to rise. This gave others the idea that the community puts more importance on religion over science and cares little about the greater good.

Italy

In February, Italy became the center of COVID-19 cases in Europe. Italys wealthy health care system nearly collapsed under the weight of the pandemic. The lessons of that earlier wave did not help the much older population of the country in September. The number of infections rose again and many of those victims were older people. Hospitals once again were almost at a breaking point.

Japan

The COVID-19 pandemic in Japan started in February when a cruise ship, the Diamond Princess, returned to its home port near Tokyo. The boat carried people sick with the virus. More got sick as the passengers stayed on the ship for weeks. Many criticized how health officials handled that quarantine. Wearing face coverings is a part of daily life in Japan. There are also strong border controls.

The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games were canceled, but the country hopes to hold them next summer.

Kenya

Usually, young people have less serious coronavirus infections. But the effects of the pandemic in Kenya have fallen hard on the young. Some children were forced into hard labor and prostitution. The schools have closed until 2021. Babies were born in poor conditions. Growing economic pressures and closed schools hurt millions of Kenyan children.

South Africa

In the world's most unequal country, the disease hit the poor the hardest. Unemployment rose to 42 percent. But South Africa had a secret weapon. Its health professionals had fought against the epidemics of HIV/AIDS and drug-resistant TB. The country's leaders listened to their advice on how to deal with the coronavirus. So, the worst possible outcomes have not yet happened.

Spain

In Spain, many question a system that failed to prevent so many deaths. Politicians say that the system did not collapse during the first wave of infections, when the country recorded 929 deaths in a single day. But health professionals say that the actual cost was overworked staff.

New Zealand

In New Zealand, the government closed its borders and shut down nearly everything, preventing all but a few deaths.

Your turn

What do you think of the Associated Press reports? If you are online, we would like to hear from you in the comments section.

Im Jill Robbins.

Reporters for the Associated Press wrote this story. Jill Robbins adapted it for Learning English. Mario Ritter, Jr. was the editor.

See all of The Associated Press' "A Pandemic Atlas"

What do you think of your own countrys response to the pandemic? We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

pandemic - n. an occurrence in which a disease spreads very quickly and affects a large number of people over a wide area or throughout the world

downplay  v. to make (something) seem smaller or less important

infectious - adj. capable of causing infection

lockdown - n. a state of isolation or restricted access put in place as a security measure.

quarantine - n. the period of time during which a person or animal that has a disease or that might have a disease is kept away from others to prevent the disease from spreading

prostitution n. the trade of providing sex in exchange for money

epidemic n. when a disease spreads quickly and affects large number of people
Once he was in his truck, the carrier heard a loud bang on the side of the vehicle, the prosecutor said. Murillo entered the truck and asked why the carrier had sprayed the child, DeGroot said. Murillo then punched the carrier in the face and head until he crumpled under the steering wheel, stopping only when someone nearby said the carrier had had enough, the prosecutor alleged. DeGroot said the carrier suffered a broken rib, bruises and eye hemorrhaging.
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

The European Union is ready to help drug companies expand coronavirus vaccine production to clear a "bottleneck" in distribution, its top health official said Saturday.

Health commissioner Stella Kyriakides told German news agency DPA that any delay in getting approved vaccines out was down to production capacity shortage, not EU planning.

"The bottleneck at the moment is not the volume of orders but the worldwide shortage of production capacity," she said, in comments distributed by her office.

Kyriakides noted that Brussels had provided 100 million euros to German firm BioNTech, which developed a vaccine with US giant Pfizer, to help build production capacity.

And she said that the bloc was ready to do more, for Pfizer-BioNTech and other companies with candidate vaccines, as the vaccination campaign gets into gear.

"The situation will improve step by step," she promised, one week after vaccinations began at widely varying paces among EU member states.

"We have been negotiating for additional vaccine doses from BioNTech for a long time and are again ready to help expand production capacities.

"Other manufacturers with whom we have contracts are on the verge of having their vaccines approved by the EU."

The European Medicines Agency, which advises the European Commission, approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on December 21.

But it is not expected to rule on a potential alternative from US company Moderna until January 6.

And it is awaiting more data on a candidate from AstraZeneca and Oxford University, which has already been approved in the UK.

But Kyriakides insisted that Europe is not falling behind in its joint procurement programme, backed by the 27 member states.

"If all vaccine candidates are approved, Europe will have more than two billion doses of vaccine available for all 450 million Europeans and their neighbours," she said.

"And that's what it's all about: Europe can get out of this crisis fastest together."

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2021 AFP
(Natural News) Legitimate concerns have been raised regarding how the voting machines provided by Dominion Voting Systems adjudicate votes that have irregularities. Prior investigations have revealed that one county in Michigan had a suspiciously high tabulation error rate. This indicates that Dominions software may be sending far too many ballots for adjudication.

In many states, if a ballot has been incorrectly filled out, instead of tossing the vote away it can be sent to election officials for adjudication under the supervision of poll observers from both parties. The election officials then try their best to determine who a voter intended to vote for. Poll observers can raise objections if they do not agree with the outcome of the adjudication. At least, that is how it is supposed to work.

For counties that use Dominion Voting Systems machines, the voting software has a function that automatically flags ballots for adjudication if it detects any defects, such as overvoting or if the bubbles were improperly filled out. The software also allows for every single ballot in their system to be sent out for adjudication.

In Antrim County, Michigan, a forensic audit of their Dominion machines showed that they supposedly had an error rate of nearly 70 percent, which is unrealistically high and indicates that the system created a scenario wherein large numbers of ballots were opened up to judgment calls. Dominion spokespersons argued that the county does not use digital adjudication. If this is true then the fault lies with the election officials. (Related: Antrim. Co. forensic report reveals Dominion machines were set at 68.05% error rate meaning 68.05% of ballots could be sent out for mass adjudication.)

A similar scenario has been uncovered in Fulton County, Georgia, which includes parts of Atlanta. Over 113,000 mail-in ballots were scanned in that county, and more than 106,000 of those were sent to adjudication by Nov. 4, according to the countys director of elections. The countys spokesperson argued that the director of elections was referring to the number of batches that had at least one ballot sent for adjudication. Whoever is telling the truth, the numbers indicate that a significant number of ballots were flagged down for adjudication.

Listen to this special Situation Update episode of the Health Ranger Report, a podcast by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, as he talks about how preparations are being made to counterattack against the Cyber Pearl Harbor that occurred during the election.

Dominion CEO denies any wrongdoing occurred as a result of their machines

Dominion Voting Systems CEO John Poulos testified via web conference before the Michigan Senate Oversight Committee on Tuesday, Dec. 15, to deny every single allegation brought forth against his company and their voting machines. He called the verifiable allegations conspiracy theories and said that his company was targeted in a relentless campaign of reckless disinformation.

The most important thing to understand about Dominion is this: We do not run elections, said Poulos, who was attempting to shift the blame to the counties that run the elections on the ground. Our role is limited to providing local election offices with the machines.

The hearing with Poulos lasted for around three hours. The majority-Republican Senate Oversight Committee grilled the CEO regarding the intricacies of Dominions voting machines, and whether or not he believed it would be possible to commit fraud through them.

To date, no one has produced credible evidence of vote fraud or vote switching on Dominion systems, argued Poulos, because these things have simply not occurred.

Poulos even tried to argue against the report that came out regarding Dominions machines in Antrim County. He said that they do not have access to the countys systems, and he called the report riddled with political bias.

A lot of the arguments [in the report] were incomprehensible to me, but then again I havent seen any of the files, so I cant comment on what it is they are looking for, said Poulos. But some of the conclusions they had were wrong and false.

Some Republican officials in the state were convinced by Poulos testimony. Lisa Lyons, the Republican county clerk of Kent in western Michigan, said that the CEOs testimony should put to rest any of the false claims of tabulator manipulation.

Simply put, said Lyons, Tabulators dont run elections. Clerk, staff and election workers from our communities who take an oath to uphold the Constitution run our elections.

Learn more about the investigations regarding Dominion Voting Systems machines in Michigan and other parts of the country by reading the latest articles at VoteFraud.news.

Sources include:

TheEpochTimes.com

WWMT.com

Fox17Online.com
Columbia, MO (65201)

Today

Mostly cloudy this evening. Scattered thunderstorms developing after midnight. Low 64F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy this evening. Scattered thunderstorms developing after midnight. Low 64F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.
was clearly dismayed. The Texas native, who practiced law in Dallas before President George W. Bush named her to a federal appeals court, was listening to a lawyer defend her home states voter ID law. The law was one of the strictest of its kind in the country, an unapologetically tough effort to crack down on the threat of people lying about who they were in order to vote illegally.But the law was so rigid, critics claimed, that it would keep hundreds of thousands of honest people from voting, and those people were disproportionately black or Hispanic. The statute had been on the books for four years before the lawsuit reached Haynes and her colleagues in a New Orleans courtroom in April of last year. But in those four years, Haynes noted, the Republican majority in the Texas Legislature had not tried to make the law more accommodating toward minorities. Shouldnt they be fixing some of this stuff? she asked the lawyer. Why are they wanting to fix this in the court, rather than in the legislature where this belongs? Theyre meeting right now. They have that opportunity. What are they doing with it?This summer, when the legislature still hadnt touched the law more than a year later, Haynes wrote a decision on behalf of the full Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. It struck down the entire 2011 law.Haynes, and a majority of her colleagues on the 15-member court, which is stocked with Reagan and Bush appointees, said legislators concerns about voter fraud werent enough to justify the impact on minorities. This argument effectively nullifies the protections of the Voting Rights Act by giving states a free pass to enact needlessly burdensome laws with impermissible racially discriminatory impacts, she wrote. The Voting Rights Act was enacted to prevent just such invidious, subtle forms of discrimination.Judges rarely take on state lawmakers so forcefully, especially when lawsuits are accusing a whole legislature of racism. But Haynes and the Fifth Circuit had plenty of company this summer. A separate appeals court not only struck down North Carolinas voter ID law but said that legislators in that state had passed the law precisely because of its discriminatory effects. Other courts have blocked or weakened voter ID laws and other electoral changes on the grounds that they disproportionately hurt minorities.The timing of all these decisions, issued in the thick of a presidential campaign with control of the Supreme Court hanging in the balance, gives them extra weight. At the very least, it seems, judges expect voter ID laws to create some sort of alternative for citizens -- and especially minorities -- who have difficulty producing government-issued photo identification. The courts really are coming down and saying, You know what, legislators and elected officials? Were no longer going to defer to what you say youre doing. Theyre looking at the impact of the laws  and not believing elected officials, which theyve done so many times in the past, says Keesha Middlemass, a political scientist at Trinity University in San Antonio.When voters go to the polls in Texas next month, they will be able to vote without providing the identification that the state law would have demanded. They will be allowed to present a valid registration certificate, birth certificate, current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or any other government document that displays their name and address. Voters who dont have a photo ID will be asked to fill out a form indicating why they dont have one, but poll watchers will not be allowed to question their answer.Some anti-discrimination activists are insisting that these rules still dont go far enough to protect minorities, but conservatives have been quick to argue that the recent court decisions are improperly tying the hands of state officials. These erroneous rulings twist the Voting Rights Act, Hans von Spakovsky and John Fund wrote inrecently, from a law intended to stop racial discrimination into one that transfers the power to determine routine election procedures -- which the Constitution delegates to the states -- to the judiciary.What ultimately matters most, however, is what happens in the presidential election.If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency and names a liberal judge to fill the current Supreme Court vacancy, the decisions in Texas and North Carolina may be the beginning of a long-term shift in the U.S. judiciarys approach to voting rights cases, away from strict identification requirements and toward a mandate of greater inclusiveness imposed on state governments. Clinton would nominate more judges to district and appellate courts who would be sympathetic to claims of racial discrimination. The Justice Department in a Democratic administration would continue to back plaintiffs who sue states and localities for violating their rights with voter ID laws, just as the department has done under President Obama. And if Democrats take control of Congress, they could effectively nullify previous high court decisions and return to an earlier policy requiring certain states to seek federal approval of any new election laws they enact.A President Trump, on the other hand, would likely fill the Supreme Court vacancy with a conservative justice who would help overturn the Texas and North Carolina rulings and allow the states to write election law as they wish to write it. And Trump could direct the Justice Department to focus more heavily on voter fraud than on discrimination claims. In that scenario, this summers rulings might soon be irrelevant.about voter identification cant be understood without a look back to 1965, when the Voting Rights Act became law. The laws protections for minority voters have reshaped the legal landscape and the broader political world for the past five decades.The law gave the Justice Department far-reaching powers to crack down on states and localities that tried to prevent minorities from voting or that tried to dilute the political strength of those minorities. It authorized the Justice Department to block laws in certain jurisdictions -- primarily in the South -- because of their racial impact. Affected jurisdictions in 15 states had to get federal permission, called preclearance, to change anything from voting hours to legislative district maps. In a series of revisions over the years, Congress broadened the laws scope and extended its life several times, most recently in 2006.The Voting Rights Act ultimately created the political alignment that exists today. After the passage of the law (along with the Civil Rights Act of 1964), blacks began voting in the South in much larger numbers, and formed the core of Democratic strength in Southern states. The Republican Party, meanwhile, increasingly attracted conservative white Southerners, first in national elections, and eventually in elections that determined the makeup of state legislators and even county courts. The transformation took decades, but it was largely completed with the 2010 election.Because of the racial polarization that has become entrenched across the country, but particularly in the South, enforcement of the Voting Rights Act has become a partisan issue. Democrats have sought to make it easier for minority voters to get to the polls, while Republicans have pushed restrictions to counter what they see as a significant problem of voting fraud.The push for voters to present photo IDs at the polls started under the George W. Bush administration, and reflected two chief priorities of the Bush era: better election administration and improved homeland security. A federal commission led by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker III recommended in 2005 that all voters be required to present IDs approved by the federal government. But the group also called for massive outreach to make IDs available to minorities and the poor. Carter and Baker later lamented that no states took them up on their suggested approach.Instead, a handful of states began enacting new laws that required voters to present specified types of photo ID before they could get a ballot. In 2008, in the case of Crawford v. Marion County, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an initial challenge to one of those laws, in Indiana. But the justices split three ways in their decision and left the door open to further challenges when concrete evidence of the laws effects could be presented. The question of racial discrimination was never taken up.But in other states where race did come up in legal challenges, courts required tweaks to voter ID laws before they could take effect. Georgia had to make it possible for citizens to get IDs free of charge after a court found that its voter ID law amounted to an illegal poll tax. Later, the Justice Department tried to block South Carolinas voter ID law using its preclearance authority. But South Carolina officials told judges they would let voters without IDs cast ballots with only a few extra steps, and fended off the challenge.Then, in 2013, the Supreme Court invalidated key portions of the Voting Rights Act, ruling that Southern states no longer needed to look over their shoulders when changing election laws. In a 5-4 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, the conservative court majority ruled that the law impermissibly favored some states over others because it continued to subject some, but not all, of them to preclearance procedures. Chief Justice John Roberts argued that since Congress hadnt changed the formula for determining which jurisdictions needed preclearance in nearly 40 years, the formula was outdated. As a result of that decision, no government needed permission anymore to change its voting procedures.The opinion unleashed a rush of activity. This chapter is closed, Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann announced hours after the decision, as he vowed to start enforcing his states previously blocked ID requirement law. In North Carolina, a Republican state senator announced that the legislature would move ahead with the full bill on voter ID, rather than a more lenient one that had some bipartisan support. The newest ID laws were much more strict than their predecessors.The new laws triggered new lawsuits. Not all were successful. Laws in Oklahoma, Tennessee and Virginia withstood initial court scrutiny.But all of this was prelude to the judicial rulings issued this summer, most important the ones that invalidated the voter ID laws in Texas and North Carolina. They left the states with nowhere to turn but the U.S. Supreme Court, to which both Texas and North Carolina planned an appeal. But the court, evenly divided 4-4, elected not to intervene. Without Supreme Court action, this summers decisions invalidating voter ID laws will be binding precedent in seven Southern states.in any of these lawsuits, they have to show that a voter ID law discriminates against racial minorities. The key question isnt whether the vast majority of Americans have easy access to a drivers license or other ready identification: They do. The legal questions focus on the relative few who dont.In the Texas case, Harvard professor Stephen Ansolabehere found that 608,000 of the 13.5 million registered Texas voters in 2014 did not have any acceptable forms of ID. Those numbers were determined by comparing the states voter lists with state and federal databases of all the types of ID that would be accepted at Texas polls under the most recent state law. Ansolabehere found that 91 percent of white voters in the state had Texas drivers licenses, compared with 78 percent of black voters and 82 percent of Hispanic voters.No matter how Ansolabehere sliced the data, the pattern remained the same: Hispanics were 50 percent more likely than whites to lack the necessary ID, and blacks were 100 percent more likely. Such a difference, he wrote, is highly unlikely to have arisen by chance.Of course, would-be voters who dont have the right type of ID can apply for it. But there too, courts have found that this option is unrealistic for some voters. The court in the Texas case pointed to witnesses who said they couldnt afford the high cost of obtaining birth certificates from other states or didnt have time to make a long trek to state ID-issuing facilities.In North Dakota, a federal trial judge in August found that similar obstacles confronted Native American voters and, because of that, temporarily halted the state from using its 2015 voter identification law. Nearly a quarter of Native Americans in North Dakota lack a valid form of ID for voting, Judge Daniel Hovland wrote, compared with only 12 percent of the rest of the population in the state. And for those Native Americans who dont have the requisite identification, nearly half say they dont have the proper documents, such as a birth certificate, that they must have in order to get a drivers license or state ID. In the judges words, you need an ID to get an ID. Because the law in North Dakota law, like the one in Texas, offered no alternative for people who could not produce the right identification, Hovland issued a preliminary injunction blocking the law from taking effect.The appellate court in North Carolinas case went even further. The judges there didnt strike down the states voter ID law because it happened to be harder on minority voters. Instead, they concluded the North Carolina law was designed to be tougher on black voters. The new provisions, the court ruled, target African-Americans with almost surgical precision.Besides imposing an ID requirement, North Carolinas 2013 law restricted early voting, same-day registration and out-of-precinct voting. Legislators appeared to know that those changes would disproportionately harm black voters, because they requested information on how different racial groups used different election features. The data they received showed that whites were more likely to use absentee ballots. But the lawmakers did not add restrictions on absentee ballots, even though election authorities said those ballots were more susceptible to fraud than in-person balloting.The laws defenders argued that Republicans were simply rolling back laws Democrats had passed when they were in power. But the reviewing court said that once a state makes it easier for minorities to vote, it cannot reverse course. When a legislature dominated by one party has dismantled barriers to African-American access to the franchise, even if done to gain votes, politics as usual does not allow a legislature dominated by the other party to re-erect those barriers, Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, a Clinton appointee, wrote for the court.The courts finding that North Carolinas legislature intentionally passed a discriminatory law is significant. The ruling could trigger attempts to once again force the state to submit major voting changes for approval, under a provision in the Voting Rights Act that, technically, is still on the books. If successful, those efforts would essentially reinstate the rules that prevailed before the Shelby County decision came down.Texas could end up in the same boat. The appeals court in that case set aside the trial judges ruling that the Texas legislature acted with discriminatory intent. But the appeals court said the trial judge could revisit the question after this years elections. Then the appeals court judges laid out several facts that might support such a finding of intentional discrimination.of all these cases is the question of how common voter fraud actually is. Proponents of voter ID laws argue that the whole point of the laws is to prevent tampering with elections. The Supreme Court echoed that point in the Indiana case eight years ago. There is no question about the legitimacy or importance of the states interest in counting only the votes of eligible voters, the court held at that time. Indeed, many courts have recited that language and relied on that opinion in upholding various voter identification laws.But after eight years of litigation and study, the evidence of in-person voter fraud is still scant. The courts in Texas and North Carolina held that even if lawmakers were concerned about voter fraud, the laws they enacted were not tailored to fight it effectively. The courts ruled that the forms of ID lawmakers chose as acceptable werent necessarily the most secure kinds, and noted that legislators opted not to include other forms of state-issued identification, such as student or public assistance IDs, that were just as secure.In the Texas case, the judges noted that Texas lawmakers had used voter fraud as a reason to make it harder for minorities to vote many times before, in passing laws that established all-white primaries, poll taxes and purges of voter rolls. The court asked Clemson University history professor Vernon Burton, an expert on race relations, whether these devices actually responded to sincere concerns or actual incidences of voter fraud. No, Burton said.Supporters of voter identification laws say the Texas and North Carolina courts used the wrong criteria to evaluate the laws. They argue that the test should be whether the laws actually prevent anyone from voting or drive down turnout among minorities. Lawyers for North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory told the U.S. Supreme Court that the appeals courts decision relied almost exclusively on evidence that the challenged provisions could have a disparate impact on minorities, even though it did not disturb the [trial courts] finding that they will not actually do so. During this years primaries, they noted, 2.3 million North Carolina voters cast votes. Only 0.008 percent of them were not counted.Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton similarly maintains that his states law does not make it significantly harder for Texans to vote. Indeed, Paxton says, President Obamas Department of Justice, which sued Texas to block our voter ID law, never identified a single person who faced a legally substantial obstacle to voting during the dozens of elections where Texas voter ID law was enforced.For now, though, it appears that people who turn up to the polls in North Carolina, North Dakota, Texas and many other voter ID states wont be turned away if they dont have an ID on them. They will be able to cast a provisional ballot or sign an affidavit attesting to who they are. This situation does not satisfy either side in the larger dispute, but at the moment it appears to be the national norm. That is, of course, until and unless the Supreme Court steps in.The last time the high court took up voter ID, Jimmy Carter and James Baker expressed hope that the justices would provide clarity and fairness. The Supreme Court can lead the way on the voter ID issue, they wrote eight years ago, in an op-ed during the consideration of Crawford v. Marion County. It has the opportunity to inspire the states, our national leaders and the entire country to bridge the partisan divide on a matter that is important to our democracy. It can support voter ID laws that make it easy to vote but tough to cheat.Instead, Crawford only inspired more division. Soon, though, the high court may have a chance to revisit that legacy.
A husband has divided the internet when he asked if he was in the wrong for calling out his wife in front of friends for falsely claiming she was the breadwinner.

The man, from Victoria, took to social media to explain he and his wife were at a dinner party to celebrate their new Covid-normal free from lockdown.

'First off, I do not believe in the concept of breadwinners. They are an outdated term,' he wrote on Reddit.

'We were talking about how finances were absolutely f***ed now, and my wife casually mentioned that she was the breadwinner. That's objectively false.

The man, from Victoria, took to social media to explain he and his wife at a dinner party to celebrate a COVID-normal lifestyle (stock image)

Poll Should the man have kept quiet when his wife told a little 'white lie'? Yes No Should the man have kept quiet when his wife told a little 'white lie'? Yes 153 votes

No 611 votes Now share your opinion





'Even this year, when I got let go for a month, I still made about 50 per cent more than her. I wouldn't have cared if she said there were no breadwinners, but she did say an objectively incorrect thing.

'I just said "Don't breadwinners earn more than their partner? I don't think you do."'

He said later his wife said that his actions embarrassed her.

She told him she made up a white lie to friends and she wanted to keep it up, but he said he didn't think it was nice to lie at the expense of others.

Some sided with the man, claiming his wife was in the wrong.

One person said: 'It's quite a gamble to assume you can blatantly lie in front of someone who knows the truth and that they wouldn't correct you. Even if it's your partner.'

The woman said she was the breadwinner, which her husband said was a lie. Later, she said he embarrassed her (stock image)

Another said: 'Well the thing is... wasn't she embarrassing him in the first place with that "little white lie."'

Some defended the woman's actions, with several believing it may have originated from when her husband lost his job.

People suggested her friends offered her money, and she declined and said she made the money in the relationship anyway.

'Doesn't make it any more excusable and she's definitely the a*****e but I don't think she was being super malicious about it either,' one person said.
With condolences for those lost to COVID-19 and a defiant tone directed at Trenton, Saturday saw the first-ever meeting of the Warren County Board of Commissioners.

That is the new title of New Jerseys county-level governing bodies under a law signed in August by Gov. Phil Murphy to move beyond the racist and sexist connotations of chosen freeholder, the title in use for 196 years.

Convening as commissioners was just one of the firsts marked by the meeting in Courtroom No. 1 (slated for renovations in 2021) of the Warren County Court House in Belvidere. Closed to the public, it was also the countys first reorganization broadcast virtually and the first in decades without former Freeholder Richard Gardner listed on the agenda, noted newly sworn-in Commissioner Director James Kern III.

Participants wore face masks while moving about, with clear partitions separating the commissioners while seated and the officials during swearing-in ceremonies.

Gardner spoke briefly, voicing pride in the former freeholder boards record of fiscal conservatism and accomplishments. He congratulated Kern, at 32, on being New Jerseys youngest commissioner director.

Along with Kern elected to the leadership post, the three-person board elected Commissioner Jason Sarnoski as deputy commissioner. Newly elected Commissioner Lori Ciesla was sworn-in by Douglas Steinhardt, former mayor of Lopatcong Township where Ciesla lives and current Republican candidate for governor.

Ciesla offered remembrances for those lost in 2020 and thanks to the first responders who are on the front lines of the coronavirus fight. She also thanked numerous people, from her family for their patience through the campaign to those who helped her win election over Democratic candidate Theresa Bender Chapman and keep the board all Republican.

Saving the best for last, thank you to the residents of Warren County, both those who voted for me and those who didnt. I am here to serve you all, Ciesla said.

Ciesla vowed to work to preserve Warren Countys rural quality of life while improving technology, including internet availability. She also promised to work with her colleagues to get the state and federal funding needed to continue the fight against COVID-19 and the recovery from the pandemic.

Our voice will be heard loud and clear by those who need to hear it, she said.

Warren County Commissioner James R. Kern III is sworn in as director of the newly renamed Warren County Board of County Commissioners by Superior Court Assignment Judge Thomas C. Miller on Saturday, Jan. 2, 2021, in Courtroom No. 1 of the Warren County Court House in Belvidere. Accompanying Kern is his girlfriend, Carina Sitkus.Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com

Sarnoski and Kern both joined Steinhardt with harsh words for Murphys handling of the pandemic. Kern described restrictions aimed at stemming the spread of the virus as a one-size-fits-all approach that has meant a death sentence for small-business owners, and said he hopes the governor works more closely with the state Legislature on future executive orders.

It is past time that we have allowed this virus to change the way we live and to take away our basic freedoms, Sarnoski said. Our children are not getting the education they deserve and that we pay for. And lastly I believe that the rules forced on us by the state have affected our elections, even if the outcomes would have been the same. The doubt that the restrictions created on our elections is not something we can stand for in our electoral process.

Steinhardt, the former five-term mayor of Lopatcong, spoke in the context of his transition from Republican leader at the county and state level to candidate for governor.

I do that with an eye toward getting a real conservative back in the governors office, one who will put New Jerseys families first, make the hard decisions that I think Gov. Murphy has forced all of us to make for ourselves, he said, calling for reducing state taxes and onerous business regulations, while rewarding people for hard work and respecting the U.S. Constitution.

Steinhardt has been succeeded by fellow Warren County-based attorney Michael Lavery as chairman of the New Jersey State Republican Committee.

Warren County Surrogate Kevin OONeill takes the oath of office for another five-year term, his third. New Jersey Superior Court Assignment Judge Thomas C. Miller administers the oath of office to Warren County Surrogate Kevin OONeill for a third five-year term Saturday, Jan. 2, 2021, in Courtroom No. 1 of the Warren County Court House in Belvidere.Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.
(Natural News) The dark money network that houses the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation received nearly $16 million in taxpayer-funded grants last year, financial filings reveal.

(Article by Joe Schofstall republished from FreeBeacon.com)

The Tides Center, a California-based nonprofit incubator, reported the government grants on its 2019 tax forms. It operates by acting as a fiscal sponsor to several left-wing nonprofits, including the BLM Global Network Foundation, which has advocated for abolishing the nuclear family and defunding the police. This arrangement lets the nonprofits avoid disclosing their financial activity, and thus makes it difficult to know where the taxpayer-funded cash ultimately ends up.

The centers 2019 windfall adds to the $170 million it has received in government grants since 2001grants that have drawn criticism from nonprofit watchdogs. Scott Walter, president of the Capital Research Center, has called Tides as liberal and politically active as they come and questioned whether American tax dollars should be awarded to groups housed at such networks.

The new filings show that the center took in $155 million in anonymous contributions on top of the $16 million in government grants it received in 2019, a $34 million increase over its 2018 totals. It also cut nearly $20 million in grants to outside groups, including the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability and the New Venture Fund, a separate nonprofit incubator that is part of a $715 million secret money network managed by Arabella Advisors.

The Tides Center was launched in 1996 as an offshoot of the Tides Foundation. It has incubated numerous social justice, environmental, gun-control, and abortion-rights groups. George Soross Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation have all pushed funding through the network.

The Tides Center did not respond to a request for comment.

Read more at: FreeBeacon.com
Ted Cruz will lead 11 GOP senators to demand emergency audit of election result in joint session of Congress (GRAEME JENNINGS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Ted Cruz is to spearhead up to a dozen GOP senators to demand an emergency audit of the election result in a joint session of Congress.

The group of Republicans say they will object to the 6 January certification of Joe Bidens win unless there is an emergency 10-day audit of the results by an election commission.

Mr Cruz is being joined by Ron Johnson, James Lankford, Steve Daines, John Kennedy, Marsha Blackburn, Mike Braun, as well as Senators.-elect Cynthia Lummis, Roger Marshall, Bill Hagerty, and Tommy Tuberville.

Together the 11 senators they say that the election featured unprecedented allegations of voter fraud and illegal conduct. Separately, GOP senator Josh Hawley is also to seek a challenge.

Voter fraud has posed a persistent challenge in our elections, although its breadth and scope are disputed, the politicians said in a statement.

By any measure, the allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes.

Despite Donald Trumps wild claims of voter fraud, his legal team, which includes former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, have not presented any credible evidence in lawsuits that have been overwhelmingly rejected by judges.

The election results have been ratified by each and every state and the former head of the federal governments cyber security unit described it as the most secure election in US history.

The outgoing president has also failed to get any case to the Supreme Court, which has refused to be drawn into his attempt to cling to power.

This is a separate effort from that of Mr Hawley, who says he will object to the alleged failure of some states to follow their own election laws.

Mr Trump has refused to concede the election to Mr Biden, despite a strong of courtroom defeats in battleground states across the US.

Mr Biden flipped Arizona and Georgia to take him past the 270 electoral college votes needed to secure the White House, and he easily beat Mr Trump in the popular vote.

Story continues

The senators and sentors-elect claim that there is a historical track record for Congress to appoint an electoral commission to audit results where they are disputed.

They cite as precedent the 1877 contest between Samuel Hayes and Rutherford Hayes, where there were allegations of fraud in several states.

"In 1877, Congress did not ignore those allegations, nor did the media simply dismiss those raising them as radicals trying to undermine democracy," they said.

Instead, Congress appointed an Electoral Commission, consisting of five Senators, five House Members, and five Supreme Court Justices, to consider and resolve the disputed returns.

The move by Mr Cruz and his group comes after it was predicted that up to 140 Republican members of the House fo Representatives could vote against counting the electoral college votes.

Mr Trumps supporters have virtually no chance of changing the results of the election but may be able to hold up certification for several hours.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has privately urged Republicans not to object to the counting of the votes.

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India stood up Chinas disruptive use of technology and my way or no way attitude: CDS

At meet with PM, CDS says medical personnel of armed forced who retired in last 2 years being recalled

Gen Rawats assertion that China tried to change status quo in eastern Ladakh 'inconsistent with facts'

'Nothing can deter Indian forces': Bipin Rawat visits forward bases along China border in Arunachal, Assam

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Jan 02: Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat on Saturday visited forward military bases along the China border in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. The visit comes on a day Rawat completed one year in office, Chief of Defence Staff.

Speaking at the occasion, Rawat said nothing can deter the Indian Armed Forces on remaining steadfast in their call for duty.

After witnessing measures adopted by troops to maintain effective surveillance and enhanced operational readiness, General Rawat said, "Only Indian soldiers could remain vigilant under such challenging situations ever willing to go beyond the call of duty to safeguard the borders."

On January 1, 2020. Rawat took charge of India's first-ever Chief of Defense Staff.

China hopes Joe Biden will end Trumps Cold War, follow sensible approach to restore ties

The CDS is responsible for synergising training, logistics, procurements and planning between the Army, the Indian Air Force and the Navy. Although a four-star general like the Army, Navy and Air Force chiefs, General Rawat will act as the 'first among equals' and arbitrator in matters where the three services express differences.

The visit also significant as it comes amid the military standoff with Chinese Army at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

In the last one year, Gen Rawat along with the top brass of the three services carried out ground work to establish an air defence command and a Peninsula command initially. The IAF will helm the air defence command and all-long range missiles as well as air defence assets will come under it.

The CDS has been part of the top military brass framing strategies to enhance India''s military prowess in view of the eastern Ladakh row.

Nearly 50,000 troops of the Indian Army are deployed in a high state of combat readiness in various mountainous locations in eastern Ladakh as multiple rounds of talks between the two sides have not yielded concrete outcome to resolve the standoff.

China has also deployed an equal number of troops, according to officials.

The eighth and last round of military talks had taken place on November 6 during which both sides broadly discussed disengagement of troops from specific friction points.
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As the UK officially completed its exit from the European Union late on New Years Eve, Brexiteers hailed a new domestic law implemented by Boris Johnsons government that immediately bans EU fishermen from pulse fishing in UK waters.

Excellent that [Defra] has banned pulse fishing in UK waters from 11:00pm yesterday, Conservative MP David Jones tweeted on Friday. A good example of the environmental, conservation and welfare improvements we can make after leaving the EU.

Brexiteer and former MEP Martin Daubney tweeted: A superb early win for the UK, as pulse fishing is banned from British waters the very minute we left the EU.

However, despite the suggestion Britains exit released the country from the shackles of unwanted European fishing rules, the truth appears rather different.

What is pulse fishing?

The practice, which is controversial among environmentalists, sees electrical pulses being sent into the seawater to flush out bottom-dwelling fish like plaice and sole, causing them to swim into the path of trawl nets.

Its backers say it is a friendlier alternative to beam trawling, where a large net is dragged across the ocean floor, destructively scooping up everything in its path. But its opponents say pulse trawling can fatally injure other species, which may not be part of the target catch.

Could the UK have banned pulse fishing earlier?

While timing the law to coincide with Britains exit gave the government a timely PR boost, the fact is such a law could have been implemented without ever leaving the EU.

France, which very much remains a member, banned pulse fishing within its territorial waters in the summer of 2019, months after the EU reached a deal enabling member states to immediately ban the practice within their coastal waters.

The move came amid anger among French fishermen, who said the practice by their Dutch counterparts  who pioneered the practice  leads to unsustainable stock depletions.

Whats pulse fishings legal status in the EU?

While Britain lags behind France in banning pulse fishing, it is only marginally ahead of the EU itself, which is set to implement its own ban in July, though it will apparently allow an exemption for six boats following pressure from the Dutch fishing industry.

The bloc had previously allowed member states to equip up to five per cent of their vessels with pulse fishing equipment.
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Zara Holland and Covid-19 positive partner tried to flee Barbados quarantine

They were held as Barbados government brought in tough Covid-19 measures

One activist claims their actions amounted to a conscious act of bio-terrorism'

Former Miss Great Britain Zara Holland and her partner Elliott Love were detained at the airport as they tried to flee the Caribbean island rather than quarantine at a monitoring unit after he tested positive for Covid

A Love Island star arrested in Barbados for flouting quarantine laws has so outraged islanders they want her thrown in jail.

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Former Miss Great Britain Zara Holland and her partner Elliott Love were detained at the airport as they tried to flee the Caribbean island rather than quarantine at a monitoring unit after he tested positive for Covid.

They were held as the Barbados government brought in tough measures to suppress coronavirus transmission on the popular winter holiday destination.

Those breaking Covid laws on the island face an 18,000 fine or jail.

On Friday, Briton James MacLean, a frequent visitor to Barbados, launched a petition, called Send Zara Holland and Elliott Love to jail, which will be passed to the islands Prime Minister Mia Mottley.

Mr MacLean wrote: They undermined the huge amount of work that had been done to suppress community transmission and they didnt just risk the livelihoods of Bajans, they risked their lives.

If one single person dies as a result of their selfish and cowardly actions, then they should be charged with murder. Either way, we strongly believe they should receive a custodial sentence, either in Barbados or the UK, for wantonly endangering the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

Barbados activist Ronelle King told The Mail on Sunday that the couples actions amounted to a conscious act of bio-terrorism, adding: I want them fined, imprisoned, deported and banned. In that order.

Miss Holland, 25, issued a grovelling apology to the islands government and its furious residents, claiming the couples actions were the result of a massive mix-up and misunderstanding.

When Mr Love tested positive for Covid on arrival last Sunday, the couple were given red wristbands and told to remain in their room at the 300-a-night Sugar Bay Hotel until they were taken to a quarantine centre on the north of the island.

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Instead, they booked a British Airways flight, cut off their wristbands and took a taxi to the airport where, according to a local source, their names raised some red flags with airport officials because of their short turnaround time in the country. Police were then alerted.

Miss Holland, 25, issued a grovelling apology to the islands government and its furious residents, claiming the couples actions were the result of a massive mix-up and misunderstanding

Miss Holland, from North Ferriby, East Yorkshire, told island newspaper Barbados Today: I want to apologise to the entire country of Barbados for what has been a massive mix-up and misunderstanding. I would never do anything to jeopardise an entire nation that I have nothing but love and respect for.

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It is understood Miss Holland is staying at a secret location after leaving St Lucys District Hospital, a basic unit where tourists quarantine until they can provide two negative tests. Mr Love, 30, remains at the hospital.

Sources on the island are questioning why Miss Holland, who was stripped of her Miss Great Britain title in 2016 after having sex on screen on that years Love Island, has not been charged.

When Mr Love tested positive for Covid on arrival last Sunday, the couple were given red wristbands and told to remain in their room at the 300-a-night Sugar Bay Hotel until they were taken to a quarantine centre on the north of the island
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 20:27:13|Editor: huaxia

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LONDON, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- All schools in England should remain closed for two more weeks after the Christmas holiday due to the rising COVID-19 infections, Britain's biggest teaching union has said, British media reported Saturday.

Head of the National Education Union (NEU), which has more than 450,000 members in the country, called for all primary and secondary schools to be closed, saying "what is right for London is right for the rest of the country".

NEU joint general secretary Mary Bousted told the BBC Saturday that she hoped a closure of all schools would give time for a mass-testing system to be set up, calling for this to be led by public health bodies.

Her initiative came after British Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said Friday night that all London primary and secondary schools would remain shut on Monday, rather than only those in some boroughs, as the British capital battles with high levels of coronavirus infections.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan welcomed the government's U-turn policy on London primary schools, which came two days after Williamson said only those in 22 of London's 32 boroughs would be affected by the closures.

Some London borough leaders wrote to the British government Friday, asking for the official efforts to reverse plans to reopen primary schools in some areas.

Schools in England are due to reopen on Jan. 4 when the new school term begins, but the British government has now decided to delay the school reopening till Jan. 18 amid the rising infection rates.

The British government has said the measure would be reviewed fortnightly and Williamson said he wants school closures to be as "short as possible".

London and many other parts of England have already been under the highest Tier Four restrictions, which require residents in the areas to stay at home, with limited exemptions. People are also urged to work from home when they can, and should not enter or leave those areas.

As the world is struggling to contain the pandemic, vaccination is underway in some countries with the already-authorized coronavirus vaccines.

Meanwhile, 232 candidate vaccines are still being developed worldwide -- 60 of them in clinical trials -- in countries including Germany, China, France, Russia, Britian and the United States, the World Health Organization said Tuesday. Enditem
ROCHESTER, Minn. - As a new set of city leaders prepare to take office in Rochester, KIMT is learning more about the issues they plan to focus on.

City Council President-Elect Brooke Carlson tells KIMT council members will jointly decide their priorities, but helping small businesses recover from the effects of COVID-19 will be top of mind.

Carlson adds members will be working toward meeting clean energy goals this year, and considering a proposal to build a new public library complex.

The council president-elect also tells KIMT new council members seem to be gravitating toward addressing affordable housing needs in Rochester.

"We need people to live and work here in this community," Carlson said. "So creating a community that has opportunities for people to live in an affordable place and access home ownership, some of these central functions of that we need to consider as we continue to grow as a community, will, I imagine, be high priorities."

A recent study commissioned by the city underscored Rochester's housing issues, finding affordable and senior housing in Rochester is not keeping up with demand.
A market fair showcasing products of the northern mountainous region has been held in the Culture-Tourism Village for Vietnamese Ethnic Groups in Hanois outskirts district of Son Tay from Friday till Sunday to promote the culture of Vietnams ethnic minority groups.

Along with art performances and folk games, visitors to the event will have a chance to taste special dishes of ethnic minority groups.

With a short distance of 35 minutes of driving from Hanois center, the market fair unexpectedly attracted up to 7,000 visitors on its first day on Friday, according to Trinh Ngoc Chung - the acting head of the management board of the Culture-Tourism Village for Vietnamese Ethnic Groups.

Every dish is so delicious and attractive. It may take us all day to experience it all in such a large, open space here, said Thu Thuy, a visitor from the northern city of Hai Phong.

Like Thuy, Manh Cuong, an office worker in Hanoi, said that he was happy to take his family to the village and enjoy the market fair.

Participating in the fair does not only help strengthen our family bonds but also let the children learn about ethnic cultures that they normally only see on TV or Internet, though the bills are a little bit hefty, Cuong added.

Cultural and tourism activities have been still organized in the village daily and during weekends to promote the culture of Vietnamese ethnic minority groups, according to the Vietnam News Agency.

They help increase exchanges among the ethnic groups and attract tourists to the village.

A group of visitors pose for a photo at a market fair in the Culture-Tourism Village for Vietnamese Ethnic Groups in Hanoi, January 1, 2021. Photo: H.Q. / Tuoi Tre

A woman buys entrance tickets at a market fair in the Culture-Tourism Village for Vietnamese Ethnic Groups in Hanoi, January 1, 2021. Photo: H.Q. / Tuoi Tre

A family visit a market fair in the Culture-Tourism Village for Vietnamese Ethnic Groups in Hanoi, January 1, 2021. Photo: H.Q. / Tuoi Tre

Dancers of Vietnam's Tay ethnic minority group perform at a market fair showcasing products of the northern mountainous region held in the Culture-Tourism Village for Vietnamese Ethnic Groups in Son Tay District, Hanoi, January 1, 2021. Photo: H.Q. / Tuoi Tre

People visit a market fair in the Culture-Tourism Village for Vietnamese Ethnic Groups in Hanoi, January 1, 2021. Photo: H.Q. / Tuoi Tre

A visitor watches a woman grilling bushmeat skewers at a market fair showcasing products of the northern mountainous region held in the Culture-Tourism Village for Vietnamese Ethnic Groups in Son Tay District, Hanoi, January 1, 2021. Photo: H.Q. / Tuoi Tre

Visitors queue at the entrance to a market fair in the Culture-Tourism Village for Vietnamese Ethnic Groups in Hanoi, January 1, 2021. Photo: H.Q. / Tuoi Tre

A woman of Vietnam's Mong ethnic minority group is pictured at a market fair in the Culture-Tourism Village for Vietnamese Ethnic Groups in Hanoi, January 1, 2021. Photo: H.Q. / Tuoi Tre

Visitors queue at the entrance to a market fair in the Culture-Tourism Village for Vietnamese Ethnic Groups in Hanoi, January 1, 2021. Photo: H.Q. / Tuoi Tre

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As Houston left 2020 in the rearview mirror, the coronavirus continued to spread throughout the region unchecked, with some of the highest positivity rates since the start of the pandemic.

And that spike will only continue to climb, experts warn, because the numbers do not take into account additional surges tied to holiday gatherings from Christmas and New Years celebrations. The pandemic has already claimed the lives of more than 4,600 people from Greater Houston.

The positive test rate statewide hit a record Friday at 21.15 percent, according to a Houston Chronicle review  surpassing the previous high mark, 20.55 percent, in July.

Its looking bad, said Dr. Peter Hotez, a professor and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. We still havent seen the full impact of whats happened after Christmas and New Years, so you know it wont get better  its only going to get worse.

UNSOLVED: Houstons rate of unsolved murders is soaring. Experts say the police department is to blame.

Local government officials continued to urge Houstonians to remain careful and cautious as hospitals and doctors begin the long process of vaccinating Texas residents.

Were in a very, very precarious situation, said Rafael Lemaitre, spokesman for County Judge Lina Hidalgo. As grateful as many of us are to finally cross the threshold into 2021, were going to have to keep our shoulder to the wheel in the new year as a community. This virus is not through with us.

Across Texas, 12,481 patients are hospitalized with COVID-19, marking the fifth consecutive day of record hospitalizations. More than half of the states trauma service areas, including Houston, Galveston and Victoria, reported that COVID-19 hospitalizations make up more than 15 percent of total hospital capacity, the threshold that signifies high hospitalizations.

In Houston, officials at the Texas Medical Center said that local positivity rates have risen to about 15.3 percent, significantly higher than last weeks daily average of about 11 percent, and the number of average daily positive tests has more than doubled compared with the same week last month.

SEEKING ANSWERS: Woman seeks answers after 2018 killing of son by FBI agent in failed hostage rescue

As we embark upon a new year, we are facing the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic with a record number of new cases, TMC President William F. McKeon said in a daily update to staff. However, we now have renewed hope with the arrival of new vaccines that together we can move to protect our community as soon as possible to isolate and extinguish the COVID-19 virus from our communities.

Under Gov. Greg Abbotts orders, if hospitals continue to experience such high numbers of COVID patients for seven consecutive days, some businesses would be required to limit operations until conditions improve.

The increased positivity rates come as Houston and Texas continue to vaccinate front-line workers and the most vulnerable residents. So far, about 340,000 Texans have begun the vaccination process  with about 52,800 of those vaccinations occurring in Harris County.

Mayor Sylvester Turner on Friday announced the opening of a public clinic that will administer doses of the Moderna vaccine. Health care workers, people over 65 and people with serious underlying health conditions are eligible and must make an appointment by calling 832-393-4220 between 7:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. starting Saturday.

But Hotez warned that Harris County and others across Texas face a daunting challenge to vaccinate enough people to neutralize the virus danger.

You seem nervous: Why most police vehicle searches in Texas turn up nothing

In Harris County, public health authorities will have to ramp up a vaccine distribution program to administer the medicine to some 500,000 residents a month, he said  a volume that the Texas Medical Center and other hospitals, clinics and medical practices arent equipped to handle.

Were not anywhere close to that, he said.

Instead, the county should consider opening vaccination centers at places such as NRG Stadium or the George R. Brown Convention Center, he said.

If we can just gear up to get people vaccinated, then nobody has to lose their lives from COVID-19, he said.

Stephanie Lamm and Todd Ackerman contributed to this report.

st.john.smith@chron.com

twitter.com/stjbs
The All India Trinamool Congress turned 23 as it entered 2021  the year it is expected to witness its biggest political battle so far. After being in power in West Bengal for almost 10 years, the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee-led party is being challenged by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress-Left alliance in the upcoming Legislative Assembly elections. Heres a look at Trinamool Congress milestones over the last 23 years and how got here. (File image: Reuters/Rupak De Chowdhuri)

The party was founded on January 1, 1998 by Mamata Banerjee. In its first year, the party fought the Lok Sabha election for the first time and clinched eight seats in Bengal. (Image: Reuters)

Following the 1999 Lok Sabha polls, Banerjee became the Union Railways Minister for the first time in then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayees Cabinet. Trinamool was part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at that point. She held the portfolio until 2001. In this picture: Banerjee (not in frame), as the railway minister, flagged off a freight train to Bangladesh. (Image: Reuters)

The Trinamool Congress won the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) elections for the first time in the year 2000, while on debut. (Image: Reuters)

The party won 60 of the 294 assembly seats in 2001 while contesting the Bengal state polls for the first time. It emerged as the second-largest party in the House, after the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist). (Image: Reuters)

2006-2007 (Singur and Nandigram): Led by Banerjee, the party caught the nations attention when it protested against the Left government for allegedly acquiring agricultural land from farmers by force. (Image: Reuters)

The Trinamool Congress won the Bengal assembly election in 2011, ending 34 years of Left Front rule in the state. Banerjee became the first woman chief minister of West Bengal. (Image: Reuters)
CBC

Taylina Rhoden says she "never in a million years" thought she'd be grabbed by a police officer or accused of doing something illegal. And she definitely wasn't expecting it the afternoon of Feb. 17, 2021, when she was brushing snow off her car and getting ready to pick up a few groceries with her roommate. "An officer put down his window and he said 'What are you doing over there by that car?' And I said 'It's my car, I'm brushing snow off of it,'" Rhoden recalls. The Ryerson University film student said the Toronto police officer got out of his car and asked her to talk. Rhoden says she was caught off guard and backed away, asked what he wanted to talk about and told him she didn't have to speak with him. "As I was walking away from him, he grabbed me by my arm and that's when I started to get really scared because you've been seeing all these things on the news and I've never been physically apprehended by anybody, let alone a police officer," she said. Rhoden says the officer threatened to charge her with auto theft. "I said 'This is my car. This is my registration. Just let go of me and I can show you the paperwork.' He wouldn't let go. I tried to loosen my grip and he grabbed me back harder and started shaking me and pulling me," she said. At this point, she said she was crying and screaming for help. She says the officer was also not wearing a mask. The Toronto Police Service says it is committed to being transparent and to building trust in the community through such measures as implementing anti-Black racism training and initiatives to address systemic racism. But one year after George Floyd's murder and several protests in Toronto calling for change in policing, advocates say incidents such as this one demonstrate that there is still a lot of work to be done. Black Lives Matter Canada continues to call for a portion of the police budget to be reallocated to community initiatives. Rhoden says it wasn't until her landlord came out of the building, and identified her as his tenant, that the officer moved on. "If my white landlord wasn't there to identify who I was, what would have happened?" Rhoden says she called police after the incident to report the officer and says she didn't get a proper follow up until 12 hours later. She has also filed a complaint with The Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) and secured legal representation. She feels she was stopped because of her race. "You don't have to be doing anything. You can just be outside existing and you get targeted." 'This has to be addressed,' lawyer says Knia Singh, principal lawyer at Ma'at Legal Services who is representing Rhoden, says incidents like this have been brought to his attention more frequently over the last few years as people use cameras on their cell phones to film police activity. "Somebody brushing snow off their car shouldn't be accused of auto theft," he said. Singh added it could have been a simple question and answer interaction, and Rhoden should have been given a chance to show the officer her licence and registration when she offered it. Instead, he says, her rights were violated. Knia Singh is the principal lawyer at Ma'at Legal Services and is representing Rhoden. He's also the co chair of the 'Know Your Rights Committee;' an initiative to educate the public about their rights during interactions with police.(Talia Ricci/CBC News) "What is important is these matters are dealt with right. And there may be many of these across the city, and unfortunately, most citizens don't have the resources to find counsel to help them. They may brush it off, or they may not have a witness," he said. Singh wants to see more discipline for police officers who abuse their power and says that discipline should go beyond a warning or a docking of pay. "This has to be addressed. We know the tensions across North America," he said. "I see change, but I think there's still a lot of work to be done." Black Lives Matter Canada calls for cut to police budget Syrus Marcus Ware, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Canada, says people are talking about policing more than they ever have and he's seeing more stories such as this one come to light. "We're hearing about the every day ways the police cross the line," he said. "It doesn't always end in a fatality. Sometimes it ends in an assault, or other kinds of violence." A summer of protests in 2020 called on the city to reallocate funds from the police budget into the community  housing, community centres and youth programs. Ware says those demands aren't being met. "We're still waiting for a 50 per cent reduction of the police budget to reinvest into the communities. That's something we're holding firm on." Ware says what happened to Rhoden was "outrageous." "We should be able to go out into the street, drive in our cars. We should be able to live in public space without fear of terrorizing from the police," he said. "Our goals are rooted in the idea that we can do better than we are doing now." Toronto police says it's taking steps to deliver fair policing Toronto police said it would be inappropriate for the service to comment on the incident because a complaint has been filed with the OIPRD. In a separate statement requested by CBC News on efforts over the last year to respond to calls for change, the service said: "As part of our commitment to deliver fair and non-discriminatory policing in Toronto, Our Equity, Inclusion and Human Rights Unit is implementing our Race-Based Data Collection Strategy, our Police and Community Engagement Review Committee helped us implement the Know Your Rights video campaign to educate the public about their rights during interactions with police, we have implemented anti-Black racism training, and we have introduced body worn cameras as part of our ongoing commitment to build transparency and public trust." The statement says Toronto Police Chief James Ramer has committed to accelerating the service's response to the 81 recommendations on police reform identified by its board, which includes "a commitment to learning and continuing to address the harmful impacts of systemic racism." Rhoden says incident was humiliating Rhoden and her lawyer say an officer working on her complaint came to her home unannounced on May 15, despite knowing she has legal representation. She said the visit came as a deadline imposed by the OIPRD was approaching to wrap up the case. But Rhoden refused to admit anything was resolved. While three months have passed since the initial incident, the 20-year-old says the experience remains with her. She says she's now afraid of police officers and didn't leave her house a few days after it happened. She says the service has tried setting up a meeting with her and the officer, but she isn't comfortable seeing him in person. "When I was screaming, he even looked at me and was like 'I don't care how much you scream, you can scream all you want.' It just felt like he didn't care what happened to me," she said. "Sometimes I still see his face in nightmares." Rhoden says she shared her story with friends and family and on social media, and received many supportive responses including from Black Torontonians sharing experiences of their own. Reflecting on that day in February, she describes it as terrifying, isolating and humiliating. "It didn't feel like he was following protocol," she said. "It felt personal." For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians  from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community  check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here. (CBC)
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Experts at Indias drug regulators recommended that the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Bharat Biotech coronavirus vaccines be allowed for use in India, the government said on Saturday, paving the way for a formal confirmation before which mass inoculations can begin in the worlds second-most populous country.

The endorsement by the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of the candidate made by University of Oxford and British pharma firm AstraZeneca was communicated on Friday by officials who were aware of developments. This vaccine is being manufactured in India by Serum Institute of India, which will market it as Covishield.

The second endorsement, which carries additional conditions that the use may only be in clinical trial mode of the candidate by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech was unexpected since the developer is yet to determine efficacy data, and it was described as perplexing by independent experts.

The Bharat Biotech vaccine, known as Covaxin, is in phase III trials that began in mid-November. The SEC recommended it be given permission for restricted use in emergency situation in public interest as an abundant precaution, in clinical trial mode, specially in the context of infection by mutant strains, the ministry of health and family welfare said in a statement on Saturday.

Read more| Bharat Biotech recruits 23,000 volunteers for phase 3 clinical trial of Covaxin

Explaining what use in emergency situation means, a member of the expert panel, who did not wish to be named, said: This pandemic is an emergency situation, and this vaccine has been allowed to be used in this situation for lack of any other alternatives before us to control the pandemic. One company alone will not be able to fulfil countrys requirement as India is a vast country so Covaxin is the only another option right now.

Clinical trial mode would mean the data that is there currently is not sufficient for it to be called a full-fledged therapy. Its working more on an experimental basis, this person added.

It appears that the roll-out of the Bharat Biotech vaccine will more restricted than the Serum Institute of India-manufactured vaccine, which has an efficacy rate of 62%.

Serum Institutes vaccine will be the main vaccine. Bharat Biotechs vaccine is a backup for emergency situation, which may happen if there is a sudden surge in cases or reinfection, Dr Randeep Guleria, AIIMS director, told NDTV.

Dr Gagandeep Kang, professor in the department of Gastrointestinal Sciences at Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, and one of the countrys topmost vaccine experts said: We actually do not have EUA (emergency use authorisations), so I have no clue what the language in the statement today means, except that it is different for Covishield and Covaxin.

Read more| Covaxin approval: All you need to know about Bharat Biotech Covid-19 vaccines efficacy, price

The recommendations by the SEC have been sent to the Drugs Controller General of India Dr VG Somani, who heads Indias drug regulator Central Drugs Standards and Control Organisation (CDSCO).

The approval is confirmed. Its now a mere formality for the national drugs controller to put out an order, said a senior health ministry official, who asked not to be named.

The DCGIs final grant could put India among a handful of countries, including the US and UK, that have begun vaccinations. Both the US and the UK too have approved two vaccines, but in their case, all of the candidates have completed requisite scientific process.

So far, the Oxford-AstraZeneca candidate  globally known as AZD1222  remains Indias strongest contender to facilitate immunisation of tens of thousands of people. SII officials have said in recent weeks that they may have 40-50 million doses ready for shipping across India shortly.

Termed as the vaccine of the world, the Oxford antidote is easier to store and transport than the vaccines approved in other western countries. It can be kept at refrigerator temperatures (between 2-8C) for up to six months, a feature that facilitates utilisation of Indias vast immunisation infrastructure.

Read more| India perhaps only country with 4 vaccines almost ready, says Prakash Javadekar

Like the Oxford vaccine, Bharat Biotechs Covaxin is also easy to store and transport, and is being indigenously produced. The company is aiming to produce up to 300 million doses annually, and it did not disclose if it has stockpiled any volumes.

Bharat Biotech has announced successful recruitment of 23,000 volunteers, and continued progress towards achieving the goal of 26,000 participants for Phase-3 clinical trial of Covaxin across multiple sites in India. The clinical trials... is Indias first and only Phase III efficacy study for a Covid-19 vaccine, and the largest phase III efficacy trial ever conducted for any vaccine in India. Covaxin has been evaluated in approximately 1,000 subjects in Phase I and Phase II clinical trials, with promising safety and immunogenicity results, with acceptance in international peer reviewed scientific journals, the company said in a statement on Saturday.

In December, the company released data from phase I/II trials showing most volunteers who were given the dose developed antibodies and these were comparable to antibodies developed after a natural infection.

Efficacy data, which the company has said in its protocol will be analysed at 130 infections, is yet to be announced. Developers calculate efficacy when they hit the preset number of infections, at which point they un-blind the trial to check how many of these were in people who actually got the vaccine (as compared to a placebo).

If the number of infections among those vaccinated is at least 50% fewer, the vaccine is deemed to have an efficacy rate of 50% -- the minimum bar any coronavirus vaccine needs to meet for approval.

Covishield, based on an adenovirus vector, has shown an efficacy rate of 62% in trials held in UK and Brazil.

Read more| Reading the clues from Covaxin early trial data

The Bharat Biotech vaccine is based on an inactivated virus platform, one of the oldest known methods to develop an inoculation. This technique has been used historically for several other diseases including Hepatitis A, Influenza, Polio and Rabies.

The country is also gearing up to carry out the worlds largest vaccination programme, with all states and Union territories conducting mock inoculation drills in a test run ahead of the launch.

Union health minister Harsh Vardhan on Saturday announced that shots administered in the first phase of Indias inoculation drive will be free of cost. The government aims to vaccinate 300 million people in the high-risk category of the population by July-August in this phase.

The SEC on Saturday also granted permission to Ahmedabad-based Zydus Cadila to conduct Phase 3 trials of its vaccine candidate.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 2) - The nine policemen involved in the shooting incident in Sulu last year, which killed four soldiers, were dismissed from service, this was confirmed by Philippine National Police spokesperson Brigadier Gen. Ildebrandi Usana to CNN Philippines.

In a separate interview on Saturday, Usana said their dismissal order was "immediately executory."

Ang order pong ito is executory. Ibig sabihin immediately upon the issuance of order sila po ay dismissed na from the service, Usana told CNN Philippines Newsroom Weekend.

[Translation: This order is executory. This means that they were dismissed from the service upon the issuance of the order.]

Technically sila po ay maituturing na pong mga civilians, he added.

[Translation: Technically, they are now considered civilians.]

On June 29, four Philippine Army intelligence personnel were on their way to an official mission when they were gunned down by the police in Jolo. The Sulu provincial police office initially said the cops claimed self-defense, but later in a Senate investigation, the accused officers admitted they were not sure who fired first between them and the intelligence agents.

The National Bureau of Investigation has also filed murder and planting of evidence charges against the cops involved. Usana said these cases are still pending in the Department of Justice.

Also facing an administrative case for neglect of duty under the doctrine of command responsibility are Sulu police chief Michael Bayawan, and provincial drug enforcement unit head Ariel Corcino.

Executive Order 226 provides that "any government official or supervisor, or officer of the Philippine National Police or that of any other law enforcement agency shall be held accountable for "Neglect of Duty" under the doctrine of "command responsibility" if he has knowledge that a crime or offense shall be committed, is being committed, or has been committed by his subordinates, or by others within his area of responsibility and, despite such knowledge, he did not take preventive or corrective action either before, during, or immediately after its commission."

Former Jolo police chief Walter Annayo was also facing a case for neglect of duty until he was gunned down in last November.
Kendallville, IN (46755)

Today

Partly cloudy skies early then becoming cloudy with periods of rain late. Low 64F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

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Partly cloudy skies early then becoming cloudy with periods of rain late. Low 64F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
Farmer groups continued to block traffic from Ghaziabad and Noida to Delhi on Saturday even as the vehicular movement continued smoothly the other way around. The Singhu and Tikri border crossing points from Delhi to Haryana have also remained completely blocked since last month when the farmer agitation against three laws enacted to liberalize the sector started.

A police officer said the traffic was moving from Delhi to Noida smoothly as usual via the Chila border while the lane leading to Delhi remains blocked. Farmers also continue to block one side of the Delhi-Meerut elevated expressway.

We are maintaining sufficient deployment of the security personnel at the border to ensure law and order, the officer said.

At the Ghazipur border, the National Highway-24s service lane continued to remain closed for traffic.

In a tweet, the Delhi traffic police on Friday said, The Chilla & Ghazipur Borders are closed for traffic coming from Noida & Ghaziabad to Delhi because of farmer protests. Please take alternate route for coming to Delhi via Anand Vihar, DND, Apsara, Bhopra & Loni Borders.

In another tweet, they added: Singhu, Auchandi, Piau Maniyari, Saboli & Mangesh borders closed. Please take alternate route via Lampur Safiabad, Palla & Singhu school toll tax borders. Traffic has been diverted from Mukarba & GTK road. Please avoid Outer Ring Road, GTK Road & NH-44.
Trinidad and Tobago is currently on its worst leg of this Covid-19 pandemic. Daily new cases are 300-600 with daily deaths having reached the 20s.

Internationally, this pandemic has been a scourge for almost one and a half years. Despite things seeming hopeless, we have gained much more knowledge about the virus in that time.
Parents of 11-year- old Don-Davies Archibong, JSS1 student of Deeper Life High School Idoro Uyo, have demanded the sum of one hundred mi...

Parents of 11-year- old Don-Davies Archibong, JSS1 student of Deeper Life High School Idoro Uyo, have demanded the sum of one hundred million naira compensation for the inhuman torture their son was allegedly subjected to in the School.

This is contained in a letter addressed to the Principal of the School, entitled Gross Child abuse, palpable molestation, serial bullying, criminal starvation, malicious oppression, and dubious maltreatment of Master Don-Davies Archibong (11years old) by the Principal and Boarding Master, of Deeper Life Secondary School, Uyo

The parents Mr and Mrs Iniobong Archibong sent the letter through their solicitors, Eagle-Eyes Network Chambers, and signed by David Okokon (Esq).

According to the letter which was dated December 22, 2020, the School was given 21 days of the receipt of the letter to pay the N100million compensation.

The letter reads in part, We are solicitors to Mr. and Mrs, Iniobong Archibong, resident in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State herein after referred to as our client. We have the firm explicit and unequivocal instructions to write to you on the above subject matter.

It is indeed provocatively heartbroken, morally suicidal, religiously hypocritical that our clients 11 year old son was torrentially bombarded with physical, and inhuman torture of debilitating dimension with resultant castration of his human person, dignity, and childhood innocence.

We respectfully demand the payment of N100,000,000 within 21 days of the receipt of this letter as compensation to assuage the dehumanizing, horrendous torture and indignity our clients son was subjected to and for his medical checkup and medication.

We demand that Deeper Life High School Idoro, Uyo to publish an unreserved apology to our clients in two National Newspapers; PUNCH, THISDAY, and any other two local Newspapers circulated within Akwa Ibom State and its environs

Meanwhile Akwa Ibom State government announced its decision to withdraw from investigating the matter. The Commissioner for Information and Strategy Mr. Ini Ememobong who made this known in a statement made available to newsmen Thursday in Uyo, therefore appealed to the public to exercise patience for a thorough investigation to be carried out by the police and other relevant institutions. The State Government will upon receipt of the report take necessary actions thereto, Ememobong assured.
January 01, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - I learned the facts of life from a drunk uncle. He was not an American, and worked in international construction in Asia. His main job was to bribe people. Over the course of many tiny glasses of some awful, clear Asian liquor I learned every yard of concrete poured required money to gangsters who controlled unions and to politicians who controlled permits. A fact of life, he said. You get used to it. He even had a jokemy hands are dirtier than the guys who dig the foundations.

You come to realize someone is pulling the strings behind everything and it usually isnt you, he said. The odd official just doing his job for his salary is a rube. You feel embarrassed for him, saying no for moral reasons. You learn, uncle slurred, to trust nothing. That politician on TV? The company just dropped off a nice check to his charity. Play by the rules? Those were the rules.

The first bribe I ever paid was to an Indonesian immigration officer, who noticed some small defect on my passport. Of course, he said, it could be resolved. Between us. With a fine (so many euphemisms). Off to the side. In cash. It was all of $20 to save a vacation but I felt filthy, cheated, a chump. But I learned the rules.

In New York we use the euphemism tip, and it is as required as oxygen to get through the day. A restaurant table pre-COVID. A last minute anything. A friendlier handling by a doorman. Timely attention to fix-it requests. My, um, friend, used to pay a lot of money for better hotel rooms until he learned $20 at check in with a friendly anything you can do often got him upgraded to the same thing at a fraction of the price. What, you still paying retail, bro?

I used to think it was all small stuff, maybe with the odd mafia king bribing a judge with real money or something else Netflix-worthy. In America we were ultimately fair, right? But things started to add up. We have our petty corruption like anywhere, but our souls are filthy on a much larger scale. America goes big or it goes home.

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Things like the Clinton Foundation accepting donations from the Saudis to help with womens empowerment, an issue of course dear to the heart of the Kingdom. When it looked like his wife was going to be president, Bill made six-figure speeches to businesses seeking influence within the U.S. government, earning $50 million during his wifes term as secretary of pay-for-play state. The Foundation, now mostly out of business, was at its peak a two-billion-dollar financial dangle. It spent in 2013 the same on travel expenses for Hillary and her family as it did on charitable grants. The media, forever big Clinton fans, told us we should be used to it. Hey, Nixon was so much worse.

Trump refused to be very specific about who his charity donated to. We know its offshoot, the Eric Trump charity, donated to a wine industry association, a plastic surgeon supposedly gifting nose jobs to kids, and an artist who painted a portrait of Donald. Trump-owned resorts received $880,000 for hosting Trump-sponsored charity events. Trump donated money from his foundation to conservative influencers ahead of his presidential bid.

With Joe as vice president, the Bidens made $396,000 in 2016. But in just the four years since leaving the Obama White House, Joe and Jill made more than $15 million. In fact, as his prospects for election improved, Joe and his wife made nearly twice as much in one year as they did in the previous 19 years combined. Joe scored $10 million alone for a book no one read. Jill was paid more than $3 million for her book in 2018. Joe has a tax-dodge S Corporation that donated money back to his own political PAC. Then of course there was Hunter, who scored millions in Chinese and Ukrainian money for doing nothing but being Joes son.

About half the nation got very twisted over Trumps corruption and actively avoided noticing the Clintons and Bidens, and vice-versa, to the point of covering their ears NYANYANAYNYA. Yeah, politicians are corrupt, but does anyone think the donors in all three cases didnt know what they were buying? What, you still voting retail, bro?

But even all those millions, measured in Epsteins (a unit of influence buying I just made up) are petty cash. Real corruption scales. Pre-COVID Americas 614 billionaires were worth $2.95 trillion. As the Dow hit record highs this month, there are now 650 billionaires and their combined wealth is $4 trillion. The 400 richest Americans own 64 percent of the countrys wealth.

Whered all their money come from? You.

Dan Gilbert, chair of Quicken Loans, worth $7 billion in March, is now at $43 billion (thanks for paying on time each month.) Who benefited more from COVID and everyone buying from home then Amazon and Jeff Bezos? It takes a lot of poor people to sustain that amount of wealth at the top.

Money is always good. But it is wrong to think just in dollars. Thats how small-time grifters like waiters and the Bidens think. The real rich understand wealth as power. The power to shape society and government to ensure they make more money for more power until someday they Have. It. All. You hope one day for an upgrade to business class; they own the jet.

To talk about conspiracy theories is to imply something different happened, that the system does not work as intended; for example, instead of an election the president was assassinated to change leaders. So lets not call what happened this autumn to elect Joe Biden a conspiracy. But here is what happened.

Corporate media owned by the wealthiest Americans spent four years attacking Trump. Working as a single organism fused to the Democratic party as its host, they tried to bundle Trump into a SuperMax as a literal Russian agent. When that failed they ginned up an impeachment with more holes in it than a bad joke about Stormy Daniels. The same media then pivoted to defense when it mattered most, sending information about Hunter Biden that would have changed the election down the memory hole, and policing social media to Joes advantage.

Corporate pharma, also owned by the same people, held back announcement of COVID vaccines until just after the election. The intel community, tightly bound with Big Tech and its super-wealthy owners, did its part leaking and concealing information as needed. They too worked to discredit the Hunter Biden story by calling it Russian disinfo. Money that actually controls information is gold.

Earlier in the contest something happened, again, in Democratic primaries which began with some of the most progressive candidates in the running since Henry Wallace. Instead a politician known as the Senator from Mastercard was pushed into the White House. It was just a coincidence two promising candidates, Buttigieg and Klobuchar, dropped out nearly simultaneously just ahead of the South Carolina vote Biden desperately needed to end Bernie, again. How many people in America are powerful enough to have made those phone calls to Pete and Amy?

Biden promptly returned the favor, filling his Cabinet with the same old thinkers corporate America liked from the Obama years. A highlight is Janet Yellen (net worth $13 million) at Treasury, who helped swizzle the corporate bailout that created the .01 percent out of the one percent after the Great Recession. Notice how crises for most of us like the Recession and COVID end up benefiting the wealthy? Biden was wrong when he told donors nothing would fundamentally change for the wealthy when hes in chargeactually, thingsll get better.

A tiny percentage of Americans own, control, and benefit from most everything; some call them the one percent but a large number of even those people are just slugs and remoras (hedge fund managers, corporate lawyers) who feed off the crumbs left by the really powerful. You know a handful of the namesBezos, Gates, Buffetbecause they own public-facing companies. Most of the others prefer less public lives while they control the public. And silly you, you worried that it was the Russians who stole the election. What, you arent down with using Prime points to vote in the next election, bro?
A prominent member of the federal New Democrats has lost her cabinet critic positions after travelling to Greece in spite of widespread travel restrictions meant to curb the spread of COVID-19.

NDP MP Niki Ashton stands during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Thursday, April 26, 2018. The federal NDP say Ashton will be removed from her shadow critic roles after she travelled to Greece to visit an ill family member. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

A prominent member of the federal New Democrats has lost her cabinet critic positions after travelling to Greece in spite of widespread travel restrictions meant to curb the spread of COVID-19.

The party released a statement saying Manitoba member of Parliament Niki Ashton travelled to Greece recently to visit a family member who was seriously ill.

It says Greek officials, who currently only permit visitors to enter the country if they can prove their trip is essential, approved Ashton's visit.

The NDP says Ashton reached out to Canadian officials for "best practices," but did not notify leader Jagmeet Singh or the party whip of her travel plans.

The statement says party members sympathize with Ashton's situation, but notes millions of Canadians adhered to public health guidelines under similarly pressing circumstances.

Ashton did not immediately respond to request for comment on the loss of her critic roles, but she says on Twitter that she is in Greece to visit her sick grandmother.

"Canadians, rightfully, expect their elected representatives to lead b example," the statement reads. "While this is no family vacation, Ms. Ashton will be removed from her shadow critic roles."

The party said the portfolios Ashton oversaw will be reassigned in the coming days.

Ashton is the latest senior politician to face consequences for flouting advice to stay home during a global pandemic.

Rod Phillips resigned from his former role as Ontario finance minister on Thursday after travelling to the Caribbean over the holiday season.

Several members of Alberta's United Conservative government, including Municipal Affairs Minister Tracy Allard and Premier Jason Kenney's chief of staff, were also revealed to have travelled in recent weeks.

The trips prompted Kenney to issue a directive forbidding senior government players from travelling outside Canada during the pandemic. He said he ought to have issued such a directive sooner, but said those who took trips before Friday's announcement will not be sanctioned as they did not violate any rules and followed safety guidelines.

Allard later apologized for taking the trip.

In Saskatchewan, Highways Minister Joe Hargrave apologized for travelling with his wife to Palm Springs, Calif., to complete the sale of a home. And in Quebec, Liberal assembly member Pierre Arcand was facing heat for a trip with his wife to Barbados.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 1, 2021.
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Starvation is agonizing and degrading. You lose control of your bowels. Your skin peels off, your hair falls out, you hallucinate and you may go blind from lack of vitamin A. While you waste away, your body cannibalizes itself: It consumes its own muscles, even the heart.

Yet Abdo Sayid, a 4-year-old boy so emaciated he weighed just 14 pounds, wasnt crying when he was brought to a hospital recently in Aden, Yemen. Thats because children who are starving dont cry or even frown. Instead, they are eerily calm; they appear apathetic, often expressionless. A body that is starving doesnt waste energy on tears. It directs every calorie to keep the major organs functioning.

Abdo died soon after arriving at the hospital. A photographer named Giles Clarke, a friend of mine whom I met on my last trip to Yemen, was there again and captured the scene.

His photographs, including those with this column, are painful to witness, but many families, including Abdos, allow photography  indeed, want photos to be circulated  because they hope that the world will understand that children are dying needlessly of hunger, and that help is desperately needed to avert more child deaths.
Donald Trumps last desperate bid to block his election defeat heads to Congress on Wednesday (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

President Donald Trumps extraordinary challenge of his election defeat by President-elect Joe Biden is becoming a defining moment for the Republican Party before next weeks joint session of Congress to confirm the Electoral College results.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is urging Republicans not to try to overturn the election, but not everyone is heeding him.

Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri has vowed to join House Republicans in objecting to the state tallies. On the other side of the partys split, fellow GOP senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska warns such challenges are a dangerous ploy threatening the nations civic norms.

Caught in the middle is vice president Mike Pence, who faces growing pressure from Mr Trumps allies over his ceremonial role in presiding over the session Wednesday. This has included a lawsuit  aimed to give Mr Pence the power to overturn the results of the presidential election  that was dismissed by a federal judge on Friday.

Expand Close Mike Pence has become a key figure in the Congress showdown (Lynne Sladky/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

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The days ahead are expected to do little to change the outcome.

Mr Biden is set to be inaugurated on January 20 after winning the Electoral College vote 306-232. But the effort to subvert the will of voters is forcing Republicans to make choices that will set the contours of the post-Trump era and an evolving GOP.

I will not be participating in a project to overturn the election, Mr Sasse wrote in a lengthy social media post.

Why I Will Not Participate in a Project to Overturn the Election: https://t.co/z8niiPle3q  Senator Ben Sasse (@SenSasse) December 31, 2020

Mr Sasse, a potential 2024 presidential contender, said he was urging my colleagues also to reject this dangerous ploy.

Mr Trump, the first president to lose a re-election bid in almost 30 years, has attributed his defeat to widespread voter fraud, despite the consensus of non-partisan election officials that there was none.

Of the roughly 50 lawsuits the president and his allies have filed challenging election results, nearly all have been dismissed or dropped. He has also lost twice at the US Supreme Court.

Still, the president has pushed Republican senators to pursue his unfounded charges even though the Electoral College has already cemented Mr Bidens victory, and all that is left is Congresss formal recognition of the count before the new president is sworn in.

We are letting people vote their conscience, senator John Thune, the second-ranking Republican, told reporters at the Capitol.

Mr Thunes remarks as the GOP whip in charge of rounding up votes show Republican leadership is not putting its muscle behind Mr Trumps demands, but allowing senators to choose their course. He noted the gravity of questioning the election outcome.

Expand Close Donald Trump, seen here flying back to Washington from his Florida holiday on Thursday, is still claiming electoral fraud (Patrick Semansky/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Donald Trump, seen here flying back to Washington from his Florida holiday on Thursday, is still claiming electoral fraud (Patrick Semansky/AP)

This is an issue thats incredibly consequential, incredibly rare historically and very precedent-setting, he said. This is a big vote. They are thinking about it.

Mr Pence will be carefully watched as he presides over what is typically a routine vote count in Congress but is now heading toward a prolonged showdown that could extend into Wednesday night, depending on how many challenges Mr Hawley and others mount.

A federal judge on Friday dismissed a last-gasp lawsuit led by a House Republican aimed at giving Mr Pence the power to overturn the results of the election won by Mr Biden when Congress formally counts the Electoral College votes next week.

Mr Pence, as president of the Senate, will oversee the session on Wednesday and declare the winner of the White House race. The Electoral College this month cemented Mr Bidens 306-232 victory.

The suit named Mr Pence, who has a largely ceremonial role in next weeks proceedings, as the defendant, and asked the court to throw out the 1887 law that spells out how Congress handles the vote counting.

It asserted the vice president may exercise the exclusive authority and sole discretion in determining which electoral votes to count for a given State.

In dismissing the lawsuit filed by Texan Republican representative Louie Gohmert and a group of Republican electors from Arizona, Texas US District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, wrote that the plaintiffs allege an injury that is not fairly traceable to Mr Pence, and is unlikely to be redressed by the requested relief.

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(Natural News) Until the electoral votes are certified by Congress on Jan. 6, our country will not officially select the next president. Nevertheless, liberal voices across America have already claimed victory in the presidential race and have begun laying the framework for a Biden administration.

(Article by Rep. Brian Babin republished from DailySignal.com)

It should come as no surprise that these plans are broad in scope and radical in intent. Look no further than the Human Rights Campaigns Blueprint for Positive Changea list of recommendations to a Biden administrationto see the left expose its desire to force conservatives across the country to conform to its vision for our nation.

Some of the most shocking and disturbing demands found in this blueprint concern our schools and academia, long seen as the most promising pathway for the left to push its agenda and indoctrinate American youth as disciples of progressivism.

One of the 85 egregious requests, woefully underreported in the media thus far, is to strip accreditation from religious colleges and universities that do not meet non-discrimination policies and science-based curricula standards.

Here, couched in language designed to suggest moral superiority and scientific legitimacy, is a blatant, full-frontal assault on our religious liberties.

The Human Rights Campaign is not simply suggesting that Christian institutions comply with the lefts view of non-discrimination, but rather it is forcing institutions to either abandon the tenants of their religious beliefs or face severe consequences. Havent we seen this play out in history before, such as the Soviet Revolution and Maos Cultural Revolution?

As weve already seen from his statements on the campaign trail and his inconsistent ideologies as a career politician, former Vice President Joe Biden is more than willing to cave under pressure from the most radical wings of his party, especially when it comes to the LGBT community.

How quickly theyve preyed on Bidens weaknessesexploiting his malleability and willingness to kowtow to gay activist groups, so-called social justice warriors, opponents of law and order, and other moral revolutionaries.

Should Biden find himself in the White House come January, he will not resist this degradation of American ideals; instead, he will work to make us less free, more secular, and more like his own fanatical base under the guise of progress.

If the Human Rights Campaign is successful, Christian schools will cease to exist and religious institutions will be bullied to bow down to the LGBT orthodoxy.

Our right to religious liberty is about more than just the freedom to worship, its about the assurance that we cannot be forced to go against our core values and principles.

The hypocritical lefts bombardment on our beliefs started long before the Blueprint for Positive Change. Now more than ever, defenders of religious freedom must hold the line.

Read more at: DailySignal.com and LeftCult.com.
The coronavirus pandemic is on track to kill another 115,000 Americans by the end of January, according to one statistical model, which claims that universal wearing of masks and a rapid vaccine rollout could save about 13,000 lives in the next four weeks.

As of Saturday, the total number of U.S. deaths in the pandemic was approaching 348,000, and since March more than 20 million Americans have been infected by the virus.

The sluggish and at times chaotic initial rollout of vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna has drawn sharp criticism from a range of political leaders, including President-elect Joe Biden and Republican Senator Mitt Romney.

Following current trends, the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projects that the death toll will hit 456,238 by January 31.

Following current trends, the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projects that the death toll will hit 456,238 by January 31

Rapid vaccine rollout would have the biggest impact starting in February, as the vaccines take weeks to take effect. The IHME's projections of daily deaths are seen above

Healthcare workers wheel a patient into a hospital in New York on New Year's Day. The total number of COVID-19 cases in the United States since March topped 20 million on Friday

The statistical model predicts that if everyone in the country wore a mask or face covering in public, January's death toll would drop by about 13,000.

A rapid vaccine rollout would only spare about 1,000 lives in January, according to the model. Since the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines both take several weeks to provide effective protection, their true impact would only be seen over a longer timeline.

As of Saturday, 3.49 million vaccine doses have been administered nationwide, according to a Bloomberg analysis. That accounts for just 28 percent of the vaccine doses that have been distributed top the states, and means that 1.1 percent of the total population has received a dose.

It was far short of the Trump administration's goal of vaccinating 20 million Americans with a first of two required doses by the end of 2020.

Senator Romney, a Utah Republican and frequent critic of President Donald Trump, issued an emotional statement on Friday urging the U.S. government to immediately enlist veterinarians, combat medics and others in a dramatic proposal to boost vaccination efforts.

Fire Chief Colin Stowell (left) receives the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at the San Diego Fire-Rescue Training Facility on Thursday

'That comprehensive vaccination plans have not been developed at the federal level and sent to the states as models is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable,' Romney said in a statement that was perhaps aimed as much at the incoming Biden administration as the outgoing Trump one.

'It was unrealistic to assume that the health care workers already overburdened with Covid care could take on a massive vaccination program,' Romney said.

He called on the government to 'enlist every medical professional, retired or active, who is not currently engaged in the delivery of care' to be drafted into a crash program of government-run vaccination sites across the country.

'This could include veterinarians, combat medics and corpsmen, medical students, EMS professionals, first responders, and many others who could be easily trained to administer vaccines,' he proposed.

Romney also proposed a scheme to 'Schedule vaccinations according to a person's priority category and birthdate: e.g., people in group A with a January first birthday would be assigned a specific day to receive their vaccination.'

Referring to his experience overseeing the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, Romney also included what could be seen as a pitch to the Biden administration to offer his own assistance, saying: 'I have experience organizing a major logistical event,' though adding humbly that it was 'nothing on the scale of what is called for today.'

Hundreds wait in line to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in Fort Myers, Florida, on Thursday. Floridians over age 65 can get the vaccine on a first-come, first-served basis

Biden also took a swipe at the Trump administration's oversight in a tweet on Friday, writing: 'Let me be clear: The Biden-Harris Administration will spare no effort to make sure people are getting vaccinated.'

Biden has vowed to invoke the Defense Production Act and ensure that 100 million vaccines are administered in his first 100 days in office, though he has offered few concrete details on how this would be achieved.

California, the most populous state with 40 million residents, has become a leading U.S. flashpoint of the pandemic despite some of the nation's toughest restrictions on social gatherings and business activities.

The soaring COVID-19 case load has pushed hospitals in and around Los Angeles in particular to their limits, filling emergency rooms, intensive care units, ambulance bays and morgues beyond capacity, and creating staff shortages.

Briefing reporters on Thursday, Cathy Chidester, director of the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency, called the situation a 'hidden disaster,' not plainly visible to the public.

Medical experts attribute the worsening pandemic in recent weeks to the arrival of colder weather and the failure of many Americans to abide by public health warnings and requirements to stay home and avoid unnecessary travel over the year-end holiday season.

Hospital doctors and nurses treat Covid-19 patients in a makeshift ICU wing on the West Oeste at Harbor UCLA Medical Center on Tuesday in Torrence, California

Funeral services are held for grandfather Gilberto Arreguin Camacho, who died due to Covid-19, at Continental Funeral Home on Wednesday in East Los Angeles, California

The crisis faced by healthcare systems has become especially acute in Los Angeles County where one patient is dying every 10 minutes from the respiratory virus, according to county health officials.

Heightened demands of caring for those struggling to breathe has also left many hospitals in the region short on oxygen, both in supplies and the ability of older facilities to maintain adequate pressure flow through ventilators, Chidester said.

She also described ambulances forced to wait several hours at a time to unload patients, causing delays throughout the county's emergency response system.

To ease ER overcrowding, the county is denying ambulance transport to hospitals of emergency patients who are already under hospice care with do-not-resuscitate directives, according to Adam Blackstone, a spokesman for the Hospital Association of Southern California.

The leading U.S. infectious disease specialist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said on Wednesday he was confident of overcoming early glitches in the vaccine campaign, saying America could still achieve enough collective immunity through vaccinations to regain 'some semblance of normality' by autumn 2021.
Today

Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 46F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph.

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 46F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph.

Tomorrow

Cloudy early with thunderstorms developing later in the day. High 63F. ESE winds shifting to NW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 70%. Higher wind gusts possible.
Denton, TX (76205)

Today

Partly cloudy skies early with heavy thunderstorms developing overnight. Low 68F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early with heavy thunderstorms developing overnight. Low 68F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
The Education Department should also recognize that this pandemic will not be the last one. That means developing a list of best practices and strategic schools plans that can be swiftly rolled out when another medical crisis occurs with a different infectious agent.

In addition to addressing worrisome matters like these, the new education commissioner needs to revoke a series of department communiques that had the effect of letting school districts off the hook for discriminatory disciplinary practices and other potential violations of civil rights law. The Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights exposed the depth of this problem during the Obama years, when it released data showing that excessively punitive policies were being used at every level of the public school system  and that even minority 4-year-olds were being disproportionately suspended and expelled.

The new administration needs to underscore the message that these damaging practices are unacceptable. This means renewing civil rights guidance to school districts and opening investigations after credible reports of wrongdoing.

The DeVos administration sold out to predatory for-profit colleges and their various abettors within a nanosecond of taking office. To get a jump on reversing this particular set of policies, the new education secretary can begin rule-making processes where necessary and inform the courts that it will no longer defend against lawsuits filed by state attorneys general and others who have dogged the DeVos department in court for buddying up to the for-profit industry and attacking student borrowers who deserve to have their student loans forgiven because they were defrauded by career education programs.

The department should immediately begin rule-making to reverse Ms. DeVoss gutting of the gainful employment rule, which was supposed to cut off access to federal student aid for career training programs that buried students in debt while failing to prepare them for the job market.

Pending in court is a lawsuit filed by 22 states and the District of Columbia charging that Ms. DeVos unlawfully rescinded an Obama-era rule that allowed students who had been defrauded by career colleges to have their federal loans forgiven. The department should stop defending against this lawsuit and revisit loan discharge claims by borrowers who remain saddled with debt even though the schools they attended were shown to be engaged in fraud. The DeVos version of the so-called borrower defense rule was so onerous for defrauded borrowers that Congress passed a bipartisan measure blocking it. That measure, however, was vetoed by the president.

In yet another sop to the for-profit industry, Ms. DeVos disregarded a scathing indictment by her departments career staff, reinstating an accrediting body that had been stripped of its authority for exercising lax oversight. The organization was the accreditor for two for-profit institutions that collapsed, leaving tens of thousands of students with debt and useless degrees. The new education secretary would do well to closely scrutinize the departments methodology for evaluating accreditors.
A stowaway who clung to the undercarriage of a jumbo jet and survived an 11-hour, 5,639-mile flight from South Africa to London has spoken for the first time of his terrifying journey.

He recalled how he emerged from a coma months later to learn his best friend had fallen 5,000ft from the aircraft to his death.

Themba Cabeka, whose identity is revealed for the first time, was unconscious in hospital for six months after being discovered on the ground at Heathrow Airport. He had been starved of oxygen and subjected to temperatures of -60C as the British Airways jet flew from Johannesburg on June 18, 2015.

Only minutes before landing, Carlito Vale  a friend who had also escaped the poverty of their South African camp site and had crawled with him into the wheel arch of the Boeing 747-400  fell from BA Flight 54. His body was found in the air-conditioning unit of an office block in Richmond, six miles from Heathrow.

Cabeka, 30, recalls: When the plane was flying, I could see the ground, I could see the cars, I could see small people. After a little time, I passed out through lack of oxygen. The last thing I remember just after the plane took off was Carlito saying to me: Yeah, weve made it. 

INJURIES: Themba Cabeka (right), who has now adopted a British name, Justin, still uses crutches after falling from the plane at Heathrow. He is pictured with Channel 4 producer Rich Bentley who tracked him down to a flat in Liverpool for a documentary, The Man Who Fell From The Sky, to be screened tomorrow night

He says that when he came out of his coma, a police officer showed him Carlitos passport and asked: Do you know him? He replied: Of course I know him. Thats my friend, Carlito.

The officer told him: He never made it. He fell on top of a building.

There have been 109 recorded stowaway attempts around the world  London being one of the most popular destinations  but only 24 people who took their chances in a planes landing gear have survived. The first known survivor was Bas Wie, 12, who hid on a flight from Indonesia to Australia in 1946.

Only two people have lived after stowing away to Britain: Pardeep Saini, a car mechanic from Punjab, who endured a ten-hour flight from Delhi to London in 1996, and Cabeka.

Even now, 25 years after his escapade, Saini  now married with two sons and working as a driver at Heathrow  is often traumatised by the experience, during which his younger brother froze to death.

Little was known about Cabeka until Channel 4 producer Rich Bentley tracked him down to a flat in Liverpool for a documentary, The Man Who Fell From The Sky, to be screened tomorrow night. Cabeka has now adopted a British name, Justin.

His story began when he met Vale in a Johannesburg nightclub and they plotted their illegal journey to Britain. Vale had been a homeless street kid whod grown up in an orphanage following the civil war in Mozambique. Then estranged from his wife and daughter, now aged 11, he dreamt of a better life abroad.

Cabeka, who never knew his father and was abandoned by his mother when he was three months old, had been living since the age of seven in a campsite near Johannesburg Airport.

He said the violence and gang warfare in the city had left him emotionally broken. My background was very hard. I was raised by my cousin, who adopted me as a child. Everything was normal until she passed away. I was going to school but I had to drop out because I couldnt pay the fees.

When my cousin died, everything started to break down. So I thought, thats the end for me.

I was living in a township but people around there were jealous because I had a house. They wanted to kill me to get the house. I ended up in hospital for three days and had to leave the township. After ending up in the camp near the airport, he said he had to beg for money for food. My life was going to waste. Its very hard being homeless. I tried to build myself up but it was too hard.

It was at this point that he met Vale. He said: I was sitting at a table inside the club. He came over to me looking for cigarettes and I gave him one. I saw he had nothing so I said: Come sit down and join me and drink these beers.

He told me he was married but hed broken up with his wife and he had a daughter.

He told me he was homeless. I said: Look at me. Im like you. We have to stick together. 

Cabeka had been starved of oxygen and subjected to temperatures of -60C as the British Airways jet flew from Johannesburg on June 18, 2015. His friend Carlito Vale fell from the aircraft and his body was found in an office block in Richmond, six miles from Heathrow

Cabeka invited Vale to live with him at the campsite and the pair grew close. He opened his heart to me and I opened my heart to him, so we became friends. He was a good guy because he was quiet. He didnt like violence. We had the same thoughts because of our situation. I didnt have any family so I thought: Its better for me to leave the country and look for somewhere to start. He felt the same.

Their escape plan was hatched after looking at Vales collection of engineering books which included one about aeroplanes. Cabeka says: I took down all the details so that if we wanted to go on a plane, theres the way to do it.

And so they went to the airport on the evening of June 18, 2015.

The airport was guarded so we jumped over the fence when it was dark, Cabeka said. We dressed in black because we have to dress like no one sees us  two T-shirts, three jackets, two jeans.

After getting over the fence, they hid for about 15 minutes until they spotted a plane ready to take off.

It is not clear if they had researched which plane to jump on but they chose British Airways because they recognised the livery. Cabeka says they deliberately avoided American airliners because they didnt want to fly over large expanses of water.

The BA jumbo to London took off at 10.15pm. It was the first time either man had been on an aeroplane. We had to force ourselves to be squeezed inside. I could hear the engine running, he said.

My heart had pounded before, but that day it was not in my mind at all because I had just taken the decision to do it.

I knew how dangerous it was but I just took my own chances. I didnt care whether I lived or died. I had to leave Africa to survive.

Cabeka tied himself to the plane with an electric cable wrapped around his arm. Aviation experts say it is very rare for stowaways to survive in an unheated, unpressurised part of an aircraft. There is room, though, in the four sets of a 747s landing gear, each in a housing the size of a car, as long as they stay in one of the corners away from the wheels when they retract.

Very soon, though, Cabeka passed out through lack of oxygen.

He still cannot believe he managed to survive temperatures that would have dropped to -60C. The first thing he recalled was lying on the runway with a shattered leg.

The thing that made me wake up is the way I dropped out on the runway, said Cabeka, who still uses crutches due to injuries sustained when he fell. I was here. The plane was there. I was asking myself, How did I get out of the plane? I could see these guys, they were the guards, they carried me up and I passed out again. I woke up in hospital after being in a coma for six months.

Doctors believe Cabeka survived because the freezing temperatures kept him in a state of suspended animation. With a lowered core body temperature, the heart, brain and other critical organs are placed into a standby mode in which they do not require nearly as much oxygen, thus limiting damage to cells and organs.

I was lucky not to hurt my head, he said. I had two burn marks on my arm, but it is OK now because I had surgery. But something is still wrong with my leg. Im hoping they can sort it out.

He clung to the undercarriage of a British Airways jumbo jet and survived an 11-hour, 5,639-mile flight from Johannesburg to London (file image)

Cabeka applied for asylum to stay in the UK and was granted leave to remain  though he is coy about on what grounds that was granted.

He simply says: When I was applying as an asylum-seeker, I went through the process and was accepted.

He now lives in a one-bedroom flat in Liverpool and is unable to work due to his injury.

Im now waiting to get a passport. It takes five years to get a British passport and then I will be able to fly on a plane. He jokes: I will be a Scouser then.

He still struggles with the guilt that, while he survived, his friend didnt. I missed his funeral because I was in a coma.

I was sad that he was buried and I couldnt say goodbye. So I went to put flowers on his grave.

I miss his presence. I used to call him my brother from another mother. Hes the only guy who knew me, more than anybody, where I come from.

I feel weve both come on a long journey together so hes still my friend  no matter that hes gone.

Documentary-maker Bentley said the death of Vale  and many other stowaways  was unlikely to stop other people caught in desperate poverty stowing away on planes.

Ive spoken to several stowaways and their story has been the same, he said. People like Themba Cabeka are in an impossible situation and dont have a choice.

Were inundated with stories of people trying to come to the UK. But, by exploring their stories  and speaking to them first-hand  its made me realise how extreme the circumstances they find themselves in.

I hope by highlighting this example, it resonates for others and gives a voice to people who are so desperate they dont feel they have a choice.

Despite the death of his friend and his own injuries, Cabeka says his decision to risk his life to start a new one here was worth it.

I had to leave Africa to survive. But I would give other people advice: Its not safe. Its a life-or-death situation.

The Man Who Fell From The Sky, Channel 4, tomorrow, 10pm
The invaluable Andy Ngo was out late on New Year's Eve. He wasn't partying, though. Instead, he was documenting Antifa's continued assault on Portland's government and business infrastructures. In a mad night of rioting, Antifa smashed windows, tried to burn down buildings, and routed the remnants of the defunded police department. The one good thing that came out of the riots was that Portland's feckless mayor finally acknowledged that Antifa exists.

This has been such an action-packed year that it's a little hard to think back to the summer, when Antifa was garnering headlines in conservative publications because of its urban warfare in multiple Democrat-run cities, especially Portland. Democrat outlets completely ignored the subject, keeping readers and viewers in the dark about the way in which so-called "Anti-fascists" engaged in completely fascist conduct. Instead, Democrat bureaucrats and politicians kept insisting that Antifa existed only in conservatives' fevered imaginations.

Fired FBI director Christopher Wray testified that Antifa is "not a group or an organization. It's a movement or an ideology." The various Antifa organizations, such as Rose City Antifa, must have gotten quite a laugh about that type of gaslighting.

Biden's addled brain later ran with Wray's nonsensical statement. During the September 29 presidential debate, Biden announced that Trump was wrong to claim that Antifa is a problem, because "[h]is own FBI director said ... Antifa is an idea, not an organization."

Even someone as far gone as Biden should have understood that ideas do not riot for months, blind law enforcement officers with lasers, throw dangerous projectiles, try to burn buildings, or engage in any other violent activity. Organized people  such as Antifa  do that kind of thing.

But the Democrats had their narrative, and they were sticking to it. According to Democrat gnome Jerry Nadler, the claim that Antifa was committing acts of violence was a "myth."

I ran into Jerry Nadler in DC and asked him to disavow the Antifa violence/rioting in Portland.



His response?



THATS A MYTH pic.twitter.com/veImyE2rju  Essential Fleccas  (@fleccas) July 27, 2020

On New Year's Eve in Portland, the human embodiments of that Antifa idea were back to their old tricks. They were aided by the fact that, in June, Portland substantially defunded the police, leaving them sadly outnumbered.

Andy Ngo was out there, too, documenting the domestic terrorism they visited on the downtown area, as well as aggregating videos and news reports from others documenting the mayhem. Here are just a few of his tweets:

Antifa are planning to riot tonight in Portland for new years. pic.twitter.com/pwyD0YK6Hj  Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) December 31, 2020

In downtown Portland outside the Hatfield federal courthouse, antifa rioted for New Years by launching mortar fireworks and projectiles at police. #PortlandRiots #antifa pic.twitter.com/c66b4WJdjL  Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) January 1, 2021

Antifa smashed their way into small businesses in their New Years riot in downtown Portland. pic.twitter.com/tYSAM7m6tF  Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) January 1, 2021

Antifa started multiple fires at their riot in downtown Portland after smashing up businesses. #PortlandRiots pic.twitter.com/TH7lryN9f2  Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) January 1, 2021

Police in Portland were outnumbered by antifa and forced to retreat backwards. #PortlandRiots pic.twitter.com/cI3LcnUXcd  Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) January 1, 2021

Antifa in Portland started multiple fires and tried to break into the federal courthouse again to burn it down. #PortlandRiots pic.twitter.com/KV5Wp1JbK7  Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) January 1, 2021

Police in a vehicle retreat from mob of antifa rioters in downtown Portland. #PortlandRiots pic.twitter.com/q8da64HsDg  Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) January 1, 2021

Outnumbered law enforcement retreated as antifa launched attacks on them in downtown Portland at the riot. #PortlandRiots pic.twitter.com/3uysqRMlnS  Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) January 1, 2021

For new year's eve, #antifa in Portland overwhelmed law enforcement in a coordinated downtown attack that included Molotov cocktails, explosives & arson. Numerous businesses were smashed up & ransacked again in a second night of rioting. #PortlandRiots https://t.co/82AmDiH6lX  Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) January 1, 2021

One good thing did emerge from the night's violence. Mayor Ted Wheeler, a leftist who had assiduously avoided admitting that his city was under siege, finally admitted that Antifa exists:

In his new year's presser, Portland Mayor @tedwheeler admits that his efforts to de-escalate & compromise with antifa have failed to yield results. He condemns the violent extremist movement by name & calls for more to be done. https://t.co/1MJhHOxO1u pic.twitter.com/HtsSSM3dzz  Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) January 2, 2021

I guess you could call that progress.

Leftist politicians encouraged the violence in their streets because of the election. They wanted Trump and everyone else to know that if the election does not go their way, their minions will destroy American cities even more than they already have. Wise American voters ignored this mobster blackmail and turned out in record numbers for Trump, only to be undone by even more record fraud.

The problem is that when you unleash these forces, you can't stop them. With Trump theoretically leaving the White House, the riots should have stopped, but evil, once ascendant, never just walks away.

If the Supreme Court justices are trying to shepherd Biden into the White House despite massive and provable fraud because they believe that doing so will end violence, they need to pay attention to Portland and change their tactics. Violence will escalate under a weak presidency. The only thing that can return order to America is a president who believes in law and order  and that's not Corrupt Joe Biden.

Image: Antifa Riot Announcement. Twitter screen grab.
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India gained independence from Britain on Aug. 15, 1947, and Myanmar (then Burma) secured independence on Jan. 4, 1948.

January 1947 was one of the coldest months recorded in London but the greatcoat from Nehru enabled Gen. Aung San to endure the winter chill.

A day before Gen. Aung San left India for London, Nehru noticed his friends flimsy khaki uniform and decided it would be insufficiently warm for a London winter. He had his tailors make warm clothing for Gen. Aung San and his secretary, Lieutenant Tun Hla (also known as the writer Tekkatho Ne Win).

Gen. Aung San stayed in Delhi for four days and had wide-ranging political discussions with Nehru, 26 years his senior. He attended the Indian Science Congress, visited the General Headquarters of India, Viceroy Archibald Percival Wavell and attended a tea party at the Indian defence minister.

The leader of the Anti-Fascist Peoples Freedom League was en route to London to discuss Burmese independence with the British prime minister, Clement Attlee. He stopped in Delhi to seek input from Nehru, who he had known since he was a student leader. Nehru took him to his house where his daughter, Indira, who would become Indias only female prime minister, catered for the guest.

Yangon  On this day in 1947, Myanmars independence hero, General Aung San, arrived at New Delhi airport in India. Jawaharlal Nehru, who would become the first prime minister of India in August that year, cordially welcomed him. Hello Aung San, he said while hugging his guest.

Movers and Shakers of 2020: The Irrawaddys Persons of the Year

In Myanmar, Campaigners Say No to Trash Burning Over Health Hazards

The Day a US Missionary Was Honored for His Contribution to Myanmars Farming

China May Extend Olive Branch to Neighbors in 2021 Ahead of Key Events

NLD Sues Chief of Myanmar Military Proxy Party for Using Inflammatory Rhetoric Ahead of Election

Fugitive Former Myanmar Army Officer on Sedition Charge Turns Himself in

Indonesia to Close Border to All Foreign Nationals From New Year

Japan Gave Intel on Chinas Crackdown on Uyghurs to US, Britain

Coronavirus Variant Found in Britain Detected in US for First Time

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At least two hospitals in Southern California have been found to be vaccinating the relatives of employees working at the facilities, many of whom are not involved in healthcare whatsoever.

Redlands Community Hospital in Culver City said it was left with 'extra' doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and so reached out to people who didn't work at the medical center.

The hospital claims that the vaccine doses would have otherwise expired and insists that all first-responders working at the 420-bed facility were treated first.

At least two hospitals in Southern California have been vaccinating non-frontline workers having received 'extra' doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine including Redlands Community Hospital

A relative who works at Southern California Hospital, but did not want to be identified, also said that family members were invited to receive Pfizer vaccines.

'The hospital had planned on vaccinating all of their employees, but a large number of their staff declined and they were sitting on a lot of thawed vaccines,' the woman said to the Orange County Register.

'They offered police officers, firefighters and first-responders to get vaccinated and also told employees they could invite four family members.'

She will return to the hospital in a few weeks time to receive a second dose of the vaccine.

But despite attempting to keep the extra inoculations to family members, the hospital quickly became overwhelmed by those clamoring for the extra Pfizer doses.

A relative of a worker from Southern California Hospital say they were also 'invited' to receive the vaccine

The hospital was forced to stop offering vaccines to relatives and go back to focusing on solely first-responders.

However, the vaccination program outlined in federal guidelines, put together by the Centers for Disease Control, said relatives should be treated far later in the rollout of the vaccine.

It has seen some hospital boards come out to state openly that they are following the rules to the letter.

'We have been really holding the line and making sure frontline workers go first,' said Krist Azizian, chief pharmacy officer for Keck Medicine of USC, which has about 9,000 workers to the OC Register. 'We do not offer it to family members of our staff.'

Any extra, the hospital says, goes to frontline workers.

Engineer/paramedic Bonnie Breckenridge (right), gives the the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to Fire Chief Colin Stowell (left) at the San Diego Fire-Rescue Training Facility

The main issue with the Pfizer vaccine is that it must be stored at a temperature of -94 degrees Fahrenheit and as soon as it is taken out of the freezer, must be administered as soon as possible, or it goes to waste.

The woman who got to receive the vaccine early despite not being a frontline worker has praised the actions of the hospital in seeing that none of it goes to waste.

'Faced with thawed, expiring vaccines that can't be refrozen, and no contingency plan, doctors made the choice to vaccinate people they could,' she said.

'That's what doctors do, save lives. That's what happens in disasters. Situations are constantly in flux and people have to make command decisions to save as many lives as possible within their current capacity. Hospitals are overwhelmed saving lives and don't have time to stop and create a new vaccine distribution plan for a small amount of vaccine that is about to expire.'

Southern California Hospital has denied that relatives of employees were invited to to receive the Pfizer vaccine.

Andrew Noymer, an associate professor of public health at UC Irvine says it appears Southern California Hospital handled the situation properly,

'That seems like a reasonable explanation, if they truly received more vaccinations than they can use, it's not really their fault,' he said.

The main issue with the Pfizer vaccine is that it must be stored at a temperature of -94 degrees Fahrenheit and as soon as it is taken out of the freezer, must be administered as soon as possible, or it goes to waste. The extra doses were offered to others in order all of it be used

'The excess could not be returned to the distribution center,' the hospital explained in an email.

'Instructions provided with the vaccine indicated that the vaccine has a shelf life of five days when removed from the approved freezer. The distribution center indicated the vaccine was not to be stored in dry ice or transport freezers. All the vaccine had to be used within five days or go to waste,' spokeswoman Laura Gilbert said.

'After inoculating all hospital employees who requested the vaccine, staff contacted physicians who treat patients at the facility, as well as local first-responders, including police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians to inform them of the vaccine's availability. Additionally, some public service workers were also vaccinated.

'This decisive action ensured we achieved our goal of vaccinating all frontline staff as quickly as possible, and prevented the waste of valuable vaccine,' Gilbert said.

'They don't exactly deny that staff family members were vaccinated, only that they weren't invited,' said Dr. David D. Lo, senior associate dean of research at the UC Riverside School of Medicine. 'Also, it gave no indication that they had actually planned out their vaccination strategy.'

Back at the Redlands Community Hospital a 33-year-old claims to have been vaccinated after her husband's aunt, who works at the facility, had some extra doses that were set to expire.

'Science is basically my religion, so this was a big deal for me,' the woman said in a Facebook post.

Redlands Community say that the non-frontline healthcare workers were offered the vaccine because the hospital had extra doses and wanted to ensure the vaccine wasn't thrown away.

The woman was not a healthcare worker either and is normally employed by Disney.

President Trump on Friday defended his administration's 'successful' distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and blamed the states for the slow rollout after Senator Mitt Romney urged the federal government to develop a comprehensive plan for

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has blamed the slow rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines on the states as he praised his administration's 'successful' distribution of the doses amid growing backlash over the disastrous program.

Trump appeared to respond to mounting criticism of the vaccine rollout on Friday after new data revealed only a quarter of the shots distributed to states have been administered since early December.

As of New Year's Day, 3.17million doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been administered. That is just 25 per cent of the 12.4million doses that have been delivered to states, according to an analysis from Bloomberg.

Trump however has defended his administration's efforts, saying it's the states that are moving at a slow pace when it comes to vaccinating the population.

'Some States are very slow to inoculate recipients despite successful and very large scale distribution of vaccines by the Federal Government. They will get it done!' Trump said on Twitter.

The tweet appeared to be in response to Senator Mitt Romney and President-elect Joe Biden, who both spoke out in harsh terms about the clumsy effort to distribute vaccines hours earlier.

In an emotional statement released on Friday, Romney, a Republican but frequent Trump critic, warned the delays would be 'deadly' if the government does not urgently undertake new strategies to boost vaccination efforts.

'That comprehensive vaccination plans have not been developed at the federal level and sent to the states as models is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable,' Romney said in a statement that was perhaps aimed as much at the incoming Biden administration as the outgoing Trump one.

'It was unrealistic to assume that the health care workers already overburdened with Covid care could take on a massive vaccination program,' Romney said.

The senator also highlighted the fact that the program is 'woefully behind' despite it only targeting frontline workers and long-term care residents - the 'two easiest populations to vaccinate'.

He called on the government to 'enlist every medical professional, retired or active, who is not currently engaged in the delivery of care' to be drafted into a crash program of government-run vaccination sites across the country.

'This could include veterinarians, combat medics and corpsmen, medical students, EMS professionals, first responders, and many others who could be easily trained to administer vaccines,' he proposed.

Romney also proposed a scheme to 'Schedule vaccinations according to a person's priority category and birthdate: e.g., people in group A with a January first birthday would be assigned a specific day to receive their vaccination.'

Referring to his experience overseeing the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, Romney also included what could be seen as a pitch to the Biden administration to offer his own assistance, saying: 'I have experience organizing a major logistical event,' though adding humbly that it was 'nothing on the scale of what is called for today.'

As of Friday, West Virginia has still vaccinated the highest percentage of its population, followed by South Dakota and Maine. Kansas continues to lag the farthest behind in population vaccinated, with just 0.42% of all residents having received the jab
Warnock: If We Win, We Will Send McConnell Down the Hole

Democratic Georgia Senate candidate Raphael Warnock on Friday told a rally that he and fellow candidate Jon Ossoff would send Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell down the hole if voters put them into office.

Warnock and Ossoff are engaged in twin runoff elections against Sens. Kelly Loeffer (R-Ga.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.), respectively.

Warnock recounted how McConnell paid his respects in person to Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) when Lewis died last year, and a funeral was held at Warnocks church in Atlanta.

A man named Mitch McConnell, you may have heard of him, stood a few feet away from my church members coffin. And he offered pious platitudes in memory of John Lewis, talked about what a great man John Lewis was. I appreciated the words, but I feel like your words ought to match your deeds. How do you speak about the greatness of John Lewis, while knowing that youre sitting on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act? Warnock said during a rally in Columbus.

It hasnt been put up for a vote in the Senate, because its sitting in a graveyard called Mitch McConnells desk. But when you send me to the Senate, and when you send Jon also, my brother from another mother, to the Senate, we will send Mitch McConnell down the hole. And we will put the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act up for a vote, Warnock added, saying he intended to become a public servant, not a politician.

The runoffs have drawn nationwide attention because Democrats could flip the Senate if they win both and the White House, through the tiebreaking vote vice presidents can cast. As of now, the composition of the upper chamber in the next Congress is 50 Republicans and 48 Democrats.

More than 3 million early votes have been cast, according to the University of Floridas U.S. Elections Project. The figure represents nearly 39 percent of all registered voters in the state, already setting a new runoff record.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) enters Capitol Hill in Washington on Jan. 1, 2021. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.) wave during a campaign event in Milton, Ga., on Dec. 21, 2020. (Al Drago/Reuters)

Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) (L) campaigns with U.S. Senate hopefuls Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in Columbus, Ga., on Dec. 21, 2020. (Ben Gray/AP Photo)

McConnell is looming over the race, especially after blocking passage of the bill that would increase stimulus checks to $2,000. As majority leader, he wields powers including the ability to block bills passed in the House of Representatives from being voted on. Democrats often refer to the Senate as the place bills go to die, while McConnells team regularly promotes one of his nicknames, the grim reaper.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), campaigning with Loeffler this week, told a crowd that Republicans must keep control of the Senate to be able to kill anything coming out of Pelosis House, in reference to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

He accused Warnock and Ossoff of being radicals who would be in lockstep with a socialist agenda thats going to come out of the House.

But were going to kill it dead here in Georgia, he added.

With a few days to go before the runoffs, both parties are desperately trying to reach voters. President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden are planning to campaign in Georgia next week, while Vice President Mike Pence has a trip planned as well. Former First Lady Michelle Obama recorded a robocall for Warnock, and former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is one of the Democrats who has rallied with the candidates.

Warnock and Loeffler emerged from a free-for-all special election to finish the term of Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), an aging lawmaker who retired due to health reasons last year, triggering the appointment of Loeffler to replace him until now. Perdue beat Ossoff by some 89,000 votes in November 2020 but just missed the margin to avoid a runoff.

Perdue, who is off the campaign trail, on Friday released a new ad warning voters that America will never be the same if Democrats win the Senate in addition to the presidency and the House.

Thats their goal, the narrator says in the ad.
New Delhi: Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the mastermind behind 26/11 attack in Mumbai and commander of Lakhkar-e-Toiba was arrested in Pakistan on terror financing charges.

Lakhvi has been held on terror financing charges by the counter terror department (CTD) of Punjab.

Lakhvi is believed to have led operations in Indian Occupied Kashmir and he is on the Indias most wanted list.

A spokesperson for the CTD Punjab said Zaki Rahman Lakhvi was arrested on charges of extending financial help to terrorists. He has been accused of running a dispensary to generate funds for the purpose of diverting the same to terrorists.

Lakhvi was designated a global terrorist by the United Nations in 2008 under the UN Security Council Resolution after the November 26 Mumbai terrorist attack.

In 2008, 10 heavily-armed Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists from Pakistan took the city by seige killing 166 people and injuring over 300 others.

Lakhvi was accused of paying hundreds of thousands of rupees to the family of Ajmal Kasab, in return for his participation in Mumbai attacks.

India on December 3, 2008 had officially named Zaki Rahman Lakhvi fore his alleged involvement in Nov 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Lakhvi had been detained in Pakistan for nearly six years before he was released in April 2015.

Meanwhile, Pakistan remains in terror-financing watchdog Financial Action Task Force's (FATF) grey list. It was placed on the Paris based body's grey list in June 2018 and given an action plan to implement.

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Tearful claims of marital misconduct.

Gaslighting voters by casting doubt on the results of a free and fair election.

A cadre of unscrupulous pals.

Distorting scripture to support partisan political aims.

No, Im not talking about President Donald Trump, though the description certainly fits, but rather Georgia Democrats nominee for U.S. Senate, Rev. Raphael Warnock.

The Atlanta minister may offer progressive believers in the Peach State their very own Donald Trump. Like most of their evangelical kin in the last two presidential elections, this cohort of voters appears willing to look past their chosen candidates character in order to advance the policies he promises to help secure.

Trump had abhorrent hush money payments to an adult film star, Warnock has police footage of his then-wife and mother of his two children  until recently a top aide for the Atlanta mayor  calling the Senate candidate a great actor and warning that she 'tried to keep the way that he acts under wraps for a long time. The police footage of Warnocks altercation with his wife comes after the Senate candidate was separately arrested in 2002 for obstructing a child abuse investigation. The charges were later dropped.

Irony is dead for the shameless contingency of progressive voters who adopted a believe women mantra for the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh only to drop it when it threatened their political goals.

Trump insists, in defiance of reality, that he won the November 3rd presidential election, while Warnock supports former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams refusal to concede in her 2018 race. Warnock also gave his seal of approval to Abrams by leading her nonprofit, the New Georgia Project, until January of 2020  long after Abrams lobbed her sour grapes claims of a faulty election. The organization is now under a state investigation.

Trump has surrounded himself with a cast of characters that includes Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort, and Roger Stone. Warnocks connections include the anti-Semetic Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whom he has hosted as a guest speaker at his church and whose now infamous G-d d-mn America sermon he called Christian preaching at its best. Warnock also served as youth pastor at a church that hosted the brutal Cuban dictator Fidel Castro as a speaker. When Castro died, Warnock reflected on his reign  during which the country was listed as a state sponsor of terrorism  saying, His legacy is complex, kind of like Americas legacy is complex.

And, of course, Trump bungled an attempt to quote two Corinthians while campaigning for the votes of students at Liberty University with nationalistic promises to protect Christianity. Warnock, for his part, has used the cover of faith to malign Israel as akin to apartheid South Africa and peddles a distorted gospel as a pro-choice pastor; masking the violence of abortion  which disproportionately targets Black women and their preborn children  as reproductive justice.

If character mattered then (it did), it matters today.

If we call out Republican members of Congress who provide safe quarters for President Trumps election conspiracies (we should), we must likewise have no patience for Democrats who aid and abet this same behavior.

And if Trumps refusal to heed scriptures call to show hospitality to strangers or a host of other commands merits admonishment from people of faith (it does), so too does Warnocks skirting of the Good Books affirmation of preborn childrens humanity and worth.

We will not end the transactional, self-serving ways of politics within the church that flourished under President Trump if no one is willing to jump first and if the tests we apply to our candidates are not applied consistently, irrespective of what policy wins a given contender might throw our way.

That evangelicals failed this test by nominating, electing, and reflexively supporting Donald Trump does not mean their more progressively inclined siblings in the faith need to repeat the same mistakes by granting a free pass to Warnock today. Voting often involves weighing complicated decisions but holding political candidates to a uniformly high standard and asking Warnock to answer for his record should not.
The late Ger Withers pictured on his favourite horse Ruler with some of his beloved Old English Foxhounds. Photo: Catherine Power

The hunting and farming community was plunged into mourning this week following the tragic death of popular huntsman with the Duhallow Hunt Ger Withers.

Widely regarded as one of the country's most talented huntsman, Mr Withers died following an incident at the hunts kennels in Liscarroll on Tuesday.

It is understood the married father of three young children who was in his mid-40s, had gone to the kennels alone to feed a stag on Tuesday afternoon but was attacked by the animal after entering the field where it was kept, sustaining fatal injuries as a result of the incident.

It is believed Mr Withers had made contact with someone on Tuesday afternoon but when he did not return home as expected his concerned wife contacted a friend who went to check the kennels.

The friend raised the alarm and contacted the emergency services.

Mr Withers was pronounced dead at the scene and his remains removed the Cork University Hospital to undergo a post mortem examination.

A spokesperson for the Health and Safety Authority (HSA), the body responsible for investigating workplace incidents and fatalities, said they had been contacted about the incident late on Tuesday afternoon and have launched an investigation into the circumstances of Mr Withers death.

The chair of the Duhallow Hunt, Pat Fleming, led tributes to the late Mr Wither describing him as an "absolute gentleman and a thorough professional."

"Ger was with us for 20-years and I never had a cross word with him in all that time. He was an absolute gentleman and a pleasure to work with. We are all shocked and devastated at what has happened," said a clearly emotional Mr Fleming.

"He was a thorough professional, as far as he was concerned it things were not 100% right they were no good. I would often say to him that things do not always have to be 100%, but he would have none of it," he added.

Mr Fleming said that the late Mr Withers would have been a hugely popular figure within the farming and hunting communities, not just in Duhallow and North Cork, but right across the entire country.

"Ger would have been well known across Ireland for his skill, professionalism and wonderful character. He was very highly regarded within his field and his passing has come as an immense shock to those who were lucky enough to have known him."

Sentiments echoed by Cllr Pat Hayes, joint master of the Duhallow Hunt who said the late Mr Withers was "the ultimate gentleman who was liked by everyone."

"His smile, enthusiasm and dedication to his job endeared Ger to all. He had a great respect for farmers and landowners and in turn they had a great respect for him," said Cllr Hayes.

"He was known far and wide for his professionalism and the manner in which he conducted himself and his business. He will be sorely missed and our deepest sympathies go out to his family at this terrible time."

Corkman
The UK government ordered all primary schools in London to remain closed for the start of the new term next week in an attempt to rein in a jump in hospitalizations resulting from the mutant strain of the coronavirus.

From Monday, the capitals primary schools -- for children from 5 to 11 years -- will have to provide remote learning for most pupils. Vulnerable children and those whose guardians are key workers will continue to attend school. Pre-schools will remain open, the government said Friday.

The government had originally omitted 10 London areas from a list of schools that would be closed, but yielded after local authorities complained to Education Secretary Gavin Williamson. London mayor Sadiq Khan welcomed the governments change of heart.

London has one of the countrys highest levels of Covid-19 infections per capita -- in the most recent week of complete data, the capital had a rate of 807 cases per 100,000 people, compared with a rate of 675 in the previous week.

The situation in London continues to worsen and so today we are taking action to protect the public and reduce the spread of this disease in the community, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said in the statement.
(Alliance News) - Barclays PLC has launched a USD130 million legal claim against the founder of NMC Health PLC and Finablr PLC, the private hospital chain and payments provider caught up in financial scandals over the past year, the Times reported Saturday.

The claim, filed in October at the Dubai International Financial Centre Courts, is over a personal guarantee that Bavaguthu Raghuram Shetty is alleged to have given on debts at part of Finablr, the newspaper said.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/barclays-in-legal-battle-over-shetty-guarantee-pjhhbjkcf

Unlike NMC Health, Finbablr remains listed in London, though its shares are suspended from trading.

Bhairav Trivedi resigned as chief executive officer of Finablr, effective from Friday, having served only since March.

Human Resources & Restructuring Implementation Director Robert Miller was appointed as CEO and board member, also from January 1. Miller joined Finablr in October 2019 from accountants Deloitte LLP, where he had been a partner in the London office.

Finablr said its acquisition by Global Fintech Investments Holding AG, an affiliate of Prism Group AG, is progressing in line with its announcement of the deal earlier in December. GFIH is buying Finablr Ltd, the remaining part of the Finablr group, for a nominal USD1, but also will provide working capital support to enable Finablr to continue to operate and pay employees and creditors.

Finablr shares were suspended from trading in March after a series of bombshells. A major cyber attack on the company at the start of 2020 was followed by travel restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic, meaning a slump in demand for currency exchange.

In August, Shetty resigned as Finablr's co-chair. Shetty until mid-February also chaired UAE-focused hospital operator NMC Health.

In April, Shetty said "serious fraud and wrongdoing" had taken place at Finablr and NMC, but he said he had "no knowledge" of transactions made under his name. Shetty said bank accounts were fraudulently created under his name, something he said he had no knowledge of nor had he consented to.

By Tom Waite; thomaslwaite@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2021 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Bengaluru, Jan 2 : Karnataka Health Minister K. Sudhakar on Saturday said that one primary contact of a passenger who returned from the UK recently, tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus. With this, the number of people who tested positive for the new strain has touched 10 in the state.

"All 10 patients are undergoing treatment in a designated hospital," he said after inspecting a dry run in the model vaccination centre in Yelahanka General Hospital in the northern suburb of Bengaluru.

He said 10 people have so far been confirmed with the new strain of coronavirus infection and among these nine of them had returned from the UK while one is a contact - the mother of one of the UK returnees.

"All of them are undergoing treatment and are without any serious health condition. They will recover soon," he said.

The minister added, so far 32 people who returned from the UK and 10 of their contacts - a total of 42 persons - have been confirmed positive during the RT-PCR test.

"Their swab samples are sent to the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (NIMHANS) for carrying out genome sequencing tests and 10 among them were confirmed to be infected by the new variant of the virus," he explained.

Sudhakar asserted while allaying fears that there was no need to worry.

"Only 10 are infected with a new variant virus infection in the state. It is not a big number given the number of people who disembarked in the last one month," he said.

According to him, a total of 5,068 passengers have returned to the state from the UK between November 25 and December 31 on two flights of Air India and British Airways.

"Of these 5,068 passengers, 4,238 passengers landed in Bengaluru from December 9 to December 31 and among those, 810 are from other states. Karnataka health and home departments took steps to inform their counterparts concerned of those states," he had said on Friday.

He also said that the number of Covid positive cases in Karnataka are declining while recoveries are increasing and at present there are only about 10,000 active cases across the state.
Its hard with the holidays because people want to be together and Ill admit it in the beginning, I was that person too, Amy said. I thought it was just like the flu until I started seeing it. Now, these last few months have been a blur. It was a clump of time that all melted together that I cant even remember.
Activist and author of 'Negociar con asesinos. Guerra y crisis en Yemen'The United Nations has been warning for months that there is a deadly threat of famine affecting millions of people in Yemen. On November 20, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that "Yemen is in imminent danger of experiencing the worst famine the world has seen in decades".
Many parents, teachers, SNAs, and principals are conflicted about returning to school this term.

None of those who the Irish Examiner spoke to wants to see schools closed, but some feel it could be inevitable.

Everyone agrees on the benefits of in-person learning, but many also fear the rapidly changing public health environment.

The Department of Education is building up capacity in the HSE school support teams in preparation for the new term, assigning more school inspectors to help assist public health when there is a positive case linked to a school.

But even so, schools are still going to encounter challenges next term. If the daily cases continue to surge in the month ahead, its likely that staffing will cause serious problems for many schools. Likely too are more student absences.

There needs to be a balanced, data-driven approach to reopening this term. That's according to Hugh Cronin, principal of St Catherine's National School in Ballynoe, Co Cork. It's more than education, he believes.

"The amount of stress, anxiety that's on everyone in society at the moment, children need to be able to go into school every day to a stable, secure, and consistent environment," said Mr Cronin.

"The relevant education stakeholders need to sit down with the public health experts and the Department of Education and look at the new situation."

The start of January is very different from the start of December, they need to come up with a viable plan in order to facilitate schools staying open.

"If that can be done, and the public health experts say we can do it, we need to do it."

A centralised, home learning scheme for children with underlying conditions or for children living with high-risk family members should be developed, he added.

"It's not enough to expect already stretched schools to consistently provide this service to our most vulnerable."

Parents who spoke to this newspaper say they are worried about a return to remote learning. One mother of five children, between six and 15-years-old, said their family struggled during the first lockdown.

It almost broke me and now I am so stressed about the thoughts of returning to the same. We live in rural Ireland, with patchy broadband and two laptops."

Many teachers also said they do not want to see a return to remote learning, but fear it may be on the cards.

Some suggested making the switch now for a few weeks, with lessons to be made up at Easter or summer.

Many teachers who spoke to the Irish Examiner are also doubtful about how their school could improve their Covid safety measures any further.

One said: We want our school to be open."

What I dread is knowing that once we re-open Covid-19 will be looming closer, ready to put our children, their families, our staff, and their families in danger.

"That I have found too huge a responsibility to bear, knowing that if and when it happens all of the key decisions will be made by people who have never set foot inside our doors, who dont know how ill this childs granny is, or how vulnerable the child in that class really is."

SNAs the Irish Examiner spoke to said they believed the situation now is "too risky" as in many cases, social distancing has not been possible.

"Im housebound since Monday when a close colleague informed me shed tested positive," one said.
By: Becki Gray, Vice President of the John Locke Foundation

The General Assembly will convene its biennial session Jan. 13. Theyll talk about how to get the economy back on its feet, address a learning gap in education, improve access to quality health care at an affordable price, put together a tax and spending plan and begin the centennial redistricting process. But perhaps the most immediate and bipartisan issue they will address is broadband connectivity.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, North Carolinians were concerned about access to broadband. In many rural areas, there was no service. In many parts of North Carolina, the available service was inadequate. In urban areas, cost and reliable service was a concern. But with the pandemic, the broadband access problem became acute, as schools went to all online learning, employees were working from home, health care via telehealth was safer and more convenient, and online commerce soared. Access to broadband is no longer a luxury; its a necessity.

Communities have struggled with access to broadband for well over a decade. While a private market has developed, connecting that final mile remains unprofitable. Frustrations have some customers turning to government to solve the problem. Cities have tried building and maintaining their own broadband systems and failed, costing taxpayers millions, harming other services and still unable to offer a quality product.

In 2018, the General Assembly enacted the Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology program, which provides $10 million in grants for expansion of broadband access in rural areas of the state, connecting households, businesses and agricultural operations in economically distressed counties. Session Law 2020-81 appropriated $1 million to establish a broadband satellite grant program. Session Law 2020-97 allocated $32 million of federal CARES money to GREAT grants to provide broadband service in unserved and underserved rural areas.

Government investments in broadband connectivity have helped and private companies investments have been significant, trillions of dollars, nationwide. But money alone hasnt solved the problem. Any system must allow for competition and advancements on technology, so todays broadband isnt obsolete, outdated and useless tomorrow. Investments pay off when a fair playing field is provided that allow the private market the freedom to innovate, grow and compete. This is particularly true in the development and maintenance of broadband technology.

The problem before us is how to provide and maintain broadband connectivity with affordable, reliable service across all of North Carolina. The General Assembly recognized the need for internet connectivity a decade ago, and it has worked to put policies in place to open the market, invite private investments, and built an infrastructure that can grow with need and advances in technology. As the new legislative session begins, lawmakers should consider the following solutions:

Leave broadband service and investments to private providers. Streamline permitting, remove unnecessary regulations. Remove obstacles to building wireless infrastructure on public property and public-rights-of-way, allow lease agreements for pole attachments that encourage developing infrastructure. Find solutions through open markets and competition, rather than government take-over. Offer a direct consumer subsidy, much like a voucher, that rural residents in unserved and underserved areas can use to purchase discounted broadband or devices. Put guardrails around the GREAT grant program to encourage innovation, focus on unserved areas, leave room for advancing technologies, provide grants instead of ongoing funding streams. Minimize and modernize fees at local and state level to avoid duplicative billing and keep costs low. Protect jobs and investment by upholding the states 2011 Level Playing Field Act , which regulates local government competition from private business.

The COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns and restrictions have made us dependent on the internet for work, for school, and for health care. That dependency wont end when the pandemic ends. Everyone will be eager to get back to work, to get kids back in school, and to take care of our health. Access to reliable affordable broadband connectivity will become even more important for a recovering economy, addressing learning loss, changes in workforce options for remote working, rising costs of health care, and economic growth across all of North Carolina.

Access to reliable broadband at affordable costs is no longer optional; its necessary. Policymakers must address the problem now. North Carolinas health care, education, workforce and economy depends on access to the internet. Technology wont wait, and no part of North Carolina can be left behind.

Becki Gray is senior vice president of the John Locke Foundation.
The union representing Los Angeles County prosecutors has sued their boss, newly elected District Attorney George Gascon, over his attempt to impose justice reforms.

The lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Wednesday aims to gut Gascon's platform by proposing to end his mandate to stop seeking prior felony conviction enhancements  including for gun possession, gang membership and violating the "three strikes" law  that lengthen sentences when suspects are convicted.

The Association of Deputy District Attorneys for Los Angeles County argues in the lawsuit that deputy district attorneys cannot follow the directives without violating state penal code.

"The directives violate California law, which imposes a mandatory duty on prosecutors to plead and prove strike priors," the union said in a statement. "Dismissals of those priors can only be based on individual circumstances, not a blanket policy."

Gascon said Los Angeles County voters "embraced" the effort when they elected him.

"This new approach will take some fine-tuning and a tolerance for change," he said in a statement. "I invite open and respectful debate based on the facts. ... However, the people have spoken, the direction is clear and, in the end, we all want the same things  safety and equal justice under the law."

Gascon, a former Los Angeles Police Department assistant chief and San Francisco district attorney, was elected in November after he ran as a reformer and police critic who decried incumbent Jackie Lacey's hands-off record on prosecuting officers who kill suspects.

In the wake of national protests after George Floyd's death, Gascon's win was celebrated by activists who supported his kinder approach to law enforcement.

But the union, which endorsed the straitlaced Lacey, immediately clashed with Gascon, arguing his softer prosecution policy would lead to an increase in crime.

Story continues

"Respondent George Gascon, within weeks of his investiture as Los Angeles Countys District Attorney, has issued Special Directives that are not merely radical, but plainly unlawful," the union said in the suit.

State law "mandates" the use of appropriate enhancements, the lawsuit said, and prosecutors cannot be "commanded" to violate it. The union claims in the lawsuit that Gascon has dispatched "agents to monitor prosecutors at their hearings to ensure that they abide" by his directive.

The filing seeks to force Gascon to rescind his directive.

He responded to the union's initial criticism by walking back parts of his mandate: Enhancements can be sought for hate crimes, crimes against children and older people and other allegations that meet his criteria, he said in mid-December.

But Gascon stood his ground on the core of his reform policy, saying gang enhancements and other add-ons don't reduce recidivism or crime. He said there were more than 100 enhancement possibilities available to prosecutors under California law.

"Over-incarceration  the practice of sending people to jails and prisons for too long  does not enhance safety," he said in a statement.
The move comes as a fresh effort to reduce disruption for drivers as they carry goods across the Channel. Photo: Gareth Fuller/PA Images via Getty Images

The UK has outlined further steps to help hauliers get tested for coronavirus before they travel to Kent or any port heading to France.

The move comes as a fresh effort to reduce disruption for drivers as they carry goods across the Channel.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced on Saturday that 10 new testing locations across the country will be created, with a further 10 opening on Sunday (3 January) and more being added next week.

The government is also offering to help any business set up a testing centre at its own premises to ensure trucks heading for France depart COVID ready.

Some 25,500 lorries have crossed the Channel since the French government introduced unprecedented restrictions due to the new coronavirus variant, which is 70% more transmissible.

Shapps said: As a result of the heroic efforts of hundreds of military and civilian personnel who have worked hard over the past 10 days, we have made incredible progress in clearing the queues of drivers left stranded as a result of the French governments actions.

If we are to keep traffic flowing in Kent, it is essential drivers are tested before they travel down to the area and that they have a Kent Access Permit before heading to the border, and these new testing centres both at service stations and inside businesses, will help reduce delays.

READ MORE: Thousands of lorries still stuck in Kent as France re-opens border

The British Army has also been deployed to offer support. Military personnel will be at 10 of these sites to provide COVID testing for haulage drivers, providing a negative result in the required 72-hour window before arriving in Kent, fast-tracking their access to the ports.

It comes as independent brewing firm BrewDog has said that it is in talks with the UK government about using its closed bars as temporary coronavirus vaccination centres.

The Scotland-based craft brewer also said it would give anyone vaccinated at one of its bars a commemorative can of beer.

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Tougher COVID-19 restrictions and Tier 4 lockdowns across the UK forced the company, which was founded in 2007 and is valued at almost 1.5bn ($2bn), to shut its bars.

A government spokesperson told Yahoo finance: We are very grateful for all offers of support as we continue to expand our vaccination programme.

The NHS has decades of experience in delivering large scale vaccination programmes and has already vaccinated hundreds of thousands of patients with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. It will now begin putting its extensive preparations into action to roll out the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in the weeks and months ahead.

Watch: 10 ways to Brexit proof your finances
The dry run drill for administering coronavirus vaccines and plug loopholes in logistics and training has started in all the states and Union Territories across the country.

Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Saturday visited two mock vaccination sites in the national capital to review the Covid-19 vaccination drive.

The vaccination dry run comes a day after a panel of government-appointed experts recommended approval for the Oxford vaccine, manufactured by Serum Institute of India in Pune.

Saturday's exercise is the second dry run being conducted in India - the first was on 28 and 29 December in Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Gujarat.

Here's your 10-point update to this story:

1) Harsh Vardhan has said that the Covid-19 vaccine will be free across the country. Assuring about the vaccine's efficacy and safety, the Health Minister urged people to not pay heed to the misconceptions and anti-vaccine rumours. "I have ample personal experience from the Polio Eradication campaign of 1994 about how the people of the country placed their trust in the science of the vaccine rather than the falsehoods and canards being spread by some rumour-mongers," Vardhan said.

2) The entire exercise of the vaccination process is being systematically taken forward, including training of personnel for administering the vaccine, the Health Minister said today, adding that the dry run is being conducted in 116 districts across 259 sites. Some 96,000 vaccinators have been trained for this, he said.

3) The vaccination drive will also test the operational feasibility in the use of CoWIN application -- a digital platform to roll out and scale up the vaccination drive -- in a field environment. Speaking about CoWIN, Vardhan said that the digital platform is the real game-changer and will provide real-time information of vaccine stocks, their storage temperature and individualised tracking of beneficiaries of the vaccine.

4) Around 25 health workers will receive dummy vaccines at each spot as part of the dry run. "An important focus of the dry run will be on management of any possible adverse events following immunisation," the Health Ministry has informed.

5) On the preparedness for ensuring that the vaccine reaches even the remotest corner of the country, Vardhan said that India's cold chain infrastructure has been sufficiently upgraded to ensure last-mile delivery. Adequate supplies of syringes and other logistics have also been provided.

6) The dry run of the vaccination drive spread across 125 districts is covering all states and UTs having adequate representation of urban and rural districts along with hard-to-reach areas.

7) In the national capital, the dummy drive is being carried out in Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital in Shahdara, urban primary health centre in Daryaganj and Venkateshwar Hospital in Dwarka.

8) In Bengaluru, the dry run is being conducted at three centres. The exercise in Lucknow is being held at six places. In Pune, it is to be held in three healthcare centres, apart from Nagpur, Jalna, and Nandurbar. Chhattisgarh is holding the dry run at seven districts. The day-long drive will be carried out in four districts in Gujarat. Punjab is conducting the dry run in Patiala, and Haryana is carrying out the exercise in Panchkula.

9) Ahead of the actual vaccination drive, the Health Ministry today conducted a nationwide mock drill at 285 session sites to test the end-to-end planned operations and the mechanism that has been set up to ensure smooth conduct of the vaccination that is expected to begin soon.

10) India is awaiting vaccination for coronavirus and it will start anytime soon after the DCGI approves a Covid-19 vaccine. The SII in Pune is making the vaccine Covishield developed by Oxford University and drug giant AstraZeneca, while Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech has partnered with the ICMR for its Covaxin.

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The highly contagious mutant strain of coronavirus that was first detected in the United Kingdom and has since spread to other countries including the United States may have been circulating in America since as early as October.

The suggested finding is the result of a re-analysis of some 2 million tests examining the so-called B117 variant, according to the Guardian.

It is believed the mutant strain could be 70 percent more transmissible than the standard form of the virus - but scientists are confident vaccines currently being rolled out will still work.

Researchers conducted genome sequencing to confirm if a variant similar to the B117 variant of the coronavirus, which has been found in patients in Colorado, California, and Florida, is the same as the one circulating in the UK.

The data suggests that the variant may have already been present in the US at undetectable levels in recent months.

It wouldnt be at all surprising if at least some of the cases were B117, said Eric Topol, head of Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, California.

Topols team on Wednesday confirmed that at least one coronavirus infection in California was caused by the mutant strain.

A potential COVID-19 patient who was administered oxygen is loaded into an ambulance in Hawthorne, California, on Tuesday. The new variant of coronavirus was detected for the first time in the United States and Latin America on Tuesday

David Spittler, the medical lead for the COVID Check Colorado site at Echo Park Stadium, receives one of his two weekly COVID tests on Wednesday in Parker, Colorado. Colorado also reported an infection of the new mutant variant

Registered nurses Mandy Cordova (left) and Mikayla Salazar (right) help Dr. James Gonzales put a breathing tube for a respirator into a COVID-19 patient at Guadalupe County Hospital in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, on December 11

It has probably been here for a while at low levels - but you dont see it until you look for it.

In mid-December, UK officials announced the existence of a new, highly transmissible variant of the coronavirus.

At the time, British scientists were trying to determine whether the mutations were fueling a rapid surge of COVID-19 cases in southern England.

The new variant was first detected in the UK in September, the study states, but at the beginning of December, it exploded and has driven a surge in infections among Britons.

British researchers who looked at positive samples noticed a missing signal from one of the three genes whose detection is used in PCR tests to confirm the presence of the virus.

The new variant was first detected in the UK in September, but at the beginning of December, it exploded and has driven a surge in infections among Britons. British researchers who looked at positive samples noticed a missing signal from one of the three genes whose detection is used in PCR tests to confirm the presence of the virus. The above photo from February 2020 shows an undated electron microscope image of the coronavirus

The S gene dropout was later determined to be caused by mutations in the gene encoding the spike protein that the virus uses to infect human cells.

British experts determined that the mutant strain could have been circulating in the UK since September.

American analysts in the California-based research firm Helix also noticed the same S gene dropout in some 2 million positive samples that the company has processed in recent months.

What is the 'mutant COVID strain' and why are experts concerned? Coronaviruses mutate regularly, acquiring about one new mutation in their genome every two weeks. Most mutations do not significantly change the way the virus acts. This super strain, named B.1.1.7, was first identified in the UK in November. It has since been found in France, Spain, Italy, Iceland, Japan, Singapore, Australia and now the United States. The new COVID-19 variant has a mutation in the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein at position 501, where amino acid asparagine (N) has been replaced with tyrosine (Y). It is more infectious than previous strains and potentially more harmful to children. It is not, however, believed to be any more lethal. Public Health England researchers compared 1,769 people infected with the new variant, with 1,769 who had one of the earlier strains of the virus. Forty-two people in the group were admitted to hospital, of whom 16 had the new variant and 26 the wild type. Twelve of the variant cases and 10 of the 'older' virus cases died within four weeks of testing. Neither the hospitalization nor the mortality differences were statistically significant. Advertisement

The increase in S gene dropouts were noticed in samples collected as far back as early October.

More of those same S gene dropout were also reported in samples collected in Massachusetts, though health officials in the Bay State have yet to report the existence of the B117 variant.

So far, there isn't evidence to suggest the new variant causes any more serious illness or is more fatal.

Encouragingly, virologists and public health experts believe that vaccines made by companies like AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna will still be effective against the new variant of coronavirus.

But the new variant heats up the race between the spread of the virus and vaccination campaigns in the UK, the US - where the new variant has now been found in Colorado, California and Florida - and at least 31 other countries where the more infectious form of coronavirus has been detected.

With more than 186,000 people newly infected in a single day on average in the US, the 48 percent higher transmissibility rate of 1.85 could drive new infections per day beyond 275,000.

It could spell disaster for hospitals in hot spots like California where some health care systems and regions are already out of ICU beds, in states of 'internal disaster' and rationing care.

San Diego County confirmed on Thursday that it had found a total of four cases of the virus variant that appears to be more contagious.

A 30-year-old man tested positive for the variant on Wednesday and three more men - two in their 40s and one in his 50s - also have been confirmed to have the strain.

Other cases involving the variant have been confirmed in Florida and Colorado.

At least two of the men in San Diego County hadnt traveled outside of the country and none had 'any known interaction with each other,' the county said.

Officials believed many more cases will surface.

Topol told the Guardian that the new variant shouldn't be cause for worry if the vaccination program is rolled out effectively.

'The variant is likely to become dominant [within the US] in the next few months, so what we need to do is to outrun it through a combination of really tight mitigation measures, including surveillance and testing, and vaccinating like theres no tomorrow,' he said.

'The vaccines should work fine.'

Only 3.49 million Americans had been vaccinated as of Saturday, according to a Bloomberg News tally.

The Center for Disease Control and Preventioin's web site says its vaccination tracker will be updated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but at the time of publication, the tool showed Wednesday's numbers, with 2.79 million people vaccinated.

Bloomberg's higher estimate means Operation Warp Speed has vaccinated just 16 percent of the 20 million Americans it promised to inoculate by the end of the year.

At this pace, it would take nearly a decade to vaccinate all adult members of America's population of 331 million people.

And many Americans remain on the fence about getting a vaccine even when one is available.

Some 60 percent of nursing home workers in Ohio said they would refuse a shot.

After the mutant strain thought to have originated in the UK was found to have spread to dozens of other countries, many of them instituted a travel ban denying entry to Britons.

But experts said that the travel ban will have little effect in keeping the mutant variant at bay.

Sluggish, dysfunctional vaccine distribution and Americans' distrust of of the shots could jointly offer the B117 variant just the opening it needs to spread like wildfire through the country infecting millions beyond the 20.2 million people who have already had the infection in the US, and killing thousands.

Pandemic is set to kill another 115,000 Americans in January but universal mask wearing and faster vaccine roll-out could save thousands of lives, University of Washington model shows

The coronavirus pandemic is on track to kill another 115,000 Americans by the end of January, according to one statistical model, which claims that universal wearing of masks and a rapid vaccine rollout could save about 13,000 lives in the next four weeks.

As of Saturday, the total number of U.S. deaths in the pandemic surpassed 348,600, and since March more than 20.2 million Americans have been infected by the virus.

The sluggish and at times chaotic initial rollout of vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna has drawn sharp criticism from a range of political leaders, including President-elect Joe Biden and Republican Senator Mitt Romney.

Following current trends, the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projects that the death toll will hit 456,238 by January 31.

The statistical model predicts that if everyone in the country wore a mask or face covering in public, January's death toll would drop by about 13,000.

Following current trends, the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projects that the death toll will hit 456,238 by January 31

Rapid vaccine rollout would have the biggest impact starting in February, as the vaccines take weeks to take effect. The IHME's projections of daily deaths are seen above

A rapid vaccine rollout would only spare about 1,000 lives in January, according to the model.

Since the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines both take several weeks to provide effective protection, their true impact would only be seen over a longer timeline.

As of Saturday, 3.49 million vaccine doses have been administered nationwide, according to a Bloomberg analysis.

That accounts for just 28 percent of the vaccine doses that have been distributed top the states, and means that 1.1 percent of the total population has received a dose.

It was far short of the Trump administration's goal of vaccinating 20 million Americans with a first of two required doses by the end of 2020.

Senator Romney, a Utah Republican and frequent critic of President Donald Trump, issued an emotional statement on Friday urging the U.S. government to immediately enlist veterinarians, combat medics and others in a dramatic proposal to boost vaccination efforts.

'That comprehensive vaccination plans have not been developed at the federal level and sent to the states as models is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable,' Romney said in a statement that was perhaps aimed as much at the incoming Biden administration as the outgoing Trump one.

Fire Chief Colin Stowell (left) receives the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at the San Diego Fire-Rescue Training Facility on Thursday

Hundreds wait in line to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in Fort Myers, Florida, on Thursday. Floridians over age 65 can get the vaccine on a first-come, first-served basis

'It was unrealistic to assume that the health care workers already overburdened with Covid care could take on a massive vaccination program,' Romney said.

He called on the government to 'enlist every medical professional, retired or active, who is not currently engaged in the delivery of care' to be drafted into a crash program of government-run vaccination sites across the country.

'This could include veterinarians, combat medics and corpsmen, medical students, EMS professionals, first responders, and many others who could be easily trained to administer vaccines,' he proposed.

Romney also proposed a scheme to 'Schedule vaccinations according to a person's priority category and birthdate: e.g., people in group A with a January first birthday would be assigned a specific day to receive their vaccination.'

Referring to his experience overseeing the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, Romney also included what could be seen as a pitch to the Biden administration to offer his own assistance, saying: 'I have experience organizing a major logistical event,' though adding humbly that it was 'nothing on the scale of what is called for today.'

Biden also took a swipe at the Trump administration's oversight in a tweet on Friday, writing: 'Let me be clear: The Biden-Harris Administration will spare no effort to make sure people are getting vaccinated.'

Biden has vowed to invoke the Defense Production Act and ensure that 100 million vaccines are administered in his first 100 days in office, though he has offered few concrete details on how this would be achieved.

California, the most populous state with 40 million residents, has become a leading US flashpoint of the pandemic despite some of the nation's toughest restrictions on social gatherings and business activities.

The soaring COVID-19 case load has pushed hospitals in and around Los Angeles in particular to their limits, filling emergency rooms, intensive care units, ambulance bays and morgues beyond capacity, and creating staff shortages.

Hospital doctors and nurses treat Covid-19 patients in a makeshift ICU wing on the West Oeste at Harbor UCLA Medical Center on Tuesday in Torrence, California

Funeral services are held for grandfather Gilberto Arreguin Camacho, who died due to Covid-19, at Continental Funeral Home on Wednesday in East Los Angeles, California

Briefing reporters on Thursday, Cathy Chidester, director of the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency, called the situation a 'hidden disaster,' not plainly visible to the public.

Medical experts attribute the worsening pandemic in recent weeks to the arrival of colder weather and the failure of many Americans to abide by public health warnings and requirements to stay home and avoid unnecessary travel over the year-end holiday season.

The crisis faced by healthcare systems has become especially acute in Los Angeles County where one patient is dying every 10 minutes from the respiratory virus, according to county health officials.

Heightened demands of caring for those struggling to breathe has also left many hospitals in the region short on oxygen, both in supplies and the ability of older facilities to maintain adequate pressure flow through ventilators, Chidester said.

She also described ambulances forced to wait several hours at a time to unload patients, causing delays throughout the county's emergency response system.

To ease ER overcrowding, the county is denying ambulance transport to hospitals of emergency patients who are already under hospice care with do-not-resuscitate directives, according to Adam Blackstone, a spokesman for the Hospital Association of Southern California.

The leading US infectious disease specialist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said on Wednesday he was confident of overcoming early glitches in the vaccine campaign, saying America could still achieve enough collective immunity through vaccinations to regain 'some semblance of normality' by autumn 2021.
The most grotesque Christmas gift from President Donald Trump, amongst his raft of pardons to criminals, was the ones bestowed on four Blackwater security guards convicted of a notorious massacre at Baghdads Nisour Square.

The unprovoked murder of 17 unarmed civilians in 2007, including women and children, was a horror show that enraged Iraqis, even after years of violence following the U.S. invasion.

It took seven years for the surviving Nisour Square victims and their families to get justice in a U.S. federal court for 14 of the killings. Yet Trump set the Blackwater criminals free.

This is so overwhelmingly wrong, says Ryan Crocker, who was the U.S. ambassador to Iraq at the time of the massacre. It is so morally repugnant.

The presidents pardons dishonor the country and our rule-of-law system. And they soil Americas reputation around the world.

As Crocker and retired Gen. David Petraeus  who served as commander of U.S. and international forces in Iraq  made clear to me, in a joint statement about the pardons: American prestige, credibility and security have all been seriously undermined.

Perhaps Trump freed the Blackwater four as a belated gift to Erik Prince, the former Navy SEAL who founded (and later sold) the security agency. He is a close Trump political ally, and his sister, Betsy DeVos, is Trumps secretary of education.

Never mind that Blackwater was the most notorious of the private U.S. security contractors hired by the State Department to supplement U.S. military forces. Heavily armed, operating with near-impunity, the security companys black SUVs regularly barreled through Baghdad streets, forcing Iraqi cars off the road and firing if they moved too slowly. (I will never forget the day my Iraqi translator burst into my Baghdad hotel in tears because contractors had shot into the car stuck in front of him in a traffic jam, killing the driver, whose 2-year-old was sitting in the passenger seat.)

According to the FBI investigation and numerous eyewitness accounts, on Sept. 16, 2007, the Blackwater contractors opened fire with machine guns and grenade launchers on unarmed civilians, even though no one fired at them first. They shot blindly into taxis, buses and private cars stuck in traffic and unable to escape the shooting.

The first victims were a young medical student and his physician mother; he was shot behind the wheel and she burned to death when a grenade was tossed into their car. In the car behind, the youngest victim, 9-year-old Ali Kinani, was shot in the head.

One of the Blackwater team, who pleaded guilty and wasnt pardoned, swore that none of these victims was an insurgent and many were shot while  attempting to flee. Other members of the Blackwater team told the grand jury that their colleagues were bragging about what a great job they had done.

After Trumps pardons, special FBI agent Thomas OConnor, who was part of the forensic team that investigated in Baghdad, told CNN, Ive never been this mad or disturbed. The victims were human beings.

Clearly, none of that bothered Trump.

Nor does the president seem the least moved by the human cost of the massacre. And he is blind to the security risks the pardons pose to U.S. troops abroad.

Crocker and Petraeus write: One of the biggest setbacks (to the 2007 surge that pushed back Iraqi Sunni insurgents) was the killing of 17 Iraqi civilians by Blackwater security guards.  That tragic reprehensible event  resulted in increased attacks on our forces. ... The Blackwater incident was a tremendous blow.

Ultimately, the incident was fully investigated and legal action followed. The fundamental American principle of  rule of law was upheld.

But, Crocker and Petraeus continue: The pardon of these individuals can only be seen as hugely damaging, an action that tells the world that Americans abroad can commit the most heinous of crimes with impunity. It places our military and civilian personnel at increased risk and it betrays our most fundamental values.

Of course, all this is happening while Trump is drawing down U.S. troops from Iraq, putting them at greater risk as he stokes Iraqis anger  with his total disdain for the Nisour Square dead.

As we repeatedly have seen, this president, who claims to love the military, is eager to use U.S. military forces as a political prop, and to try to manipulate them for partisan purposes.

Trump loves to pose beside military tough guys, as he has done with Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL platoon leader accused of murdering a prisoner  and convicted of forcing his troops to pose for a photo with a prisoners corpse.

Fellow platoon leaders called Gallagher freaking evil and claimed he was OK with killing anything that moved. But in November, Trump granted Gallagher clemency, a decision that infuriated military chiefs because it undermined military discipline and rule of law. The president has lauded Gallagher at rallies as a great fighter.

As Crocker and Petraeus make clear, Americas already shaken credibility and reputation abroad have been dirtied by Trumps praise for war criminals.

After the pardons, one Nisour Square survivor told CNN: The blood of the dead and wounded is on (Trumps) hands for pardoning convicted murderers.

Unhappily, our soldiers and civilian personnel abroad may be the ones who pay.

TRUDY RUBIN writes for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
A delivery worker zips by on a scooter in Seoul on Nov. 4, 2020. / Korea times file



By Kim Jae-heun



The country's largest online retailer Coupang has provided new protective measures for drivers of its food delivery service Coupang Eats.



Up until now, responsibility for accidents or problems that occurred while making deliveries fell squarely to the delivery riders.



But Coupang Eats became the first player in the local market to share the burden and help riders that become embroiled in civil or criminal cases in the course of carrying out their work. Coupang will also cover payments to riders if either a customer or restaurant owner cancels an order in the middle of delivery.



The new policy is likely to increase the popularity of Coupang Eats over its competitors. Other players like Woowa Brothers' Baedal Minjok and Delivery Hero's Yogiyo still place most of the burden on their riders when accidents and cancellations occurs. This is possible because delivery people are hired as temporary workers and as such are not automatically covered under occupational health and safety insurance that is mandatory for full-time workers.



Delivery drivers do, however, have the freedom to switch to different companies offering better conditions.



With the COVID-19 pandemic prolonging, demand for food delivery services has soared along with the value of riders in the market. This left companies no option but to pay their riders better if they hope to keep them.



Coupang's new policy could become a new employment standard for delivery workers.



A union of delivery drivers at Woowa Brothers and Delivery Hero has been lobbying the companies to improve the work environment and offer legal protections for workers.



Delivery service companies have not been allocating duties reasonably and fairly among their workers. Also, they did not give delivery persons clear information on why different jobs were given to certain workers based on career, working area and the class of vehicle they use.



The companies blamed the algorithms their systems employ.



The firms signed a memorandum of understanding with the union last October to recognize delivery drivers as employees by law.



The company promised to establish a new consultative body within three months to maintain and develop all the items of the agreement.



Woowa Brothers CEO Kim Beom-joon also promised to adopt practical policies reflecting requests and suggestions from delivery drivers to help them do their jobs safely.


Posted Friday, January 1, 2021 2:11 pm

New rules limiting smoking and vaping in public spaces take effect Friday, Jan. 1 in Thurston County.

People who smoke may already be familiar with some of these rules, but those who vape may have to adjust their habits. The changes adopt the state laws around smoking in public spaces into Thurston County's sanitary code and apply them to vaping, according to a county news release.

Starting 2021, smoking and vaping will be banned in indoor public spaces, places of employment and certain youth-oriented public spaces such as playgrounds and childcare centers. Additionally, the rule that prohibits smoking within 25 feet of indoor public places and places of work also will apply to vaping, the release read.

"We know that policies like this support health by protecting people from exposure to secondhand smoke and vapor emissions," said Schelli Slaughter, the county's public health and social services director. "They also support our young people in making healthy decisions by encouraging the norm as being smoke and vape free."

The changes apply everywhere in Thurston County with the start of the new year, but there will be a six-month phase in period focused on education and outreach rather than enforcement actions, according to the release. Enforcement and legal proceeding may be initiated beginning July 1, 2021.

Enforcement usually begins with a written notice that gives the person time to comply with the rules, The Olympian previously reported. From there, enforcement can escalate to a civil infraction or even a misdemeanor violation.

Businesses will be required to display signage where smoking and vaping are prohibited under the new rules, the release read, and the county will offer free signs for order or download. Any business that wishes to allow smoking within 25 feet of a window or door can submit an application and pay a fee to have their request reviewed, The Olympian previously reported.

The Thurston County Board of Health unanimously approved the changes Oct. 13 after receiving no public opposition.

The county health department has been increasingly concerned with vaping among young people. A 2018 study found 48% of high school seniors had tried vaping at some point and 32% actively vaped, according to the release.

___

(c)2020 The Olympian (Olympia, Wash.)

Visit The Olympian (Olympia, Wash.) at www.theolympian.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Wind, Surf Watches / Advisories for Oregon and Washington Coast

Published 01/01/21 at 12:05 AM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff

(Warrenton, Oregon)  A long stretch of heavy winds and big, dangerous surf are coming over the weekend, with the National Weather Service (NWS) issuing a variety of advisories, watches and warnings for the southern Washington coast and the entire Oregon coast.

North and Central Oregon Coast, South Washington Coast: The NWS has issued a special weather statement for the region from Florence all the way up into the south Washington coast, announcing heavy winds and rains for Friday through Saturday night.

Southerly winds will be gusting into the 30s and 40s at times, while periods of heavy rain are expected Saturday.

As usual, winds will be stronger on the coastal headlands and open beaches, with south winds 35 to 45 mph gusting 55 to 70 mph, the NWS said.

For the same region - including Raymond, Long Beach, Seaside, Cannon Beach, Manzanita, Lincoln City, Newport and Florence, there is a beach hazards statement. The NWS said to look out for increased chances of sneaker waves through Friday night.

Meanwhile, seas offshore will remain high through the weekend, up into and beyond the 20-foot range. Extreme caution must be observed. Oregon Coast Beach Connection is advising people to stay off the beaches and stick to higher vantage points.

Southern Oregon Coast. A variety of warnings are in store for the areas south of Florence, including Reedsport, Coos Bay, Bandon, Port Orford and Gold Beach.

A high surf advisory is in effect from 4 p.m. Friday through 4 p.m. Sunday. Large waves of 25 to 30 feet are expected along the south coast.

Large breaking waves will create hazardous conditions along and within the surf zone, and could inundate beaches and low lying shorelines, the NWS said. Beach erosion is possible, and exposed infrastructure may be damaged.

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A high wind watch is in effect from Saturday afternoon through late Sunday. South winds of 40 to 45 mph with gusts up to 65 mph are possible.

 Damaging winds could blow down trees and power lines, the NWS said. Widespread power outages are possible.























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A Covid-19 vaccination programme for Ireland's nursing home residents is set to begin next week but residents who test positive for Covid-19 will have their vaccination appointments deferred for up to four weeks.

The Health Service Executive hopes to have residents at all 580 nursing homes in the country vaccinated by the end of February.

The programme starts on Monday, but will skip confirmed cases until they have recovered or a month after their first positive test.

The HSE said the programme has to be 'flexible' to deal with outbreaks, which will be managed by Public Health.

Nursing Homes Ireland chief executive Tadhg Daly said the news of the vaccine is really positive after a difficult year. File picture

Nursing Homes Ireland chief executive Tadhg Daly is urging people to push the numbers down, so fewer vaccine appointments will be delayed.

He said the news of the vaccine is really positive after a difficult year.

It's fantastic news it is, it's that beacon of light now at this stage. Obviously, it's been a very challenging year last year. The start of the year has been particularly difficult again with the large numbers of community transmission.

"So we all need to take extra measures now in terms of the public health measures to suppress the virus again.

"But clearly the commencement of the vaccination programme in all nursing homes is very positive and that will be complete we understand by the end of February," said Mr Daly.

Vulnerable sector

Care homes have been particularly impacted by the spread of Covid-19 with elderly residents vulnerable to contracting and dying from the virus.

Last month, the closure of the crisis-hit Oaklands nursing home where nine residents died after contracting Covid-19 was confirmed.

The HSE was directed to take over the running of the private nursing home "and make alternative arrangements" for residents after Hiqa inspectors found a situation of chaos in early November following an outbreak of Covid-19 among residents and staff.
Making a 20-year freeze on capital punishment, Kazakhstan has abolished the death penalty, as per the notice published on January 2. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has signed the law ratifying the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that entails a formal commitment to abolish the death penalty, his press service said. The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights commits all its signatories to ensure that death penalty in their respective jurisdictions is abolished with the exception of wartime.



Kazakh President offices notice on Saturday came after in 2003, the first president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev had signed a decree that temporarily halted death penalties. This reportedly also suspended the execution of all death sentences but still allowed the courts from issuing death sentences. It was only in 2004 when life imprisonment was introduced in the Central Asian country as an alternative punishment.

Read - Japan's Twitter Killer Sentenced To Death For Killing And Dismembering Nine Victims

Read - Man Gets Death Penalty For Rape-murder Of Toddler

US approves more ways to execute criminal offenders

While Kazakh scrapped the death penalty after the nearly two-decade moratorium, US Justice Department has fast-forwarded the process to introduce new options for federal death penalties as they seek to expedite scheduled executions before the outgoing US President Donald Trumps administration is replaced by that of president-elect Joe Bidens.

These changes include new options for executions such as electrocution and death by firing squad or poison gas. As per media reports, the approved amendment to the Manner of Federal Executions will give the federal prosecutors with a wide range of options to execute the inmates and avoid delays if the state in which the prisoner was sentenced does not provide other alternatives.

The expansion of execution policies is just one of the other three dozen changes that Trump administration is pushing before his term ends on January 20, 2021, that is the Inauguration Day. The rule was given a repent light by US Attorney General William Barr and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. If approved, the amendment can be published in the Federal Register as early as December 4 and reportedly come into effect in 30 days.

(with inputs from ANI)

Read - UP: Man Gets Death Penalty For Rape-murder Of Toddler

Read - Bangladesh Cabinet Approves Death Penalty For Rape Convicts After Nationwide Outrage

Image: ANI
Paris Hilton recently got away for the new year, ringing in 2021 from sea.

And the pop culture icon is stepping into the future with a classic and timeless sense of style.

She channeled her inner Mary Ann in a retro red checkered bikini Friday on Instagram, as she yachted around the Caribbean with boyfriend Carter Reum, where they spent New Year's.

Lady in red: Paris Hilton channeled her inner Mary Ann in a retro red checkered bikini Friday on Instagram, as she yachted around the Caribbean with boyfriend Carter Reum, where they spent New Year's

The 39-year-old paired the Gilligan's Island chic bikini top with a matching high-waisted red checkered skirt.

She wore her signature blonde locks in a pair of pigtails, framing some chic white cat-eye sunglasses.

Paris complemented the look with a blue Christian Dior messenger bag, which she kept by her side while striking some poses.

She sat at the helm of their luxury yacht, as they cruised around the coast of Saint Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, writing: 'Captain Paris.'

Three-hour tour: The 39-year-old paired the Gilligan's Island chic bikini top with a matching high-waisted red checkered skirt

Accessorizing: She wore her signature blonde locks in a pair of pigtails, framing some chic white cat-eye sunglasses. Paris complemented the look with a blue Christian Dior messenger bag, which she kept by her side while striking some poses

Captain Paris: She sat at the helm of their luxury yacht, as they cruised around the coast of Saint Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, writing: 'Captain Paris'

Love Boat: The Simple Life star sported the red swimwear look, as she snuggled up to boyfriend Carter Reum, 39, who fished off the side of the boat

The Simple Life star sported the red swimwear look, as she snuggled up to boyfriend Carter Reum, 39, who fished off the side of the boat.

She nuzzled up to the VEEV Spirits co-founder, captioning the Instagram post with lyrics from her 2006 single Stars Are Blind: 'Let's see what this love can do, Baby I'm perfect for you...'

Paris previously posted some sweet snaps to Instagram with her beau in front of a Christmas tree, writing: 'My Christmas wish came true! Celebrating my favorite holiday with my favorite person in the world!'

It comes after they celebrated their first anniversary in early December with a video montage of their whirlwind romance.

She captioned the Instagram video with a sweet tribute: 'Happy 1 year Anniversary my love! I love that we celebrate our love every month! I can't believe it's only been a year. It feels like I've been with you a lifetime! I have never felt so close to another person in my life.

Mistletoe vibes: Paris previously posted some sweet snaps to Instagram with her beau in front of a Christmas tree, writing: 'My Christmas wish came true! Celebrating my favorite holiday with my favorite person in the world!'

One year strong: It comes after they celebrated their first anniversary in early December with a video montage of their whirlwind romance

Red carpet debut: The House of Wax actress made it Instagram official with Reum back in April, after they were first romantically linked in January at a Golden Globes after party (pictured in January, 2020)

'And that's because you're the first one who tore down the walls I built around my heart and opened up my heart in a way that I didn't know was possible. I truly believe that we were custom-made for each other and meant to be. Nothing in my life has ever felt so right or so perfect! Every day I feel like I'm in a dream.

'There's no one I'd rather spend forever with. I've heard of twin flames before but I never believed in them till you. Love you forever my twin flame, my best friend, my other half, my partner for life. And I can't wait for our future and a lifetime of love and adventures. Because no matter what happens in life, I will always be happy, feel safe and at home in your arms and by your side forever.'

The House of Wax actress made it Instagram official with Reum back in April, after they were first romantically linked in January at a Golden Globes after party.

She told The Sunday Times in August of the the author/entrepreneur: 'I feel like my grandmother sent him to save me. I love him so much. Finally, I've found my perfect match, someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and have a family with.'

Paris has previously been engaged three times, to model Jason Shaw, 46, from 2002 to 2003, Greek shipping heir Paris Latsis, 38, in 2005 and actor Chris Zylka, 35, in 2018.

The celebrity DJ added: 'I've said "he's the one" before just because I always wanted to portray, "I'm so happy with the perfect life, the perfect boyfriend," but I never truly felt that. I was just acting.'
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As farmers continue a long protest against the government's agricultural reforms in the national capital, Nobel laureate and economist Abhijit Banerjee says the sector needs reforms but adds that the government should offer more transparent and 'lucrative' Minimum Support Price system for other sustainable crops as well besides just paddy crops.

Paddy production in Punjab is draining the water table and estimates suggest the state will run out of water in 20 years, he tells News18.com. High MSPs for paddy are a big part of the reason why we have this problem, and we will have to do something about it," he says.

Banerjee feels that providing equally lucrative MSPs for other sustainable crops could be a solution. "But that does not seem to be on the table, he says.

The writing on the wall, Banerjee says, is that because of the agri reforms, selling crops at the MSP will become less profitable. "That will create some losers and winners. The government could just acknowledge it and try to compensate the losers, he adds.

Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab and Haryana, are protesting at various borders adjoining Delhi against the laws, fearful that these will leave them at the mercy of big corporates by weakening the MSP and mandi systems. The government maintains the laws are aimed at helping farmers and increasing their income.

After a deadlock of more than a month, the government and farm unions reached some common ground on Wednesday. But the two sides are yet to reach an agreement on the demands to repeal the laws and legislate a legal guarantee for MSP.

After the meeting, agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar said the government had repeatedly said it was ready to give the farmers a written assurance.

Banerjee, however, says keeping the MSP system unchanged is not the solution either. "The government insists the current MSP regime will continue unchanged, but then the prices of rice and wheat will remain so high, corporates will have no incentive to enter the markets," he explains. This, he says, will make the entire business of allowing corporates in the market moot.

In that case the government could as well leave rice and wheat out of the reform. So you can see why farmers are having trouble believing that nothing will change with the MSP, and are fighting for more transparency, he adds.

The next meeting between the government and farmer unions is scheduled for January 4. The unions on Friday warned they will start shutting all malls and petrol pumps in Haryana if the government fails to resolve their main demands on the day of the talks.
Gardai found large amounts of alcohol and people playing cards with two open fires lit in a suspected sheeben in Co Limerick on New Years Day.

The suspected shebeen in Rathkeale was targeted by officers on Friday afternoon on suspicion of breaching public health regulations.

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Gardai were alerted to activity at the back of a former licensed premises while carrying out patrols in Rathkeale town at around 4pm.

While carrying out further inquiries, a number of people were seen fleeing the area through a house on foot.

Gardai went inside and discovered more people socialising inside with "large amounts of alcohol", playing cards with two open fires lit.

The premises is not licensed to trade alcohol, gardai said.

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Gardai took details of all of those present.

An investigation into the use of the unlicensed premises for alcohol consumption and breach of Covid-19 public health regulations is now taking place.

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A file will be prepared and forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions for direction.

Investigations are ongoing.

Gardai in Newcastlewest are appealing to anyone who may have information on the operation of this premises to contact them on 069 20048 or the Garda confidential line on 1800 666 111.

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Our story today is called "The Ambitious Guest. " It was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Here is Harry Monroe with our story.

One December night, a long, long time ago, a family sat around the fireplace in their home. A golden light from the fire filled the room. The mother and father laughed at something their oldest daughter had just said. The girl was seventeen, much older than her little brother and sister, who were only five and six years old.

A very old woman, the family's grandmother, sat knitting in the warmest corner of the room. And a baby, the youngest child, smiled at the fire's light from its tiny bed. This family had found happiness in the worst place in all of New England. They had built their home high up in the White Mountains, where the wind blows violently all year long.

The family lived in an especially cold and dangerous spot. Stones from the top of the mountain above their house would often roll down the mountainside and wake them in the middle of the night. No other family lived near them on the mountain. But this family was never lonely. They enjoyed each other's company, and often had visitors. Their house was built near an important road that connected the White Mountains to the Saint Lawrence River.

People traveling through the mountains in wagons always stopped at the family's door for a drink of water and a friendly word. Lonely travelers, crossing the mountains on foot, would step into the house to share a hot meal. Sometimes, the wind became so wild and cold that these strangers would spend the night with the family. The family offered every traveler who stopped at their home a kindness that money could not buy.

On that December evening, the wind came rushing down the mountain. It seemed to stop at their house to knock at the door before it roared down into the valley. The family fell silent for a moment. But then they realized that someone really was knocking at their door. The oldest girl opened the door and found a young man standing in the dark.

The old grandmother put a chair near the fireplace for him. The oldest daughter gave him a warm, shy smile. And the baby held up its little arms to him. "This fire is just what I needed," the young man said. "The wind has been blowing in my face for the last two hours."

The father took the young man's travel bag. "Are you going to Vermont?" the older man asked. "Yes, to Burlington," the traveler replied. "I wanted to reach the valley tonight. But when I saw the light in your window, I decided to stop. I would like to sit and enjoy your fire and your company for a while."

As the young man took his place by the fire, something like heavy footsteps was heard outside. It sounded as if someone was running down the side of the mountain, taking enormous steps. The father looked out one of the windows.

"That old mountain has thrown another stone at us again. He must have been afraid we would forget him. He sometimes shakes his head and makes us think he will come down on top of us," the father explained to the young man. "But we are old neighbors," he smiled. "And we manage to get along together pretty well. Besides, I have made a safe hiding place outside to protect us in case a slide brings the mountain down on our heads."

As the father spoke, the mother prepared a hot meal for their guest. While he ate, he talked freely to the family, as if it were his own. This young man did not trust people easily. Yet on this evening, something made him share his deepest secret with these simple mountain people.

The young man's secret was that he was ambitious. He did not know what he wanted to do with his life, yet. But he did know that he did not want to be forgotten after he had died. He believed that sometime during his life, he would become famous and be admired by thousands of people. "So far," the young man said, "I have done nothing. If I disappeared tomorrow from the face of the earth, no one would know anything about me. No one would ask 'Who was he. Where did he go?' But I cannot die until I have reached my destiny. Then let death come! I will have built my monument!"

The young man's powerful emotions touched the family. They smiled. "You laugh at me," the young man said, taking the oldest daughter's hand. "You think my ambition is silly." She was very shy, and her face became pink with embarrassment. "It is better to sit here by the fire," she whispered, "and be happy, even if nobody thinks of us."

Her father stared into the fire. "I think there is something natural in what the young man says. And his words have made me think about our own lives here. "It would have been nice if we had had a little farm down in the valley. Some place where we could see our mountains without being afraid they would fall on our heads. I would have been respected by all our neighbors. And, when I had grown old, I would die happy in my bed. You would put a stone over my grave so everyone would know I lived an honest life."

"You see!" the young man cried out. "It is in our nature to want a monument. Some want only a stone on their grave. Others want to be a part of everyone's memory. But we all want to be remembered after we die!" The young man threw some more wood on the fire to chase away the darkness.

The firelight fell on the little group around the fireplace: the father's strong arms and the mother's gentle smile. It touched the young man's proud face, and the daughter's shy one. It warmed the old grandmother, still knitting in the corner. She looked up from her knitting and, with her fingers still moving the needles, she said, "Old people have their secrets, just as young people do."

The old woman said she had made her funeral clothes some years earlier. They were the finest clothes she had made since her wedding dress. She said her secret was a fear that she would not be buried in her best clothes. The young man stared into the fire. "Old and young," he said. "We dream of graves and monuments. I wonder how sailors feel when their ship is sinking, and they know they will be buried in the wide and nameless grave that is the ocean?"

A sound, rising like the roar of the ocean, shook the house. Young and old exchanged one wild look. Then the same words burst from all their lips. "The slide! The slide!" They rushed away from the house, into the darkness, to the secret spot the father had built to protect them from the mountain slide. The whole side of the mountain came rushing toward the house like a waterfall of destruction.

But just before it reached the little house, the wave of earth divided in two and went around the family's home. Everyone and everything in the path of the terrible slide was destroyed, except the little house. The next morning, smoke was seen coming from the chimney of the house on the mountain. Inside, the fire was still burning. The chairs were still drawn up in a half circle around the fireplace. It looked as if the family had just gone out for a walk.

Some people thought that a stranger had been with the family on that terrible night. But no one ever discovered who the stranger was. His name and way of life remain a mystery. His body was never found.

Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote this story. Dona de Sanctis adapted it for VOA. Your narrator was Harry Monroe.

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Download the lesson plan below for activities related to this story. This lesson plan is based on the CALLA Approach. It teaches the strategy of personalizing to help students understand the story.





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Words in This Story

fireplace - n. a specially built place in a room where a fire can be built

knit - v. to make a piece of clothing from yarn or thread by using long needles or a special machine

roar - v. to make a long, loud sound

shy - adj. showing that you are nervous and uncomfortable about meeting and talking to people

ambitious - adj. having ambition; having a desire to be successful, powerful or famous

admire - v. to feel respect or approval for someone or something

monument - n. a building, statue, etc., that honors a person or event

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(Steven Rader is a former General Counsel of the North Carolina Republican Party and has been accredited as an international election observer in nine elections in eastern Europe)

Should Republican Senators, led by Senator Ted Cruz, challenge, by objection, the Electoral College's results due to their assertion that the 2020 General Election was tragically flawed to the point of demanding a far more in depth investigation? No, this election was executed flawlessly relative to the 2016 presidential election. Yes, Voter Fraud was monumental, massive, complex, and much of it in plain sight. No, I did not vote anyway, and, or could care less. 247 total vote(s) What's your Opinion?



poll#125

Since only about 20% of the News Media has any shred of Journalistic Integrity remaining: How does our Constitutional Republic continue without a "Free Press"? Demand real information, using real sources, backed up by facts. Promote real journalist entities only, and admonish those that prostitute their profession. We Democratic Socialists are doing just fine, thank-you, by promoting lies while having very little real knowledge about so much. 144 total vote(s) What's your Opinion?



The year was 2016. One of our democratic NATO allies had just held a presidential election that had been extremely close. The narrow loser in that election challenged the results to the country's courts, citing irregularities on counting mail-in absentee ballots and failure to follow the established election law in several districts.In that case, the courts responded by taking up the matter. Austria's Constitutional Court, the country's highest, allowed both sides to present evidence and arguments, weighed the evidence and then ruled that while fraud could not be proven, it was established that over 77,000 mail in ballots had been counted improperly and several districts had failed to follow established election law. They found that these irregularities could have impacted the outcome of the election. To guarantee that Austria had a free and fair election for president, the court nullified the election result and ordered a new election be conducted almost seven months after the first one.The new election was conducted cleanly, and the country elected a president that all sides could agree had properly won.America was denied this opportunity by the political bias or cowardace of our judges who failed to have the backbone or political desire to tackle election fraud . We have now become a banana republic with kangaroo courts. Why do Austria's voters get justice from their courts on election integrity that is denied to American voters?The problems in America's 2020 election were much more egregious than those in Austria's 2016 election. The same issues were present, but many times worse in America. Our established election laws were not followed in many key swing states, but in our case through the connivance of partisan Democrat lawyers, Democrat governors, and election officials who struck down many of the safeguards against absentee ballot fraud. Under our Constitution, election laws are not made by election officials, governors, or judges, but by statutes properly adopted by legislatures, yet our statutory election laws were regularly ignored in 2020. The number of improperly counted mail-in absentee ballots in the US were also many, many multiples of those in Austria.Democrats in America seem to be following Josef Stalin's adage thatIn a democratic republic, that attitude cannot be allowed to stand.One of the key election safeguards set out in statutory law is that party poll watchers are allowed to watch both voting and the counting of ballots. In multiple key counties, at about the same time, poll watchers were chased out of vote counting rooms, and shortly thereafter weird election result numbers started coming out. In most, the poll watchers were forced out but in Atlanta it was done by trickery, with election officials falsely claiming there was a water main break and that they were going to stop counting until the morning. In Detroit, after running the election observers out, they papered over the windows so no one could see inside to see what they were doing.Running a party's election observers out of the rooms where ballots are being counted is not the way an honest election count is conducted. None of that taint applied to the Austrian election, but it did in a big way to the American election.What was going on behind closed doors was shown by a closed circuit security camera that the election workers in Atlanta apparently forgot about that kept recording what they were doing. After the poll watchers, media, and public were run off, one of the remaining election workers went to the only table with a black table cloth, and started pulling out suitcases of ballots that were hidden under that table so they could be run through the counting machines. Not content with just running them once, one election worker ran the same ballots through multiple times with one stack of ballots being run through eight times.Our courts have ducked lawsuits to challenge election results in two ways. One is to use procedural grounds to dismiss or not accept a case for hearing before it enters an evidentiary phase. That is what the US Supreme Court did with the case filed by the State of Texas. Another is to schedule procedings in a case for a time so far down the road that the case will be moot before it is reached, which is what the Supreme Court did on the major case coming out of Pennsylvania. With either tactic, the evidence never gets heard in court.Who has heard evidence are legislative committees investigating the election in a number of states, and the evidence that has come out in those hearings reveals serious problems with the way the 2020 election was conducted. The Georgia State Senate Judiciary Committee has already adopted a resolution based on the evidence they heard calling on the full legislature to strip Biden of the state's Electoral College votes. In Arizona, the county where most of the concern is focused, Maricopa County has been ducking legislative subpoenas to produce records and voting machines. What are they trying to hide? Our heavily biased major media have tried to bury the evidence that has been coming out in legislative hearings, and a major social media platform has even banned videos of testimony and opening statements from the Pennsylvania State Senate hearing on election conduct.America's 2020 election was far more tainted than Austria's 2016 election, but our courts will not touch it. One reason may be the fear of the hatred that would be spewed toward them by the ultra-partisan American media, and another may be fear of provoking a violent ANTIFA / BLM uprising. It goes deeper than that when one gets to the Supreme Court, however.Today's Democrats have followed a successful tactic used by Franklin Roosevelt to cow the Supreme Court, and that is to play the court packing card. When the Supreme Court struck down several of FDR's pet projects as unconstitutional, Roosevelt responded by floating the idea of packing the court. He never had to actually follow through because just the threat of it made the Supreme Court just about wet its pants to give FDR whatever he wanted. Over the last several months, the Democrats have been playing the court packing card again, and it has the same effect. The Supreme Court seems afraid of its own shadow in dealing with the most fraudulent election in our history, and that is a very sad state of affairs for our country. America as we have known it may now be over.If our Supreme Court was doing its job, it would have taken up the Texas case and let the arguments and evidence be heard. Their Austrian counterparts had the courage and the commitment to the democratic process to do that on much less compelling evidence.
Three sites have been selected to conduct coronavirus vaccine dry run across Delhi today. The drive will be conducted in the Maternity and Child Welfare (MCW) centre in Daryaganj, Guru Teg Bahadur hospital and Venkateshwara hospital.

The objective of conducting the dry run for coronavirus vaccines is to "assess operational feasibility in the use of COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network (Co-WIN) application in field environment, to test the linkages between planning and implementation and to identify the challenges and guide the way forward prior to actual implementation," according to the Union Health Ministry.

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan visited Delhi's Guru Teg Bahadur hospital to review dry run of coronavirus vaccine today. The Central Minister tweeted, "I will be visiting GTB hospital, Delhi to review the dry run of administering the #COVID19vaccine at 09:30 AM today."





I will be visiting GTB hospital, Delhi to review the dry run of administering the #COVID19vaccine at 09:30 AM today.



Watch Live !



Yhttps://t.co/zsWCYml5dJ

Yhttps://t.co/fJImeR9axx

Yhttps://t.co/OPeFB5gIQZpic.twitter.com/1IZp0qG63Y a Dr Harsh Vardhan (@drharshvardhan) January 2, 2021

During his visit to the GTB hospital today, the Central Minister appealed to people to not focus on rumours. The minister told ANI, "I appeal to people not to pay heed to rumours. Ensuring safety and efficacy of vaccine is our priority. Different kinds of rumours were spread during polio immunisation but people took the vaccine and India is now polio-free."

Delhi government is prepared to receive, store and administer coronavirus vaccine to 51 lakh people under the priority category-- healthcare workers, frontline workers, people above 50 years of age, and those below 50 years but with co-morbidities in phase 1 of immunisation, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal had said last month.

Meanwhile, Niti Aayog member and head of the national COVID-19 task force, Dr VK Paul said "India will pitch for vaccines for 300 million individuals". He added though healthcare workers will be priority in the first phase of vaccination, preparedness for inoculating other priority groups has also reached advanced stages.

In Hyderabad, the coronavirus vaccine dry run will take place at Nampally's Area hospital. The mock COVID-19 immunisation will be conducted at District Hospital in Pune, Maharashtra.

Also read: Govt to cover vaccination cost of 30 crore priority people: COVID-19 task force head

Also read: COVID-19 vaccine dry run in India today; here's all you need to know
BMC Had Sent Notice To Kangana In March 2018

BMC had sent another notice, asking Kangana to restore the structure of the three flats as per the original plan. Kangana had challenged the demolition notice and requested the court to restrain the civic body from carrying out the demolition.

Kangana Has Been Given Six Weeks To Approach High Court

The latest plea by the actress was rejected in court on December 23 by Judge Chavan saying the "interference of this court is not required". The court has also given the actress six weeks to approach the Bombay High Court against the order.

Kangana Ranaut seeks blessings at Siddhivinayak temple |FilmiBeat

BMC Demolished Kangana's Bandra Office In September

This is not the first time Kangana had a run with BMC. Back in September 2020, parts of Kangana's bungalow in the Pali Hill area was demolished for alleged "unauthorized" construction. The actress had challenged the allegations and moved the High Court against it. The court ruled in Rananut's favour and termed the BMC's action as illegal and malicious.
Investigators are probing whether business rivalry could have been the motive behind a 70-year-old jewellers killing in Srinagar on Thursday even as a little-known group has claimed responsibility for murdering him for acquiring property in the city under the regions new domicile rules.

The rules were formulated in 2020, a year after the end of Jammu & Kashmirs special status that, among other things, prevented people from outside the region from owning property and getting jobs in the Union Territory.

Satpal Nischal, the jeweller, who ran a shop for over four decades on Srinagars Hari Singh High Street, was from Punjabs Gurdaspur Punjab. He had purchased a house and a shop after acquiring domicile status for him and his family as per the new rules.

Police said they have obtained some leads from the murder scene and were looking at all angles, including The Resistance Front (TRF)s claim that it murdered Nischal. We are investigating the case and are even looking what TRF has said in a Facebook post, said sub-divisional police officer Shahjahan Ahmad, who is involved in the investigation into the murder.

In the Facebook post, the TRF claimed Nischal was part of what it described as a settler-colonial project in Kashmir. It added he was murdered in an intelligence-based operation while calling Nischal an agent of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ruling Bharatiya Janata Partys ideological fountainhead.

The TRF claimed Nischal was posing as a businessman and added he was an active participant in the demographic change and settler project run by Hindutva fascists to alter the demography of Kashmir.

The post said TRF has warned Indian nationals irrespective of faith, caste, or colour that they will be treated as RSS agents and not civilians if they come to Kashmir with the intention of settling here. For a long time, we warned and now the time has come when we shall warn no more. We know your names, we know where you live and we know what you do and we are coming for you, said the TRF post.
New Delhi: Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Saturday said Covid-19 vaccine will be provided to people in the national capital for free once it arrives.

"I came to see the preparations as part of the dry run being done. Three sites have been selected for it  GTB Hospital Shahdara, Urban Primary Health Centre, Daryaganj, and Venkateshwar Hospital, Dwarka," he said.

Satyendar Jain

All preparations are being done, and 1,000 vaccine centres will be set up across the city, the health minister said.

When asked if the vaccine will be free of cost, Jain said, "Yes, and in Delhi, the treatment and medicines are given for free."

Vaccination centres will either be hospitals or facilities linked to hospitals, he said.

Covid-19 vaccine

Asked what will happen if complications are noticed after vaccination, Jain said emergency rooms will be set up at the centres, and those getting the vaccine dose will be kept there under observation for half an hour.

The minister said the Delhi government has so far made preparations to vaccinate one lakh people in a day. Social distancing will be maintained, and people will be brought to the centres in batches, he added.
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's relationship with the United States has reached a "new crossroads" and could get back on the right track following a period of "unprecedented difficulty", senior diplomat Wang Yi said in official comments published on Saturday.

Relations between the world's two biggest economies have come under increasing strain amid a series of disputes over trade, human rights and the origins of COVID-19. In its latest move, the United States blacklisted dozens of Chinese companies it said had ties to the military.

Wang, China's state councillor and foreign minister, said in a joint interview with Xinhua news agency and other state media outlets that recent U.S. policies towards China had harmed the interests of both countries and brought huge dangers to the world.

But there was now an opportunity for the two sides to "open a new window of hope" and begin a new round of dialogue, he said.

The election of Joe Biden as U.S. President has been widely expected to improve relations between Washington and Beijing after four years of escalating tensions under the administration of Donald Trump.

Last month, Wang said he hoped the election of Biden would allow U.S. China policy to "return to objectivity and rationality".

However, President-elect Biden, who will take office on Jan. 20, has continued to criticise China for its "abuses" on trade and other issues.

Wang did not mention Trump or Biden by name, but he urged the United States to "respect the social system and development path" chosen by China, adding that if Washington "learns lessons", the conflicts between the two sides could be resolved.

"We know some people in the United States are apprehensive about China's rapid development, but the most sustainable leadership is to constantly move forward yourself, rather than block the development of other countries," he said.

Story continues

Politicians in the United States have accused China of covering up the outbreak of COVID-19 during its early stages, delaying its response and allowing the disease to spread much further and faster.

But Wang said China had done its utmost to combat the virus's spread, "sounding the alarm" for the rest of the world.

"We raced against time, and were the earliest to report the epidemic to the world," he said. "More and more studies show that the epidemic very probably emerged in many places throughout the world."

(Reporting by David Stanway; Editing by Kim Coghill and Neil Fullick)
On the FactCheck page, The Associated Press tracks down some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals that were shared widely on social media. The AP takes those untrue stories, checks them out and sets the records straight in this weekly series of news articles.


Cinema braving against pandemic 6th Jaffna International Film Festival View(s): View(s):

Braving all odds including deadly pandemic, the 6th Jaffna International Cinema Festival started last week with a completely novel format. Conducted in different staged the festival started on the Christmas day, December 25 will go on till March 25, with public screenings, online screening, master classes and with travelling festivals. Kudos to independent cinema, when cinemas are closed all around the world and here in Sri Lanka authorities and theatre owners are struggling to back the industry in a backdrop where large number of cinema halls are closing down. We want to make sure the continuation of the festival and to keep the festival alive, we have kept the festival schedule opened for three months, said JaffnaICF Director Anomaa Rajakarunaa. The first phase of the festival maintaining the health guidelines provided by health authorities was held at Kalam, Jaffna from December 26 to 31.

The Festival consists of physical screenings, online streaming and a part of the festival will travel to different parts of the country in 2021.

The festival was kicked off recognising the contribution made by veteran writer, cinema enthusiast and expert and scholar K. S. Sivakumaran. We opened the 6th JICF presenting the Lifetime Achievement Award to Mr. Sivakumaran, the Festival Director. Monitoring the situation in the country and keeping with safety and health guidelines provided by the authorities we will present the festival as separate programmes during the next 3 months. Jury process is in progress to select the best debut film and International and National short films. She stated.

In a lifes challenging situations like deadly pandemic, cultural balance is affected. While facing the new normal and how to continue the cultural life is important. At a time like this where there are major challenges, it is important collaborate with other people and resources and conduct a festival like this, Anomaa said.

A non-partisan platform to explore contemporary forms of creative expression in cinema, the main aim of JafnaICF is to celebrate independent cinema in the peninsula, whilst creating an understanding of other cultures, promote harmony and mutual understanding through cinema. The festival promotes and encourages young filmmakers by screenings of their debut films and short films.
MINNEAPOLIS  Bayle Gelle said he awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of his wife screaming. He plunged shirtless down the stairs and found her in the living room, being confronted by sheriffs deputies.

The officers turned their guns toward him, he said, and they were barking orders that he struggled to understand.

Mr. Gelle, who came to the United States in 1997 from a war-torn Somalia, would be told later that night that his 23-year-old son, Dolal Idd, had been shot and killed just hours before by police officers in a gas station parking lot, in nearby Minneapolis.

The fatal police shooting on Wednesday night was the first in Minneapolis since the killing of George Floyd in May, which led to hundreds of protests across the country and an outpouring of calls for police reform. But as Mr. Gelle sat on the floor that night, his wrists restrained in plastic handcuffs, he had no idea that his son had been killed.
Ringing in a new year comes annual resolutions, and predictions for the months ahead.

Ringing in a new year comes annual resolutions, and predictions for the months ahead.

Admit it: we failed in the prediction department as the clock struck midnight Dec. 31, 2019.

Few foresaw months of social distancing, restrictions to daily lives, code reds, tens of millions of people getting sick and more than 1.8 million deaths around the world, face masks and anti-mask protests.

As we prepare to toast to 2021, well also be able to say  finally  2020 is toast.

The new year already has one thing going for it: the first vaccines to help in the fight against COVID-19 are being distributed and injected into the arms of an ever-increasing number.

Whether you are a senior, a health-care worker, a business owner or a politician, you have thoughts and predictions about the new year. Lets ask them...

They are two women living in the type of residence  anywhere across the country  where COVID-19 is particularly ruthless.

Margaret Ward, 82, and Betty Lake, 93, have faced months of being shut away in their rooms for long periods at the Convalescent Home of Winnipeg. Not being able to visit family in person, seeing friends get sick or worse, and not being able to take part in longed-for activities.

What are they most looking forward to when the needle has been jabbed and a relative all-clear sign is given?

"Get my hair done," chimed both Ward and Lake.

"Go for a car ride  anywhere," Ward said. "It has been very hard to just stay inside. I havent been anywhere for nine months. And, of course: see my family."

Lake said she wants "to hug and be hugged in return  especially by family... (And) get outside. but maybe not in January."

It is human contact that has been missed most during the pandemic, and Lake hopes that changes for the better during the new year.

"Seeing my family, and even seeing the people around here, you miss seeing each other," she said. "It has also been hard not knowing how my family is. They worry about me, but I worry about them."

Ward is one of the lucky ones: she tested positive for the novel coronavirus but has since recovered.

"It was very scary, at first," she said. "In particular, when asked to make a decision about my care: did I want to stay at the Home or go to hospital?

"It brought a lot of fears to the surface, facing your own mortality. It was also a bit spiritual. When it was late at night and the only sound was the oxygen (concentrator), I got to think a lot about life."

Manitobas Indigenous community  in urban centres and on reserves  has been hit hard by the pandemic. Its people, young and old, have filled a higher percentage of hospital beds than the rest of the population.

Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Grand Chief Garrison Settee and Dr. Barry Lavallee, head of Keewatinohk Inniniw Minoayawin health organization, are looking forward to the anticipated changes to come with the vaccines.

Based on the super-cold temperatures the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has to be kept at, Settee knows which needle will likely be the one getting to remote Indigenous communities across the province.

"Modernas vaccine is probably the best match for northern communities," he said. "It is easier to transport. Were very optimistic about it, but were not out of the woods yet."

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Margaret Ward, 82, with a message of hope for the new year at The Convalescent Home of Winnipeg.

Far from it, and as such, Lavallee said: "Our leadership wants First Nations prioritized."

"We have 30 per cent of the population who are hospitalized and (occupy) 40 to 45 per cent of ICU beds... The guidelines from public health are to give the initial vaccines to people 80 years of age and over, but our (Indigenous) life expectancy is 10 or 11 years younger in Manitoba."

Settee said those in remote communities are hopeful the new year will be a time when they can travel to large centres once more, without fear of contracting the virus.

He is also hopeful in 2021, and years ahead, the pandemic causes a shift in how Indigenous people get medical care.

"Our people have been the most vulnerable because of the lack of infrastructure and the lack of health facilities," Settee said.

"We want to transform the health situation of the North. This is just the beginning. Until we do that, were just treating the symptoms of a larger problem."

Mitch Bourbonniere looms large in the lower socio-economic areas of the city. He has been an educator and community activist for years, being a founding member of the original Bear Clan Patrol, volunteering with the Mama Bear Clan and Drag the Red, and helping families. For this, and more, he was honoured last year with the Order of Manitoba.

Bourbonniere knows, for the people who already faced it tough in life, not only was 2020 worse for them, it was capped off by what may have been the worst Christmas.

"I thought, at the beginning, the pandemic would be the great equalizer," he said. "But, really, it has made the differences more pronounced.

"The middle and upper class, who have credit cards so they can shop online, had presents under the tree. But all the folks I dealt with had nothing under the trees. The toys I was able to get and give, I had moms crying with relief."

Bourbonniere hopes it changes later this year, with the vaccine, but hes thinking some things that began in 2020 will be staying, in some form.

"People will continue to use Zoom and do more things online," he said. "Curb-side shopping will continue."

Bourbonniere believes something else that began in 2020 will, unfortunately, be the case for 2021: no in-person high school graduation.

"There will be two Grade 12 years profoundly affected," he said. "Theyve been profoundly impacted."

Coun. Sherri Rollins (Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry) went from attending numerous city council and committee meetings in person, to having to sit in front of a computer screen for hours to attend. The pandemic also changed the way she connects with constituents.

Rollins is hoping, after widespread deployment of the vaccine, she can again meet in person with people.

"A vaccine means relief, but not right away," she said. "It will be slow and methodical. And it feels especially slow when so many of us are concerned with family and friends and community members.

"Before the first time we shut down, I contacted 600 people, in-person, a week  whether in a large group in an auditorium or smaller... there is a strong sense of community," Rollins said.

"We changed it from social to physical distancing. We still need social... I really pray we can get back to the 600."

Jason Kindrachuk, an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba and the Canada Research Chair in emerging viruses, said while he is looking forward to the vaccine, its a different story for the new strain of the virus which has popped up in recent days.

"Were all fearing this new variant," Kindrachuk said. "The problem is with its transmissibility. Its spreading a lot faster. Thats concerning to us.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Betty Lake, 93, sits at her Convalescent Home of Winnipeg window with a message of hope for the new year.

"If theres more transmissibility, more people will get it, so more will end up in hospital."

Kindrachuk said it is good news there are multiple approved vaccines rolling-out with high success rates, which were developed in under a year.

"But we cant rest on our laurels. We still have to focus on the basics: masking, distancing, no large gatherings of people, hygiene. We have our work cut out for us," he said.

"We have to be very much reliant on each of us making the right decisions."

As to when, as a virus expert, Kindrachuk believes life can get back to somewhat normal: "Late summer, early fall is my hope. Im hopeful things will begin getting better with enough vaccinations."

However, things never change completely back after such global incidents, whether it was the 1918-20 Spanish flu or HIV/AIDS in the 1980s.

"We learn from our mistakes," he said. "Infection-control measures in grocery stores and department stores, some might not change. Were not used to, in North America, to wear a mask when we are sick  maybe that will change now."

While businesses followed provincial restrictions, while also bringing in options including curb-side pickup and delivery, they suffered losses, with far fewer dollars coming in.

Lori Baker, co-owner of McNally Robinson Booksellers, said if it wasnt for the second federal rent program, and a helpful landlord, they might have had to close the book on the longtime Winnipeg business.

Now they are looking towards their next chapter. When asked, she had only one word at first about what she is hoping for in 2021: "Opening."

Baker is also hoping restrictions can finally be lifted on restaurants, to allow all tables to be filled, sometime this year.

"We had (Prairie Ink) open during the summer at 50 per cent capacity," she said. "We cant do any more than 50 per cent because of the six-foot restrictions and partitions were going to be too expensive."

Even when the doors are eventually open for customers, and authors to give readings, curb-side pickup will continue. "There are people just not comfortable with coming in."

During the pandemic McNally has had its internet sales bump up but, "Were not Amazon. Right now, it is twice the work for half the revenue."

Nurses, whether in a hospital emergency room or at a personal care home, have been the foot soldiers on the front lines of the pandemic.

It seems fitting the health-care workers who first see the effects of COVID-19 get the last word. Those the Free Press spoke with were willing to give their thoughts, but not their names for fear of workplace conflict.

"The vaccine is like a light at the end of the tunnel," said a nurse who works at Winnipegs Health Sciences Centre, the busiest ER in the province.

"Theres so much hope people wont get sick. Im getting very excited. Im hoping by this summer we will get a real break  even before the pandemic, we were already at capacity."

One PCH nurse said theyre happy with news of the vaccine but "Id like to see the roll-out a little bit sooner."

"I need to have my residents protected; also my colleagues who look after the residents. There is a lot at stake here. Id like to see my residents come out, come downstairs, see their families, and have recreation programs. They are missing out now."

Once that is done, the PCH nurse hopes everyone decides to get vaccinated.

"If we dont, we wont be moving forward."

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca
Two of Australia's leading authorities on labour law say businesses have the power to compel their staff to get vaccinated against COVID-19 under workplace laws that enable them to make "lawful and reasonable" directions to employees.

But employers are looking to the federal government to provide clear direction before testing this complex area of the legal system, wary of being seen to infringing on individual rights.

Discussions between the government, unions and businesses on the vaccine rollout, which is expected to begin in March, have already started but are not yet at a formal level.

Australia has not rushed a vaccine through its approval process as the government works to build confidence in its safety. Credit:AP

Conversations about the vaccine have assumed a new urgency as Victoria and NSW both grapple with coronavirus cases, which have sparked clusters in workplaces including meatworks and nursing homes in previous waves of the virus.
New Mexico social workers are using qualified immunity to fend off a wrongful death lawsuit filed against them by the family of a baby girl who died in foster care.

Back in December 2017, eleven-month-old Ariza Barreras was found dead inside the Albuquerque home of Stephanie Crownover - a state licensed foster parent.

According to KRQE News 13, medical examiners determined that Barreras died from pneumonia, which may have been worsened by conditions inside Crownover's home.

A subsequent wrongful death suit named five employees from the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD) as being culpable for the infant's passing.

The suit stated that Crownover should never have been granted approval by the CYFD to become a foster mom, given that she had a criminal record and had been previously investigated for not providing adequate food and shelter for minors in her care.

However, the employees of the CYFD are now using qualified immunity to try and have the suit dismissed.

In the United States, qualified immunity is a legal principle that grants government officials immunity from civil suits unless the plaintiff shows that they have violated 'clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known'.

Back in December 2017, eleven-month-old Ariza Barreras was found dead inside the Albuquerque home of Stephanie Crownover - a state licensed foster parent

The defense is often used by police officers who are sued for incidents that occur while they are on the job.

The attorney for Barreras' family believes that they will beat the qualified immunity defense in court because a 'reasonable person' will be able to see that the social workers have clearly violated the rights of Barreras' family.

'In this case, we've alleged - and got plenty of examples of things that we think a jury would find have violated their rights,' attorney Bryan Williams told KOB 4.

Among them is the fact that Crownover was issued with approval to become a foster mom by the CYFD in 2016, despite the fact she had a 'extensive criminal history,' including an aggravated battery arrest.

According to KOB 4, a home inspection determined that Crownover 'had no bedding for children, and had a low annual income that would be make it hard for her to provide for kids in her care'.

Additionally the reported 'even noted that CYFD had investigated her a number of times for inadequate food and shelter and excessive discipline.'

Still, she received a stamp of approval to become a foster parent.

According to KRQE News 13 , medical examiners determined that Barreras died from pneumonia before her first birthday

Stephanie Crownover - a state licensed foster parent - was charged with child abuse following Barreras' death. The charges were later dismissed

After Barreras' death, investigators noted that Crownover's home had an unbearable stench and was littered with animal feces and urine.

Crownover was arrested and charged with three counts of child abuse after the 11-month-old girl died.

However, the charges were dismissed last year.

The family say the wrongful death lawsuit is now their only way of getting justice.

A spokesperson for CYFD told KOB 4 that they could not comment on ongoing litigation.
Exercise Skyros: India-France to undertake joint exercise with Rafales this month

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Jan 02: Come January 19 and four Rafale fighters of the French Air Force will land in India to take part in joint exercises with the Indian Air Force's Golden Arrow Squadron with was resurrected with the induction of the Rafale fighter jets in September last year.

The exercises have been planned between January 19 and 25 in the skies over Rajasthan. The four fighters will also take part in in joint exercises with the Australian Air Force before landing in India. The Rafales from France will be accompanied by the Airbus A 330 multi-role tanker transport aircraft for aerial refuelling support.

The exercise is aimed at focusing on interoperability, manoeuvrability and low flying over the desert.

The exercise named Exercise Skyros will take place over the Air Force firing range in Pokhran. This would be the first exercise involving the IAF's Rafale fighter jets.

Year 2020: When the Rafale fighters added to Indias firepower in the skies

The solitary Rafale squadron will be further strengthened with the arrival of three more fighter jets in January. This would be the third set of deliveries of the French origin aircraft to the Indian Air Force.

In all the IAF has ordered 36 warplanes at a cost of Rs 59,000 crore. India had ordered the jets from France in September 2016 under a government to government deal. With the January delivery the number of Rafale's in the Air Force's inventory will be at 11.

The additional jets will bolster the capabilities of the Golden Arrows Squadron of the Indian Air Force.

This is crucial as it comes at a time when the tensions with China have been escalated along the Line of Actual Control at eastern Ladakh.

By April 2021, 16 omni role Rafale jets will be inducted into the Golden Arrows Squadron. On September 10, five French-made multirole Rafale fighter jets were inducted into the Indian Air Force in a glittering ceremony at the Ambala air force base.

Solitary Rafale squadron to be further bolstered next month

Three more jets will arrive in January, while another three in March . Seven more would arrive in April and this would take the total number of fighters handed over to the Indian Air Force to 21. While the Golden Arrows Squadron would be complete with 18 fighters, the remaining three would be sent to the Hashimara airbase in north Bengal's Alipurduar. This would aid in counter the Chinese threat in the eastern front.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Saturday, January 2, 2021, 15:36 [IST]
Before boarding a flight from Orlando, Florida, to Los Angeles, Isaias Hernandez filled out a health checklist provided by United Airlines, asserting that he had not been diagnosed with COVID-19 and had not shown any of the diseases symptoms in the previous two weeks.

But during the flight, the 69-year-old Angeleno collapsed. Three passengers gave him CPR for nearly an hour in the aisle of the plane, and the flight was diverted to Louisiana, where Hernandez was pronounced dead. The coroners report listed the cause as acute respiratory failure, COVID-19.

The Dec. 14 incident illustrates the deficiencies in the systems that are meant to prevent people from bringing the coronavirus aboard commercial flights and potentially spreading it to the people packed in around them. And it happened as holiday air travel ramped up. In the days surrounding Christmas, more than a million passengers boarded planes almost daily, reaching 1.3 million last Sunday  the most since March.

U.S. airlines boast layers of protocols intended to protect passengers from the virus, including the increased cleaning of plane cabins and a requirement that passengers wear face coverings except when eating or drinking. Nearly all of them also require passengers to fill out a health declaration before boarding. But the only repercussion for lying on the declaration or refusing to wear a mask on the plane is getting banned from the airline, if caught.

How often people with COVID-19 board planes is impossible to know.

Federal regulations require airline pilots to report to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention any deaths or illnesses aboard interstate and international flights, and in March, the CDC updated its guidance reminding pilots of that duty. But on Thursday, the CDC told The Times that it does not keep track of the pilots reports. The U.S. Transportation Department and the Federal Aviation Administration said they dont keep track of COVID-19 cases on planes either.

Flight attendants are asked to be on the lookout for symptoms  coughing, sneezing, high body temperature  but airline representatives say they cant evaluate every passenger.

Only a few airlines, such as Avianca and Frontier, take the temperature of each passenger before boarding.

Some U.S. airports, including Los Angeles International Airport, take the extra step of using thermal cameras to gauge peoples temperatures as they enter the terminal, but fliers are allowed to opt out.

The CDC launched an enhanced screening program last January for international passengers arriving to the U.S. from certain countries with widespread transmission of the virus. But it ended the program in November, concluding that the effort failed, partly because COVID-19 has too many symptoms that are also common to other illnesses; travelers could mask their symptoms to avoid detection; and even travelers with no symptoms can still carry and spread the virus.

What is needed, passenger rights advocates, flight attendant unions and academics say, is for the U.S. Department of Transportation to adopt uniform standards for airline safety, including a mask mandate that is enforced with steep fines. They also call on the federal agency to put more resources into contact tracing of known cases and improved access to quick and reliable COVID-19 tests that passengers can take before a flight.

Without health security rules by (the Transportation Department), air travel will continue to spread COVID, said Paul Hudson, president of Flyersrights.org, an airline passenger rights group with more than 60,000 members.

The Trump administration has been reluctant to impose airline screening and safety requirements, opting instead to let each carrier and airport create and enforce their own individual policies.

Unless that message is coming from the top, its really hard to take action, said Jan L. Jones, a professor of hospitality and tourism at the University of New Haven.

The tragedy on the Dec. 14 United Airlines flight was only the latest reported incident in which a passenger boarded a plane despite showing COVID-19 symptoms or testing positive for the coronavirus.

In late November, a Hawaii couple who tested positive for the virus were told to isolate in San Francisco but instead boarded a plane to Kauai, where they were arrested on suspicion of reckless endangerment, police said.

Several other incidents involving passengers who showed COVID-19 symptoms on flights have been reported to an aviation safety reporting database operated by NASA. The reports in the database are filed anonymously by pilots and flight attendants, with the exact dates and airlines names omitted to protect the tipsters privacy.

The database was created so NASA can report safety problems to aviation manufacturers and operators without putting those companies employees at risk of reprisal for flagging the problems.

According to a report in the database filed in October, the pilot of a commercial flight was alerted to a female passenger who complained of extreme pain while the plane was at cruising altitude. The pilot offered to divert the flight to the nearest airport to get her immediate medical attention, but she said she was feeling better after an EMT on the flight gave her oxygen.

While she received attention on the plane, the passenger stated that she had been exposed to COVID in the last three days, the pilot said in the report, which offered few other details.

On a flight in May, a pilot reported being notified by a flight attendant that a male passenger was coughing, sneezing, not wearing a mask, and he refused to wear a mask despite repeated attempts by her to give him one. The plane had just pulled away from the gate, the pilot reported.

The flight attendants also said that other passengers were starting to panic because the coughing passenger had gotten up about five times to use the lavatory, the pilot wrote.

During a global pandemic, a visibly sick passenger was able to get through check-in, security, walk through the terminal, past a gate agent, and onto an airplane with ... other passengers and ... crew members, the pilot wrote.

In August, a pilot reported that just before departure, a flight attendant said a passenger was coughing, not wearing a mask and had just vomited on himself.

I made the decision that the person was not suitable for a (long) flight and was to be removed, the pilot said in the report.

In other incidents, pilots and flight attendants fault their colleagues and employers.

A pilot reported to the database in September that a flight attendant had been feeling ill but had not disclosed her symptoms to the pilot or other crewmates. She later tested positive for COVID-19, the pilot said.

Lack of communication and transparency from the (flight attendant) about her preexisting health condition led to the compromised safety of passengers and fellow flight crew, the pilot wrote.

In April, two flight attendants reported that even though a passenger on one of their recent flights had tested positive for the coronavirus, their airline ordered them to show up for duty a few days later.

The company refused to give us alternate travel despite being potential carriers, one of the flight attendants wrote in their report in the NASA database. We were not granted assurance of tests upon landing, or that we would be given leave to quarantine for the full recommended 14 days to allow for symptoms to manifest or not.

But its the case on last months United Airlines flight  with Hernandez collapsing in view of other travelers, and with the attempts to revive him caught on video and posted online  that has painted the most vivid and accessible picture of the problem.

United Airlines said Hernandez acknowledged on our Ready-to-Fly checklist that he had not been diagnosed with COVID-19 and did not have COVID-related symptoms. The airline said it realized only after Hernandez died that he had wrongly acknowledged this requirement.

Hernandez had preexisting health conditions, including high blood pressure and upper respiratory issues, and was feeling sick leading up to the day of travel, the airline said in a statement.

Hernandez collapsed early in the flight. At least three passengers with medical training, including Tony Aldapa, an off-duty emergency medical technician from Los Angeles, performed CPR on him in the aisle.

Passengers overhead Hernandezs wife telling Aldapa that Hernandez had COVID-related symptoms, including loss of taste and smell, according to United Airlines. At least one posted about it on Twitter, prompting hundreds of responses of outrage and panic.

Despite the comments by Hernandezs wife, the plane was not disinfected immediately after Hernandez was removed, and the flight continued to Los Angeles, the airline said.

At the time, the crew believed Hernandez suffered a heart attack and offered the passengers the option to take a later flight, United Airlines spokesman Charles Hobart said. All the passengers opted to stay on the plane, he said.

Hobart said that the CDC contacted United Airlines and that the carrier provided the information needed to notify the passengers on the flight that they may have been exposed to the virus.
When Katie Coelhos husband died of COVID-19 in April, he left behind a note on his iPhone for her and their two children, thanking them for the life they had together.

The note made national news, but there was one part many overlooked: In addition to bidding his family goodbye, Jonathan Coelho left step-by-step instructions for his wife on how to file for his life insurance.

Though her husbands life insurance was not approved for nearly seven months because of COVID-related backlogs, the Bethel family had money saved which allowed them to pay $5,000 for Jonathans cremation. But Coelho said she knows other people who had their loved ones sitting in funeral homes for months because they couldnt afford to bury or cremate them and couldnt access their life insurance.

This is an unprecedented time, Katie said. There were so many decisions made and not handled properly by the local government in Connecticut. The least they can do is help these families that go through it. I understand were in a crazy time but there shouldnt be almost 400,000 who passed away. Theyre owed a little bit of dignity and they havent gotten it.

Even before the pandemic hit, many struggled to pay for funeral expenses after unexpected deaths, according to David MacDonald, president of Wallingford Funeral Home and Yalesville Funeral Home and new president of the Connecticut Funeral Directors Association. So as part of the CARES Act 2, the state is expected to give $41.4 million in federal relief funds for funeral benefits for families.

unknown

Gov. Ned Lamont said the state is figuring out how to work with the funeral homes, churches, hospitals, but Coelho said the funds could be a relief for families struggling with grief and unable to get life insurance quickly to help pay for funeral expenses.

If we didnt have our little nest egg, I dont know how I wouldve been able to bring my husband home, she said. Thats terrifying. ... When my husband passed away, a lot of funeral homes were inundated and I wanted my husband home as soon as I could. We were very lucky we had so many people reach out and donate to our family to keep the kids and I afloat. 

MacDonald said theres not a lot of information yet on how these funds would be distributed, but said he and other funeral home directors are always eager to assist families struggling to pay funeral costs.

We hope its going to help, especially families who did run into unforeseen financial burden for the death of someone that was unexpected, he said. ... Theres always a need for help, but in this case its more dramatic because on top of having this unexpected funeral expense, we have a lot of survivors not working the same amount or having their own financial troubles impacted by pandemic. Theres a lot of financial strain, so any expense is a relief.

Matthew Brown / Hearst Connecticut Media

MacDonald said its too early to know where or who might obtain these funds.

erin.kayata@hearstmediact.com
A Polish businessman who was accused of an anti-Islam hate crime had an assault case against him thrown out by a judge after the Muslim woman's key witnesses gave conflicting stories in court.

Aniso Abulkadir claimed that she and her friends Luxika Rajeswaran and Oyindamola Olatuyi were assaulted at Baker Street Tube station by Pawel Uczciwek in a 'racially abusive' attack in July 2017.

The trio whipped up a social media frenzy by alleging that Mr Uczciwek had tried to rip off Ms Abulkadir's hijab and had hit her. They also published his home address and called for his employer to sack him.

At the time, Mr Uczciwek, now 31, denied attempting to remove the hijab and said he had been defending his black girlfriend Yolaine Mossimi from a 'racist attack from three random females'.

Following a police probe, he was charged with religiously-aggravated common assault by beating  which can see offenders handed a possible two-year jail sentence.

But court papers show that the case was thrown out by a judge at Blackfriars Crown Court after the trio failed to establish if Mr Uczciwek had tried to remove the hijab during the altercation.

After witnesses Ms Rajeswaran and Ms Olatuyi failed to attend the second day of the trial, the judge ordered the jury to issue a not guilty verdict and apologised to Mr Uczciwek for the ordeal.

Judge Rajeev Shetty called the case a 'colossal waste of time' and called the prosecution's evidence not 'nearly convincing enough for the criminal standard of proof which is that you must be sure that that happened before the defendant could be convicted of anything'.

Pawel Uczciwek has opened up about the 'insomnia, stress and anxiety' caused by the women's 'false accusations' for the past two years, revealing how the allegations resulted in social media attacks on him and his family, 'causing emotional and psychological distress'

Ms Abulkadir claimed that Polish businessman Pawel Uczciwek (pictured) had attempted to rip off her hjiab and then hit her. She and her friends then kicked up a social-media storm, where they called for his employer to sack him. Also pictured is Mr Uczciwek's fiance Yolaine Mossimi

Speaking to MailOnline, Mr Uczciwek has now opened up about how the 'false accusations' caused him to suffer 'insomnia, stress and anxiety'.

He said Ms Abulkadir had 'falsified a hate crime story about her being attacked and she used her religion to stir-up racial hatred and paint me as the attacker' in order to 'perpetuate their agenda'.

Mr Uczciwek revealed the allegations had resulted in social media attacks on him and his family, while he received 'countless abusive, racist and life-threatening phone calls, texts and online messages from various unknown people'.

At the time, the trio shared a photo of Mr Uczciwek online, and described how he had attempted to remove her headscarf before hitting her.

Ms Rajeswaran said: 'The man said, 'Show me your hair!' and tried to pull it off. Aniso [Abulkadir] has never had a racial encounter like this before and has been left so upset by it. It's the worst thing that could happen to have it removed, she chooses to wear it and it's for her own reasons. It's stripping her of her dignity to do that.'

But court papers now show that Ms Rajeswaran and Ms Olatuyi contradicted each other on basic details during proceedings at Blackfriars Crown Court.

Extraordinarily, Ms Olatuyi admitted that she was 'not sure' if she saw Mr Uczciwek grab the religious veil, but told the court: 'I am going with it happened.'

Defending, Brent Martin argued that the defendant had approached the trio only after he had overheard them making unsubstantiated 'derogatory' comments about his black fiancee.

Aniso Abulkadir (pictured) brought charges of religiously aggravated assault by beating against Pawel Uczciwek in 2018

The court also heard how one of the prosecution witnesses had previously wasted police time and 'effectively lied to the police' to defend her boyfriend.

Judge Rajeev Shetty apologised to Mr Uczciwek, saying 'this case and the allegation against you is a colossal waste of time, having heard at least one witness on these matters and I am sorry that you have had to go through it'.

Mr Uczciwek has saidhe hopes to 'bring light to false accusations and racial hatred'.

He told MailOnline: 'Following the incident, overnight the three girls went on Twitter and Facebook to create a false story about what had happened.

'Aniso [Abulkadir] falsified a hate crime story about her being attacked and she used her religion to stir-up racial hatred and paint me as the attacker.

Yolaine Mossimi (left) and Pawel Uczciwek (right) are relieved that the allegations were thrown out of court after the three women involved gave contradictory statements

In a tweet published within hours of the altercation, Mr Uczciwek called the allegations 'false' and had sought to diffuse a so-called 'racist attack' from 'three other random females'

'Luxika [Rajeswaran] took a picture of me without my consent and used this to perpetuate their agenda. Luxica and Oyindamola [Olatuyi] added their false statements to Aniso's hate crime story in an attempt to make theirs more credible.

'It was later discovered that their police statements were contradictory to what they posted on social media, and the truth can be seen on CCTV.

'Since the false accusations, I received countless abusive, racist and life-threatening phone calls, texts and online messages from various unknown people.

'My home address, place of work, personal images have also been posted all over social media. A number of people have contacted my place of work in attempts to get me fired. I have been called an Islamophobe.

'These false accusations and the resulting harassment and abuse towards me and my loved ones, and their attempt to destroy my public image, has caused insomnia, stress and anxiety for the past two years.

'Relentless cyber-bullying and false online statements have impacted my mental health, causing emotional and psychological distress.

'I was forced to travel to work by car for months to ensure my safety and the safety of those around me. My fiancee worked from home for weeks out of fear of her own life, and that the accusers will find her and attack her again.

'People have shared my family address where my parents and my little sister lived, their lies put them directly in harm's way.

'The case came to conclusion and I was dismissed of all charges. I'm relieved that the truth was shown in court.'
Some fake news, some rake the muck View(s):

There I was writing this column, awaiting the dawn of the New Year with mixed feelings  feelings of hope and trepidation. For the first time as far as I can remember  and possibly the world too  a usually joyous day celebrated round the globe seemed to have lost its lustre. Even if some lights shone brightening up the darkness it was not what humanity was accustomed to once a year despite the differences that divided them.

Earlier in the week, in the United States, the media carried news of a health worker being infected with Covid-19 less than a week after being administered by a newly-produced vaccine.

In some parts of Africa, variants of Covid-19 have surfaced adding additional difficulties to the problems already confronting scientists, doctors and governments racing to end or at least mitigate the effects of the pandemic.

The global economy is in quite a mess and it would appear that Planet Earth has broken from its moorings and is in free fall or whatever astronomers and space scientists call it.

But if nature has turned on Man for the decades it has spent on destroying nature, the habitat in which man and nature both survive, Man is now paying for the thousands of years he has been committing ecocide in the name of development.

What is more despicable and revolting is that Man, governments and big business deny any complicity for what they have done to destroy not only Self but all life forms  be they animal or plant.

Having participated in this ecological homicide, governments and businesses often join hands to blame the media for what they call fake news. Had they plagiarised the phrase from somebody more politically respectable and worthy of leading a nation one might have pardoned them for passing on the blame for their degrading acts.

But no, they have to turn to Donald Trump, an egocentric leader with signs of paranoia, who has not only degraded his country by virtually bringing it to its knees by his deplorable conduct but insulted his predecessors in the White House, audaciously referring to himself as the greatest leader the United States ever produced.

It was while recalling events of the past year in Sri Lanka and the world we are struggling to live in as nature strikes back for the enormous damage that politicians and their business lackeys have done, when I came across a press release from the presidential secretariat relating to a news item it calls fake news a la Trump the Chump.

Headlined Fake news campaign alleging environmental destruction exposed (which I suppose is the original banner, saying A fake news campaign that alleges unprecedented environmental destruction is taking place since the present Government came into power has now been identified.

Not having read the original news report I cannot say whether what is said in the press release is accurate or not. Nor could I say whether the story used the word unprecedented to exaggerate the importance of the news or did so to buttress the story with fact to justify using unprecedented.

Whether this was fact or fiction, the truth is there have been several instances in recent times where forests and wetlands have been cleared for all sorts of activities violating laws including some areas of the highly valued Sinharaja within days of this Government assuming power without the authority of relevant institutions and using machinery of the army so quickly obtained for use..

This was exposed by environmentalists and journalists and caused President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to call a temporary halt to it but not for very long. Who actually was to benefit from this roadway though some villagers in the area were fronted as the main beneficiaries? There are several examples that could be cited to show that all news is not fake.

Still fake news does exist and the media are basically responsible for it. Sometimes it is deliberately concocted and the reasons are many. At times it is muck-raking, like a mango tree suddenly sprouting from a mango.

Sometimes the muck-raking comes from a piece of gossip that hardly has any basis but is resorted to for specific purposes  to tarnish the character of a political opponent, a business rival or a personal enemy.

But this is not to say that fake news is always deliberately concocted with animus at the heart. The way political powers and some who have been elevated to positions of authority whether competent to hold such office or not, try to cover up their inadequacies, faults and mistakes by passing the blame onto media, ignores or avoids the fact that the authorities themselves are artful dodgers and manufacturers of fake news. The most recent case of concocting news and misleading parliament and the people is the November 28 Mahara prison riot, in which Police Headquarters and the Prisons Department indulged in claiming that not a single prisoner was shot dead.

Subsequently a five-member team consisting of four Judicial Medical Officers and a Government Analyst who held an autopsy ruled that eight of those killed had been shot.

Attempts were reportedly made by the Government to put the blame on state officials for the condition of the prison.

Meanwhile, Prisons Minister Lohan Ratwatte told parliament that no one was shot. One cannot blame the minister. How could Minister Ratwatte know about guns, gun shots and ballistics? Still if this is not fake news and attempts to absolve the authorities of responsibility, then pray say what is concocted news and misinformation.

What is worrying is that it will not be long if thoughts begin to float around like viruses to impose curbs on the media, especially on social media, whatever Minister Keheliya Rambukwella might say the media garbled it. The question is how it would be done and how it would be applied instead of using it for vengeance. Therein lies fairness.

Maybe Sri Lanka is following other governments that are trying to cover up their misdeeds. But if this is what 2021 is going to turn out to be and what appears to be planned for the New Year, viruses of various kinds are not the only troubles lying ahead.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor, Diplomatic Editor and Political Columnist of the Hong Kong Standard before moving to London where he worked for Gemini News Service. Later he was

Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and

Deputy High Commissioner in London

before returning to journalism.)
India has seen 29 cases of the new coronavirus variant, that is spreading rapidly around Britain and other countries, within five days of tracing its first such infection. The new United Kingdom variant genome of Sars-CoV-2  B.1.1.7, which is much more infectious, has prompted comprehensive contact tracing for co-travellers, family members and others of those who have travelled to the UK in the last 38 days.

From November 25 to December 23, 2020, midnight, about 33,000 passengers disembarked at various Indian airports from the UK. All these passengers are being tracked and subjected by states to RT-PCR tests to detect Covid-19.

Countries like Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore have also reported the cases of the new variant so far.

Here is a timeline of tracing Covid-19 cases of the new variant in the country:

- Tuesday: India reports its first six cases of the UK Covid-19 variant

India on Tuesday recorded the first six cases of the UK variant of coronavirus among travellers who returned from Britain, prompting the government to enforce stricter precautions and speed up contact tracing for co-passengers.

The new UK variant genome was detected in three samples in the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences Hospital (NIMHANS) Bengaluru, two in the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad and one in the National Institute of Virology (NIV) Pune, the health ministry said.

Also read: 14-day travel history, mandatory RT-PCR test for those arriving in India from UK

- Wednesday: India detects 14 more cases of the UK Covid-19 variant

Fourteen more people tested positive for a hyper-infectious, mutant strain of the coronavirus in India, the Union health ministry said on Wednesday, taking the tally of such cases in the country to 20.

Four of the new patients were from Delhi, officials in the Capital confirmed.

Of the 14 new cases on Wednesday, eight were detected at the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in Delhi, four at NIMHANS in Bengaluru, and one each at the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) in Delhi and the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBG) in West Bengals Kalyani.

- Thursday: Five more cases of the infectious virus push Indias count to 25

India on Thursday recorded five new cases of mutated coronavirus disease pushing the total cases count to 25, the health ministry said.

Out of the five fresh cases, four have been traced by National Institute of Virology in Pune and CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in Delhi. The infected individuals have been kept in physical isolation at state health facilities.

A total of 25 cases of mutant United Kingdom virus detected in India after genome sequencing. Four new cases found by NIV, Pune and one new case sequenced in IGIB, Delhi. All 25 persons are in physical isolation at health facilities, health ministry said.

Also read | UK Covid-19 variant growing rapidly, affecting more people under 20: Study

- Friday: 4 more test positive of Covid-19 UK strain in India, tally reaches 29

A total of 29 people in the country have now tested positive for the new UK variant of Covid-19, with four added to the list on Friday, the Union health ministry has said.
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Sacramento, Ca  The California Department of Public Health reported yesterday that 585 people died from COVID-19, the most in a single day since the pandemic began.

The previous record was 432 this past Thursday.

California is the third state to exceed 25,000 total deaths, following New York with 38,000 and Texas with 27,000.

There were also 47,189 new confirmed cases yesterday, statewide. In addition, the California Department of Public Health says there have now been four cases of a mutant variant of the virus, believed to be more contagious, found in Southern California. Other cases have been confirmed in Florida and Colorado.

Governor Gavin Newsom says his office is starting to collaborate with the US Army Corps. Of Engineers to evaluate and upgrade oxygen delivery systems at hospitals in some of the hardest-hit areas.

Tuolumne and Calaveras counties did not release new statistics yesterday, on New Years Day.

We reported earlier that the regional free testing site at the Mother Lode Fairgrounds has been temporarily closed due to staffing issues. Public health has stated that it is not immediately clear when it will reopen.
It is a year since the world learned of a deadly new respiratory disease stalking the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

Yet we still know little about how and why the virus spread with such devastating consequences.

It can almost certainly be traced to bats. But we do not know how this pathogen  having evolved an extraordinary ability to infect, causing such damage to different bodily organs  made the jump into human beings.

At last, a World Health Organisation investigation is under way into the origins of the coronavirus, but it is accused of meekly pandering to China's agenda by recruiting patsy scientists and relying on Beijing's dubious data.

Now there is growing clamour from experts around the world that no stone should be left unturned during this inquiry  and that it must include one key element of a hunt which has all the hallmarks of a thriller novel.

It is a year since the world learned of a deadly new respiratory disease stalking the central Chinese city of Wuhan, writes Ian Birrell. Pictured: Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli, who was dubbed 'Batwoman', at the Wuhan Institute of Virology

This centres on a cave filled with bats, a clutch of mysterious deaths, some brilliant scientists carrying out futuristic experiments in a secretive laboratory  and a cover-up of epic proportions that, if proven, would have huge consequences for the Chinese Communist Party and the global practice of science.

So what, precisely, is this theory on the origins of this pandemic?

It must be stated clearly that it is just a theory, albeit one based on crumbs of evidence teased out by a few courageous scientists and some online detectives.

New diseases have emerged throughout human history. Most experts believe Covid to be a 'zoonotic' disease that spilled over naturally from animals to humans.

They think it was most likely 'amplified' by an intermediate species  similar to how Chinese people's consumption of civet cats sparked the 2002 Sars epidemic.

Yet at the same time, Beijing's actions from the outset  covering up the outbreak, blaming a wild animal market that it has since admitted wasn't at fault, barring outside investigators, burying data and silencing its own experts  have served to fuel suspicions.

Last week, leaked documents exposed how the Chinese government, under orders from President Xi Jinping, is strictly controlling all research into the origins of Covid while promoting fringe theories suggesting it came from outside China.

And it is an uncomfortable coincidence that Wuhan  a city buzzing once again, with busy shops, packed restaurants and many people without masks on the streets celebrating New Year  is home to the world's top coronavirus research unit as well as ground zero to a pandemic from a strange new strain.

The clues start with an abandoned copper mine in Mojiang, a hilly region in Yunnan, southern China, where bats roost in a network of underground caves, cracks and crannies.

Two weeks ago, a BBC reporter was prevented from reaching this remote site after being trailed by police for miles along bumpy tracks, then blocked by a lorry and confronted by men at roadblocks saying their job was to stop him.

Days after three Chinese miners who had been clearing bat droppings inside caves died, Zhengli went to investigate

The previous month, a team of US journalists had also been tailed by plainclothes police who barred their access.

One research team recently managed to take some samples at the mine, but reportedly had them confiscated.

The reason for such secrecy goes back to the end of April 2012 when a 42-year-old man clearing bat droppings in these underground caverns turned up at a nearby hospital with a bad cough, high fever and struggling to breathe.

Within a week, five colleagues had similar symptoms. Three later died, one after doctors spent more than 100 days fighting to save his life  yet the two youngest spent less than a week in the hospital and survived. Sound familiar?

We have since learned from a detailed masters thesis, which included medical reports and radiological scans, that these miners suffered a viral pneumonia, attributed to Sars-like coronaviruses originating from horseshoe bats.

One leading US health body pointed out last year that they had 'an illness remarkably similar to Covid-19'.

Little wonder a prominent vaccine scientist told me: 'This is about as close to a smoking gun as exists.'

Intriguingly, a second thesis three years later also highlighted these cases.

It was written by a student of Oxford-trained virologist Professor George Gao Fu, who is now head of China's Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, which is leading their response to the pandemic.

So the Chinese authorities must have known about the dead miners.

Yet they quickly tried to blame the wildlife market in Wuhan as Covid's source, until challenged by respected studies revealed in this newspaper.

Following the miners' deaths, Shi Zhengli, a Wuhan-based virologist known as Batwoman for her expeditions to gather samples in such caves and a member of the team that traced the origin of Sars to bats, went to investigate.

'The mine shaft stank like hell,' she told Scientific American magazine, explaining how her colleagues spent a year discovering new coronaviruses in samples taken from the blood and faeces of bats.

The miners, she claimed, died from a fungal infection.

'The mine shaft stank like hell,' she told Scientific American magazine, explaining how her colleagues spent a year discovering new coronaviruses in samples taken from the blood and faeces of bats. The miners, she claimed, died from a fungal infection.

Another expert noted how the miners who died were treated with anti-fungal medications, while those surviving were given other drugs.

'So in addition to the fact that the cases were more Sars-like than fungal-like, this treatment story argues against a fungal [cause],' he said.

'It is very odd that Shi Zhengli would assert these cases were fungal.'

Prof Shi examined samples in her Wuhan lab, a few miles from the infamous market. Studies later found the virus in sewage, but it was not detected in animals.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology is the first laboratory with the highest global bio-safety level in China.

It specialises in the study of bat-borne viruses and is spearheading China's drive to assert itself in bio-technology.

Leaked diplomatic cables reveal that US officials who visited the lab two years ago warned about safety weaknesses and the risks of a new Sars-like epidemic emerging from the site.

The lab's own safety chief also publicly admitted concerns over flawed security systems.

The institute has carried out experiments on bat coronaviruses since 2015  including research that can increase their virulence by combining snippets from different strains.

Some viruses were injected into special 'humanised' mice that had been created for use in labs with human genes, cells or tissues in their bodies.

These controversial experiments artificially force the evolution of viruses so as to boost our understanding of diseases and their transmissibility.

They help researchers develop new drugs and vaccines.

The Wuhan scientists were working with prominent Western experts and supported financially by the National Institutes of Health, the most important US funding body  although this relationship was ended on safety grounds after being revealed by The Mail on Sunday.

Some scientists argue this type of pathogen research is too risky since it could trigger a pandemic from a new disease.

As a result, there was a moratorium on such work by the US for four years under the Obama administration.

Other critics have warned that the Wuhan Institute was constructing 'chimeric' coronaviruses  new hybrid micro-organisms that show no sign of human manipulation.

Now the big question is whether they took samples from the coronavirus that killed the Yunnan miners and, back in their laboratory more than 1,000 miles away, created a new virus that somehow leaked out into their own city.

Leaked diplomatic cables reveal that US officials who visited the lab two years ago warned about safety weaknesses and the risks of a new Sars-like epidemic emerging from the site

As leading experts have suggested, it would have been a logical step to create chimeric viruses by combining properties from different samples.

Many scientific breakthroughs have emerged from such speculative endeavours.

One medical professor suggested to me that the miners may have died after being exposed to very high doses of coronaviruses while working in deep shafts filled with bats and their droppings.

But the Wuhan scientists then struggled to prove causality in their lab as their samples were too weak to infect human cells.

'This would have stopped them publishing a major finding of a new Sars-like virus infecting humans.

The possibility is they might then have tried modifying the virus to make it better able to infect human cells in a bid to establish the missing link.'

This is, it must be stressed, unproven speculation.

And it is understandable why China wants to comprehend as much as possible about bat viruses that emerge in their country.

Yet as experts say, there are many unanswered questions centring on Beijing's reluctance to come clean about the miners' cases, viruses and samples held in their labs.

The Wuhan Institute has even taken key databases offline.

Key to all this is the enigmatic Batwoman, Prof Shi. First, she published a genetic sequence for Sars-Cov-2  the strain of coronavirus that causes Covid-19  which, despite close analysis of other novel features, ignored its most surprising characteristic.

This is 'the furin cleavage site', a mutation not found on similar types of coronavirus that allows its spike protein to bind so effectively to many human cells.

The lab's own safety chief also publicly admitted concerns over flawed security systems

Then, last January, Prof Shi and two colleagues published a paper in Nature that revealed the existence of a virus called RaTG13 that was taken from a horseshoe bat and stored on their premises, the biggest repository of bat coronaviruses in Asia.

This paper, submitted on the same day China admitted to human transmission, caused a stir in the scientific world since it revealed the existence of the closest known relative to Sars-Cov-2 with more than 96 per cent genetic similarity.

It underlined that such diseases occur in nature  yet although closely related, it would have taken RaTG13 several decades to evolve in the wild into Sars-Cov-2 and was too distant to be manipulated in a laboratory.

Other experts wondered why there was so little information about this new strain. One reason soon became clear: the name had been changed from that of another virus called Ra4991 identified in a previous paper  but, unusually, not cited in the Nature piece.

This obscured a direct link to the dead miners, which was only confirmed when Nature sought publication of an 'addendum' following complaints.

The Wuhan team also admitted it had eight more Sars viruses from the Yunnan mine that have not been disclosed.

Some scientists say these new details raise many fresh issues  including a 20-point critique put on her blog by an Indian microbiologist called Monali Rahalkar.

Many high-profile experts, however, still dismiss the idea of a lab leak as a conspiracy theory.

Yet David Relman, one of the world's leading experts in this field, points out that scientists could easily have combined a 'furin cleavage site' from one viral ancestor with the backbone of Sars-Cov-2 taken from another.

'Alternatively, the complete Sars-Cov-2 sequence could have been recovered from a bat sample and viable virus recreated from a synthetic genome to study it before that virus accidentally escaped,' wrote Relman, professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University's medical school, in a recent paper.

The former US government adviser on bio-security told me he raised the issues out of frustration with scientists who seemed discomforted by the idea.

'This perplexing story does not add up  the possibility of a lab accident cannot be discounted,' he said.

There have also been questions over the apparent disappearance of a young woman researcher who worked in the laboratory.

It has been suggested she might have been patient zero of this pandemic, although this has been denied by the Chinese authorities.

Even if the miners' link was eliminated, it would not rule out the possibility of an accident causing this pandemic.

Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, said Wuhan scientists have shown in publications that they have sampled hundreds of bats and people living near bat caves in their search for Sars-related viruses.

'Even if the precursor to Sars-Cov-2 was not from these miners or the Mojiang mine, did they find other viruses that are very closely related that we do not yet know about?' she asked.

It sounds like the plot from a science-fiction film: an engineered virus leaking from a high-tech lab to cause global chaos.

Yet there are plenty of precedents, including two researchers infected with Sars in a Beijing virology lab in 2004.

Studies also show accidents with deadly pathogens are common in labs where people are working with microscopic viruses.

Prof Shi admitted she never expected an outbreak in a city so far from the home of the bats she studied.

She said her first thought on hearing coronaviruses might be the culprit was to wonder: 'Could they have come from our lab?'

She then frantically rushed back to Wuhan to check her records for any possible mishandling of materials  which proves she believed such a leak was a possibility.

There is also another lab in Wuhan with a lower level of bio-security, 500 yards from the animal market.

A study posted by two Chinese scientists in February on a site for sharing research  then pulled two days later  enigmatically claimed 605 bats were kept here, describing how some attacked, bled and urinated on a researcher.

'It is plausible that the virus leaked,' the paper concluded.

Perhaps this theory will unravel as we find out fresh facts.

Or scientists will uncover an alternative explanation for the path of Covid-19 from bats to humans.

Equally, it is possible we may never discover the truth about the origins of this virus.

But at this stage the only certainty is that we all do science  and indeed, investigative reporting  a disservice if this idea is discarded without being properly disproved and devoid of evidence.

We owe this to a world dislocated so terribly by this pandemic.
The Nonprofit Spotlight is an occasional feature that allows North County nonprofits to showcase their work and volunteers. For more information about submitting an article, contact Managing Editor Marga Cooley at mcooley@santamariatimes.com.
On Monday, Dec. 28, the Military Manpower Administration (MMA) chose to highlight several K-pop idols who have shown exemplary military service as celebrities. Keep on reading to see who they chose.

In the past, celebrities have tried to postpone their military enlistment in any way they can, even taking up higher education. The Military Manpower Administration has since been looking for ways to improve the system and eliminate any possibility of people abusing their power to bypass the mandatory military service.

It seems to have worked. According to the Military Manpower Administration, the number of celebrities enlisting in the army at age 28 or older has decreased from 18.8 perfect to 7 percent, and more and more celebrities are volunteering to enlist in the military in their early or mid-20s.

With that in mind, the Military Manpower Administration cited popular idols who are perfect models of celebrity military service. The first idol they named is SHINee member Minho. Minho joined the Marine Corps in April 2019 and completed his active duty on Nov. 15. Unlike in previous years, Minho was given the option of being discharged from the military without returning to the base after their final vacation. However, it was reported that Minho had chosen to return to the Marine Corps instead for his final training.

The Marine Corps has stated in the past that though Minho had joined the military at a relatively late age, he was always praised by his superiors for his exemplary military service and always made people happy with his bright personality.

Another idol that was praised by the Military Manpower Administration is BTOB's Yook Sungjae. Sungjae joined the military this year at a relatively early age of 25 years old. Yook Sungjae is part of the military band and recently made headlines for participating in the Military Manpower Administration's "Proud Military" challenge, which drew much public attention.

Yook Sungjae is set to be discharged from the military by Nov. 2021.

The last K-pop idol that they mentioned is 2PM member Chansung, who enlisted in the military in June of last year. He is currently an assistant instructor in the army at the 5th Infantry Division in Yeoncheon, Gyeonggi Province. In March of this year, it was reported that he donated 50 million KRW to the Hope Bridge Disaster Relief Administration to aid in coronavirus relief. The money will be used to help families recover from the damages caused by the virus and to help prevent the spread of the disease.

These celebrities have shown pride in their activities in the military and can help influence many young men in South Korea to partake in their mandatory military service as soon as possible. In the past, most celebrities joined the military as late as possible due to the heavy burden of a hiatus can cause to their popularity. Now, however, the trend is changing, and joining the military is now seen as something positive.

Has your favorite idol taken up their mandatory military service? Will they be enlisting soon? Tell us in the comments down below!

For more K-Pop news and updates, always keep your tabs open here on KpopStarz.

KpopStarz owns This

Written by Alexa Lewis
New Delhi, Jan 2 : Emphasising that national security is paramount, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday said that the central government is making sincere efforts to give equal attention to all aspects related to security.

The Minister expressed his views after releasing an inaugural issue of "National Police K-9 Journal" here. It is first such publication in the country on Police Service K9s (PSKs) or police dogs.

"National security is paramount and our government is making sincere efforts to give equal attention to all aspects related to security. The police dog squad can act as a force multiplier to ensure the safety of society, much like the way drones or satellites are used in the country," Shah said.

The Minister said that the dogs can be used effectively to detect drugs and even in the fight against terrorism.

A special 'Police K9 Cell' was established in November 2019 under the Police Modernisation Division of the Ministry of Home Affairs with the mandate of 'mainstreaming and augmentation of police service K9s in the country'.

The publication of Police K9 journal is another step in creating an ecosystem in the country to train and learn on augmenting this vital resource.

The journal comprises section in Hindi and English. Apart from security forces personnel, a few foreign experts too have contributed article to the inaugural issue. It is a biannual journal to be released in April and October every year.
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The Republican-led Senate voted to overrule incumbent President Donald Trump's veto of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for this year.

Trump's Defense Bill Overruled

The Upper House passed the bill on Friday without President Trump's signature with an 80-13 vote, making it the first time his veto has been overridden.

The Congress also rebutted Trump amid a rare New Year's Day session.

The GOP-dominated (Grand Old Party) Senate voted well above the two-thirds support necessary, underscoring the depth of dispute between Pennsylvania Avenue's two sides.

The votes ensured that the measure becomes law, notwithstanding Trump's rejection of the $740-billion U.S. bill.

Trump was agitated on Twitter, indicating the Senate passed an opportunity to eradicate protections for social media platforms that he said give big tech companies unlimited power.

A two-thirds majority of the senators override the veto. Trump vetoed the NDAA on December 23, reported United News of India.

The vote in the Senate on the widely popular defense bill followed a previous 322-87 override vote in the House of Representatives.

The move by the U.S. Congress to override President Trump's veto of the NDAA greenlights spending levels and establishes a policy for the Pentagon.

Eight earlier vetoes were sustained.

According to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), "It's a serious responsibility. But it's also a tremendous opportunity: to direct our national security priorities to reflect the resolve of the American people and the evolving threats to their safety, at home and abroad," reported Ani.

The vote concludes a chaotic session for Congress that commenced with the longest government shutdown in modern history and involved an impeachment trial.

Also Read: McConnell: 'No Realistic Path' For a Quick Senate Vote on $2,000 Stimulus Checks

The Friday session, which appeared as the last session before a new Congress to be inducted on Sunday, also seemed to end for now a campaign by Democrats to increase COVID-19 relief checks from $600 to $2,000 sought by the president.

The president denounced lawmakers for denying his bid to increase COVID-19 relief payments to $2,000, "Not fair, or smart!'' reported NBC DFW.

Senate Republicans effectively killed the president's appeal for an increase in stimulus checks.

Senator Bernie Sanders joined Democrats in an appeal to force a vote on higher payments but was barred by Republicans.

Republican lawmakers have steadfastly stood by Trump during his tumultuous White House term.

Thirteen senators voted to support his veto of the bill, including Republicans Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and John Kennedy (R-La.).

Across the aisle, supporters were Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

The veto contention over the NDAA is in numerous ways a culmination of years-long, deep divisions between Congress and Trump on the subject of defense and national security policy, which commenced almost as soon as Trump presided over the White House.

Related Article: Rubio Appalled at Fauci for 'Lying' to Americans About Herd Immunity Targets

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Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 06:51:15|Editor: huaxia

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KHARTOUM, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok on Friday announced formation of the National Mechanism for Protection of Civilians.

"The formation of the national mechanism for the protection of civilians has completed," said Hamdok in a speech to the Sudanese people on Friday, the 65th anniversary of Sudan's independence.

"The mechanism includes a joint force from the regular forces and the peace parties, which will achieve security and stability for our citizens," he noted.

Hamdok vowed to provide protection for all the civilians, saying that the establishment of the national mechanism tends to impose security in all parts of the country, stop extrajudicial killing, and prevent impunity.

Meanwhile, the prime minister announced the Council of Ministers' ratification of the UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

He said the ratified conventions are to be approved by the joint meeting of the Sovereign Council and the cabinet to become effective.

The announcement of the formation of the national mechanism for the protection of civilians came days after the end of the UN-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) mandate in Sudan.

On Dec. 22, 2020, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution which ends UNAMID's mandate on Dec. 31, 2020.

However, the withdrawal of all the personnel from Sudan is set to complete by June 30, 2021, except for a team that will finalize any residual issues and complete the administrative closure of UNAMID.

The UN has decided to deploy the UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan to assist the political transition in the country at a request by Hamdok. The mission is set to assume its work this month. Enditem
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A couple have been left heartbroken after two brazen thieves allegedly stole their beloved pooch in broad daylight.

CoCo was left tied to a bollard outside a BSW at Nundah Village Shopping Centre in Brisbane's north by her owner for only a few minutes before two males walking off with the Dachshund.

Arthur & Co. Pet Concierge have released CCTV footage of the alleged incident and are calling on the public to track down the callous dog-nappers.

A couple have been left heartbroken after two brazen thieves allegedly stole their beloved pooch in broad daylight (CoCo is pictured)

'We urgently need any info on these two male offenders in relation to the theft,' Arthur & Co. Pet Concierge said on their Facebook page.

Video shows two males and a woman patting the dog at exactly 10:28am on Thursday, December 31.

Then one of the men picks up the pooch and the two are seen walking away.

Arthur & Co. Pet Concierge said the woman is not involved in the alleged abduction and was simply patting CoCo as she happened to be walking past.

Police told Daily Mail Australia they are investigating the matter and take all reports of criminal activity seriously.

'Coco has NOT been handed into a vet or pound and we have grave concerns for her welfare,' Arthur & Co. Pet Concierge said.

'If you have any info at all please contact police urgently.'

CoCo was left tied to a bollard outside a BSW at Nundah Village Shopping Centre in Brisbane's north and footage shows two males (pictured) walking off with the Dachshund
Romain Grosjean is still recovering from his bizarre crash in Bahrain. On the track of Sakhir, the Haas F1 driver shot through the crash barrier at high speed. What about safety at Circuit Zandvoort? After all, there are no huge ruoffss there either.

The NOS spoke with Jarno Zaffelli, the architect responsible for the renovation of the circuit in the Netherlands. Although Bahrain is a place where many crashes happen, he does not expect the same accident to happen in the Netherlands. "In Zandvoort the drivers do feel the speed, but they do not drive at the top speed as in Bahrain."

Less on the limit in Zandvoort

The average speed is much less and the exit lanes are a lot softer than in Bahrain. "In Zandvoort, you don't end up on asphalt, but in sand, grass or gravel. In Bahrain there is asphalt so that as a driver you know you can try something, you can look for the limit."

By the latter, Zafelli means that in Bahrain you can permit yourself as a driver to deviate from the racing line, while in the Netherlands this immediately results in a loss of many seconds due to the soft 'verge'. "He (Grosjean, ed.) would never have done that manoeuvre on a circuit like Zandvoort. Drivers behave differently there. Zandvoort is therefore safer than Bahrain, because the circuit does not give the drivers the feeling that they can cross the border without losing anything."
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Friday, January 1, 2021

Judge Jeremy D. Kernodle (E.D. Tx.) dismissed the lawsuit headed by Representative Louie Gohmert against Vice President Mike Pence to throw the 2020 presidential election.

The ruling in the frivolous case was not unexpected.

The case arose when Gohmert and self-appointed Trump electors from Arizona sued VP Pence, arguing that the Electoral Count Act violates the Electors Clause and the Twelfth Amendment, and that Pence has authority to determine which slate of electors to accept when he presides over the congressional count of electoral votes on January 6. The, er, novel argument turns on the plaintiffs', um, creative reading of the Electors Clause, the Twelfth Amendment, and the Electoral Count Act.

Start with the Electors Clause. It says that "[e]ach State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . . ."

Next, the Twelfth Amendment. It says that each state's electors meet in their respective states and vote for President and VP. The electors then transmit their votes to the President of the Senate, the VP. "The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted." The candidate winning the majority of electoral votes wins. But if no candidate gets a majority, the House selects the President, with each state delegation receiving one vote.

Finally, the Electoral Count Act. It says that Congress must count the votes in a joint session on January 6, with the VP presiding. It says that the executive in each state shall certify the electors to the Archivist of the United States, who then transmits the certificates to Congress. It says that a state's determination of their electors is "conclusive" if the state resolved all disputes over the election pursuant to state law at least 6 days before the electors meet. (This is called the "safe harbor" date.) Under the Act, if at least one Member of the House of Representatives and one Senator objects to a state's elector votes, the House and Senate meet in separate sessions and vote on the objection--by members, not state delegations.

Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin all certified their electors to President-Elect Biden and VP-Elect Harris, pursuant to state law and the Electoral Count Act. The governors certified the electors to the Archivist.

But then Trump electors in those states met and, without any legal authority, self-certified their votes to President Trump and VP Pence.

The plaintiffs contend that the self-appointed Trump electors created a competing slate of electors in each of these states. (They did not. The "Trump electors" named themselves electors without any legal authority and contrary to state law in each state.) They argue that "provisions . . . of the Electoral Count Act are unconstitutional insofar as they establish procedures for determining which of two or more competing slates of Presidential Electors for a given State are to be counted in the Electoral College, or how objections to a proffered slate are adjudicated, that violate the Twelfth Amendment."

In particular, they argue that the states appointed Biden electors in violation of the Electors Clause, because the state governors and secretaries of state certified those electors, even though the Electors Clause specifies that this is a function for the legislature. (In fact, the legislatures in each of those states already determined the manner of appointing electors by enacting state law that awards electors to the majority winner of the popular vote in those states.)

Moreover, they argue that the dispute-resolution procedure in the Electoral Count Act "limits or eliminates [the VP's] exclusive authority and sole discretion under the Twelfth Amendment to determine which slates of electors for a State, or neither, may be counted." (In fact, the Twelfth Amendment does not give this authority to the VP. The VP's role is ceremonial, simply to read and count the certified results from each state.)

Finally, they argue that the dispute-resolution procedure in the Electoral Count Act "replaces the Twelfth Amendment's dispute resolution procedure--under which the House of Representatives has sole authority to choose the President." (In fact, the Twelfth Amendment dispute resolution procedure only applies when no candidate won a majority of electoral votes. The Electoral Count Act procedure applies when a member of both Houses objects to a state's slate of electors. Those are different dispute resolution processes, to be sure, but for very different kinds of dispute.)

The plaintiffs asked the court to hold that the VP has "exclusive authority and sole discretion in determining which electoral votes to count for a given State."

But the court ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing. It said that Gohmert lacked standing, because he asserted only an institutional harm (to the House), and not a personal harm. "Congressman Gohmert's alleged injury is 'a type of institutional injury (the diminution of legislative power), which necessarily damages all Members of Congress.'" It said that the Trump "electors" lacked standing, because any alleged injury that they suffered was not created by VP Pence, the defendant. Moreover, it said that both Gohmert and the Trump "electors" failed to show that their requested relief (an order that VP Pence has exclusive discretion to determine which electoral votes to count) would redress their injuries, because VP Pence might not determine the electoral votes in their favor.

The plaintiffs vowed to appeal. But don't expect this case to go anywhere . . . on standing, or on the merits.

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/conlaw/2021/01/court-kicks-gohmerts-election-case-against-pence.html
Beleaguered San Francisco restaurants are struggling with a recent citywide rise in burglaries, including a slew of brazen break-ins at popular restaurants between the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Its a situation many restaurant owners say is exacerbating an already bleak outlook for the local food scene.

San Francisco Police Department data shows burglaries in the city climbed from 4,918 reported incidents a year ago to 7,248 as of Dec. 27. The data does not specifically show how many restaurants have been affected, but the rise in burglaries is reflected in the stories being told by business owners in interviews and on social media. Its a hard reality for local restaurants that have now gone almost 10 months with diminished revenue, forced hibernation periods, and only occasional approval for indoor and outdoor dining service.

In mid-December alone, San Franciscos nostalgic Toy Boat Dessert Cafe posted on Instagram about having had its door kicked in during an attempted burglary. Also in the Richmond District, Cassava took to social media to post about losing roughly $3,000 worth of equipment, including iPads, after a break-in. And Epic Steak and Waterbar on the Embarcadero each lost a similar amount when thieves stole alcohol and damaged property.

Owners say the shelter-in-place order provides thieves with opportunities to break into businesses. Streets are empty because people are staying home. The ghost-town effect is increased as a growing number of restaurants and other businesses are either permanently or temporarily closed. The break-ins are all the more painful when restaurants arent even bringing in income to cover the cost to repair or replace stolen or damaged items.

Pete Sittnick, the managing partner of Epic Steak and Waterbar restaurants, said even before factoring in property crime, each restaurant is losing $50,000 each month while temporarily closed.

Right now, for people that run restaurants you almost dont even want to have your lights on because youre paying for electricity without revenue coming in, he said.

In Hayes Valley, Kim Alter has spent tens of thousands of dollars over the last year on security equipment for her restaurant, Nightbird. Around the Thanksgiving holidays, she said, someone tried to break the lock on one of her doors to get inside of the building. She had the lock replaced. The next week, she said, someone removed a window on her restaurant to get inside. The following day, Alter paid more than $1,000 to get flood-lighting installed.

I dont even think were at the worst were going to see it, she said. It makes me wonder if people are going to have keep their places boarded up even after were allowed to really open again.

Restaurant owners, including Alter and Sittnick, said filing police reports rarely results in an arrest or stolen items being recovered. But the Police Department said it encourages individuals to make reports when crimes occur.

As a department, we are constantly evaluating all crime trends and different ways to combat those trends throughout the city. This includes the redeployment of resources and increased patrols, foot beats and officers on fixed post in crime hot spots. This not only allows us to rapidly respond to crimes in progress but also act as a visual deterrent to would-be criminals, said police spokesman Sgt. Michael Andraychak.

Restaurants have noticed an increase in vandalism and burglary since the beginning of the pandemic, right after the Bay Area shelter-in-place orders called for people to stay home, and restaurants turned to takeout and delivery service only.

Azalina Eusope, the owner of Mahila, a Malaysian restaurant in San Franciscos Noe Valley, said she was mugged outside of her restaurant just before the start of the pandemic in February. Then in June, Eusope posted on Instagram that someone broke into her business and stole a laptop, iPads, two handheld point-of-sale systems and a small restaurant safe, among other items. Overall, she said, the losses, including the work to repair damaged windows, totaled around $10,000.

You see this happening at so many restaurants over the last couple of months, people having things stolen or someone breaking into the building, she said. Its at a point now where you kind of feel helpless, like whatever else is going to happen is just going to happen.

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

Mark Bechelli, who owns the 32-year-old San Francisco restaurant Bechellis Flower Market Cafe, has had several instances of vandalism and break-ins throughout the pandemic. A few weeks ago, he said, someone got onto the restaurant property and used a 20-foot ladder to remove one of his outdoor speakers. Replacing damaged property like the speakers, as well as cleaning the building of graffiti, and putting dozens of pieces of plywood over his windows, has cost thousands of dollars, he said.

At times, Bechelli said, he thinks that if he had a clean financial slate right now instead of the mounting rent payments and operating costs, he would just walk away.

Restaurants in San Francisco have lobbied for federal financial aid that could help deal with property crime. The Paycheck Protection Program, which issued semi-forgiveable loans for small businesses under the Cares Act last year, was a small boon. The recent $900 billion COVID relief package includes a boost to unemployment checks, but it does not include the industry relief promised by the Restaurants Act, which was proposed in June to provide $120 billion in grants to restaurants.

Even while financial help seems far away and crime continues to be an problem, many local business owners say the situation is a reminder of hardships that everyone in the Bay Area is facing, not just restaurants.

Sittnick said the hardest part of running a business in the city these days is having to cut staff at various times, especially during the holidays.

It just kind of sucks for everybody right now, he said. Thats really the only way to say it.

Justin Phillips is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jphillips@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JustMrPhillips
A prominent rights group staged an act of defiance on New Year's Day for the first time in 12 months -- on a much smaller scale -- calling for release of "political prisoners" who were arrested for demonstrations against the draconian National Security Law imposed by Beijing.

According to South China Morning Post, the three-person demonstration was organised by the Civil Human Rights Front, which has seen its applications for events repeatedly rejected by police over the past year.

"The front is the group behind the city's annual July 1 march, as well as three massive 2019 protests against the since-withdrawn extradition bill that drew hundreds of thousands of participants into the streets," it reported.

Friday's show of solidarity with jailed activists was minuscule, but was nonetheless heavily scrutinised by police.

"Free political prisoners," Figo Chan Ho-wun, the front's convenor, chanted from the roof of a white van parked outside its first stop, the Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre.

"We demand the release of all political prisoners, including civil rights activists in mainland China and Hongkongers, as well as the comrades detained behind us [in Lai Chi Kok]," said Chan, as quoted by South China Morning Post.

Chan faces a raft of public order charges accumulated over the past two years. He was joined by Lee Cheuk-yan atop the van, which was flanked on either side by banners reading "free all political prisoners".

Lee called out messages of support to protesters and political figures inside the reception centre across the road, including media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, who was returned to custody by the Court of Final Appeal on Thursday to await trial on money-laundering and national security law charges.

"The creative protest was designed to get around a ban on gatherings of more than two, put in place by authorities to stem the spread of the coronavirus. Activists have argued police have used the ban to stifle freedom of assembly, refusing to grant permission for protests even at times where the infection count seemed to ease," South China Morning Post reported further.

Earlier this week, the front said that it would replace its annual full-scale New Year's march with the lower-key van event due to its own concerns over coronavirus.

After departing from Lai Chi Kok, the group next headed to Tsim Sha Tsui, before ending at the Legislative Council complex at Admiralty.

However, after they began chanting slogans at Lai Chi Kok, a group of "uniformed officers" arrived to join the dozen plain-clothes police already at the scene.

"More than once, they accused the three men - Chan, Lee and the front's deputy convenor, Sam Yip Kam-lung - of violating the ban on gatherings, Chan said. They were also asked to turn down the volume of their speaker," SCMP reported.

It was further reported since the extradition bill sparked massive waves of protests in June 2019, police have arrested more than 10,000 people in connection with the movement and more than 3000 of them were prosecuted.

"The front will continue to fight for our rights to demonstrate and assemble. We will not give up just because we know the police will reject us," he said.

The draconian National Security Law imposed on the city by Beijing criminalizes secession, subversion and collusion with foreign forces and carries with it strict prison terms. It came into effect from July 1.

Several of those disqualified were sitting lawmakers, who weresubsequently ejected from the parliament by Beijing overruling constitutional precedent and bypassing Hong Kong's courts on November 11, sparking the mass resignation of the entire pro-democratic camp.

(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.)
Representative image

China will take "necessary measures" to safeguard the interests of its companies after the New York Stock Exchange began delisting three Chinese telecom firms that Washington says have military ties, the country's commerce ministry said on Saturday.

The NYSE said on Thursday that it would delist China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom following President Donald Trump's move in November to bar US investment in 31 firms that Washington says are owned or controlled by the Chinese military.

"This kind of abuse of national security and state power to suppress Chinese firms does not comply with market rules and violates market logic," the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said in a statement.

"It not only harms the legal rights of Chinese companies but also damages the interests of investors in other countries, including the United States," it added.

While the ministry said it will take action to protect its firms, it also called on the United States to meet China half-way and put bilateral trade relations back on track.

In its final weeks before President-elect Joe Biden takes office on January 20, the Trump administration has stepped up its hardline stance against China.

Relations between the two biggest economies have come under increasing strain amid a series of disputes over issues like trade and human rights.

The US Commerce Department added dozens of Chinese companies to a trade blacklist in December, accusing Beijing of using its firms to harness civilian technologies for military purposes.

Chinese diplomats have expressed hope that Biden's election will help ease tensions between the two countries.

In comments published on Saturday, China's senior diplomat Wang Yi said relations with the United States had reached a "new crossroads" and "a new window of hope" could now be opened.
No more than five persons. In your own home. And you must be off the road by 9 p.m.

Those are the rules of engagement every household will have to abide by in celebrating Indian Arrival Day on Sunday.
Five stand-up comedians were arrested in Indore on Friday for allegedly insulting Hindu gods, goddesses, police said.

Munawar Faruqui, who is from Gujarat, and Edvin Anthony, Prakhar Vyas, Priyam Vyas and Nalin Yadav were performing at a New Years event at a cafe in Indore when a group of Hindu Rakshak Sanstha members entered the venue and created a ruckus. The comedians also allegedly made remarks against Union home minister Amit Shah.

The group accused the comedians of indecent and disgraceful remarks against Hindu Gods and Goddesses, customs, and Shah, a police officer said. They took them to a police station, allegedly roughed them up and later filed a First Information Report (FIR) against them.

A video clip of the incident showed the group purportedly manhandling the comedians in a crowd.

Kamlesh Sharma, the police station incharge, said he had no knowledge of the assault.

Hindu Rakshak Sanstha convener EKlavya Singh Gaud echoed Sharma.

The five have been booked under India Penal Codes Sections 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings), 298 (deliberate intent to wound the religious feelings), 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life), 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) and 34 (common intention).

According to the FIR, the event at the cafe was organised without permission and no social distancing rules were followed. It added vulgar jokes and provocative remarks were allegedly made to hurt religious sentiments at the event.

Deputy inspector general Harinarayanchari Mishra said the five were arrested on the basis of the FIR. The accused will be presented before the court today [Saturday]. Police are investigating the case.
There was a groundswell at the last election to have a more nuanced approach in that the franking credits could have been capped at say a maximum of $20,000. But no, the gun-shy/policy-shy Labor Party throws out what was in theory a good policy because of this all-or-nothing mindset.

It is always all or nothing with the Labor Party. It has totally dropped its policy of abolishing franking credits to people who do not pay tax ( Retiree tax dumped as Albanese eyes election, The Age, 2/1 ).

Anthony Albanese is an uninspiring leader who apparently cannot think outside the square and Labor will be locked into opposition for the future until it changes its leadership and policies.

Alan Inchley, Frankston

Here we go again

Scott Morrison has written that it is time for us to sing that we are one and free (Our nation must sing together, Comment, The Age, 1/1).

A fine sentiment, but here we go again ... this government that has done so much to drive us apart now announcing the smallest possible change in our national anthem with great fanfare.

Is this the best that he can do? Could we please have some concrete action on Indigenous recognition, some concrete action to address climate change, some concrete action to address increasing societal inequality? Real action please, Mr Prime Minister.

Peter Moore, Clifton Hill

Disunity led from the top

Scott Morrison talks about us being one nation in our revised national anthem wording but perpetuates state divisions during the pandemic by heaping praise on Liberal states pandemic management and offering begrudging reference to Labor states management or even actively endorsing vitriol from his Liberal ministers in the middle of a torrid lockdown in Victoria.
Hot takes aside, there were some genuine takeaways from the 2020 election. Photo: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/Getty/AFP via Getty Images

With a new year upon us, it seems prudent to boil down all the things we clearly learned about politics during the 2020 elections into a few bright-line lessons for the very near future. Its very likely we will learn more once reliable post-election analysis based on Census data and voter files becomes available. (One of the problems analysts face right now is that 2020 exit polls are especially unreliable thanks to methodological issues raised by heavy voting by mail.) But searing some big-picture findings into our brains is useful since some of them contradict hot takes or override in significance other data points that have been exaggerated or misunderstood.

The Electoral College Is More of a Travesty Than Ever

Joe Bidens 4.5-point popular-vote win over Donald Trump was larger than that mustered by the winners of the 1960, 1968, 1976, 2000, 2004, 2012, and 2016 elections. Biden led by more than 7 million votes, yet Trump could have won an electoral vote majority with a shift of just 65,009 votes between Arizona, Georgia, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. The disconnect between the popular and electoral vote is getting larger and more alarming, mostly because the most competitive states are not entirely representative of the country as a whole.

This near-calamity was a possibility hiding in plain sight throughout the 2020 campaign, though it was disguised by Bidens large national and state polling lead, which showed him periodically ahead in many states that fell to Trump when the race tightened, e.g., Florida, Iowa, Ohio, and even Texas.

All the post-election complaints from Trump and his supporters have made it easy to forget that thanks to the Electoral College we might have seen a true national convulsion at the prospect of a two-term president who never won a popular vote plurality and was repudiated by a clear majority of voters when running for reelection. And Biden, whose 51.4 percent of the national popular vote was the second-highest posted by any winner in the last eight presidential elections, might have been truly entitled to launch a stop the steal crusade.

Straight-Ticket Voting Continues to Rise

The surprisingly strong Republican performance in House races, particularly in some suburban or exurban areas, led to some initial talk that ticket-splitting had returned. And there were even sightings of that great mythical beast, strategic voting where voters consciously sought to create partisan gridlock by balancing presidential votes for one party with down-ballot votes for the other.

Its true that there was some significant ticket-splitting in southern California, where Republicans clawed back four House seats they lost in 2018  all in districts carried by Joe Biden. These races, however, were very close in both 2018 and 2020, and it didnt take much of a gap between Biden and down-ballot Democrats to produce the flips.

More generally, there was a bit of an optical illusion created by Republican gains in the House. Overall, Democrats won the national House popular vote by 3.1 percent, not that different from Bidens 4.5 percent margin at the presidential level. And Democrats did, after all, win a majority of seats, albeit a reduced majority if compared to 2018. As Cook Political Reports David Wasserman notes, only 17 House races were won by candidates whose parties lost the presidential election in their district  the lowest number in a century, and down significantly from the 35 split-ticket districts in 2016 and the 83 in 2008.

In the Senate, only one candidate, Susan Collins, won a state lost by her partys presidential candidate (pending the results in the two Georgia runoffs on January 5, of course). It will be a while before we have the full data necessary to compare presidential and state legislative voting, but it is worth noting that some of the states where Democrats hoped to flip legislative chambers wound up going for Trump (Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, and Texas) or were very close (Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania).

Presidential Approval Ratings Remain the Best Predictor for Presidential Vote Share

Yes, national and state polls got a lot of things wrong in the 2020 election cycle. Though its not as much as some have asserted, particularly in judgements made before a steady upward drift in Bidens popular-vote margin made some national polls look a lot better. But theres one national polling number that wound up looking highly accurate in predicting one presidential candidates share of the vote: the presidents job approval rating. Gallup had Trumps at 46 percent just prior to the election, and he took 47 percent of the vote. As Wasserman noted, Gallup job approval numbers have been pretty close to the vote-share won by every president seeking reelection since 1976,

This reinforces the conviction that presidential reelection bids are mostly a referendum on that presidents performance in office, no matter what other wacky things might be going on. This might merit an even closer look at Bidens job approval numbers going forward than would otherwise be the case.

Democrats Missed a Huge Opportunity and Republicans Dodged a Bullet

We obviously cannot close the books on 2020 until the January 5 Georgia Senate runoffs determine which party controls the upper chamber for the next two years. If Democrats sweep the two Georgia races, they will have 50 senators, and a tie-breaking vote from Vice-President Kamala Harris will allow Democrats to organize the Senate and claim a governing trifecta for the first time since 2010.

That sounds great for Democrats, and it is great compared to the alternative of a return to the days when Mitch McConnell systematically obstructed the agenda of the Obama-Biden administration. But the Democratic margin of control in both houses of Congress would be so slight that Republicans will be justified in believing the normal midterm swing against the party holding the White House could well put Congress back under their control in 2022. And if Republicans do win one or both Senate runoffs in Georgia, their ability to keep the Biden-Harris administration from accomplishing much at all will be immensely enhanced.

Its a very different picture from the one many Democrats and objective observers alike glimpsed for much of the election year: an expanded House majority to accompany a Democratic Senate, and a presidential win decisive enough to create a struggle for the soul of the Republican Party between the defeated Trumpists and the rest of the GOP.

The lost Democratic opportunity in 2020 most definitely extends to decennial redistricting process for the House and state legislatures, as Democrats fell far short of their ambitious goals of flipping enough chambers to prevent Republicans from repeating the gerrymandering feats they undertook after their 2010 landslide. As FiveThirtyEight reported, Democratic hopes were dashed in state after state:

The GOP is in almost as good a position as it enjoyed in the last redistricting process, when Republicans controlled the drawing of 55 percent of congressional districts and Democrats controlled only 10 percent after 2010s GOP wave. As a result, the House map has been more biased toward Republicans this decade than at any point since the 1970s (and Republicans have been able to win multiple chambers in state legislatures despite losing the statewide popular vote1). It now looks as if were headed for another 10 years of Republican-favoring maps. Democrats were able to win the House and several state legislatures in 2018 thanks to shifting vote patterns in the suburbs in particular, but Republicans in many states will now have the opportunity to draw new gerrymanders that account for this realignment.

The steady trend toward adoption of independent redistricting commissions will limit Republican gerrymandering, but only to a marginal extent.

Looking at the bigger picture, 2020 represented yet another cycle in which favorable demographic trends did not produce the swelling Democratic majority that looked imminent in 2008 or even earlier. Again, we must await better data to determine exactly which segment of the population shifted in one direction or the other, but it appears the relatively strong Republican performance was built on a combination of previously unplumbed white working class votes (often thought to have maxed out for Republicans in 2016) and a small but clear shift towards the GOP among Latinos, and perhaps a pro-Republican shift among Black men. The idea that Democrats are destined to reduce their opponents to a shrinking and literally dying rump of old white voters isnt looking that compelling at the moment.

America Desperately Needs National Election Reform

Its easy to dismiss the pre- and post-election furor about voting procedures to the unique circumstances of a pandemic that made unusual levels of voting by mail much more attractive, and a major party whose president has exhibited a career-long willingness to lie blatantly in making irresponsible claims of election fraud. Yes, Trump and his enablers are principally at fault for undermining confidence in the U.S. election system among an alarming number of Republican voters. But the raw material for their lies was provided by a crazy-quilt system of election rules administered by poorly funded state and local officials and supervised by a vast and complicated array of judges delivering rulings that are 100 percent incomprehensible to anyone without a law degree.

One of 2020s great ironies is that its Republicans who mostly complained about widely varying election rules, given their chronic resistance to federal involvement in vindicating voting rights and their opposition to larger federal funding for election administration (particularly during negotiations over COVID-19 relief and stimulus legislation). Given their heavy investment as a party in restricting access to the ballot, it is likely they will continue to favor arbitrary and partisan state and local election systems where they benefit the GOP, even as they accuse Democratic jurisdictions of wire-pulling and ballot-box stuffing, usually without much evidence. But somethings got to give at some point: the country cannot perpetually tolerate a system of elections in which a growing minority  and in some cases a majority  has no faith at all.

Of all the seemingly impossible tasks of bipartisan policy-making America faces in 2021 and beyond, perhaps none is more urgent than election reform, aimed at creating some uniform rules for how and when ballots are cast, with transparent accountability measures, pro-voter incentives, and adequate funding to make it all work in favorable and unfavorable conditions alike. 2020 should be the last election where one big segment of voters is struggling to cast ballots and another is fighting to overturn the results.
In December 2017, eleven-month-old Ariza Barreras was found dead inside the Albuquerque home of foster mom Stephanie Crownover

Barreras' family have filed a wrongful death lawsuit naming social workers from the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD) as defendants

The family say the CYFD should never have granted approval for Crownover to become a foster parent due to a number of red flags

Crownover had an 'extensive criminal history' including an aggravated battery arrest

She had also previously been investigated by the CYFD for failing to provide adequate food and shelter for another minor in her care

Investigators found Crownover's home littered with animal feces and urine following the baby's death

Social workers at the CYFD are now using a qualified immunity defense to fight off the wrongful death lawsuit

New Mexico social workers are using qualified immunity to fend off a wrongful death lawsuit filed against them by the family of a baby girl who died in foster care.

Back in December 2017, eleven-month-old Ariza Barreras was found dead inside the Albuquerque home of Stephanie Crownover - a state licensed foster parent.

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According to KRQE News 13, medical examiners determined that Barreras died from pneumonia, which may have been worsened by conditions inside Crownover's home.

A subsequent wrongful death suit named five employees from the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD) as being culpable for the infant's passing.

The suit stated that Crownover should never have been granted approval by the CYFD to become a foster mom, given that she had a criminal record and had been previously investigated for not providing adequate food and shelter for minors in her care.

However, the employees of the CYFD are now using qualified immunity to try and have the suit dismissed.

In the United States, qualified immunity is a legal principle that grants government officials immunity from civil suits unless the plaintiff shows that they have violated 'clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known'.

Back in December 2017, eleven-month-old Ariza Barreras was found dead inside the Albuquerque home of Stephanie Crownover - a state licensed foster parent

The defense is often used by police officers who are sued for incidents that occur while they are on the job.

The attorney for Barreras' family believes that they will beat the qualified immunity defense in court because a 'reasonable person' will be able to see that the social workers have clearly violated the rights of Barreras' family.

'In this case, we've alleged - and got plenty of examples of things that we think a jury would find have violated their rights,' attorney Bryan Williams told KOB 4.

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Among them is the fact that Crownover was issued with approval to become a foster mom by the CYFD in 2016, despite the fact she had a 'extensive criminal history,' including an aggravated battery arrest.

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According to KOB 4, a home inspection determined that Crownover 'had no bedding for children, and had a low annual income that would be make it hard for her to provide for kids in her care'.

Additionally the reported 'even noted that CYFD had investigated her a number of times for inadequate food and shelter and excessive discipline.'

Still, she received a stamp of approval to become a foster parent.

According to KRQE News 13 , medical examiners determined that Barreras died from pneumonia before her first birthday

Stephanie Crownover - a state licensed foster parent - was charged with child abuse following Barreras' death. The charges were later dismissed

After Barreras' death, investigators noted that Crownover's home had an unbearable stench and was littered with animal feces and urine.

Crownover was arrested and charged with three counts of child abuse after the 11-month-old girl died.

However, the charges were dismissed last year.

The family say the wrongful death lawsuit is now their only way of getting justice.

A spokesperson for CYFD told KOB 4 that they could not comment on ongoing litigation.
Some readers might recall my recent account about Rocky Lopez, a scrappy lovable terrier I rescued and kept after moving to San Antonio in October.

If you missed it, heres a summary: Amid the chaos of starting a new life  relocating here and beginning a job at the Express-News on the cusp of Election Day  I found Rocky during a walk with my Labradoodle, Sprocket.

It was a beautiful coincidence that wasnt always easy. Rocky needed medical care for parasite infection. He peed in the house more times than Id like to admit.

But he matured from a mangy puppy plucked from a sidewalk on Center Street to a beloved companion. He loved tussling in the yard with Sprocket. He demanded my attention whenever I sat at the computer too long, reminding me that all three of us needed activity. He charmed a mail carrier into tossing treats over the fence occasionally.

About a month ago, after rounds of deworming and vaccinations, I finally let him sleep in my bed instead of beside it. If youve never experienced the zen of napping flanked by two warm, furry dogs, you havent lived.

These days, I would give anything for one of those moments.

Rocky died the Monday before Christmas after a day brimming with promise. After our walk at sunrise, he played with Sprocket and the neighbors dog, and later gobbled his kibble served with a dollop of picadillo  a dish he patiently watched me make a few times before his payoff. He was scheduled for another vet exam the next morning.

Lopez: A new life in S.A., and a new friend for life

Before sunset and after a nap, we played fetch at a park with a dog buddy. As I searched for the ball, I heard a car strike something  and then Rockys familiar squeal. But instead of begging for a midday walk or a taste of my lunch, it was a desperate goodbye. He had slid through a gap in the gate.

Within seconds, I rushed to collect his lifeless body from the road. When I got home, I collapsed in the kitchen and bawled, cradling Rocky for as long as I could. I told him how much I loved him, and that I couldnt have asked for a better companion for me and Sprocket in the era of COVID-19 isolation. I told him I would never forget his strength surviving the harsh world of an abandoned puppy.

Its easy to punish myself by wondering why an adorable gift from heaven would leave my life so soon and tragically. Was I burning the candle on both ends, barely managing everyones well-being?

But on my best days, I tell myself Rocky fell into my life because I needed more to love. Ive been estranged from my family for more than 20 years, and its become ordinary to trample through lifes challenges  like relocating or adopting a stray dog  with sheer determination and self-reliance.

About 25 percent of U.S. families live with this dynamic, with reasons that range from clashing personal values to abuse, according to the Family Reconciliation Project at Cornell University.

People dont become estranged for arbitrary reasons. Estrangement is  especially for the person who initiates it  simultaneously positive and negative, sociologist Kristina Scharp told WBUR-FM in 2018. So estrangement can be a healthy solution to an unhealthy environment.

To thrive in that atmosphere  whether momentarily or long term  requires redefining your family; for me, friends and, recently, pets.

Its actually the maintaining of the distance thats often more difficult than accomplishing it in the first place. I think that its really important that they surround themselves with people who can offer support without judgment, Scharp said. Voluntary kin is really important, and its the family that we create for ourselves.

After Rocky died, I stayed up late digging his grave in the darkness before waking up for work and typing with blistered hands. I laid Rocky into the ground in his usual sleeping position, then tucked two of his favorite toys under his arm  along with a lock of hair from me and Sprocket  before blanketing his body with one of my T-shirts.

Later, as I patted the earth, a fire truck drove by, and its siren prompted Sprocket to howl a somber aria.

Rocky left my life as quickly as he entered it. I thought I was helping Rocky when I took him in, but it was actually that terrific little terrier who provided the most comfort. We surrounded each other with love. He taught me to fully appreciate every moment with those we choose as family.

ricardo.lopez@express-news.net
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BEIRUT (AP) - Syria on Saturday lambasted the U.S. government for sanctions it has imposed on Damascus, following a U.N. special rapporteur's statement that called on Washington to remove unilateral sanctions against the war-torn country.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry described U.S. sanctions against the country as equal to "crimes against humanity" that impact the life of normal citizens as the country looks to rebuild after 10 years of civil war.

The U.S. has imposed sanctions for years on Syrian President Bashar Assad and a number of his top officials. Measures that went into effect in June will also allow U.S. authorities to target foreign companies that do business with some Syrian state institutions.

On Tuesday, U.N. human rights expert Alena Douhan called on the United States to lift its unilateral sanctions "which may inhibit rebuilding of Syrias civilian infrastructure" destroyed by the conflict that has killed about half a million people.

Douhan, who is the U.N. special rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on human rights, said American sanctions "violate the human rights of the Syrian people."

Speaking on Wednesday, the U.S. Special Envoy for Syria Joel Rayburn rejected Douhans statement as "misguided and false."

He said that the blame for Syrias economic situation and humanitarian crisis falls on "Assads brutal war against the Syrian people, not on U.S. sanctions."

Areas under government control in Syria have been suffering from a severe shortage of bread and fuel that Damascus blames on Washington. In some areas, people have to stand in line for hours outside bakeries to get bread, the main staple in the country.

Alongside being hit hard by sanctions, the Syrian economy has suffered for many years because of widespread corruption and recently as a result of a severe economic and financial crisis in neighboring Lebanon.
Why did the United States go to war in Vietnam?

Historians debate multiple motives, such as maintaining Western colonialism after Frances military and economic withdrawal from Indochina. Political scientists discuss the entanglement of Cold War ideologies in a Southeast Asian civil war. And millions of protesters took to the streets to denounce a war they attributed to U.S. imperialism.

But for the hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants taking the Trump administrations new, longer and more demanding civics exam for U.S. citizenship applicants, there is only one correct answer: To stop the spread of communism.

Why did the United States enter the Persian Gulf War in 1990? To force the Iraqi military from Kuwait, would-be citizens must reply, without mentioning such unstated motives as oil.

Why is the Electoral College important? The correct answers omit any reference to the 18th-century agreement that arguably induced Southern states to ratify the Constitution by granting them electoral votes for three-fifths of their slave populations. Instead, the answers are either, it decides who is elected president or it was a compromise between the popular election of the president and congressional selection.

And whom do U.S. senators represent? The answer in former versions of the exam, reflecting the words of the Constitution, was the people of their state. The prescribed answer in the new exam is citizens of their state. For good measure, a new question asks whom House members represent, with the answer, citizens of their district. The answers coincide with President Trumps argument that undocumented immigrants should be excluded from census counts that determine congressional representation.

The shift parallels the effort from the Trump administration to shrink the boundaries of the political community, said Ming Hsu Chen, a University of Colorado law professor and director of her schools Immigration and Citizenship Law Program.

Pratheepan Gulasekaram, a professor of constitutional and immigration law at Santa Clara University, said federal law specifies that immigrants seeking citizenship must be attached to the principles of the Constitution. He said those principles include freedom of speech and thought, with no obligation to agree with government leaders.

The contents of the revised citizenship exam indicate that the Trump administration is willing to outrightly suggest that it is un-American (and therefore not worthy of permanent membership in the American polity) to believe anything but what Trumpists believe about a host of social issues, Gulasekaram said.

New citizenship test See the entire new test here: bit.ly/CitizenQuestions Some sample questions: 1. The president of the United States can serve only two terms. Why? 2. How many Supreme Court justices are usually needed to decide a case? 3. What was the Great Depression? Answers: 1. The 22nd Amendment. Or, to keep the president from becoming too powerful. 2. Five. 3. The longest economic recession in U.S. history. See More Collapse

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which administers the exam, made no reference to ideology in its explanation of the changes, the first since 2008.

The agency said it simply wanted to make sure the annual exam remains an instrument that comprehensively assesses applicants knowledge of American history, government and civic values. USCIS relied on experts in adult education, said Joseph Edlow, deputy director for policy, noting that naturalized citizenship allows immigrants to become fully vested members of American society.

The exam is available to about 9 million green-card holders, legal residents who entered the United States by obtaining visas from family members or employers, winning a lottery or being refugees from persecution, and have lived in the country for at least five years.

Those who pass the test and an oral screening on their ability to speak English are eligible to become U.S. citizens. The 843,000 new citizens who passed the exam in 2019 are no longer subject to deportation and have the right to vote, seek federal employment and sponsor relatives living abroad, among other benefits.

Trump has decimated the population of prospective citizens, lowering U.S. refugee admissions to 15,000 for the coming year  compared to 110,000 in President Barack Obamas final year  while reducing employment visas. He has virtually closed the Mexican border, barring migrants from seeking legal status if they need food stamps or Medicaid, and banning U.S. entry from a group of predominantly Muslim countries. Incoming President Joe Biden has promised to reverse most of those actions, but some could require months or years of new regulations.

The former written citizenship exam contained 100 possible questions, and the examiner would choose 10 to ask the test-taker, who needed six correct answers to pass. The new exam, which took effect for new applicants Dec. 1, has 128 potential questions, including about 40 from the previous version. Test-takers will be asked 20 questions and need to answer 12 correctly.

The passing rate in recent years has been about 90%. That may decline with the new exam, even though the questions and answers are available in advance on the agencys website, as they have been in the past.

The question isnt how many prospective citizens will flunk the test  people tend not to apply unless they are confident they will pass  its how many will be discouraged from even taking it due to the increased complexity, said Steven Lubet, a law professor at Northwestern University.

Some simple questions now have more demanding answers  for example, test-takers were previously asked to name three of the original 13 states but now must name five. Asked about rights held by all U.S. residents  the listed answers are freedom of speech, expression, assembly, religion, petitioning the government and the right to bear arms  they now must name three instead of two. (Neither the old exam nor the new one mentioned freedom of the press or the right to equality under the law.)

Some new questions involve lesser-known topics of particular appeal to conservatives, like stating the purpose of the Constitutions Tenth Amendment (the powers not given to the federal government belong to the states or to the people). Test-takers are also asked to identify one of the authors of the Federalist Papers in 1787-88 (James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and their collective pseudonym Publius) and say why the papers were important (to help people understand the Constitution and support its passage).

And there is a new set of questions asking test-takers not to identify or define a law, public policy or historical event, but to explain it.

Besides the Electoral College and Federalist Papers, aspiring citizens are asked why Supreme Court justices serve for life (to keep them independent of politics); why its important to pay federal taxes (to fund the government); why there are three branches of government (so that one does not become too powerful), and why the United States entered a slew of wars (for the assorted reasons stated by the government).

Some of these may be prime topics for discussion in civics classes, but they havent previously been considered qualifications for citizenship.

I dont feel this kind of knowledge is essential for people to be engaged as active participants in our civic life, said Rosalind Gold, public policy officer for NALEO, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. She said some of the stated answers seem vague, some are inaccurate  particularly those about Senate and House representation  and the changes will stretch out a naturalization process that already takes more than a year.

The Biden administration could rewrite or discard the new exam, but that may take awhile, as the current revisions have been in the works for two years. Gulasekaram, of Santa Clara, said some such action is essential for prospective citizens and the nation to which they will swear allegiance.

Applicants for naturalization, he said, should be presented an aspirational idea of citizenship that is broadly acceptable to the American public, and not simply a worldview to benefit a particular political party, and a specific segment of that party.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko
The Kafkaesque Imprisonment of Julian Assange Exposes U.S. Myths About Freedom and Tyranny





The real measure of how free is a society is not how its mainstream, well-behaved ruling class servants are treated, but the fate of its actual dissidents.



By Glenn Greenwald

A billboard van calling for an end to extradition proceedings against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange waits at traffic lights in Parliament Square in London, England, on September 14, 2020. (Photo by David Cliff/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

January 01, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - Persecution is not typically doled out to those who recite mainstream pieties, or refrain from posing meaningful threats to those who wield institutional power, or obediently stay within the lines of permissible speech and activism imposed by the ruling class.

Those who render themselves acquiescent and harmless that way will  in every society, including the most repressive  usually be free of reprisals. They will not be censored or jailed. They will be permitted to live their lives largely unmolested by authorities, while many will be well-rewarded for this servitude. Such individuals will see themselves as free because, in a sense, they are: they are free to submit, conform and acquiesce. And if they do so, they will not even realize, or at least not care, and may even regard as justifiable, that those who refuse this Orwellian bargain they have embraced (freedom in exchange for submission) are crushed with unlimited force.

Those who do not seek to meaningfully dissent or subvert power will usually deny  because they do not perceive  that such dissent and subversion are, in fact, rigorously prohibited. They will continue to believe blissfully that the society in which they live guarantees core civic freedoms  of speech, of press, of assembly, of due process  because they have rendered their own speech and activism, if it exists at all, so innocuous that nobody with the capacity to do so would bother to try to curtail it. The observation apocryphally attributed to socialist activist Rosa Luxemburg, imprisoned for her opposition to German involvement in World War I and then summarily executed by the state, expresses it best: Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.

The metric to determine whether a society is free is not how its orthodoxy-spouting, well-behaved, deferential-to-authority citizens are treated. Such people are treated well, or at least usually left alone, by every sovereign and every power center in every era, all over the world.

You will not feel the sting of Silicon Valley or other institutional censorship as long as you affirm the latest COVID pronouncements of the World Health Organization and Dr. Anthony Fauci (even as those decrees contradict the ones they issued only a few months earlier), but you will if you question, refute or deviate from them. You will not have your Facebook page deleted if you defend Israeli occupation of Palestine but will be banished from that platform if you live in the West Bank and Gaza and urge resistance to Israeli occupying troops. If you call Trump an orange fascist clown, you can stay on YouTube for eternity, but not if you defend his most controversial policies and claims. You can vocally insist that the 2000, 2004 and 2016 U.S. presidential elections were all stolen without the slightest concern of being banned, but the same claims about the 2020 election will result in the summary denial of your ability to use online tech monopolies to be heard.

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Censorship, like most repression, is reserved for those who dissent from majoritarian orthodoxies, not for those who express views comfortably within the mainstream. Establishment Democrats and Republicans  adherents to the prevailing neoliberal order  have no need for free speech protections since nobody with power would care enough to silence them. It is only the disaffected, those who reside on the fringes and the margins, who need those rights. And those are precisely the people who, by definition, are most often denied them.

Similarly: powerful officials in Washington can illegally leak the most sensitive government secrets and will suffer no punishment, or will get the lightest tap on the wrist, provided their aim is to advance mainstream narratives. But low-level leakers whose aim is to expose wrongdoing by the powerful or reveal their systemic lying will have the full weight of the criminal justice system and the intelligence community come crashing down on them, to destroy them with vengeance and also to put their heads on a pike to terrorize future dissidents out of similarly stepping forward.

Journalists like Bob Woodward, who spend decades spilling the most sensitive secrets at the behest of the ruling class D.C. elites, will be lavished with awards and immense wealth. But those like Julian Assange who publish similar secrets but against the will of those elites, with the goal and outcome of exposing (rather than obscuring) ruling class lies and impeding (rather than advancing) their agenda, will suffer the opposite fate as Woodward: they will endure every imaginable punishment, including indefinite imprisonment in maximum-security cells. That is because Woodward is a servant of power while Assange is a dissident against it.

All of this illustrates a vital truth. The real measure of how free is a society  from China, Saudi Arabia and Egypt to France, Britain and the U.S.  is not how its mainstream, well-behaved ruling class servants are treated. Royal court vassals always end up fine: rewarded for their subservience and thus, convinced that freedoms abound, they redouble their fealty to prevailing status quo power structures.

Whether a society is truly free is determined by how it treats its dissidents, those who live and speak and think outside of permissible lines, those who effectively subvert ruling class aims. If you want to know whether free speech is genuine or illusory, look not to the treatment of those who loyally serve establishment factions and vocally affirm their most sacred pieties, but to the fate of those who reside outside of those factions and work in opposition to them. If you want to know whether a free press is authentically guaranteed, look at the plight of those who publish secrets designed not to propagandize the population to venerate elites but, instead, those whose publications result in generating mass discontent against them.

That is what makes the ongoing imprisonment of Julian Assange not only a grotesque injustice but also a vital, crystal-clear prism for seeing the fundamental fraud of U.S. narratives about who is free and who is not, about where tyranny reigns and where it does not.

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Assange has been imprisoned for almost two years. He was dragged out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London by British police on April 11, 2019. That was possible only because the U.S., U.K. and Spanish governments coerced Ecuadors meek President, Lenin Moreno, to withdraw the asylum extended to Assange seven years earlier by his staunch sovereignty-defending predecessor, Rafael Correa.

The U.S. and British governments hate Assange because of his revelations that exposed their lies and crimes, while Spain was enraged by WikiLeaks journalistic coverage of and activism against Madrids 2018 violent repression of the Catalan independence movement. So they bullied and bribed Moreno to throw Assange to the wolves  i.e., to them. And ever since, Assange has been held in the high-security Belmarsh prison in London, a facility used for terrorist suspects that is so harsh that the BBC asked in 2004 whether it is Britains Guantanamo Bay.

Assange is not currently imprisoned because he was convicted of a crime. Two weeks after he was dragged out of the embassy, he was found guilty of the minor offense of skipping bail and sentenced to 50 weeks in prison, the maximum penalty allowed by law. He fully served that sentence as of April of this year, and was thus scheduled to be released, facing no more charges. But just weeks before his release date, the U.S. Justice Department unveiled an indictment of Assange arising out of WikiLeaks 2010 publication of U.S. State Department diplomatic cables and war logs that revealed massive corruption by numerous governments, Bush and Obama officials, and various corporations around the world.

That U.S. indictment and the accompanying request to extradite Assange to the U.S. to stand trial provided, by design, the pretext for the British government to imprison Assange indefinitely. A judge quickly ruled that Assange could not be released on bail pending his extradition hearing, but instead must stay behind bars while the U.K. courts fully adjudicate the Justice Departments extradition request. No matter what happens, it will takes years for this extradition process to conclude because whichever side (the DOJ or Assange) loses at each stage (and Assange is highly likely to lose the first round when the lower-court decision on the extradition request is issued next week), they will appeal, and Assange will linger in prison while these appeals wind their way very slowly through the U.K. judicial system.

That means that  absent a pardon by Trump or the withdrawal of the charges by what will become the Biden DOJ  Assange will be locked up for years without any need to prove he is guilty of any crime. He will have been just disappeared: silenced by the very governments whose corruption and crimes he denounced and exposed.

Those are the same governments  the U.S. and U.K.  that sanctimoniously condemn their adversaries (but rarely their repressive allies) for violating free speech, free press and due process rights. These are the same governments that succeed  largely due to a limitlessly compliant corporate media that either believes the propaganda or knowingly disseminates it for their own rewards  in convincing large numbers of their citizens that, unlike in the Bad Countries such as Russia and Iran, these civic freedoms are guaranteed and protected in the Good Western Countries.

(The ample evidence showing that the indictment of Assange is the single gravest threat to press freedoms in years, and that the arguments mounted to justify it are fraudulent, has been repeatedly documented by myself and others, so I will not rehash those discussions here. Those interested can see the article and video program I produced on this prosecution along with my op-ed in The Washington Post; Laura Poitras New York Times op-ed last week on the indictment; former Brazilian President Lula da Silvas Guardian op-ed calling for Assanges immediate release; the editorial from The Guardian and column from The Washington Posts media reporter Margaret Sullivan condemning this prosecution as abusive; and statements from the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Columbia Journalism Review, and the ACLU warning of the serious dangers to press freedoms it poses).

Even Assanges conviction on bail jumping charges, and the way it is portrayed in mainstream media discourse, reveals how deceitful these narratives are, and how illusory are these supposedly protected liberties. Assanges misdemeanor bail jumping conviction was based on his decision to seek asylum from Ecuador rather than appear for his 2012 extradition hearing in London. That asylum request was granted by Ecuador on the ground that Swedens attempt to extradite Assange from the U.K. for a sexual assault investigation could be used as a pretext to ship him to the U.S., which would then imprison him for the crime of reporting on its illegal and deceitful acts. Such retaliatory imprisonment, said Ecuador, would amount to classic political persecution, thus necessitating asylum to protect his political rights from attack by the U.S. (the case in Sweden was subsequently closed after prosecutors concluded that Assanges asylum rendered the investigation futile).

When the U.S. grants asylum to dissidents from adversary countries in order to protect them from persecution, the U.S. media heralds it a noble, benevolent act, one that proves how devoted the U.S. Government is to the rights and freedoms of people all over the world.

Recall the celebratory tone of U.S. media coverage when the Obama administration gave refuge in its Beijing embassy and then permanent asylum to the blind Chinese activist-lawyer Chen Guangcheng, who had faced numerous criminal charges in his home country for his work against various policies he regarded as oppressive and unjust. American liberals depict asylum when granted by the U.S. Government, to protect against persecution in other Latin American countries, as so sacred that the Trump administrations efforts to limit such asylum invoked their sustained fury (that fury is about to dissipate as Biden does the same, but with the softer and gentler language of reluctance).

NPR, April 9, 2015
Protesting farmers said on Saturday said they will hold marches towards governors houses in different states on January 23 and take out a parade on tractors on January 26 against the Centres three farm laws. On January 23, we will hold marches towards Governors Houses in different states and a Tractor Kisan Parade will be held on January 26 in Delhi. The tractor parade with the national flag will be called Kisaan Parade, Krantikari Kisan union president Darshan Pal said, according to news agency ANI.

We were peaceful, are peaceful and will be peaceful, but will stay at Delhi borders until new farm laws are repealed, said one of the leaders of the protesting farmers unions, according to PTI.

Farmer groups continued to block traffic from Ghaziabad and Noida to Delhi on Saturday. The Singhu and Tikri border crossing points from Delhi to Haryana have also remained completely blocked since last month when the farmer agitation against three laws enacted to liberalize the sector started. At the Ghazipur border, the service lane of National Highway-24 continued to remain closed for traffic.

Meanwhile, Union minister of state (MoS) for agriculture Kailash Choudhary said a solution would come up during the talks to be held on January 4 with the farmers and that the ongoing deadlock would end. I am confident that in the next round of talks with farmers, a solution will be reached and the ongoing protest will come to an end. The three farm bills are in favour of farmers. They used to demand to get rid of the middleman and sell their produce at a rate of their choice, the minister was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

The first five rounds of talks between protesting farmers and the government failed to resolve the deadlock. On December 30, the farmers unions decided to meet the ministers for the sixth time. The government only agreed to address two of the four issues raised by farmers, which were sparing heavy fines for stubble burning and continuing the current mechanism of giving subsidised power for agricultural use. The farmers have said they will intensify their stir if their demands are nor met.
Addison eventually sought out other COVID-19 widows to talk to, and other women have managed to find each other by joining Facebook bereavement groups, which are also open to men. They have forged ties similar to those found among other clusters of women whose husbands died unexpectedly and prematurely, including military spouses or widows of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The women on the Zoom call in July who live in the Chicago area have since become friends who meet for dinner and check in daily with quick texts.
Judith Lightfoot was managing her illness herself, until she couldnt.

It felt like a bad flu. She was sick to her stomach. She couldnt eat.

I was passing out all over the house said Lightfoot, who is the interim chairperson for Rowan Universitys department of internal medicine, chief of infectious disease and department director for internal medicine.

This was early March and Lightfoot, who was well aware of the COVID-19 virus sweeping across the world, spent two months battling back from it. Her expertise in the medical field and as a survivor of the coronavirus has made her a valued source for NJ Advance Media and other news outlets.

Lightfoot, 57, is a doctor of osteopathic medicine, which differs from a medical doctor in philosophy. Doctors of osteopathic medicine treat their patients holistically and believe that the body can heal itself.

She was on an international jazz cruise in January with her husband when she heard a BBC news report about the virus overtaking Wuhan, China. Her alarm level increased when she saw what happened at the nursing home in Washington State.

I was criticized for saying we should wear masks early on, she said.

By late February, she was angering more people at the university when she vocally opposed letting students travel abroad, she said.

I felt people were trying to discount what I was saying, they just didnt know and they didnt want to think it was going to be this serious, Lightfoot said.

She attended a gala at the Borgata on March 7 and remembers telling her husband that she had a headache and wanted to leave after the awards. Within days she couldnt eat, couldnt drive and lost a clothing-size worth of weight.

Im an avid spinner and I could barely walk around the block, she said. I couldnt lift 5 pounds. I had lost so much weight and muscle mass.

Lightfoot is a former ballerina. Growing up in the Washington, D.C. area she wanted to be a professional dancer, but her father told her she needed to find a job that would allow her to support herself. She was drawn to science and inspired by a teacher who told stories about her husbands work for NASA.

There was also a push to increase the number of female engineers. Mechanical and electrical engineering didnt interest her, but genetic engineering did. That led her to osteopathic medicine. Shes been at Rowan University for almost three years.

Lightfoot had developed pneumonia from the coronavirus by the time she went to the hospital on March 18. I didnt want to go to the hospital because COVID was there, she said.

It took until July for her to regain her full strength. Ive seen every bit of this, Lightfoot said. How it robs you.

You have to rest. The breathing was the hardest -- and trying to survive, she said

Now, that the second wave is here, Lightfoot wants people to know that the cases are just as serious as the first round -- and people are still dying.

Not everyone understands the science, she said. Some people think youre not talking about them when it comes to wearing the mask.

One of her patients rented out a movie theater for 20 of his friends and family. Seven of those who went now have COVID-19.

People are under this perception that their circle is safe. We know who weve been around, Lightfoot said. No one is safe.

Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust.

Allison Pries may be reached at apries@njadvancemedia.com.
Veteran Egyptian screenwriter Wahid Hamed passed away at 76 due to health problems, his son, film director Marwan Hamed, said.

Hamed died shortly after he was admitted to an intensive care unit at a hospital in Mohandessin district, Giza governorate.

The cause of Hamed's death was not officially announced, but he had reportedly suffered from heart, lung and liver problems that led to a heart attack.

The funeral prayers will be held after the Asr (afternoon) prayers on Saturday at the Police Officers Mosque in Gizas Sheikh Zayed city. Asr prayers today are held at 2:47 pm, Cairo time.

*Hamed lived with and among the people. They were the source of his inspiration for his films and the characters who represent them. Read Ahram's full interview with Wahid Hamed last year.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 2)  A Filipina nurse in the United Kingdom has been recognized for her work amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Charito Romano, a staff nurse in the Arbrook House Care Home in Esher, Surrey, England, is among the medalists of the Order of the British Empire (BEM) in the recent New Year's Honours List published by Queen Elizabeth II.

British Ambassador to the Philippines Daniel Pruce congratulated Romano in a tweet, saying she had been awarded for her "outstanding work" in the said nursing home during the health crisis.

In a statement on Sunday, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III sent her congratulations, adding this "may not be enough" to express the government's gratitude for making the Filipino people proud.

"Nurse Romano's outstanding performance exemplifies the Filipino virtues at work even under worst conditions and personal risks. What a very inspiring story for our overseas workers to start the new year," he added.

Originally from Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, she arrived in the UK in 2002 under a work visa. Romano, a mother of three, has been working for Arbrook House Care Home since 2018, the Labor Department added.

"I am sharing this award to all my colleagues and to the whole Arbrook team. If not for them, I will not be able to have this award. It is a team effort," Romano told the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in London.

The nurse likewise advised Filipino nurses who recently arrived in the UK about the importance of embracing the European country's culture the same way they have embraced the Philippines', along with the value of dedication to one's work.

Romano also shared her message to fellow Filipinos, particularly those making a living abroad.

"This is the time to show the world what we can be. Whatever you do, you dedicate yourself to it. Always remember that that wherever you are, whatever you do, you will always shine because Filipinos are hard workers," she said.

Fellow Filipina nurse Minnie Klepacz was also awarded a British Empire Medal in October last year, this time for the support she provided her colleagues and community amid the health crisis. Klepacz is a matron for ophthalmology at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital in England.

Queen Elizabeth II publishes two sets of honours list every year: one during the New Year, and another during her official birthday in June. Her birthday list last year had been delayed to October due to the coronavirus health crisis.

It was also a Filipina nurse who administered the UK's first COVID-19 vaccine. May Parsons, a nurse in the National Health Service delivered the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to 90-year-old Margaret Keenan.
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Panaji:

Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar Sunday paid rich tributes to freedom fighter Veer Savarkar and described him as a true patriot.



Remembering Veer Savarkar on his birth anniversary, a true patriot whose ideology inspires millions of Indians, Parrikar tweeted.



Savarkar was a revolutionary freedom fighter who was known for his sacrifices for the nation. He advocated dismantling the system of caste in Hindu culture, and reconversion of the converted Hindus back to Hindu religion.

His political philosophy had the elements of utilitarianism, rationalism and positivism, humanism and universalism, pragmatism and realism. Savarkar was also an atheist and a staunch rationalist who disapproved of orthodox Hindu belief, dismissing cow worship as superstitious

Remembering Veer Savarkar on his birth anniversary, a true patriot whose ideology inspires millions of Indians.  Manohar Parrikar (@manoharparrikar) May 28, 2017

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RICHMOND, Va. - State Sen. Benton Chafin Jr., a southwest Virginia cattle farmer and lawyer who broke with fellow Republicans to expand Medicaid in 2018, died Friday at VCU Medical Center of covid-19.

A senator since 2014, Chafin, 60, had been hospitalized for about two weeks with the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.

"Southwest Virginia has lost a strong advocate - and we have all lost a good man," Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, said in a written statement. "He pushed hard to bring jobs and investment to his district, and I will always be grateful for his courageous vote to expand health care for people who need it."

Northam ordered state flags lowered in his honor.

Chafin (Russell) was among a handful of Senate Republicans who agreed to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act in 2018.

Blocking expansion of the law also known as Obamacare had long been a rallying cry for the legislature's conservatives, but Chafin said it would provide desperately needed health care in his coal country district, among the poorest in the state.

Senate Minority Leader Thomas Norment Jr., R-James City, said the Senate Republican Caucus was in mourning. Members extended condolences to Chafin's mother, wife, three children, grandchildren and sister, state Supreme Court Justice Teresa Chafin.

"He was a treasured friend, unrelentingly cheerful with an infectious smile and gregarious manner," Norment said.

House of Delegates Minority Leader Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, said in a statement that Chafin's "commitment to the people of Southwest Virginia was unyielding. He was a fierce advocate for not only his region, but our entire Commonwealth."

The Senate Democratic Caucus praised his "compassion, strength, and thoughtfulness." Members of the Legislative Black Caucus praised him as "a well-respected legislator and a tireless advocate for his constituents in Southwest Virginia."

Known as "Ben," Augustus Benton Chafin Jr. grew up working on his family's Russell County farm.

As a teenager, he had a part-time job at a local meatpacking plant, according to a biography posted on his campaign website. He and his sister were the first members of their family to attend college.

Chafin earned a bachelor's degree from East Tennessee State University, a school close enough to home that he could "fulfill his obligations to the family farm by returning home most weekends," his biography said.

After graduating from the University of Richmond School of Law, Chafin returned to Russell County to practice law.

He was a longtime board member of the First Bank and Trust, which his father helped establish.

"He was the little brother I never had and like his late father, he was fair, wise and dedicated to the tasks at hand," said Frank Kilgore, Chafin's brother-in-law.

Chafin was elected to the House of Delegates in November 2013 and moved to the Senate nine months later, winning a special election for the seat that Democrat Phillip P. Puckett (Russell) abruptly resigned from in summer 2014.

Sen. Todd Pillion, R-Washington, who also hails from the state's rural southwest, called Chafin a "true Virginia gentleman" and a "resounding voice for our region."
With Christmas and New Years Day celebrations behind us, many are taking down the beautiful decorations that adorned their homes this festive season. An American zoo has come up with an incredibly innovative way for anybody looking to get rid of their Christmas tree. This odd method is environmentally friendly and tree-mendously adorable, all at once.

The Lewis Adventure Farm & Zoo, located in Michigan, shared this post on their Facebook page. It reads, We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! If you are ready to take down the tree and would like to recycle, we are now accepting donations of real Christmas Trees to feed the goats! Donated trees can be left in the main parking lot next to the TREE-mendous Treat sign, please no tinsel or flocked trees and be sure to remove all decorations.

Now that is undoubtedly a tree-at. Check out the entire post below:

Since being shared on the Internet, this post has captured the attention of netizens. It currently has almost 80 shares on Facebook and has simultaneously accumulated more than 50 reactions from people.

Jenny Ferels, the zoos brand ambassador, states that Christmas trees make for super healthy meals for animals, reports UPI.com. Pine needles have a lot of Vitamin C in them, so theyre getting some vitamins there, and its a natural de-wormer for goats too, she said.

What are your thoughts on this inventive two birds with one stone type of method used to dispose of Christmas trees?

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The Moderna vaccine  which requires less stringent measures to keep it viable as compared to the Pfizer vaccine  is arriving in Manitoba and 5,300 of 7,300 doses are destined for First Nations people.

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The Moderna vaccine  which requires less stringent measures to keep it viable as compared to the Pfizer vaccine  is arriving in Manitoba and 5,300 of 7,300 doses are destined for First Nations people.

According to a provincial news release, Manitobas vaccine supply is based on a federal per capita allocation. Two hundred twenty-eight thousand of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are destined for Manitoba by March 31.

The province did secure 9,600 additional doses of the Moderna vaccine in the first quarter of 2021 for Manitobas Indigenous population.

During the final technical briefing of 2020 for members of the press Thursday, Dr. Jazz Atwal, the provinces acting deputy chief provincial public health officer, confirmed that news Thursday. Deployment is a team effort.

"And what that looks like will be decided by First Nations experts," Atwal said.

As many experts have noted, including Dr. Joss Reimer, the Moderna vaccine is better suited for delivery to northern and remote communities as compared to the Pfizer offering, which currently has more stringent storage and transportation requirements.

Reimer is the medical officer of health for Manitoba Health, Seniors and Active Living, and a member of Manitobas COVID-19 Vaccine Implementation Task Force.

The province deployed its first vaccine doses in Winnipeg in mid-December. Those were from Pfizer, which produces the first vaccine approved by Health Canada.

The First Nations team making vaccine decisions for First Nation members in the province stem from the Manitoba First Nations Pandemic Response Co-ordination Team and the Keewatinohk Inniniw Minoayawin (KIM) Inc., and include Dr. Marcia Anderson, Dr. Barry Lavallee, Melanie MacKinnon and Cindy Garson  all appointed health leads of their various First Nations governments and organizations.

"We were all waiting to see this, this moment where we can see some hope in terms of trying to change the narrative as it relates to COVID-19," said Jerry Daniels, grand chief of the Southern Chiefs Organization, according to The Winnipeg Free Press.

"Were happy that our communities are going to be able to be quite a bit more protected now."

Several "super-centre sites" or "super immunization centres," as Atwal called them, are slated to open in January  including one at the RBC Convention Centre Winnipeg this coming week. Thats where the Pfizer vaccine will be deployed "in general," Atwal said.

A second site is expected at Brandons Keystone Centre mid-month, and a third in Thompson.

Atwal said, in conjunction with these central hubs, vaccinations would take place at personal care homes.

As the COVID-19 vaccination programs roll out in Manitoba and across the world, he message remains that supplies will be limited at first. Vulnerable populations and healthcare workers are the immediate concern.

"The successful collaboration between the province and First Nations health experts and representatives will ensure equitable access to vaccination treatments for all Manitobans," Reimer stated.

"Our shared priority is to distribute vaccine doses, beginning with the Moderna vaccine, to protect vulnerable First Nations populations in northern and remote regions of the province."

Officials from the Canadian Armed Forces, the Public Health Agency of Canada, Indigenous Services Canada and the chief medical officer of public health for Indigenous Services Canada also took part in discussing deployment of the vaccine in northern and remote First Nation communities.

The province, according to a news release, committed to arranging for planes to be available to ship the vaccine to priority locations.

"We are pleased at the partnership and spirit of collaboration that has developed and will continue as the delicate decisions around the deployment of this vaccine are made," stated Lavallee, appointed health lead for MKO and chief executive officer for Keewatinohk Inniniw Minoayawin.

"It is important that Indigenous voices are heard. As Indigenous health experts, we are at this table in support of First Nations people. We are needed at the table. This is very historic work. If the dialogue aids in creating a sense of partnership between First Nations and the provincial government as this process moves forward, that too will benefit everyone."

According to statistics from the Manitoba First Nations Pandemic Response Co-ordination Team, First Nation people, both on and off reserve, account for 40 per cent of new cases, 49 per cent recovered cases and 24 per cent of total cases.

First Nations also account for 32 per cent of current hospitalizations, 42 per cent of patients in intensive care units and 14 per cent of deaths.

As Daniels has previously stated, centuries of colonization has meant generations of First Nations people have been dealing with an infrastructure backlog  including in housing and health.

"Add to that the challenges of a global pandemic and you have a recipe for disaster," he said.

Garson stated the federal and provincial partnership with First Nations is important, "because we will be looking more broadly at all First Nations populations across this province as more vaccines become available."

Overall, the vaccination plan in Manitoba is focused on safe and convenient access to immunization for health-care providers, prioritization of First Nations elder care facilities, along with personal care homes throughout the province and vulnerable First Nation populations.

 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.
Guest hosting the Dan Proft Show on Wednesday, one of my guests was New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz. Our topic was the stultifying reign of cancel culture that threatens to make free speech obsolete. (See also Scotts post this morning, How to Read a Society.) During our conversation, I learned that Karol was born in the U.S.S.R. and came to America as a young girl. What she sees today in the U.S. is, she thinks, troublingly similar to the oppression that her parents fled in Russia.

Here is the interview:
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Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 22:56:01|Editor: huaxia

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DAMASCUS, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Syrian Foreign Ministry on Saturday held the United States full responsibility for the suffering of the Syrian people, according to the state news agency SANA.

In a statement, the ministry said the Syrian people's suffering is the result of "the U.S. support for terrorism and the sanctions it imposed on Syria."

The ministry's remarks come as a response to a statement released recently by the U.S. embassy in Syria on its website, which refused any accusation that the U.S. is responsible for the economic hardship in Syria. Enditem
Back in November, we learned that Motorola is planning a successor to the 2020 Moto G Pro, also know as the G Stylus in the US. That original set of hardware specs was more-recently followed-up by what we believed was a bunch of renders of the phone, courtesy of an Amazon listing slip-up. Or at least, so we thought. Whether intentional or not, it seems that those images were not authentic or at least not representative of the final device that is to be the G Stylus 2021. That's the current working theory, as put forward by reputable leakster @OnLeaks.

Reading into the new leak itself, it seems that Steve Hemmerstoffer, aka @OnLeaks corroborates the earlier Evan Blass, aka @evleaks set of specs. Though, the two sources seem to disagree on the position of the phone's fingerprint reader. Evan's leak put that on the side of the phone as part of the power button, while this new source and the renders clearly suggests that the reader will be on the back, following the familiar Motorola trope of incorporating it into the logo and old-school "dimple".

Since that is the case, it's hard to say whether this new design is actually the correct or at least entirely correct one. The particular camera island arrangement on this one does seem to follow current trends more-closely, if that counts for anything.



Motorola Moto G Stylus 2021

Reiterating some of the specs, confirmed by both sources, the Moto G Stylus 2021 will be a big phone, rocking a 6.8-inch display and a 169.6 x 73.7 x 8.8 mm body (10.9 mm if you count the camera hump). That is even taller and thicker than the current Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra - a go-to comparison, seeing how the Moto G Stylus 2021 will be positioned as a large, stylus-equipped device. The Moto G Stylus 2021 will, however, feature a mid-range specs sheet, making it more of a close competitor to the alleged LG Stylo 7 instead. A device featured in another recent leak from the same source.

The Moto G Stylus 2021 is expected to pack a Snapdragon 675 chipset, with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Its resolution is said to be FHD+, on a 6.81-inch display, to be even more precise. The camera setup will consist of a 48MP main snapper, an 8MP ultrawide and two 2MP sensors, for depth data and macro shots, respectively. For what it's worth, the newer source claims that the macro camera will be a 5MP unit, rather than 2MP. On the front - a 16MP selfie camera and powering it all - a 4,000 mAh battery. Not too shabby, considering that Motorola still found space for the stylus to slide inside the phone's body and allegedly also left the 3.5mm jack intact.

Source
More than 20,000 Covid-19 swabs processed since full testing was resumed after Christmas are positive for the virus according to new figures published by the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) which has declared the third wave is now as bad as the first peak of the pandemic in Ireland.

In its daily statement, NPHEThas been included a table to show tests processes, positive tests, confirmed cases in the past 14 days. Normally, it says the number of confirmed cases reported on a given day correlates with the number of positive tests the preceding day, allowing for validation and removal of duplicates.

The table (see at end of story) shows that tests taken began to surge in the week to Christmas Day. Positive results have surgeed since the day after St Stephen's Day in parallel with the continued rise in processed tests.

Since December 27 a total of 20,511 swabs have shown positive for Covid-19. That is nearly 20% of the 114,641 tests processed in the six days up to and including New Year's Day.

The number of confirmed cases is well behind the positive cases because of a backlog due to the surge to testing being paused on Christmas Day and St Stephen's Day. There have been 8,148 confirmed Covid-19 results returned in the six days.

NPHET only published the confirmed number of cases on January 2 but this was the highest number of confirmed cases over Christmas and New Year period at 3,394.

The table published by NPHET also shows that the number of tests processed rose from 13,458 on December 18 to 22,884 on the day before Christmas Eve. The highest number of tests processed was recorded on New Year's Eve when 27,049 swabs were examined in laboratories.

NPHET has announced since Christmas that close contacts will no longer be tested. Team members have acknowledged that this will mean a true reflection of the incidence of the virus will not be shown in the daily figures.

However, the head of NPHET Dr Tony Holohoan announced on January 2 that the virus incidence "is now as high or if not higher than March" when the pandemic's first wave reached Ireland.

Read also: VULNERABLE AND ELDERLY URGED TO STAY HOME

NPHET says that once the delays that have arisen in recent days have been resolved, we will no longer report the laboratory test results. It began publishing the lab results on New Years Day.

Table below from January 2.
As many as 5,168 cyber-attacks were recorded on information systems in Vietnam in 2020, a year-on-year decline of 0.15 percent, according to the Ministry of Information and Communications National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).

In December alone, the country was hit by 315 cyber-attacks, falling by 54.48 percent compared to the previous month, and 0.94 percent year-on-year.

Staff of banks and financial organizations join a drill on cyber security in 2020. (Photo: VNA)

The campaign to review and remove malware nationwide in 2020 has achieved positive results. The number of IP addresses of computers in virus-infected computer networks (IP Botnet) has decreased sharply.

The number of Botnet IPs has nearly halved to over 1 million from more than 2 million in the period from June 16 to July 15, 2020.

Statistics from the NCSC also show that the campaign, which was hosted by the Ministry of Information and Communications and implemented by NCSC in coordination with corporations including VNPT, Viettel, BKAV, FPT and CMC, has been actively supported by the community.

Over 1.2 million computers were scanned, detecting more than 400,000 of those infected with malware.

Through over 8 million visits to the campaign via websites and social networks, many individuals and organizations have participated in inspecting, processing, and removing malware for thousands of computers of individuals and businesses for free. Out of over 1.2 million computers reviewed, about 400,000 were found infected with malware.

In addition, the number of individuals and agencies giving feedback on the campaign reached more than 23,000.

Previously, from October 1, 2020, on the campaign's website at https://khonggianmang.vn/chiendich2020, NCSC launched a real-time map of the results of the malware review by region in Vietnam, and a chart featuring the implementation of the campaign in the northern, central and southern regions. These help assess the performance of the campaign.

Dtinews
Trump lashed out on Twitter, saying the Senate missed an opportunity to eliminate protections for social media platforms that give 'unlimited power to Big Tech companies'

Washington: Congress on Friday overrode President Donald Trump's veto of a defence policy bill, a first by lawmakers since he took office nearly four years ago, ensuring that the measure becomes law.

In an extraordinary New Year's Day session, the Republican-controlled Senate easily turned aside the veto, dismissing Trump's objections to the $740 billion bill and handing him a stinging rebuke just weeks before he leaves the White House.

Trump lashed out on Twitter, saying the Senate missed an opportunity to eliminate protections for social media platforms that he said give "unlimited power to Big Tech companies. Pathetic!!!"

Trump also slammed lawmakers for rejecting his call to increase COVID-19 relief payments to $2,000: "Not fair, or smart!''

The 81-13 vote in the Senate on the widely popular defence Bill followed an earlier 322-87 override vote in the House. The bill affirms a 3 percent pay raise for US troops and guides defence policy, cementing decisions about troop levels, new weapons systems and military readiness, personnel policy and other military goals.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the "sweeping and overwhelmingly bipartisan votes" in the House and Senate "delivered a resounding rebuke to President Trump's reckless assault on America's military and national security."

Trump's veto of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, "would have hurt the health, financial security and safety of our service members, their families, our veterans and our allies and partners worldwide," Pelosi said. "Instead of keeping Americans safe, the president continues to use his final moments in office to sow chaos and undermine our security."

The defence bill, which now has the force of law, "looks after our brave men and women who volunteer to wear the uniform," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. "But it's also a tremendous opportunity: to direct our national security priorities to reflect the resolve of the American people and the evolving threats to their safety, at home and abroad. It's our chance to ensure we keep pace with competitors like Russia and China."

The Senate override was delayed after Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., objected to moving ahead until McConnell allowed a vote on the Trump-backed plan to boost COVID relief payments to $2,000. McConnell did not allow that vote; instead he used his parliamentary power to set a vote limiting debate on the defence measure, overcoming a filibuster threat by Sanders and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York.

Without a bipartisan agreement, a vote on the bill could have been delayed until Saturday night. Lawmakers, however, agreed to an immediate roll call Friday once the filibuster threat was stopped.

Trump vetoed the defence measure last week, saying it failed to limit Twitter and other social media companies he claimed were biased against him during his failed reelection campaign. Trump also opposed language that allows for the renaming of military bases that honor Confederate leaders.

Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a close Trump ally, hailed the override vote.

"Today, the Senate sent a strong message of support to our troops," Inhofe said. "Not only does this bill give our service members and their families the resources they need, but it also makes our nation more secure  pushing back against China and Russia (and) strengthening our cyber defenses."

Trump has succeeded throughout his four-year term in enforcing party discipline in Congress, with few Republicans willing to publicly oppose him. The bipartisan overrides on the defence bill showed the limits of Trump's influence in the final weeks of his term.

Earlier this week, 130 House Republicans voted against the Trump-backed COVID relief checks, with many arguing they were unnecessary and would increase the federal budget deficit. The Democratic-controlled House approved the larger payments, but the plan fizzled in the Senate amid opposition from McConnell and other Republicans, another sign of Trump's fading hold over Congress.

Only seven GOP senators voted with Trump to oppose the defence bill override. Forty Republicans  including the entire GOP leadership  voted for the override, along with 41 Democrats. Sanders and five other liberals who opposed the defence bill also voted against the override.

Besides his concerns about social media and military base names, Trump also complained that the bill restricted his ability to withdraw thousands of troops from Afghanistan and Germany. The measure requires the Pentagon to submit reports certifying that the proposed withdrawals would not jeopardize US national security.

Trump has vetoed eight other bills, but those were all sustained because supporters did not gain the two-thirds vote needed in each chamber for the bills to become law without Trump's signature.

Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called Trump's 23 December veto a "parting gift" to Russian President Vladimir Putin "and a lump of coal for our troops. Donald Trump is showing more devotion to Confederate base names than to the men and women who defend our nation."
TJ Porter (8) was the winner of the Greystones Studios Christmas Card Competition, for his design of a surfing Santa

A magical elf arrived at the door of TJ Porter just before Christmas, to reward him for his art abilities.

TJ Porter (8) was the winner of the Greystones Studios Christmas Card Competition, for his design of a surfing Santa.

To celebrate the launch of their new website, Greystones Studios announced they were running a Christmas Card Competition in November which asked people to design their own Christmas card using the theme 'A Magical Greystones Christmas'.

Supported by the owner of Greystones Studios, Ross McParland, the generous prize for the winning design was a very special delivery of professionally printed Christmas Cards featuring the winner's drawing plus a socially distanced Elf Visit on the winner's doorstep by magic-makers Genie Mackers.

Over three weeks, entries from children of all ages came rolling in with an array of different ideas, drawings and craft creations, all showcasing a wonderful display of creativity and imagination.

The panel of judges had a very difficult task in choosing a winner, but following much debate they chose a drawing by TJ Porter (8) which they felt was unique, uplifting, creative and perfectly captured the competition's theme.

TJ's design featured an alternative Christmas image of a surfing Santa Claus down at Greystones Harbour, which was described by one of the judges as 'a refreshing and imaginative interpretation of Christmas in Greystones'.

Bray People
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Former Bond girl Gemma Arterton (aka Sister Clodagh) recalled the experience of filming Black Narcissus succinctly. We were in the middle of nowhere in the Himalayan mountains. It took us three flights and a week to get there.

Her co-star Alessandro Nivola who, as Mr Dean brought a fatal sexual frisson into the community of nuns teetering on the cliff-edge of sanity, described it as just huge enormous sky and mountains and silence.

There is nothing quite like a good drama involving an exotic location to rekindle wanderlust  and the BBCs three-part series set in the wilds of Nepal is no exception.

Mountain tension: Beautiful Nagarkot is one of the most sensational vantage points for the Himalayas

In contrast to the original 1947 movie of the same name, which was filmed in the UK, this latest adaptation of Rumer Goddens book was shot partly at Jomsom, some 200 miles north-west of Nepals capital, Kathmandu.

With awesome views of the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri massifs, the landscape was, for many, the star of the show.

But pity Goddens poor nuns, memorably shown trekking in single file through the mountains in a blizzard, dressed only in their camouflage white habits.

The BBCs three-part series Black Narcissus starring Gemma Arterton, above, was shot partly in Jomsom, Nepal

If the cast (like most visitors today) flew to Kathmandu, took an onward flight to Pokhara in a Twin Otter, then another to the tiny airport in Mustang Province to reach Jomsom, how much worse would it have been for Sister Clodagh and her companions in reality?

They would have had to make their way from their mission without the aid of turboprop engines: a distance of 328 miles to the north-west from Darjeeling, crossing mountains, rivers, jungles, and dodging the tigers and rhinos of Chitwan. Nepal is home to eight of the 14 mountains that soar above 26,000 ft. For the nuns, the thin air combined with the Shakti  cosmic energy  of the mountains had a heady effect.

An independent kingdom-turned-republic, Nepal is bordered by India on three sides and Tibet to the north. Home to 29 million people and predominantly Hindu, Buddhism is nevertheless an important influence in the country where Prince Siddhartha, who would reach enlightenment as the Buddha, was born.

On my last visit to this enthralling country, the monuments and ceremonies I saw in Kathmandu Valley were magnificent: the vast Boudhanath stupa; the great stupa of Swayambhunath, the oldest structure in Nepal. This is known as the Monkey Temple because of its irreverent macaques said to have sprung from lice when the bodhisattva, Manjushri, cut his hair.

Everywhere, mythology and religion intertwine. More than merely impressive monuments, such places  decorated with the all-seeing eyes of Buddha  teem with pilgrims turning prayer wheels as they go. Expect painters of religious thangkas, sellers of orange marigolds for offerings, and the pervasive waft of incense. If you are lucky, you might witness a religious ceremony in one of the temples: crimson-clad monks blowing long horns and conch shells to the rhythm of drums.

Equally colourful is Pashupatinath, one of the most important temple complexes on the subcontinent for followers of the Hindu god, Shiva. Here, dreadlocked sadhus reside with painted faces and farouche expressions. Ritual cleansing ceremonies are held, as are cremations on the ghats of the Bagmati River.

'Everywhere, mythology and religion intertwine,' writes the Daily Mail's Teresa Levonian Cole. Pictured is a holy sadhu

TRAVEL FACTS Cazenove+loyd (cazloyd.com) offers a week in Nepal staying at Dwarikas Hotel in Kathmandu from 2,100 pp, including flights, a private car, driver and guide. Advertisement

Nepals unique cultural heritage rivals its natural beauty. The Kathmandu Valley, an area of 570 square kilometers, offers seven UNESCO World Heritage sites, easily accessible in day trips from a comfortable base in the capital. The Durbar of Kathmandu and Patan are on the must-see list.

So is Bhaktapur, founded in the 9th century, and arguably the most authentic and atmospheric of all. Although it was badly damaged by the earthquake of 2015, the structures are now 80 per cent restored.

These former Newar kingdoms are home to masterpieces of Newari architecture, characterised by unique styles of brickwork and wood-carving. Narrow cobbled lanes vibrant with street life open onto vast squares containing assorted temples, while skinny cows roam free, convinced of their right of way, and fake sadhus pose for photographs.

In Kathmandus Durbar (royal square), the number of cows and holy men has diminished over the years, while pigeons and peddlers of Tibetan antiques have increased in proportion with tourism. Still, the magic remains.

In these cities in Kathmandu Valley and elsewhere in the country, you might also hope to see a Kumari, a pre-pubescent girl selected from among high caste families, to be revered  temporarily  as a living goddess by Hindus and Newari Buddhists. There are currently ten child-goddesses at temples in Nepal, dethroned and replaced once they reach puberty. The child must never have shed blood; even a superficial cut could end her reign, as the spirit of Shakti would leave her body. I stood outside the Kumari palace in Kathmandu in the hope of catching sight of her at the window, and was rewarded. Even a glimpse is supposed to bring good fortune. For all these wonders, it is a relief to escape fume-clogged Kathmandu and climb to the valley rim for lungfuls of bracing mountain air. A mere hours drive from Bhaktapur brings you to the precipitous village of Nagarkot at 6,512 ft.

This is one of the most sensational vantage points for the Himalayas, with eight ranges stretching east from the Annapurnas to majestic Everest, seemingly within touching distance.

Watching the sun rise here is an indelible memory. Like the nuns of St. Faiths, you are unlikely ever to be the same again.
All passengers coming from the UK between January 8 and January 30 would be subjected to self-paid COVID-19 tests on arrival, the health ministry said in a standard operating procedure (SOP) issued on Saturday. Moreover, each passenger arriving from the UK would have to bring his or her COVID-19 negative report from a test done 72 hours prior to the journey, the SOP stated.

India had suspended all flights to and from the United Kingdom from December 23 to 31 to check the spread of the mutated, more contagious variant of coronavirus found there. Later, the suspension was extended till January 7. Only 30 flights per week will operate between India and the UK when services resume from January 8 and this arrangement will continue till January 23, Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had said on Friday.

"Airlines to ensure the availability of negative test report before allowing the passenger to board the flight," the health ministry's SOP stated. It said adequate arrangements should be made for the passengers who will be waiting for their RT-PCR test or its results at the airport.

"Passengers testing positive shall be isolated in an institutional isolation facility in a separate (isolation) unit coordinated by the respective state health authorities," the SOP said. If the genomic sequencing indicates the presence of the new variant of SARS-CoV-2, the patient will continue to remain in a separate isolation unit, it said.

The patient will be tested on the 14th day after having tested positive and he or she will be kept in the isolation facility till his or her sample has tested negative, it added. If a passenger tests COVID-positive on arrival, passengers seated in the same row, three rows in front and three rows behind would also be subjected to institutional quarantine in separate quarantine centers, the SOP said.

The passengers who are found COVID-negative after the tests conducted at the airport would be advised home quarantine for 14 days and the concerned state or district administration should regularly follow up with them, it said. "The states/UTs (union territories) government concerned are requested to set up help desks at airports concerned to facilitate implementation of the SOP," it added.

The presence of the new UK variant of the virus has already been reported by Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore. Scheduled international passenger flights continue to remain suspended in India since March 23 due to the pandemic.

However, airlines have been permitted to operate special international flights under the Vande Bharat Mission since May this year and under the bilateral air bubble pacts since July. India has formed air bubble pacts with 24 countries, including the UK.

Also read: 'COVID-19 vaccine will be free across the country,' says Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan

Also read: PM Modi lays foundation stone of IIM-Sambalpur; urges IIMs to come up with ways to turn local into global
As Houston left 2020 in the rearview mirror, the coronavirus continued to spread throughout the region unchecked, with some of the highest positivity rates since the start of the pandemic.

And that spike will only continue to climb, experts warn, because the numbers do not take into account additional surges tied to holiday gatherings from Christmas and New Years celebrations. The pandemic has already claimed the lives of more than 4,600 people from Greater Houston.

The positive test rate statewide hit a record Friday at 21.15 percent, according to a Houston Chronicle review  surpassing the previous high mark, 20.55 percent, in July.

Its looking bad, said Dr. Peter Hotez, a professor and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. We still havent seen the full impact of whats happened after Christmas and New Years, so you know it wont get better  its only going to get worse.

UNSOLVED: Houstons rate of unsolved murders is soaring. Experts say the police department is to blame.

Local government officials continued to urge Houstonians to remain careful and cautious as hospitals and doctors begin the long process of vaccinating Texas residents.

Were in a very, very precarious situation, said Rafael Lemaitre, spokesman for County Judge Lina Hidalgo. As grateful as many of us are to finally cross the threshold into 2021, were going to have to keep our shoulder to the wheel in the new year as a community. This virus is not through with us.

Across Texas, 12,481 patients are hospitalized with COVID-19, marking the fifth consecutive day of record hospitalizations. More than half of the states trauma service areas, including Houston, Galveston and Victoria, reported that COVID-19 hospitalizations make up more than 15 percent of total hospital capacity, the threshold that signifies high hospitalizations.

In Houston, officials at the Texas Medical Center said that local positivity rates have risen to about 15.3 percent, significantly higher than last weeks daily average of about 11 percent, and the number of average daily positive tests has more than doubled compared with the same week last month.

SEEKING ANSWERS: Woman seeks answers after 2018 killing of son by FBI agent in failed hostage rescue

As we embark upon a new year, we are facing the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic with a record number of new cases, TMC President William F. McKeon said in a daily update to staff. However, we now have renewed hope with the arrival of new vaccines that together we can move to protect our community as soon as possible to isolate and extinguish the COVID-19 virus from our communities.

Under Gov. Greg Abbotts orders, if hospitals continue to experience such high numbers of COVID patients for seven consecutive days, some businesses would be required to limit operations until conditions improve.

The increased positivity rates come as Houston and Texas continue to vaccinate front-line workers and the most vulnerable residents. So far, about 340,000 Texans have begun the vaccination process  with about 52,800 of those vaccinations occurring in Harris County.

Mayor Sylvester Turner on Friday announced the opening of a public clinic that will administer doses of the Moderna vaccine. Health care workers, people over 65 and people with serious underlying health conditions are eligible and must make an appointment by calling 832-393-4220 between 7:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. starting Saturday.

But Hotez warned that Harris County and others across Texas face a daunting challenge to vaccinate enough people to neutralize the virus danger.

You seem nervous: Why most police vehicle searches in Texas turn up nothing

In Harris County, public health authorities will have to ramp up a vaccine distribution program to administer the medicine to some 500,000 residents a month, he said  a volume that the Texas Medical Center and other hospitals, clinics and medical practices arent equipped to handle.

Were not anywhere close to that, he said.

Instead, the county should consider opening vaccination centers at places such as NRG Stadium or the George R. Brown Convention Center, he said.

If we can just gear up to get people vaccinated, then nobody has to lose their lives from COVID-19, he said.

Stephanie Lamm and Todd Ackerman contributed to this report.

st.john.smith@chron.com

twitter.com/stjbs
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LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) -- This new year brings a special delivery for one local family. Kimberly Nayeli Rivera Ramirez is officially the first baby born in Lafayette. She is also her parents' Merlin Ramirez and Jose Rivera's first baby girl.

She entered the world at 12:18 a.m. This special birthday comes with a special gift. Franciscan Health traditionally provides its first New Year baby with a basket full of baby-related items.

Like many, the family said they had concerns about being pregnant in the midst of a global pandemic. But they're grateful they were able to stay safe and deliver a healthy baby.

"They were a little bit cautious being pregnant during the pandemic just because of her state and because they were afraid she would become infected," said an English translator with the hospital. "They said they've had a very good experience here in the hospital and everything's going well."

While last year brought a lot of unpredictable changes these parents say Kimberly's unexpected early arrival was a pleasant surprise to start the year.

"They feel very content about her coming on New Year's day, she went out about 10 days early," said the English translator. "What they are expecting for 2021 is to watch their baby grow."

Baby Kimberly's due date was set for Jan. 10. She was born 7 pounds and 5 ounces.

IU Health Arnett Hospital is also celebrating its first New Year's baby. Veda Mae Crowly born at 8 pounds and 2 ounces, entered the world at 7:05 a.m. Her parents are Monticello natives.

An estimated total of 371,000 babies across the world will be born on New Year's. That's according to UNICEF, a child advocacy organization. Health leaders say it's unclear if the pandemic will shift those numbers after 2021.

IU Health OBGYN Physician Dr. Noel Wallace said she's talked with several parents last year looking to delay pregnancy due to the pandemic. She's interested to see what this year will bring.

"Some people are like, oh we're spending so much time together and so, 'here we are' versus, people who say 'I think I'm going to hold off trying to start a family at least until we get past it so it definitely does remain to be seen,'" said Wallace.

According to UNICEF, Fiji is the first country to welcome the first new year's baby this year, and the United States babies are last on the list of countries due to the varying time zones.
The reality of homelessness in Ireland in as we head into 2021

Its been a tough year for the people of Sligo dealing with Covid-19 but imagine the added heartbreak of being homeless?

Focus Ireland has been working harder than ever in 2020 supporting 446 households in Sligo who are homeless or at risk of losing their home. During the year we have also helped 21 households in Sligo to move out of homelessness with the support of the state and local authorities.

Focus Ireland Sligo have been providing homeless and housing services for the past 12 years, the team in Sligo consist of eight project workers and one Fundraiser. Services provided include Tenancy Support and Sustainment, Advice and information service, Long-term supported accommodation and Short-term supported accommodation.

None of us would ever wish for this pandemic but we must make sure that Covid-19 is a real turning point in the battle to end homelessness.

Our Founder Sr Stanislaus Kennedy in 1987, which was the International Year of Homelessness, predicted that within six or seven years, we would end long-term homelessness.

It could have happened, except that governments reneged on commitments to provide houses.

And so the numbers of people experiencing homelessness grew until it was way beyond crisis.

However, it is really positive that the number of people now homeless nationwide (8,737) is the lowest it has been for a few years.

I would stress though there is much work still to be done.

Many people are again suffering job losses which means every action needs to be taken to ensure we not only stop the numbers homeless rising again.

No family should ever have to go through the trauma of losing their home and being homeless. No child should ever be born into homelessness.

Families and individuals lose their homes as they cant afford to pay the rent or the house is sold or repossessed.

They have been called the new homeless. That is the people who become homeless for purely economic reasons.

I believe that, as a country, we have a duty to look after all our citizens, especially those who are most vulnerable.

We must cherish all our children equally and ensure that no child suffers from being homeless.

As I write this, Sligo is still dealing with the Covid-19 public health emergency and Focus Ireland is working more closely than ever with the State and partner organisations to protect people who are homeless.

Welcome steps, such as the temporary ban on evictions and the rent freeze, had a big impact in cutting the numbers becoming homeless.

We have helped to move record numbers of families and individuals out of homelessness in this period.

This work must continue. As the country opens up, we must not let homelessness be a part of our new normal.

We need to move on from short-term measures and hubs to providing more social and affordable rental housing.

As we enter the new year the Government must act in 2021 upon the following commitments made in the Programme for Government which Focus Ireland was calling for in recent years.

- Develop a youth homelessness strategy.

- Hold a referendum on housing.

- Establish a housing commission to help deliver more long-term policy for delivering housing in Ireland.

Focus Ireland hopes to work with the Government to inform these key pieces of work and we also would like to see the development of a specific family homelessness strategy to help move from managing this crisis towards ending it.

Focus Ireland is also set to soon launch a campaign calling on the Government to set a deadline to end homelessness.

This commitment to a deadline to end homelessness must be backed up by a realistic plan and timeline to achieve this.

We believe this is important as no country has ever managed a significant reduction in homelessness without having a firm commitment to ending it.

When there was a previous Government commitment to ending long-term homelessness by 2010 this led to the lowest ever level of homelessness in Ireland.

That success was swept away by the economic crisis. We can, and must, do better next time. The people of Sligo and Ireland deserve it.

Sligo Champion
Bonnie Anderson made a plea to fans for help after her motorbike was stolen from her Melbourne home.

The Neighbours star, 26, revealed the bad news in a series of Instagram posts shared on Saturday.

The Kawasaki 650 Ninja, which is valued at around $11,000, was taken from the star's garage around 11am, while she was out shopping.

Oh no! Bonnie Anderson (pictured) made a plea to fans for help on Saturday after her motorbike was stolen from her Melbourne home

She begged for its safe return over social media, with several of her friends sharing the posts, too.

Famous pals like Australian Idol star Anthony Callea, 38, and MasterChef contestant Khanh Ong, 27, were part of the effort to get the news out.

A handful of hours after the bike was stolen, Bonnie shared footage of herself in her car, racing to a location where the vehicle was spotted.

Gone! The Neighbours star, 26, revealed the bad news in a series of Instagram Stories

Taken: The Kawasaki 650 Ninja, which is valued at around $11,000, was taken from the star's garage around 11am, while she was out shopping

Found it! A handful of hours after the bike was stolen, Bonnie shared footage of herself in her car, racing to a location where the vehicle was spotted

She explained that a good Samaritan spotted the motorbike outside a Woolworths in Fern Tree Gully, five suburbs away from where it was taken.

Ecstatic, Bonnie said the unnamed man had seen one of her social media posts and contacted her online to tell her where the bike was.

She added that she was 'so freaking grateful' but the bike was 'badly damaged' and had been in a car accident.

Sighted: She explained that a good Samaritan spotted the motorbike outside a Woolworths in Fern Tree Gully, five suburbs away from where it was taken

Sad day: Bonnie went on to share footage of the police inspecting her motorbike at the site where it was found

Bonnie also explained her flatmate still had items missing, including his shoes and laptop.

She went on to share footage of the police inspecting her motorbike at the site where it was found.

'Police were so helpful today. And to everybody who posted thank you so much. What a horrible person, breaking into our home... absolutely disgusting,' she wrote.
A 45-year-old man was found dead with injury marks on his face at one of his properties in Kalwa in Maharashtra's Thane city, police said on Saturday. The body was recovered on Friday morning, they said.

"The deceased, identified as Mangesh Kedar, lived with his family. They owned two houses in Kalwa. On the New Year's eve, he went to his second home alone to sleep at night, which he used to do regularly," a police official said. "The next morning, his family members went to the place and found the door of the house open. When they went inside, they were shocked to see him lying in a pool of blood.

There were injury marks on the face," he said. They alerted the police, who sent the body for post- mortem, the official said.

A case was registered at Kalwa police station under IPC section 302 (murder) and a search has been launched to trace the culprit, he said.
Some Americans have a new outlook on remote working: They prefer it.

In June and July, a group of 1,388 people working from home were asked for their impressions of the experience by workplace consulting firm Global Workplace Analytics and video technology company Owl Labs.

The new arrangement, it turns out, suited many of them.

While roughly 27% said they would have considered such a setup to be ideal before the coronavirus pandemic started, 80% said they would like to continue working remotely for three days of the week or more once the pandemic is over. Many of these people said they would prefer remote work all five days of the workweek.

Another set of 10,000 employees surveyed by the Becker Friedman Institute for Economics at the University of Chicago say they felt the work-from-home situation was either just as productive or more so than the office. Some told the researchers that home was 30% more productive.

On average, workers and employers have been pleasantly surprised by productivity when working from home," says Steven Davis, one of the study authors and a University of Chicago business and economics professor. Reality exceeded expectations."

The end of 9-to-5

The many changes imposed by the pandemic are acting as another challenge to the 9-to-5 workday model, which was already under threat before the pandemic. In 2019, more than 87% of full-time U.S. employees averaged eight-and-a-half hours per workday, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

By last June and July, a group of 2,025 full-time workers who worked remotely and non remotely told Global Workplace Analytics and Owl Labs that they were working more during Covid-19.

How much more? An average of 26 extra hours a month, according to the survey. Another estimate, from New York University Stern School of Business doctoral student Michael Impink, shows average daily work hours increasing 8-15%, depending on the day of the week. He examined data from more than 3.4 million workers, counting the time from their first daily work correspondence to their last.

Not everyone clocked more time at home. More than 40% of employees surveyed by Global Workforce Analytics and Owl Labs said their hours stayed the same while working remotely.

For those who believe a home-office setup is more productive, is it because of a lack of commute or fewer office interruptions?

Mr. Daviss study declined to offer a single explanation, saying it is not obvious whether offices or homes have fewer distractions and more quiet time." There are co-workers and water coolers" in the office, while televisions and potentially children" serve as home diversions.

The danger is that a workweek expansion could erode work-life boundaries and contribute to employee burnout.

The traditional 9-5, Monday through Friday, has been fading for years and the pandemic just accelerated that process," says Cali Williams Yost, chief executive and founder at workplace consulting company Flex+Strategy Group. Individuals and teams now need to be intentional about setting up the guardrails for themselves. What that means for the individual is, we need to be more intentional about planning: what needs to get done and when and where we do it best."

Will remote work stick?

Employers werent prepared for the shift to remote work. But some did make things easier by providing employees everything from stipends for home-office equipment to better videoconferencing hookups.

The largest pickup in remote work happened at employers specializing in educational services and finance, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Roughly 60% of educational services and 58% of finance companies boosted telework for at least some employees as a result of the pandemic.

Service companies in food, retail and construction were among the lowest adopters, since it is more difficult to do their work remotely. In those cases, fewer than 20% of employers increased telework.

Will remote work last at the companies that embraced it in 2020? Consumer brand companies are betting the work-from-home culture is here to stay by expanding and revamping factories that make everything from coffee to casual clothes.

The key to remote-work longevity, say some observers, is whether companies can formalize guidelines so all employees are treated equally across the organization. If that happens, they say, companies and workers may benefit.

Its not going to be a flip of the switch," Ms. Yost says. Instead she expects it to be a slow recalibration to that next normal."

Jess Kuronen contributed to this article.

Write to Stephanie Stamm at Stephanie.Stamm@wsj.com

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On the FactCheck page, The Associated Press tracks down some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals that were shared widely on social media. The AP takes those untrue stories, checks them out and sets the records straight in this weekly series of news articles.


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A marching contingent of the Bangladesh army will take part in the Republic Day parade this year -- the second time foreign soldiers will be marching down Rajpath as part of Indias biggest ceremonial event, officials familiar with the development said on Saturday.

The Bangladeshi contingent has been invited to take part in the parade at a time the two countries are celebrating the golden jubilee of the birth of Bangladesh. The marching contingent will comprise 96 soldiers, and will carry their BD-08 rifles -- a licence-produced variant of the Chinese Type 81 7.62mm assault weapon.

The Bangladesh Ordnance Factories produce more than 10,000 such assault rifles every year.

Foreign soldiers took part in the parade for the first time in 2016 when a French army contingent of 130 soldiers marched down Rajpath. The then French President, Francois Hollande, witnessed the parade as the chief guest that year.

The parade this year will be shorter, involve fewer participants and only a fourth of the usual number of spectators, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, as reported by Hindustan Times on December 30.

Not more than 25,000 spectators will be allowed at Rajpath this year, compared to over 100,000 people who usually turn up for the parade. Children below the age of 15 will not be permitted at the parade.

The marching contingents will be seen in a rectangular formation this year, instead of the traditional square formation as fewer participants are being allowed in the squads. The squads will only have 96 participants, as compared to 144 in the ordinary course. The shortened route of the parade will see it end at the National Stadium instead of Red Fort, the officials said.

Last years Independence Day celebrations were also muted as a result of the coronavirus outbreak and measures imposed to check the spread of the disease, with fewer VIPs attending the annual August 15 event at Delhis Red Fort while schoolchildren skipped it altogether.
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Srinagar:

A month-long ban on 22 social media sites and applications in Kashmir was lifted by the Jammu and Kashmir Home Department on Friday.



Access to the banned social media sites was restored around 8.30 pm, an official said.



Jammu and Kashmir Home Department had on April 26 banned 22 social media sites and applications, including Facebook, Whatsapp and Twitter, in an attempt to curb the street protests in the Valley.



However, the ban had little meaning as users accessed the banned sites through virtual private networks.

Read | J&K: Militants open fire at security forces in Tral

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
In his first official engagement outside the Capital in the New Year, chief of defence staff General Bipin Rawat on Saturday visited Indias forward air bases in the eastern sector and interacted with frontline soldiers in Arunachal Pradesh amid a border row with China in eastern Ladakh, officials said.

Nothing can deter the Indian armed forces from remaining steadfast in their call of duty, an official statement quoted Rawat as saying. While the current border row is confined to the Ladakh theatre, the Indian military is on high alert to deal with any misadventure by the Chinese forces all along the border --- stretching from Ladakh in the north to Arunachal Pradesh in the east.

Rawat completed one year as Indias first CDS on December 31. As CDS, Rawat is the permanent chairman of the chiefs of staff committee (COSC), heads the department of military affairs, and is the single point military adviser to the defence minister.

The CDS interacted with personnel from the army, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police and the Special Frontier Force in Dibang Valley and Lohit Sector of Arunachal Pradesh, the statement said.

Complimenting the soldiers for their operational readiness, Rawat said that only Indian soldiers could remain vigilant under the challenging conditions and they were willing to go beyond the call of duty to safeguard the countrys farthest frontiers.

Rawats visit to the eastern sector comes at a time of deadlocked military and diplomatic talks between India and China to ease tensions in the Ladakh theatre.

Earlier this week, defence minister Rajnath Singh said that talks with China on disengagement and de-escalation in the Ladakh sector --- where the two countries have been locked in a border row for eight months --- had not yielded any meaningful solution.

Both India and China are prepared for a long haul in the Ladakh sector and are firm about holding forward positions along the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) through the harsh winter months.

Both sides are expected to hold the ninth round of military talks to reduce border tension but there is no indication of when India and China will hold the dialogue. Both countries had agreed to hold the corps commander-level dialogue at an early date during diplomatic talks on the dispute on December 18.

While India has consistently pushed for comprehensive disengagement at all flashpoints and restoration of status quo ante of early April during the military talks, the Chinese side wants the Indian Army to first pull back troops deployed on strategic heights on the southern bank of Pangong Tso.
A 62-year-old man succumbed to Covid-19 while 44 persons tested positive for the virus in the last 24 hours, health officials said on Saturday. The district currently has 329 active cases. So far, 968 persons have died of the virus in the district.

Meanwhile, in wake of the new strain of the virus in United Kingdom, health officials are keeping tabs on travellers coming from the country. So far, 18 persons have flown into the district from UK, of which 16 tested negative while one patient was admitted to the civil hospital after testing positive. Another positive patient has reportedly moved to Uttar Pradesh.

District epidemiologist Dr Ramesh said the samples patient in the city have been sent to Pune to ascertain whether the new strain is present in her samples or not.
"I'm really hopeful that we can move towards some of the actions that we need to take as a board to get to a place that we will have a recommendation that allows us to move forward in a way," Ms. McDuffie said. "One of the things I read about ... some sort of staggering of the timing on getting to the place that we want to get to in terms of number of hours that a person works before the overtime rules go into effect."
Jammu and Kashmir recorded 10,747 Covid infections and 189 deaths in December, the lowest monthly count since July.

This is also the first time in six months that monthly fatalities due to the disease were below 200. The UT witnessed a 71% fall in Covid cases and 60% drop in deaths as compared to September when cases in the region were peaking at 37,372 and deaths at 478.

There was also a 30% drop in cases and 12% drop in fatalities in the UT against the November tally when J&K had recorded 15,434 cases and 216 deaths. As many as 293 people had succumbed to the virus in October, 478 in September, 326 in August and 279 in July.

December also recorded the lowest average daily case count since July. December saw 346 average cases per day while 514 daily cases were reported in November, 632 in October, 1,245 in September, 559 in August and 414 in July.

On an average, six daily deaths were recorded in December, seven in November, 10 in October and 16 in September.

Qazi Haroon, officer on special duty with the health department who is to assisting the government with corona mitigation efforts in Kashmir, said authorities were preparing for the vaccine to arrive in January. The vaccine will be coming this month and we will be first vaccinating the health workers, he said. Active cases in J&K have dropped to 3,016, which accounts for 2.48% of the 1, 21,227 cumulative cases.

244 fresh cases reported in J&K

J&K recorded 244 fresh coronavirus cases and one death on Saturday, taking the total case count in the UT to 1,21,471 and death toll to 1,885. Officials said 137 people tested positive in Kashmir and 107 in Jammu. Around 1,16,587 people have recovered in the UT so far , taking the recovery rate to 95.97%. A total 1,187 people have succumbed in Kashmir and 698 in Jammu.

Dry run

A dry run for Covid vaccination was conducted in Srinagar, Jammu, and Kulgam. Financial commissioner, health and medical education, Atal Dulloo inaugurated and monitored the exercise. In Jammu, the vaccination was administered at select sites such as the Government Hospital, Sarwal and community health centres in Marh and Bishnah.

In Srinagar, director health services, Kashmir, Dr Samir Mattoo, supervised the exercise at Jawahar Lal Nehru Memorial Hospital and urban primary health centres in Nishat and Batamaloo respectively. At Kulgam, the vaccination was administered at the district hospital and community health Centres of Yaripora and Kujjar.

Mock drill in Leh

A mock drill for administering the Covid vaccination was carried out at the Ladakh Heart Foundation in Leh. Commissioner secretary Rigzin Samphel said 5,000 frontline workers will be vaccinated on priority basis.
There could be many more visitors coming to enjoy the outdoors in the Slieve Bloom mountains, if money is granted to install new direction signs.

Laois and Offaly county councils have jointly applied for funding of 300,000 to Failte Ireland, to pay for new signs leading to the trail heads for the Slieve Bloom Mountain Bike Trails.

Laois County Council Director of Services for Finance Gerry Murphy said he is hopeful of receiving the funding.

Laois and Offaly will each put in 10% of that funding. We are very hopeful of getting it.

The Slieve Bloom Bike Trails are one of the biggest assets we have and will have in the future as additional paths are added, he said at a recent council meeting.

The 5 million Slieve Bloom Mountain Bike Trails are under construction by Coillte for the past 2.5 years, with short sections opened a year ago at the trail heads at Baunreagh near Mountrath in Laois, and Kinnitty village in Offaly. When finished they will offer 80kms of trails crossing the mountains and ranging in difficulty levels. Similar trails in other Coillte forests attract thousands of visitors and boost local economies.

Laois Council Council is paying 137,500 towards the cost of the trails from development levies gathered in the county over the next three years, as will Offaly.

Cllr James Kelly from Mountrath said that the existing signs to the mountains are poor.

On the Laois side there is a lack of signage coming from Dublin. There is one sign that is very poor and small, the size of an A4 sheet, going into the trails.

The council CEO John Mulholland said efforts are underway to improve visitor facilities on the mountains.

We are looking at that regarding signage, parking and facilities. There is a deliberate effort to delivering that to Laois and Offaly. 

An application has been made to Failte Ireland for 300,00 for road signage to lead to the Slieve Blooms.
After some BJP MPs and a section of the public voiced their opposition, the city civic body has written to the government recommending dropping the proposal to name 11 roads in Padarayanapura ward after social workers and leaders belonging to the minority community. The BBMP, in its meeting held in September, had decided to name the roads in Ward 135 after social workers and other personalities, all belonging to the Muslim community.

BJP MP Tejasvi Surya on Thursday described the move as reeking of "communal mentality of two-nation theory", and requested the Bengaluru municipal authorities to revise the list with non- Muslim public figures.

Claiming that the list of names mooted by BBMP has only Muslim names, Tejasvi Surya said, "Christening of roads in Muslim-dominated locality with only Muslim names reeks of the same communal mentality of the two-nation theory and Muslim League's demand of separate electorates for Hindus and Muslims. This is dangerous and must be condemned." The 29-year-old MP said there was no dearth of non-Muslim public figures and patriots on whom the roads can be named after. He requested the commissioner to reconsider his decision.

In his December 31 letter, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike Commissioner N Manjunath Prasad has cited objections from sections of citizens including BJP MPs Anantkumar Hegde, P C Mohan and Tejasvi Surya,among others. He has also cited certain sections of the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, 1976 in his letter to the Additional Chief Secretary Urban Development department, while recommending to the government that the proposal be dropped.

"After the public uproar over proposed naming of certain roads in a few Muslim dominated Bangalore after only Muslim names, BBMP has dropped the idea.A vigilant Hindu society can thwart such ill intentioned attempts," Surya had tweeted the same day the BBMP Commissioner wrote to the government. The issue had come to light when the BBMP called for objections to the renaming proposal.

Following this, Hegde and Surya had written to the BBMP Commissioner objecting to the proposal. In his letter, Surya had said, "The christening of roads in a Muslim-dominated locality with only Muslim names reeks of the same communal mentality of the two-nation theory and the Muslim Leagues demand for separate electorates for Hindus and Muslims. This is dangerous and must be condemned."


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Back in August last year, Apple had sued meal prep company Prepear for its logo that looked similar to Apples iconic one. Apple said that the Prepear logo that consisted of a minimalistic fruit design with a right-angled leaf, which readily calls to mind Apples famous Apple logo and creates a similar commercial impression.

But that was August 2020. Now, according to a report in Macrumours, Apple has not dropped the case against Prepear but may be willing to negotiate and solve the dispute. The report states that the resolution of the dispute might happen soon based on the filings made at the US Patent and Trademark Offices Trial and Appeal Board.

Also Read: Apple wants a recipe app to stop using a pear in its logo because it will confuse people

As per the report, it has been requested that the legal trial proceedings be suspended for 30 days and the two parties are currently engaged in negotiations for the settlement of this matter.

Prepear is an app and a service that makes it easier for users to properly plan their meals and find recipes. Owned by a company called Super Healthy Kids, Prepear had launched an online petition to make Apple reconsider its decision to oppose their small business. The report states that the petition got about 2.5lakh signatures in Prepears favour.

However, these suspended proceedings do not mean that Apple will drop the legal case. If the two companies cannot arrive at a resolution by January 23 or reach out to the Appeals Board by then, the proceedings will resume and the case will go on.

It all depends on whether Apple will give in or not.
Throughout Mike's time on the House Armed Services Committee, he has been a strong advocate for our men and women in uniform, particularly those stationed at Goodfellow Air Force Base. Hes also been relentless in pushing the Pentagon to be more efficient and more accountable.

Mike has championed policies that make our country safer and the world freer, and I am grateful for his service. I wish Mike and Suzanne all the best as they transition to the next chapter of their lives  they've earned it.

- Ranking Member Mac Thornberry (R-Clarendon)

West Texas should be extremely proud of Mike Conaways reputation and achievements while serving in Congress. He was a respected leader among his peers and always represented the best of our values. I am honored to have served alongside of Mike and am grateful for his friendship and support during my first term in Congress.

- Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Lubbock)

From January 2005 to January 2021 Congressman Michael Conaway served West Texas, our nation, and the American people with great honor, distinction and integrity. He was an admired, wise, loyal and trusted voice in the halls of Congress. He served as chairman of the powerful House Agriculture Committee from January 2015 until January 2019. He was also chairman of the House Ethics Committee from January 2013 until January 2015. Michaels compassionate heart, his values and virtues, strong moral compass and servant leadership are all a reflection of the foundation of our great nation. West Texas has been blessed to have had such an extraordinary humble public servant represent our area for 16 years. We salute Congressman Michael Conaway and thank him for his selfless service.

- Former Commerce Secretary Don Evans

The Permian Basin has benefited from the strong leadership of Congressman Conaway for more than a decade and a half. He has been a staunch supporter of the oil and gas industry and was one of our greatest champions on efforts like lifting the crude oil export ban. Well miss Congressman Conaways leadership and experience but wish him and Suzanne all the best in the next phase of their lives.

- Ben Shepperd, PBPA president

Congressman Mike Conaway continued the outstanding legacy of Texans leading the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture with distinction. He accomplished much for Texas farmers and ranchers during his tenure as chairman. His successful completion of the 2018 Farm Bill in the same year it was introduced is considered his greatest achievement. He exhibited during five months of intense farm bill negotiations the same type of determination, focus and hard work farm and ranch families are known for.

Chairman Conaway always welcomed to his office those who provide food, fiber and fuel and their ideas to help our country prosper. He was never too busy to visit and discuss the important issues of the day. Chairman Conaway also surrounded himself with outstanding staff and advisers, and that is a credit to his leadership and integrity. Texas Farm Bureau will always be grateful for his steadfast dedication to Texas agriculture.

- Texas Farm Bureau President Russell Boening

Michael Conaway served as our Congressman with uncommon common sense. There were many times that he was faced with a choice of what is right or what was easy. For Mike, he consistently deliberated and positioned his votes in the right spots ... and it was never about himself but instead it was about service to others, and his decisions were based on what was best for all of us. Mike handled the responsibility with serious thought and action. And I must add that its always interesting to watch how a police uniform, a mayors title, an editors reach or a congressmans power can change a persons personality  and its not always for the better. But Mike leaves office as the same strong West Texas man of character as when he began his service in Washington. Congressman Conaway inherently understood that freedom is not only a right but a responsibility, and we were blessed to have him represent us.

- Bobby Burns, Midland Chamber of Commerce president/CEO
Some backpackers in Australia feel they have been unfairly targeted by politicians and the media over breaches of coronavirus restrictions amid a "small wave of xenophobia" directed at young foreign travellers.

The Sun-Herald spoke to five backpackers in Sydney who all said they were grateful to be in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic as they watched the situation in Europe deteriorate.

Backpackers Yaroslav Havrysh, Lena Zaim and Natasha Hastings, pictured at Bondi Beach, remain enthusiastic about their travel experiences in Australia despite the COVID-19 crisis. Credit:Steven Saphore

Federal Immigration Minister Alex Hawke last week threatened to deport backpackers who attended a Christmas Day beach party in Bronte.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard called the party "absolutely appalling" and Liberal MP Jason Falinski said: "Their visas should be cancelled and they should be deported immediately."
Head of Immunisations at Public Health England Dr Mary Ramsay has spoken out

She said if people had Pfizer jab first they shouldn't then receive the Oxford shot

Professor Anthony Harnden confirmed advice remains to have the same vaccine

It comes after Britain's guidance for the rollout was updated to a 'mix and match'

Health officials have hit back at claims they are adopting a 'mix and match' approach to coronavirus vaccinations.

Head of Immunisations at Public Health England Dr Mary Ramsay said if people have had the Pfizer jab first they should not then receive the AstraZeneca shot.

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Deputy chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), Professor Anthony Harnden confirmed advice remains to have the same vaccine.

It comes after Britain's guidance for the rollout was updated to say a 'mix and match' approach to administration is 'reasonable' in specific scenarios.

But in a statement to MailOnline, Dr Ramsay shot down the claims, saying: 'We do not recommend mixing the Covid-19 vaccines'.

She added: 'If your first dose is the Pfizer vaccine you should not be given the AstraZeneca vaccine for your second dose and vice versa.

'There may be extremely rare occasions where the same vaccine is not available, or where it is not known what vaccine the patient received.

'Every effort should be made to give them the same vaccine, but where this is not possible it is better to give a second dose of another vaccine than not at all.'

Scientists have warned against a 'Mix and Match' approach that has been called 'reasonable' in PHE guidance - that could see an interchangeable approach to vaccine administration in some instances when an individual returns for a second dosage

Two vaccines have been given the emergency green-light in the UK - one developed by Pfizer and the other by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.

Both are shown to be more effective at protecting a person against Covid-19 when administered through a two dose programme.

Updated guidance, reported in the New York Times, says it is 'reasonable' to have a different type of vaccine for a person's second dose if the other is unavailable.

Guidance from Public Health England now reads: 'Individuals who started the schedule and who attend for vaccination at a site where the same vaccine is not available, or if the first product received is unknown, it is reasonable to offer one dose of the locally available product to complete the schedule.'

Deputy chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), Professor Anthony Harnden

But scientists and experts have shot down the guidance that contradicts information from other countries' health bodies - including the US Centre of Disease Control.

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Professor Harnden told the Today programme this morning: 'Our current advice is to use the same vaccine for both doses.

'However we have studies ongoing to look at mixing vaccines and when we see the data for those and are secure about the data, then we may be recommending mixed vaccines.'

CDC guidance says: 'These mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are not interchangeable with each other or with other COVID-19 vaccine products.

'The safety and efficacy of a mixed-product series have not been evaluated. Both doses of the series should be completed with the same product.'

John Moore, a vaccine expert at Cornell University, told the New York Times there is 'no data on this idea whatsoever'.

He added officials in Britain 'seem to have abandoned science completely now and are just trying to guess their way out of a mess'.

When asked to comment, officials at PHE reportedly pointed to similarities between the two approved vaccines, adding clinical trials into the idea would come this year.

Pictured: Margaret Keenan - the first person to receive the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine - returned to hospital this week to receive her second round of the Covid-19 vaccine

Vaccine firms have rejected the Government's warnings of jab supply gaps lasting months, claiming there will be enough doses to hit the Government's ambitions targets (file image)

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Professor Harnden also defended Government plans to delay the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine from three weeks to 12 weeks after the first jab, saying a longer wait can protect patients more effectively.

He said patients he had dealt with accepted the move, stating: 'When it was explained to them that the vaccine offers 90 per cent protection for one dose, and the priority was to get as many people vaccinated in the elderly and vulnerable community as possible, they understood.

'I think the country is all in this together. And, I think we really, really want to pull together to try and do the best strategy possible.'

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He went on to explain that it a delayed second dose has been shown to be better at protecting patients: 'It's clear from looking at the data that from the Pfizer vaccine after one dose after 14 days is 90 per cent,' he said.

'If you actually look at the Oxford vaccine data it looks like the protecting is better the longer the second dose is delayed.'

Chairman of the Royal Institution and Imperial College Healthcare Sir Richard Sykes, also speaking to the Today programme, said he had 'no problem' with the new strategy of having patients wait longer for the second dose.

'It's all in their diaries and I think the decision to give two dose, one then another 12 weeks apart, is absolutely fine. I have no problem with that strategy.

'I just think it's a bit strange to make it retrospective when you've got all the system in place to deliver those vaccines when those people were told quite categorically ''you have to come back here in 21 days time to receive your second injection''.

'So I can understand why there's some anguish here. It's not good.'

Chief medical officer Professor Chris Witty, who warned that vaccine availability issues will 'remain the case for several months', pictured speaking during a coronavirus media briefing

The news comes as Britain struggles with a mutant variant of 'super' coronavirus.

On Thursday, it was confirmed that the B117 strain has been found to be more infectious than previous variants, just as scientists feared, in a new study.

Imperial College London researchers found that the new variant that's been wreaking havoc in the UK may be nearly 50 percent more transmissible, based on samples taken from nearly 86,000 Britons.

What is the 'mutant COVID strain' and why are experts concerned? Coronaviruses mutate regularly, acquiring about one new mutation in their genome every two weeks. Most mutations do not significantly change the way the virus acts. This super strain, named B.1.1.7, was first identified in the UK in November. It has since been found in France, Spain, Italy, Iceland, Japan, Singapore, Australia and now the United States. The new COVID-19 variant has a mutation in the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein at position 501, where amino acid asparagine (N) has been replaced with tyrosine (Y). It is more infectious than previous strains and potentially more harmful to children. It is not, however, believed to be any more lethal. Public Health England researchers compared 1,769 people infected with the new variant, with 1,769 who had one of the earlier strains of the virus. Forty-two people in the group were admitted to hospital, of whom 16 had the new variant and 26 the wild type. Twelve of the variant cases and 10 of the 'older' virus cases died within four weeks of testing. Neither the hospitalization nor the mortality differences were statistically significant.

Meanwhile, Pfizer and AstraZeneca have rejected Government warnings of months-long vaccine supply gaps, claiming there will be enough doses to hit the country's ambitious targets.

England's chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty this week warned that vaccine availability issues will 'remain the case for several months' as firms struggle to keep up with global demand.

Sir John Bell, a regius professor of medicine at Oxford University and member of SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies), has also said that insufficient investment in the capacity to make vaccines has left the UK unprepared.

In a bid to ration supplies, the Government has pledged to give single doses of the Pfizer vaccine to as many people as they can - rather than give a second dose to those already vaccinated.

But manufacturers of both the Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZeneca jabs have rubbished concerns, saying there is no problem with supply.

Sir Richard Sykes, who led a review of the Government's Vaccines Taskforce in December, added that he is 'not aware' of a shortage in supply.

The comments come after a further 53,285 people tested positive in Britain on Friday - marking four days in a row with more than 50,000 positive tests announced.

And 613 more people have died with the virus - including an eight-year-old child - taking the total official death toll to 74,125.

The eight-year-old died in England on December 30 and had other health problems, the NHS said.

At least one million Pfizer doses and some 530,000 Oxford doses will likely be given to patients across the country next week, The Daily Telegraph reports.

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Earlier this month, AstraZeneca boss Pascal Soriot promised the firm will be able to deliver two million doses a week by mid-January - meaning 24million could be immunised by Easter.
Aurangabad: A hand grenade-like object was found in a lake in Latur district of Maharashtra on Saturday (January 2), police said.

Local people spotted the object at Shirur Tajband village in Ahmedpur tehsil and alerted police.

A team of Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad has reached the site, said a senior police official.

Police created a safety perimeter around it but they were yet to examine the object, he said.

"We are waiting for a bomb suit and we will get it from Nanded tomorrow morning. Then we will examine it," said Additional Superintendent of Police Himmat Jadhav.
President-elect Joe Bidens choice for Treasury secretary, Janet L. Yellen, collected more than $7 million in speaking fees over the past two years from major corporations and Wall Street banks that have a keen interest in the financial policies she will oversee after her expected confirmation to lead the Treasury Department.

Yellens paid speaking appearances  which included $9,92,000 from investment bank Citi for nine appearances  were among the lucrative payments from a range of Wall Street, Big Tech and corporate interests to three prominent prospective members of the incoming Biden administration.

The payments, revealed in disclosure statements covering the previous two years and released on New Years Eve, have caused consternation among progressive activists concerned about the influence of special interests around Biden, who they see as part of a Democratic establishment that has not sufficiently embraced liberal priorities.

Bidens choice for secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, was paid nearly $1.2 million by a consulting firm he helped found, WestExec Advisors, where he advised a range of corporations including Facebook, Boeing, private equity giant Blackstone and asset management company Lazard.

Bidens choice for director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, was paid $180,000 to consult for data-mining company Palantir, which has raised liberal hackles for providing data and surveillance services to law enforcement, including US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Also read: US facing historic crises again, says Treasury Secretary-nominee Janet Yellen

Along with their disclosure statements, Yellen, Blinken and Haines each filed ethics agreements pledging to avoid involvement in specific matters that could affect any holding they still own, or with which they had worked in the past year, unless they receive a written waiver from ethics officials.

The three may have to extend the conflict of interest window beyond a year if Biden enacts an expected ethics policy barring officials in his administration from participating for two years in policies that could affect their former business interests.

Yellen and Blinken also indicated they would divest their interests in companies, including stock owned by Yellen in major corporations such as AT&T, ConocoPhillips, Dow, Pfizer and Raytheon. Blinken said he would sell his stake in WestExec Advisors as well as a venture capital firm linked to it.

Blinken indicated in his disclosure filing that those stakes are worth a total of $1.5 million to $6 million.

David Segal, the executive director of the progressive group Demand Progress, said that he still had concerns even though the officials had pledged to abide by conflict of interest rules.

There are almost too many corporate clients to count who have relationships to the respective ambits these designees would steward if confirmed, he said, adding that this is an unfortunate circumstance, particularly as Biden strives to strike a difference between his administration and President Donald Trumps.

In the Trump administration, representatives from corporate America and Wall Street held prominent posts, and conflicts of interest abounded.

The filings by Bidens team offer another glimpse of Washingtons longtime revolving door. Officials whose parties have lost power monetise their insider expertise and connections in the private sector, then head back into government when their party retakes the White House.

Yellen, a former Federal Reserve chair, started giving paid speeches in February 2018, which was within a year of the conclusion of her term at the Fed. She was also a consultant to Magellan Financial Group Ltd., an Australia-based investment fund manager, which paid her $125,000.

Haines left her position as deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama at the end of his term in 2017, and within about six months she was working as a consultant for Palantir. When Haines joined Bidens transition team over the summer, a spokesperson sought to distance her from Palantirs data collection and surveillance, saying that the vast majority of her work for the company was related to diversity and inclusion.

The biggest share of Haines income came from Columbia University, which paid her more than $440,000 to help run an international research project and to lecture at the universitys law school. She also was paid $150,000 to consult for the applied physics lab at Johns Hopkins University, and nearly $55,000 to consult and make introductions for WestExec Advisors, the firm Blinken helped found.

Blinken, who served as deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration, formed WestExec Advisors about eight months after he left office with three other Obama administration officials.

The firm, which takes its name from the small street that runs between the West Wing of the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, was hired by clients looking for advice in navigating the federal government. The firm also paired with venture capital funds that helped companies it advised expand to take on federal contracts or other new work.

Blinkens disclosure forms show that he worked with 17 WestExec clients, including Microsoft, Uber, AT&T, FedEx, LinkedIn, Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences and McKinsey & Co., a global consulting firm.

WestExec said in a statement after Blinken emerged as the likely secretary of state pick that he helped business leaders make the best decisions in a complex and volatile international landscape.

Blinken also publicly defended tech companies, while Facebook was a client of WestExec. When tech companies came under fire for failing to adequately fight disinformation during the 2016 election  including Facebook posts that were part of a Russian effort to boost Trumps presidential campaign  Blinken said the blame should be directed primarily at Russia.

Tech platforms have to do better to defend against malicious actors, but lets not lose sight of the forest for the trees: The problem is Russia and other actors who use our openness against us, not the platforms, Blinken said in an interview with Fast Company published in October 2017. The biggest mistake we can make is to get into a circular firing squad with government and the tech companies, Blinken told the publication, which identified him as an adviser to both Facebook and Alphabet, the parent company of Google.

Jose Castaneda, a Google spokesperson, said that the company hired WestExec for one month in 2018 to provide advice on tech policy, but added that the advice was provided by others in the firm, not by Mr. Blinken.

In 2009, Obama prohibited all of his appointees from participating for two years in any particular matter as a government official that directly and substantially related to a former employer or former client, including a federal regulation that might affect the former client.

Biden has not yet released details on what type of restrictions he will impose on his political appointees.
Nearly 23,000 beds in England were occupied by coronavirus patients on New Year's Eve  higher than April

Staff at one major London hospital told to prepare to manually ventilate patients using an 'ambu bag'

NHS England data shows critical care demand was last week outstripping extra beds added for Covid crisis

In London, three quarters of ICU wards were 100% full or almost full last week as coronavirus cases surged

Nationwide, there were an average 743 extra ICU beds in December 2020 but 828 extra patients

Grim reports from capital city claim patients are being treated in ambulances and nurses in 'disaster mode'

Hospital staff have been told to prepare to ventilate patients manually if oxygen runs out.

It came as health chiefs warned of 'nail-bitingly difficult' weeks ahead and said NHS staff are at 'battle stations' across the country. Admissions are soaring as Covid-19 rates continue to rise.

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Nearly 23,000 beds in England were occupied by coronavirus patients on New Year's Eve  far higher than the 19,000 occupied at the peak of the first wave in April.

Yesterday 613 more deaths within 28 days of a positive test were reported across the UK, bringing the total toll to 74,125.

There were also 53,285 new cases. Several hospitals have warned in recent days that the surge in admissions is placing oxygen supplies under pressure.

Staff at one major London hospital have been told to prepare for an 'oxygen supply failure' in which they could be forced to manually ventilate patients using an 'ambu bag'  a hand pumped plastic sphere which pushes air into the lungs.

A note circulated to staff on Thursday said: 'There is a very high demand for medical oxygen across the healthcare system at the moment. All hospitals are closely monitoring their use to ensure that piped oxygen supplies are safely monitored.'

In a stark warning, it added: 'You need to know what to do in the event of oxygen supply failure. Disconnect tubing from patient. Connect inflating bag to oxygen bottle. If no oxygen bottles, don't panic, just inflate with ambu bag. Manually ventilate  12 breaths per minute.'

It came after it emerged that coronavirus patients at other London hospitals are already in 'competition' for ventilators to keep them alive.

Dr Megan Smith said medics are facing 'horrifying' decisions as they have to choose which patients get access to lifesaving treatment for Covid-19 and which don't.

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts in England, said admissions will continue to rise over the next fortnight.

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'The next few weeks are going to be nail-bitingly difficult for the NHS,' she told BBC Breakfast.

Referring to Thursday's figures, she said: 'We've nearly got 1,000 deaths today, and that is where we were in April. That is incredibly hard to deal with and this new variant of coronavirus also spreads much more quickly.'

Dr Adrian Boyle, vice president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said NHS staff were 'tired, frustrated and fed-up'. He told BBC Breakfast: 'What is it going to be like over the next couple of months? I don't know, I am worried. We are very much at battle stations.'

NHS England last night insisted it has enough oxygen supplies to meet current demand and is working with suppliers to manage future needs.

Dr Smith warned that an expected surge in patients triggered by people mixing with family and friends over Christmas hasn't even started yet, with the situation expected to get worse later this month and in February.

Official NHS figures show that intensive care wards across the country are struggling more this winter even though an average 743 extra beds per day have been made available to try and cope with Covid patients.

NHS England data shows that, in the last week of December, there were 743 more intensive care beds available than in the same week of 2019 - 4,394 compared to 3,651.

But in the same week there were, on average, 828 more patients in critical care - 3,340 compared to 2,512 in the December 2019 - suggesting the strain of Covid-19 is bigger than hospitals had prepared for.

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Many of the extra beds are in London - 253 of them - but even this hasn't been enough to stave off the surge in coronavirus patients.

Over the Christmas week, two hospitals' ICU wards were 100 per cent full, and another 11 out of 18 were more than 90 per cent full and had fewer than six beds each to use for any new patients.

Grim reports have emerged from the capital in recent days, with some of its major hospitals being forced to treat Covid-19 patients in ambulances outside or dismantling wards to make space for more intensive care patients.

Although the city has a huge Nightingale Hospital at the Excel Centre, nursing unions say there aren't enough staff to man it and equipment has been removed since it was put on standby in the summer.

NHS bosses warn that even hospitals that aren't full or almost full are struggling more than usual because of staff sickness rates and the fact that beds have to be spread out more across the hospital because of social distancing.

Medics are pictured collecting a patient from an ambulance at the Royal London Hospital this morning, January 1

Dr Smith, talking in an interview with ITN on Friday, said: 'It's not a position any of us ever want to be in, and we're used to making difficult decisions as doctors, but deciding the outcome of, effectively a competition for a ventilator, is just not what anyone signed up for.

'In terms of the emotional trauma for those individuals it's horrifying. We shouldn't be having to do it but we are.'

She explained that the surge in patients London's hospitals are already struggling with likely doesn't even include many of the people who inevitably caught coronavirus over Christmas.

'The patients that we're seeing now - and we're already higher than the peak that we had back in March and April -were infected two or three weeks ago,' Dr Smith added.

'So the patients that we will see as a result of the relaxation of the rules around Christmas, and people just not necessarily observing the rules properly as well, we'll see them in two or three weeks' time.

'I think January and February are going to be the most difficult and most awful months that most healthcare workers will have faced ever in their career.'

Department of Health data shows there were 23,813 people in hospital with Covid-19 in the UK as of December 28, the most recent figures.

This is more than at any other point during the pandemic, even during the devastating first wave in March and April.

Some 1,847 of these people were on ventilators in intensive care units, with others in ICU but not being ventilated.

Weekly NHS figures show that, despite efforts to set up more critical care beds in England, wards still find themselves significantly busier than in December 2019.

Adult intensive care was around 76 per cent full for England as a whole in the last week of 2020, compared to 69 per cent in the same week a year earlier.

This was an average for the entire country and some hospitals were 100 per cent full in the areas worst affected by coronavirus, with no extra critical care beds for the entire week and potentially even longer.

Looking at London, which is now once again the epicentre of the country's crisis, data show that 13 out of 18 hospital trusts in the city had six or fewer intensive care beds available to take new patients last week.

Ambulances are pictured queuing outside the Royal London Hospital last night, where bosses declared they are in 'disaster mode' with only one nurse for every three Covid patients

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Two hospital trusts had no spare intensive care beds and three only had an average of one extra bed throughout the week.

Intensive care is usually a last-ditch attempt to save the life of someone who is starting to die of coronavirus and is reserved for only the sickest people, and usually rules out elderly patients who tend to be too weak to survive the damaging impacts of ventilators.

Comparing intensive care wards in London to a year earlier shows that, in 2019, the busiest ICU wards in the city were at 86 per cent capacity, compared to 100 per cent this year. Only five hospitals are this year less full than the very busiest ones were the year before.

Daily hospital admissions have been surging in England since the national lockdown ended on December 2 and are now worse than they were in the spring in some parts of London.

As the UK yesterday declared a record-high 55,892 coronavirus cases and almost 1,000 more deaths, the chief executive of University College London hospitals trust (UCLH) said admissions were 'much more' than during the first wave in the spring.

Professor Marcel Levi revealed the 550-bed hospital now has 220 Covid patients, with numbers increasing by five per cent a day.

He added the 'real pressure' is on intensive care, where there are now '70 very sick patients'.

According to The Guardian, whole floors at the hospital are being dismantled and rebuilt to allow them to be used as intensive care wards. They are being equipped with oxygen and continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines which help people to breathe.

Meanwhile, the Royal London Hospital yesterday declared it is in 'disaster mode'.

In an email to staff, bosses at the hospital in Whitechapel, east London  Britain's busiest  warned there is only one nurse for every three Covid patients.

'We are now in disaster medicine mode,' the message said. 'We are no longer providing high standard critical care, because we cannot  Things are going to get harder before they get better.'

Covid-19 hospital admissions in the UK have been rising constantly for weeks, driven by a surge in England after the second national lockdown in November offered only a brief fall in the figures

Patients are waiting 24 hours for beds inside with some taking taxis to A&E to jump the queue of ambulances waiting outside.

Medics say the sheer number of patients coming into some hospitals means they cannot always give seriously ill people the care they need.

Dr Pushpo Hossain, a 31-year-old junior doctor in London, told The Sun: 'Never before have so many patients required oxygen at the same time and many NHS hospitals are old buildings which have not been built to deliver oxygen on such a large scale.

'We do have the oxygen to supply to patients but what we don't have is the capacity to provide it to all of them at the same time. We are constantly reviewing all our patients to see who can come off oxygen, so we can reduce output.'

In an interview with the newspaper, A&E medic Dr Priyesh Patel added: 'In A&E we're frequently running out of bed space and I've had to see seriously sick patients in ambulances because they've been waiting for over four hours just to get inside the hospital.

'In the resus department, where we battle to save the sickest patients, we can't bring in any more because there's no space.'

The NHS says that even though not all hospitals are totally full, those that aren't still face much greater pressure than usual because of the way wards have to be run now to stop the spread of Covid-19.

NHS England explains on its website that coronavirus precautions 'results in beds and staff being deployed differently from in previous years in both emergency and elective settings within the hospital.

'As a result, caution should be exercised in comparing overall occupancy rates between this year and previous years.

'In general hospitals will experience capacity pressures at lower overall occupancy rates than would previously have been the case.'

DOCTORS SAY THEY WILL DEFY ORDER NOT TO GIVE SECOND VACCINE DOSES Doctors say they will defy Government orders to give a second dose of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine to elderly patients who were promised one when they got their first jabs. A row has broken out over ministers' decision to ration vaccine supplies to get single doses to as many people as they can in a scramble to stem the tide of Covid deaths. Officials, warning that supply shortages could last until spring, have said patients who already had one dose of the vaccine should have their second one - which they were told they'd get three weeks later - postponed for up to 12 weeks. But doctors have revolted and said they won't deny vulnerable patients the vaccines they promised them amid concerns the jabs won't work as well with just one dose. GPs blasted the policy as 'grossly unfair' and frustrated scientists warned that clinical trials of the vaccine only tested how well it worked with a three-week gap, so there is no evidence the new regime would work long-term. Professor Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, said in a letter with his counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that single dose could offer 70 per cent protection, and having this in a larger number of people would be more effective than 95 per cent protection in half as many. Margaret Keenan, the first person in the world to receive a Covid-19 vaccine, received her second jab earlier this week. But thousands of others across Britain will see their second appointment delayed so the NHS can focus on delivering jabs to more people. A total of 944,539 people across the UK had received the first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine by December 27, according to the Department of Health.

Essex has already declared a 'major incident' as the number of coronavirus cases threatens to overwhelm its six hospitals and ambulances queued outside A&Es all over the country due to a lack of beds and staff.

Gareth Grier, an A&E consultant at Barts Health NHS Trust in east London, said on Friday: 'If Covid patients are left in corridors then covid will spread like wildfire within the hospital. This cannot be allowed to happen.

'The corridor medicine that was previously endemic in emergency departments would kill people and staff if allowed to reoccur. Hence the awful, terrible option of treating patients outside hospitals'.

UK hospitals are reported to be running low on workers, ward space, oxygen and even pillows with patients being treated by medics inside emergency vehicles as they waited up to six hours to be admitted.

In some cases people were later diverted more than 100 miles away while some packed London ICUs have started asking major hospitals in Tyneside and Yorkshire if they will take some of their Covid patients.

On the day Britain's Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was approved for use yesterday, Essex declared a 'major incident' at its six hospitals, allowing then to move patients elsewhere, speed up discharging, call in extra staff as well as cancel non-emergency care and operations. The Department for Health and Social Care was also expected to set out later on Friday what help the Government will give Essex.

Doctors in areas worst affected by the surging number of coronavirus cases have said they are 'extremely fearful' and are just days away from having to make 'horrendous choices' over who they can treat and who is left to die.

The chaos has been blamed on dwindling oxygen supplies and NHS chiefs say staff absence is twice its normal level because of illness and self-isolation with some hospitals begging nurses to return early from Christmas holidays and time off in January is now banned by some trusts.

Footage on social media revealed that queues of ambulances were lined up outside the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel and Queen's Hospital in Romford, both in east London, and in Kent last night when NHS Providers' deputy chief executive Saffron Cordery warned pressure on the NHS was 'rising at an unsustainable rate'.

There were also reports of delays at hospitals in East Anglia, south Wales and Birmingham, where doctor Punith Kempegowda tweeted: 'Just getting out of a&e after another loooooooong day. Almost all these ambulances are waiting with patients inside them for more than 3 hours because there's no place in hospital to bring them in'.

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There are also growing concerns about the number of people in their 40s and 50s with no underlying health problems being admitted to wards or even appearing on intensive care wards, one London doctor has said.
City, volunteers to line Highway 81 with flowers

The City of Watertown Parks and Recreation Department and volunteers will be planting flowers along Highway 81 starting at 8 a.m. Wednesday, May 26.
Q: Packages have been getting stolen from my rental building in Sugar Hill, Harlem. Weve been getting more packages delivered since the pandemic, and they are often left in the lobby with no protection. Tenants are working hard to notify neighbors about the deliveries, but we dont all know each other. How do we petition our landlord for lockers or a mailroom? Would he be liable for stolen packages after hes been put on notice? What can we do to protect our deliveries?

A: Package theft is a major problem around the country, and its only getting worse as more of us shop for everyday items online. Its especially bad in New York City, where a 2019 New York Times analysis found that a stunning 90,000 packages are lost or stolen every day. So how can you protect your deliveries?

Unfortunately, the answer probably doesnt lie with your landlord. He is required to provide operable locks for the front doors and an intercom system, but, unless the lease requires it, he does not have to provide you with lockers or a mailroom. (A landlord must, however, provide locked mailboxes or deliver the mail to the tenants.) Even when the locks and intercoms work properly, packages can still go missing. The landlord could argue that they were taken when a tenant buzzed in the wrong visitor; that a tenant mistakenly took the wrong package; or that the delivery was lost in transit and never arrived.
News

West End residents hope cameras will curb break-ins

jenniferreynolds / JENNIFER REYNOLDS/The Daily News Mac Hendricks, a technician with Flock Safety, adjusts a license-plate-reading camera on 12 Mile Road in Galveston on Thursday, Dec. 23, 2020. Members of a West End island homeowners association installed 21 of the cameras from Flock Safety, a company that develops and runs the devices, after a rash of home, garage and vehicle break-ins. jenniferreynolds / JENNIFER REYNOLDS/The Daily News Mac Hendricks, a technician with Flock Safety, adjusts a license-plate-reading camera on 12 Mile Road in Galveston on Dec. 23, 2020. Members of a West End island homeowners association installed 21 of the cameras from Flock Safety, a company that develops and runs the devices, after a rash of home, garage and vehicle break-ins.

GALVESTON

Members of a West End island homeowners association are addressing a recent rash of break-ins by installing cameras that can read license plates of cars cruising through beach and bay neighborhoods and identify any that might not belong there.

The cameras are another tool for law enforcement to help fight criminal activity in neighborhoods. But across the nation, such systems are raising concerns about privacy and profiling.

Residents of the Pirates Property Owners Association last week installed 21 license-plate-reading cameras from Flock Safety, a company that develops and operates the devices.

Residents started looking into the cameras after a rash of home, garage and vehicle break-ins in a span of about four weeks, association President Lee Slataper said. Break-ins happen, but several burglaries were happening every weekend, he said.

They would break into garages, boat storage sheds and cars, Slataper said. They broke into one of my friends cars.

Slataper and his friend drove to Slatapers home one night to find a man breaking into the friends car, trying to steal a camera, Slataper said.

CRIMES OF OPPORTUNITY

They called the police, who arrested the person, but the property owners wanted to do more, Slataper said.

Some residents blame an uptick in crime on an increase of out-of-town visitors to the West End seeking escape from pandemic boredom and lockdowns, said Joseph Ryan, a member of the association who has been spearheading the camera installations.

I think Galveston just attracted more people than normal, Ryan said. It became an opportunity.

Criminals broke into cars and homes and stole laptops, money, handguns and bicycles, among other things, Ryan said.

The hope is that the pole-mounted cameras, which already are up and running, will help law enforcement find those responsible for break-ins and identify stolen cars driving through the neighborhoods, Ryan said.

The association spent $70,000 for a three-year contract on the camera system, Slataper said.

LAW ENFORCEMENT OVERSIGHT

The Galveston County Sheriffs Office will respond to notifications about stolen vehicles from the camera system.

When it gets a hit, itll make a notification, Sheriff Henry Trochesset said.

The countys Auto Crime Task Force will either contact the Galveston Police Department to respond or notify a sheriff, Trochesset said.

For the sheriffs office, its just another tool, Trochesset said.

I would have to literally be driving through the subdivision to see a vehicle, run the plate, Trochesset said.

A FIRST FOR THE COUNTY

The system also temporarily stores data, so law enforcement officials can review tapes to look for a car thats out of place if theres a break-in, he said.

To Trochessets knowledge, the system is a first for Galveston County, he said.

The property owners first approached Galveston Police Department about overseeing the cameras, but the department referred it to the sheriffs office because of the countys Auto Crime Task Force, police spokeswoman Sgt. Stacy Papillion said.

The Flock cameras are designed to help law enforcement catch people committing burglaries, company CEO Garrett Langley said.

Theres not a long line of people signing up to be a cop right now, Langley said. How do we make sure that the law enforcement we do have is effective?

The Galveston situation also is a benefit to law enforcement because the homeowners bear the cost of the equipment, which the sheriffs office utilizes, Langley said.

The company has installed the system in more than 1,000 cities across the country, Langley said.

PRIVACY CONCERNS

But some groups have raised concerns about license plate readers, stating the technology is an invasion of privacy.

The American Civil Liberties Union has raised concerns about how the data is stored.

The cameras might be good for neighborhood safety, but they raise questions about privacy, said Jonathan Zendeh Del, a Galveston attorney.

The counter argument to this is this feels a little Big Brother-like, Zendeh Del said. The cameras may have an innocent purpose, but we need to think about how their data and recordings can be exploited.

Someone with access to the data could see the comings and goings of every resident and visitor, he said.

Flock Safety is aware of such concerns but doesnt capture personally identifiable information or use facial recognition technology, spokesman Josh Miller said.

The company doesnt sell data to any third parties and stores video recordings securely, Miller said. The recordings are automatically deleted every 30 days on a rolling basis, he said.

Trochesset doesnt see a privacy issue with the cameras, he said.

Youre on a public roadway, Trochesset said. Theres no privacy for you on a public roadway.

The technology also doesnt capture images of the inside of cars, said Sean Johnson, a commissioner at the Memorial Villages Police Department, which oversees a small collective of villages in west Houston.

Johnson also owns a home in a Pirates subdivision where cameras are installed.

Thousands of cars go through these cameras every day, Johnson said. The only way it generates a hit is if that specific license plate has been entered by a law enforcement agency as being stolen.

The small community started using Flock Safety cameras last year because of chronic theft, a plague for the villages, which lie near major thoroughfares such as Interstate 10, Johnson said.

I was quite surprised by how many hits we were getting of stolen vehicles, Johnson said. A lot of times, stolen vehicles are used by people when they commit other crimes.

Ryan hopes once word spreads about the cameras in the Pirates subdivisions, it will deter would-be thieves from entering the neighborhoods in the first place, he said.

The system detected a stolen vehicle driving through the neighborhood for the first time this week, but police didnt arrive in time to apprehend the driver, Ryan said.
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The US marked a sobering start to the new year on Friday as COVID-19 hospitalizations exceeded 100,000 for the 31st day in a row, with more than 2,000 new deaths, while California's healthcare system continues to grapple with a shortage of hospital beds.

At least 125,057 patients are currently hospitalized with coronavirus across the country as of late Friday, according to the COVID Tracking Project, exceeding 125,000 for the third consecutive day.

It comes after the total number of US virus cases earlier reached another sober milestone, surpassing 20million confirmed infections since the start of the pandemic. US coronavirus cases now make up nearly a quarter of the global total.

Another 160,606 new infections were confirmed for January 1, bringing the nationwide count to 20,128,693, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University. The number of daily deaths, meanwhile, fell to 2,051 - down 1,368 from Thursday.

To date, the US has lost 347,788 lives from COVID-19, amounting to approximately one in every 950 Americans, and ranks 16th in national per capita coronavirus deaths in the world.

Earlier, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned the weeks to come could get worse as it projected a total of 383,000 to 424,000 COVID-19 deaths will be reported by the week ending on January 23, 2021.

On the high end of the model, that could mean that more than 82,000 people could die within the next month.

California, the most populous state with 40 million residents, has become a leading US flashpoint of the pandemic. Hospitals have been forced to set up makeshift ICU wings outside or in emergency rooms due to a shortage of beds. Pictured: Doctors treat a patient in UCLA Medical Center on Tuesday

At least 125,057 patients are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 across the country as of Friday, according to the COVID Tracking Project

Another 160,606 new infections were confirmed for January 1, bringing the nationwide count to 20,128,693, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University

The number of daily deaths, meanwhile, fell to 2,051 on Friday - down 1,368 from the previous day

It comes as California, the most populous state with 40 million residents, has become a leading US flashpoint of the pandemic despite some of the nation's toughest restrictions on social gatherings and business activities.

The soaring COVID-19 case load has pushed hospitals in and around Los Angeles in particular to their limits, filling emergency rooms, intensive care units, ambulance bays and morgues beyond capacity, and creating staff shortages.

In Santa Clara, near San Jose, hospitals have run out of space in intensive care units and are now treating patients in the emergency room.

'Often, the only time we can move someone is when a Covid patient dies,' Dr Marco Randazzo said in a news conference.

Briefing reporters on Thursday, Cathy Chidester, director of the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency, called the situation a 'hidden disaster,' not plainly visible to the public.

Medical experts attribute the worsening pandemic in recent weeks to the arrival of colder weather and the failure of many Americans to abide by public health warnings and requirements to stay home and avoid unnecessary travel over the year-end holiday season.

The crisis faced by healthcare systems has become especially acute in Los Angeles County where one patient is dying every 10 minutes from the respiratory virus, according to county health officials.

County of Los Angeles paramedics are pictured loading a potential Covid-19 patient in the ambulance after administering him with oxygen on December 29

The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in the US has remained above 100,000 for the past 31 days, according to data

Heightened demands of caring for those struggling to breathe has also left many hospitals in the region short on oxygen, both in supplies and the ability of older facilities to maintain adequate pressure flow through ventilators, Chidester said.

She also described ambulances forced to wait several hours at a time to unload patients, causing delays throughout the county's emergency response system.

To ease ER overcrowding, the county is denying ambulance transport to hospitals of emergency patients who are already under hospice care with do-not-resuscitate directives, according to Adam Blackstone, a spokesman for the Hospital Association of Southern California.

For months, California did many of the right things to avoid a catastrophic surge from the pandemic. But by the time Governor Gavin Newsom said on December 15 that 5,000 body bags were being distributed, it was clear that the nation's most populous state had entered a new phase of the COVID-19 crisis.

Now infections have been racing out of control for weeks, and California remains at or near the top of the list of states with the most new cases per capita.

It has routinely set new marks for infections and deaths, and began the new year reporting a record 585 deaths in a single day.

Experts say a variety of factors combined to wipe out the past efforts, which for much of the year held the virus to manageable levels.

Cramped housing, travel and Thanksgiving gatherings contributed to the spread, along with the public's fatigue amid regulations that closed many schools and businesses and encouraged - or required - an isolated lifestyle.

HOUSTON, TEXAS: A patient is seen lying on a bed in the COVID-19 intensive care unit at the United Memorial Medical Center on January 1

Another factor could be a more contagious variant of the virus detected in Southern California, although it's not clear yet how widespread that may be.

Even with vaccines becoming available, cases are almost certain to continue growing, and yet another surge is expected in the weeks after Christmas and New Year's Eve.

The recent emergence of a more transmissible variant of the coronavirus in the United States could make a swift rollout of immunizations all the more critical.

December was the deadliest month of the pandemic yet in the US, with coronavirus killing more than 77,000 Americans in the span of 31 days - outstripping the previous record fatalities from April by nearly a third.

The US rang in 2021 with a grim new record: coronavirus hospitalizations hit an all-time high for the fourth day in a row on New Years Eve with nearly 125,400 people in inpatient treatment.

Thursday's daily death toll of 3,419 marked the 10th day this month that deaths have exceeded 3,000, with 346,408 recorded to date.

NEW YORK: Healthcare workers wheel a coronavirus patient into a hospital

While the nation pinned its hope for finally bringing the pandemic to its knees on coronavirus vaccines, widespread issues with the rollout saw 2020 come to a close with only about 3.17 million people vaccinated, according to Bloomberg News. That is just 25 per cent of the 12.4million doses that have been delivered to states.

Confusion over who can get the vaccine abounds across the country, with Americans told to call around to find out when they can get their first doses or facing miles-long lines to get the shots.

Adding to anxieties over the current surge is the emergence of a mutant strain of COVID-19 that has now been confirmed in three states: Colorado, California and Florida. The strain was first detected in the United Kingdom and is thought to be 70 percent more transmissible than the original.

Florida became the third state to confirm a case of the strain on Thursday evening after it was detected in a man his 20s who lives in Martin County and has no history of travel.

California, which reported its first case of the strain on Wednesday, confirmed three more people have been infected with it in the San Diego area on Thursday night.

Earlier this week, the first case was confirmed in Colorado and officials say they are also investigating a second suspected case in the state.

The fact that the confirmed cases in Colorado and Florida both involved individuals with no recent travel history means that the variant must already be circulating on US soil.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, has been sounding the alarm that it's only a matter of time before other states detect the strain.

As of Friday, West Virginia has still vaccinated the highest percentage of its population, followed by South Dakota and Maine. Kansas continues to lag the farthest behind in population vaccinated, with just 0.42% of all residents having received the jab

A table shows for each state, vaccine doses received and administered, and the percentage of shots used. Maine has now distributed the highest percentage of its available vaccine, with more than 50% of doses administered

'We predicted it would be, when you have so much of it in the UK, which then spread to other countries in Europe and Canada, it was inevitable that it would be here,' Fauci told Today on Thursday.

'You'll be hearing reports from other states and more cases in the state that is already reported. Unfortunately, that's just the reality of the way these viruses spread'.

But he added: 'The good news is that it does not appear to be more virulent, namely, making people more sick and leading to more death.'

There are fears the number of infections - followed by hospitalizations and deaths - will only continue to rise in the coming weeks as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) revealed that it screened 1,163,696 people at airport checkpoints on Wednesday, December 30.

It marked the fifth consecutive day that the number of passengers screened exceeded one million and the ninth day this month that the threshold was passed.

Offering a bit of hope, Operation Warp Speed chief Dr Moncef Slaoui on Wednesday announced that a one-shot coronavirus vaccine could be in use by February if Johnson & Johnson's jab is approved.

Slaoui said Phase 3 trial recruitment for the vaccine has been completed and Johnson & Johnson is currently working with the Operation Warp Speed team to accelerate the availability of the vaccine doses.

'I think it can be quite a game-changer,' Slaoui told reporters. 'We're hopeful that this vaccine, which is a one-shot vaccine will have equivalent efficacy to those of Moderna and Pfizer.'

Single-dose shots would mean faster rollout, and that people would likely be protected from coronavirus in a matter of weeks after the injection - rather than the about one-month period it takes for Moderna or Pfizer's shots to reach their protective peak.

In the weeks since Pfizer and Moderna's jabs were approved several states have struggled to implement effective plans to get them out to patients.

People wait in a line on New Year's Eve to receive a COVID-19 vaccination at a site for seniors in an unoccupied store at the Oviedo Mall in Florida

The US has only administered about 16 percent of the 20 million doses it promised to give to Americans by the end of 2020, despite having distributed more than 12 million doses to states and territories.

The bottleneck is caused by officials on state and federal level who have failed to create plans to get those shots into the arms of Americans according to a former FDA official who told DailyMail.com that the failure is akin to dropping the baton on the last leg of the vaccine race.

Adding to the disasters of the U.S. rollout of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, a pharmacist allegedly removed 500 doses of coronavirus vaccines from refrigeration, knowingly allowing them to spoil.

Some of the doses were administered before the the hospital realized they'd gone off. The pharmacist was arrested on Thursday.

Meanwhile, 42 people in Boone County, West Virginia, were mistakenly given Regeneron's antibody cocktail - the same one that President Trump was treated with while he had COVID-19 - National Guard officials there said Thursday.

While Americans continue to wait to be vaccinated, the UK on Wednesday authorized a vaccine by AstraZeneca that will almost certainly accelerate vaccine distribution there because it is cheaper, far easier to ship, handle and store than the Pfizer and Moderna alternatives.

Yet US regulators have no intention of approving the more efficient shot until April - two months after AstraZeneca's US trial will have enough data to prove to the FDA that it works. Other trials have already shown that AstraZeneca's $4 vaccine is safe and about 70 percent effective - well above the efficacy the FDA said it will require to approve a vaccine.

But in the US, federal government has punted distribution plans almost entirely to states, where health departments are already stretched thin by surging COVID-19 cases.

The result is a helter-skelter patchwork of last minute plans that look vastly different from state to state, bumping drug addicts and prisoners to the front of the line in some places, while in others, like Florida, elderly Americans are camping out in lawn chairs overnight in a bid to get vaccinated. Others say essential workers and the aged are being told to 'call around' to see if they can get a vaccine.
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Srinagar: The security forces have arrested an associate of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and recovered incriminating materials including explosive substance, from his possession in Awantipora of Pulwama district, Jammu and Kashmir police said.

The J&K police issued a statement on Friday and said that the arrested associate of LeT outfit has been identified as Aqif Ahmad Teli, a resident of Cherso, Awantipora.

Teli was involved in providing shelter, logistics and other support to the terrorists as well as in transporting of arms, ammunition and explosive materials of the terrorists in the Awantipora and Tral areas in Pulwama district, the police said.

"The arrested person has been in touch with Lasker commanders and is involved in recruiting local youth in terror ranks and distribution of terror money. The bank transactions of the arrested terror associate is also being investigated," police said.

A case has been registered against the said terror associate in Police Station Awantipora under relevant sections of the law, police said.
One thing we can probably all agree upon at the beginning of this new year: We need a fresh start.

Theres the pandemic, which has torn friends and loved ones from our neighborhoods and families. Theres economic hardship for millions, racial inequity and strife, political acrimony, rising urban violence, a resurgent toll from drug abuse. Weve seen devastating storms and wildfires. In all, 2020 has been a terrible year. As we start another circuit of the sun, we must dare to imagine better.

A lot of the worst of 2020 was our own fault: We havent overcome the nations original sin of slavery, nor confronted climate change, nor turned away from approaching politics as a circus of half-imagined grievances.

Luckily for us, though, America is a land of new beginnings and do-overs. Its part of our heritage.

Take John Paul Jones, for example, who is revered as the father of the United States Navy. He was a hot-tempered Scottish sailor named John Paul; he added Jones to his identity when he fled to the American colonies after running a crew member through with a sword (considered poor leadership even by Royal Navy standards). His cooler command under American banners in British waters won Jones international renown and, later, an admiralty in the Imperial Russian Navy.

Or consider the early Quakers, a tiny sect of oddballs that was severely persecuted in England. After establishing an American colony to flee the oppression, they emerged as thoughtful leaders and ran the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for decades, strongly influencing the abolition and womens rights movements.

We like to lavishly reward people who start over. Abraham Lincolns persistent failures  in politics, business and personal affairs  are legendary, often cited as unintended inspiration from the man many revere as our greatest president.

Yes, it is a quintessential American impulse to relaunch. So lets see if we can do the rest of the 21st century better than weve done the decades of the aughts and the teens.

Although, truth be told, we already tried to right the ship once before in this century, after the disastrous invasion of Iraq, with its side effects (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, the empowerment of Iran and more), and amid the never-ending war in Afghanistan and the Great Recession  all of which upended our confidence, rattled our allies and undermined the notion of America as the undisputed world leader we had imagined ourselves to be after the Cold War.

Now, notes Jarrett Blanc, a former diplomat affiliated with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, we need to prepare ourselves for a global demotion that can only in part be blamed on Donald Trumps arrogant go-it-alone foreign policy. In fact, Blanc notes in a recent report, a more accommodating and realistic America, freed of the burden of world leadership, may be better able to meet the needs of its citizens here at home.

Except for the most ardent Trump cultists, Americans from all political quarters surely will be relieved if the chaos of the past four years in Washington is replaced by a more civil, compassionate approach to government. That wont happen unless we turn away from those who foresee the satisfaction of their ambitions in aping the snarling turmoil of the present. Lets be done with all that.

How do we recover? Maybe there are clues if we imagine the nation as an individual hoping to recover from a string of personal catastrophes  failed relationships, financial ruin, professional disappointment and the like. Social scientists and self-help experts might say that a first step is to realistically confront those failures, a stage that bestselling author Brene Brown calls the reckoning.

Then, Brown writes, comes the rumble, a tough fight with ourselves, a step necessary to rise from lifes inevitable troubles. Heres her prescription:

Get honest about the stories were making up about our struggle, then challenge these confabulations and assumptions to determine whats truth, whats self-protection, and what needs to change if we want to lead more wholehearted lives.

If a clear-eyed assessment of that sort is fundamental to an individual trying to get up off the canvas after a knockdown, then its probably what a nation must do, too.

Such an inventory of whats real and whats not is hard these days, of course, since we cant seem to agree on facts, thanks in no small part to the cynical manipulations of partisans and their media enablers. But Americas integrity is on the line.

We need to rise beyond a president who is still trying to subvert our democracy by getting Congress to throw out election results that, according to 90 state and federal judges rulings, were not, in fact, fraudulent. We have to step over the desiccating hulk of the Trump presidency and find firmer footing beyond. There is solid ground for both left and right ahead.

The foundation of that renewal, though, must be truth-telling. As the abolitionist Frederick Douglass noted, The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful and virtuous. In that, theres hope.
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Laos - Viet International Port Joint Stock Company held a ceremony to receive the first container ship of 2021 at Vung Ang port in Vung Ang economic zone, Ha Tinh Provinces Ky Anh Town in the morning of January 1.

At the ceremony, leaders of Ha Tinh Minerals and Trading Corporation, Laos - Vietnam International Port Joint Stock Company and functional agencies pressed the button to launch the first cargo loading and unloading codes in 2021, offered flowers to congratulate the ship owner, the officers and workers on duty here.

The ship has a tonnage of more than 22,332 tons, transporting 18,500 tons of woodchips overseas.

According to Director of Laos - Vietnam International Port Joint Stock Company Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, despite facing many difficulties and challenges last year, the company had made more efforts to seek new sources of good and customers. The volume of goods the company exported and imported through Vung Ang Port reached more than 3.3 million tons bringing the turnover of VND182.8 billion (US$7,9 million).

It is expected that the port will handle more than 3.6 million tons of goods earning VND195 billion (US$8,4 million) in revenue in 2021.

SGGP
New Delhi:

Mauritian Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth is currently on a tour in India. Union External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Saturday met him and discussed ways to deepen bilateral cooperation in various areas including trade and investment.

During the meeting, Swaraj said there was scope to expand bilateral ties in a range of areas.

Meeting with a long-standing friend. EAM @SushmaSwaraj calls on Prime Minister of Mauritius Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, MEA spokesperson Gopal Bagley tweeted along with a picture of Swaraj with the Mauritian PM.

Earlier on Saturday, Jugnauth was given a ceremonial welcome at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The Mauritian prime minister arrived here yesterday on a three-day visit, during which he will hold meetings with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi and President Pranab Mukherjee.

Jugnauth held discussions with Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu and Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Friday.

He will hold delegation-level talks with Prime Minister Modi today, besides meeting Defence and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

This is Jugnauths first visit abroad as prime minister after assuming office early this year.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
City, volunteers to line Highway 81 with flowers

The City of Watertown Parks and Recreation Department and volunteers will be planting flowers along Highway 81 starting at 8 a.m. Wednesday, May 26.
A Wisconsin hospital worker was fired after they admitted to deliberately damaging hundreds of doses of a Covid vaccine.

According to the Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wisconsin, a worker at the hospital admitted to deliberately sabotaging some 500 doses on Wednesday.

The hospital had been led to believe that the worker removed 500 vaccine doses from a hospital refrigerator and left them overnight in human error, as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

But the worker, who has since been fired, said they deliberately damaged 57 vials of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine doses when they removed them on Friday night.

Along with the vaccine produced by Pfizer, Modernas vaccine needs to be kept refrigerated. They are the only two vaccinations against Covid with current approval in the US.

The hospital "notified appropriate authorities for further investigation," having launched an internal probe into the matter.

The police department in Grafton, outside Milwaukee, said it had been notified by Aurora about "an employee tampering with vials of the Covid-19 vaccine" on Wednesday evening.

According to the Journal Sentinel, the FBI and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are also investigating.

We continue to believe that vaccination is our way out of the pandemic," Advocate Aurora Health said in a statement.

"We are more than disappointed that this individual's actions will result in a delay of more than 500 people receiving their vaccine.

Recommended Elderly forced to sleep outside to queue for vaccines in Florida

The health provider added that the damage was a violation of our core values, and the individual is no longer employed by us.

The incident will likely raise concerns about public confidence in the vaccines against Covid, which has now claimed more than 340,000 lives.

According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, some 12.4 million Covid vaccine doses have been administered across the United States on Thursday.

The Trump administration had previously claimed some 20 million would receive doses before the end of the year, which is now unachievable.
The first of two plants at the WuXi bio-pharmaceutical site in Dundalk is nearing completion, the Argus has learned.

There are two major construction projects underway across the 26.5-hectare landbank, the first the WuXi Biologics Phase 1 'Factory of the Future' manufacturing facility to produce biologics medicines for the EU and global market. The second construction project, the Phase 2 WuXi Vaccines facility got underway in February 2020 and when operational employing 200 people by 2024, it's role will be to produce a commercial vaccine for the global market through its strategic partnership with a global vaccine leader.

A WuXi spokesman revealed that at year-end 2020 the WuXi Biologics facility is around 85% completed.

'Commissioning works in the key utilities area is well underway and the built facility is scheduled to be handed over by the construction team by August 2021 to prepare for trial production, with full production to begin by Q1 2022, employing 400 people.' He added: 'The scale and complexity of the 'Factory of the Future' project which is truly amazing is set to become the largest contract-manufacturing biologics facility in the world using single-use medicines production technology. In that capacity it will produce biologics medicines on contract for numerous international client companies.'

'The WuXi investment in Mullagharlin to-date is a substantial win by IDA Ireland for Dundalk reinforcing Ireland's standing as a preferred location for global biopharma operation and the progress achieved through 2020 on one of the country's largest building sites is impressive.'

He explained that since January 2019 construction work on the Biologics facility has seen 450,000 tonnes of earth moved, 180,000 tonnes of imported granular fill, 20,900m3 cement poured, 5,500 tonnes of steel erected and 60 Kilometers of piping completed to-date.

'On top of that to-date some 4 million hours have been worked on the biologics project involving over 6,000 people with an average of 1,886 people a day working on construction during November.' 'At this point commissioning work is well under way with a focus on utilities. During the commissioning phase neighbours may see steam condensation venting from the buildings required to support system commissioning and testing. Since January 2020 construction work on the Vaccines facility has seen 350,000 tonnes of earth moved, 25,000 tonnes of imported granular fill, 3,300 m3 of concrete poured and 2,500 tonnes of steel erected.

'On top of that to-date, some 296,200 construction man hours have been completed on WuXi Vaccine's main facility.'

'Covid-19 substantially complicated the construction project during the year as it has done for the economy and our personal lives and a huge and highly successful Covid-mitigation exercise was carefully managed across the construction site since March to reduce the risk of Covid infection within the site,' said the spokesman.

'While a relatively small number of Covid-positive cases were experienced among the site workforce and managed appropriately in terms of procedures, including quarantining, there was no occurrence of Covid infection occurring on or from within the site itself. Cases identified were contacted off-site through contact within external community settings.'

'2021 will be another exciting year as WuXi Biologics and WuXi Vaccines, two related but different companies, become deeply rooted in the region, generating exciting career opportunities in science and health care service to the world. WuXi would like to take this opportunity to say a sincere thank you to our neighbours and many contractors, the construction workforce, and over 200 direct WuXi Biologics and WuXi Vaccines staff, IDA Ireland, Louth County Council, Irish Water, suppliers and many others with whom we engage.'

The Argus
Pastor Ed Young catches great white shark, fulfilling dream of a lifetime

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Pastor Ed Young of Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, fulfilled a 50-year dream last week when he caught a great white shark weighing nearly 2,000 pounds.

During Christmas break, I fulfilled a 50-year dream, Young wrote on his Facebook page on Wednesday, referring to an 11-foot great white shark a few miles off the coast of Hilton Head Island in South Carolina.

I caught a Great White Shark on rod and reel off of the South Carolina coast with (Chip Michalove, the owner of) Outcast Sport Fishing who is the only captain who has a federal permit to target, tag and handle Great Whites.

Michalove, who is known as super-great-white-shark-whisperer, estimated that this beast [weighed] at nearly 2,000 pounds.

Michalove told Fits News that the sun was starting to set and he was wrapping up the charter trip when the first monstrous fish tugged the line.

The coolest part was being out there in the flattest ocean conditions you could ask for battling the baddest fish on the planet, Outcast Sport Fishing wrote on its Facebook page. I was with a pastor and we were talking how this is probably the closest you can get to heaven without crossing over.

The first shark managed to spit out the hook but the pastor, his friend Dave Clark and Michalove decided to wait. And they were rewarded.

Forty-five minutes later, they hooked another 11-foot male shark. We usually get one chance a day to hook a great white. Occasionally we get two, sometimes even three. But very rarely do you see another swim-up 45 minutes later, Michalove was quoted as saying. Seeing another that fast afterwards is an indication theyre all back.

Looking at the positioning of the hook, the fish could have escaped in the first two minutes, Michalove said on Facebook.

[It] helps when you have a pastor to even the odds, he added.

Michalove told For The Win Outdoors, He (Young) called me the next day and I asked him if he too feels like he was run over. But its all worth it; the fish swims off healthy with a full belly and we get the experience you only see on Discovery or Nat Geo.
The Vice President of the Republic of Ghana, His Excellency Dr Mahamudu Bawumia on Monday 28th December 2020 paid a visit to the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Rt. Rev Prof Obiri Yeboah Mante at his residence at Fafraha in Accra.



The purpose of the visit by the Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia was to wish the Moderator a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in advance and also reflect on Gods goodness towards Ghana and explore ways of safeguarding that blessing bestowed on the citizens.



The Vice President and the Moderator discussed a catalogue of issues ranging from peace of the nation, national development, COVID-19, and the just-ended presidential and parliamentary elections.



The Vice President commended the Presbyterian Church of Ghana on its role to ensure peace before, during and after the general election. He urged the Church and the entire Christian community in Ghana to continue to pray for the nation.



Rt. Rev. Prof. Mante commended the government on how it has handled the COVID-19 pandemic so far.



The Moderator assured the Vice President that the Church would continue to play its watchdog role to ensure that Ghana continues to enjoy peace.



The Vice President was accompanied by Mr Fred Oware, Chief Executive Officer of the Bui Dam Authority, Dr Bernard Okoe Boye, Member of Parliament for Ledzokuku and Deputy Minister for Health and Dr Gideon Boako, Special Assistance to the Vice President.



The Moderator was joined by some other Ministers of the Church to receive the Vice President.



They included Rev Dr Godwin Nii Noi Odonkor, Clerk of the General Assembly of the Church, Rev Dr Abraham Nana Opare Kwakye, Chairperson of the Ga Presbytery, Rev Col. Rtd Addotey Asare, Fafraha District Minister and Rev George Larbi, Public Relations Officer.







Source: Rev George Larbi, Public Relations Officer Presbyterian Church of 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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Ukraine will focus on strengthening international support through the development of bilateral cooperation with its strategic partners.

Deputy Head of the Ukrainian President's Office Ihor Zhovkva has said the de-occupation of Donbas, the return of Russia-annexed Crimea, and Ukraine as an active international player are the Presidential Office's diplomatic priorities in 2021.

First, Ukraine will focus on maintaining and strengthening international support through the development of bilateral cooperation with its strategic partners, namely the United States, Great Britain, Germany, France, Canada, Poland, Lithuania and Azerbaijan, Zhovkva wrote in his article for the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia weekly on January 2, 2021.

Donbas issues

The President's Office will also continue to work on holding the next summit in the Normandy format in 2021 to discuss the issue of bringing peace to Donbas on Ukrainian terms.

Read alsoPresidential chief of staff Yermak says Normandy advisers to meet in JanuaryThe Bankova, which is a colloquial name for the President's Office in Ukraine, also is willing to preserve the "lasting truce" and intensify the work of the Trilateral Contact Group (Ukraine, Russia, and the OSCE) on the peace settlement in Donbas. In addition, it plans the exchange of held persons and ensure the normal operation of the entry-exit checkpoints on the contact line.

In 2021, Ukraine will continue to work to increase international pressure on Russia.

"The sanctions against Russia are helping Ukraine in the process of peaceful settlement [of the situation in Donbas], therefore, they should remain in place until the status quo is fully restored, which Ukrainian diplomats are working on non-stop year after year and will continue to work successfully to this end," Zhovkva stressed.

Crimea

The official says the Bankova plans to hold the summit on the Crimean platform as early as in the summer of 2021 to raise the issue of de-occupation of the peninsula.

U.S. support

Also, the Bankova wants to establish a dialogue with Biden's incoming administration. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's official visit to the United States will remain on the agenda.

"Among the key tasks is to establish a systematic dialogue with representatives of the renewed Congress to further strengthen bipartisan support for Ukraine. We'll be working to ensure that the renewed U.S. policy would contribute to strengthening transatlantic unity, strengthening NATO, and expanding and strengthening policy and support with regard to Ukraine," Zhovkva said.

A separate block of issues includes Ukraine-U.S. new economic projects in the field of agriculture, energy, and IT.

NATO

In relations with NATO, Zhovkva says, the Bankova's task is to make the most of the Enhanced Opportunities Partner status to bring Ukraine closer to membership in the Alliance.

"We're waiting for the partners' reaction to the relevant proposals in this regard, which the president put forward to the NATO Secretary General. We'll make efforts to ensure that a full-fledged meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Commission at a high level takes place in 2021," he added.

The key task for the next year is taking into account Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic goals in the decisions of NATO member states' leaders at the next Alliance summit.

Relations with the European Union

In 2021, the President's Office plans to start consultations on updating the Association Agreement and the Common Aviation Area Agreement between Ukraine and the EU.

At the end of the first quarter of 2021, the Bankova expects the conclusions by the European Commission as regards Ukraine's readiness to sign an Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products (ACAA), the so-called 'industrial visa-free regime' with the EU. Kyiv also intends to start a dialogue on its involvement in the implementation of the European Green Deal.

Other related news reports

Reporting by UNIAN
The global COVID-19 situation, rollout of vaccines, geopolitical trends, Union Budget and economic recovery would be the major factors driving investor sentiments in 2021 after a tumultuous year which saw both 'the worst of times and the best of times' for the stock market, said analysts.

What a year 2020 turned out to be!

From witnessing gigantic losses to record-shattering gains, investors went on a roller-coaster ride amid the coronavirus pandemic and massive stimulus measures.

Also Read | Investing during all-time highs can be good strategy

Markets closed last year with remarkable gains of around 16 per cent, but will the winning ways continue in 2021 as well?

According to Hemant Kanawala, Head - Equity, Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance, "If 2020 was a year of COVID infection, lockdown and recession, 2021 will be a year of vaccination, reopening and recovery."

Analysts are optimistic about the road ahead for the equity market but added that the quantum of rise would depend on multiple factors.

Markets may see profit-taking ahead followed by consolidation initially but analysts expect the prevailing uptrend to continue in 2021 as long as there is no resurgence of COVID-19 cases and consequent lockdown.

Another important factor would be the geopolitical situation with a new US president set to take charge, they added.

Dalal Street wrapped up 2020 on a bullish note, with the Sensex gaining 15.7 per cent during the year marked with panic selling as well as record-breaking peaks.

"Markets have been continuously making newer highs led by strong liquidity flow, supportive global cues, positive news on progress of COVID vaccines and US stimulus announcement. However, we feel some consolidation at the start cannot be ruled out, citing stretched valuations across the board.

"Nonetheless, we would see a decent performance in the markets, given overwhelming liquidity support from central banks, which is expected to continue in 2021 as well. On the domestic front, we believe improving India's fiscal position and NPA situation would boost sentiments. Besides, the Union Budget and earnings are crucial events for investors...," said Ajit Mishra, VP Research, Religare Broking.

Considering the present scenario, Sensex and Nifty have the potential to test 48,000-plus and 14,500-plus zones this year, he added.

Mishra added that markets are trading at expensive valuations after the phenomenal recovery in the last nine months, so there could be profit-taking ahead followed by consolidation initially and earnings recovery would decide the future course of equities.

Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services said, "Despite the havoc created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy is expected to recover in 2021 giving boost to the equity markets in addition to upgrades in corporate earnings."

"We expect Sensex to touch 51,500 level, while Nifty is expected to cross 15,100 mark due to enough liquidity and better than expected recovery in businesses," said Vinit Bolinjkar, Head of Research, Ventura Securities.

According to analysts, the prospect of vaccines, additional stimulus package by developed countries and gradual recovery in the global economy will drive the domestic market.

"CY21 will be marked with hopes of early rollout of COVID-19 vaccine, normalisation of activities and unperturbed growth recovery. We expect CY21/FY22 to be a better year with likely strong recovery in both the economy and earnings," said Jaideep Hansraj, MD & CEO, Kotak Securities.

Going ahead, the key driver for markets would be revival in earnings to sustain these premium valuations, Mishra said, adding that the government has the opportunity to set the roadmap for sustained growth in the Union Budget early this year.

"Improvement in trade relations between India and the US under the new administration can play a critical role in expediting the recovery," Mishra added.

Vaccine optimism and liquidity supporting measures infused life into the equity market which had faced turbulent trading sessions in March due to concerns related to the pandemic and its impact on the economy.

March proved to be dreadful for Dalal Street, with the Sensex plunging a massive 8,828.8 points or 23 per cent during the month.

"As long as we don't have a resurgence of COVID and consequent lockdown, the situation should improve quickly and materially," Bolinjkar added.

During the entire 2020, the 30-share BSE Sensex made monthly gains in seven while closing with losses in five of them.

"Continuity of global liquidity and how does the geopolitical situation change with the new US president can drive global sentiments," said Santosh Kumar Singh, Head of Research at Motilal Oswal Asset Management Company.

Markets witnessed volatile trends during the year, with the BSE benchmark crashing to its one-year low of 25,638.9 on March 24, only to roar back to its record high of 47,896.97 on the last day of trade.

"We have a target of 14,500 for Nifty-50 for December 2021, with an upward bias based on the optimistic economic development seen in the latest data," according to Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

Sentiment will also depend upon investment trend of foreign institutional investors, movement in rupee and Brent crude.

"All-in-all, we believe the market will run up ahead of, and in anticipation of, an ensuing economic recovery. If 2020 was largely about survival, both health-wise and finance-wise, it was also the most opportune time to tweak and tighten portfolios.

"In our reckoning, the best for the markets lies immediately ahead," said Amar Ambani, Senior President and Head of Research - Institutional Equities, Yes Securities,

On the market's Budget wishlist, Mishra said market participants would keenly watch progress and plans on the disinvestment process by the government.

Further, there would be wide expectations that some of the sectors like airline, travel and tourism, hotels and multiplexes would get some sort of relief package.

"Additionally, higher spending in social sectors like rural, infrastructure and agriculture would be taken positively by the markets," he added.

On sectors to watch out for in 2021, Mishra said banking would be a key sector to watch out for after severe underperformance. The sector has made a comeback in a big way recently, led by strong results from some of the large private and public sector lenders.

"We also like telecom as we believe the worst is over for the sector as lingering tension of pricing wars and the decision on AGR dues has subsided to some extent.

"The long-term growth story remains promising for the industry, thanks to increase in digital penetration, which has further accelerated post the pandemic and consistent rise in smartphone users," he said. PTI SUM ABM RAM RAM

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An MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter from the U.S. Coast Guard is seen in a file photo. (Courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard)

US Coast Guard Suspends Search for Overdue Florida-Bound Vessel Carrying About 20 People

A search and rescue operation off the Florida coast involving an overdue vessel believed to be carrying about 20 people was suspended on Friday, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

The service announced in a news release the blue and white 29-foot Mako Cuddy Cabin vessel was reported as missing on Tuesday after it didnt arrive at its expected location.

The vessel departed from Bimini in the Bahamas one day before Coast Guard District Seven watchstanders received the missing report. The overdue ship was reported to be en route to Lake Worth in Florida.

The U.S. Coast Guard said they covered about 17,000 square miles, roughly double the size of Massachusetts, together with partner agencies between the Bahamas and South Florida for about 84 hours before the search was suspended on Friday around noon.

#UPDATE Here is the search area made by the @USCG and @usairforce.

If you have any information please contact Coast Guard #District7 Command Center at 305-415-6800 pic.twitter.com/5Zwb5Wonx4  USCGSoutheast (@USCGSoutheast) December 31, 2020

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the missing people, said Capt. Stephen V. Burdian of the Seventh District Chief of Response. I encourage anyone with information about the people aboard to contact us as soon as possible.

The U.S. Coast Guard said surface and air units by Patrick Air Force, Royal Bahamas Defence Force, and Bahamas Air Sea Rescue have assisted during the search operation.

The identities of the people that remain missing were not provided, but the vessel is believed to have 20 people aboard, according to a statement released earlier this week.

From The Epoch Times
Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Carrie Lam said on Friday that she hoped Hong Kong would forge ahead and start again in the new year.

Lam and senior officials of the HKSAR government said in local media on Friday that the HKSAR government will make good use of the measures taken by the central government to support Hong Kong and seize the opportunities generated by the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to develop the local economy and improve people's livelihood.

Lam said the year 2020 posed a great challenge to the governments of all countries and regions, with the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking havoc on the economy. In the early stage of the epidemic, Hong Kong still had to confront political and social challenges in the wake of the social unrest in 2019, which was a difficult time.

Lam said that the implementation of the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the HKSAR has brought an opportunity for Hong Kong to move from chaos to order.

While the social stability was restoring, Hong Kong people have realized that it was imperative to ensure a stable and long-term practice of "one country, two systems" and to establish and improve the legal system and enforcement mechanism for safeguarding national security, Lam said, adding that in the new year, she will make every effort to help Hong Kong get out of the coronavirus epidemic.

Matthew Cheung, chief secretary for administration of the HKSAR government, said that the country's full support for Hong Kong in the face of adversity shows that the country will always be Hong Kong's strongest, most reliable and most solid backing.

In the new year, the HKSAR will seize the opportunity of the development of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, make good use of Hong Kong's unique advantages of "one country, two systems", actively participate in the domestic and international economic cycles, better integrate into the overall development of the country, and let Hong Kong start again and create another glory, Cheung said.

Paul Chan, financial secretary of the HKSAR government, hoped that Hong Kong and the world will beat COVID-19 soon so that people can return to normal life and the economy recover steadily.

Chan said that with the tenacity and flexibility of Hong Kong people, as long as they recognize the right direction and move forward hand in hand, they will be able to overcome the existing difficulties and challenges, enabling Hong Kong's better development after the epidemic.

Teresa Cheng, secretary for justice of the HKSAR government, hoped that Hong Kong people will work together to fight the epidemic for Hong Kong to get out of the epidemic at an early date.

The Department of Justice of the HKSAR government is committed to providing honest, independent and professional legal advice to the HKSAR government and to instilling into the society the correct sense of the rule of law and the relationship between the Constitution and the HKSAR basic law, Cheng said.
Agriculture waste instead of coriander: Local traders say they were duped by Ukraine company By Tharushi Weerasinghe View(s): View(s):

Smarting over allegations levelled against them, Sri Lankas coriander importers are accusing an Ukrainian company of defrauding them and sending 28 containers of agriculture waste instead of the spice they ordered.

Essential Food and Commodities Importers and Traders Association (EFCITA) president G. Rajendran told the Sunday Times that three out of seven traders had already been duped of 250,000 USD the amount they paid for what they were told would be coriander. Corresponding banks have however confirmed that they have seized the money in the exporters account until the completion of investigations, he said. The local traders are counting on government intervention both by Sri Lanka and Ukraine to recover the money.

He added that a perusal of documentation revealed that the bill of lading (B/L) used to get the traders to deposit the money in the exporters account had been a forgery. The bill of lading is a document that is generally issued by the carrier, the shipping company in this case, that acknowledges the receipt of cargo for a shipment. An exporter will usually obtain this receipt on handing over of goods to the shipping company and then send this to the bank as proof in order to be eligible to receive payment for the goods. In this case, Agronika has avoided paying the freight and forwarded a forged B/L to the importers in Sri Lanka who then made the preliminary payment. Why the shipping company went ahead with the transportation of goods based on a forged B/L is a question that is still unanswered.

The traders have done nothing illegal and the Customs know this, said Mr. Rajendran who holds that the local traders were the victims of the situation. The legal process has begun on the importers end and a lawyer representing all seven of them is in the process of trying to recover the monies and send back the consignment of waste.

The waste was initially seized at a container yard in Orugodawatta. The consignment had arrived in two batches with eight containers arriving in Sri Lanka on December 10 and 20 containers arriving on December 21. The containers that were declared to be whole coriander seeds had turned out to be agricultural waste including foliage clippings etc. The value of the consignment stood at approximately Rs. 75 Mn without customs duty. Samples of the waste are to be sent to the Government Analyst Dept. and the University of Peradeniya.

Sri Lankas primary sources of coriander are mainly from Bulgaria and Romania for the past five years with a smaller percentage coming from Canada and Morocco. In this instance the primary requirements of aroma and price had been fulfilled in a summer harvest in Crimea which had resulted in the importers switching to Ukrainian coriander. Indian corriander, while high in quality, is expensive.

Sunil Jayarathna, spokesman for Sri Lanka Customs told the Sunday Times that investigations had not been started as offices were closed for the holidays and they will begin tomorrow

He said he could not reveal the names of the importers as the investigations were ongoing. Legal action would depend on the results of the investigation as the importers are insisting that they have been duped. If investigations prove otherwise, action will be taken against them under Section 12.43 of the Customs Ordinance. Mr. Jayarathna also noted that the Sri Lanka customs currently used state-of-the-art scanners for their inspection purposes.

Meanwhile the Centre for Environmental Justice has sent a Right to Information application to the Sri Lanka Customs on the matter.

Director Hemantha Withanage noted that legal action filed over the matter of bio-medical waste from the UK, earlier this year, was withdrawn under the condition that the Sri Lanka Customs and the Central Environmental Authority proceed with their legal actions and that the 130 containers would be sent back. However, documentation that the Sunday Times obtained from the Sri Lanka customs shows that only 30 of the waste containers have been sent back. We dont have a lot of faith in the authorities ability to deal with this since they have failed to adequately do so in the past, said Mr. Withanage.
They bring us bad news each day, every day - but still hold a special place in the hearts of TV viewers everywhere. Northern Ireland's news readers have been with us through some of the darkest times in our history. The small group of people trusted to front the news on our screens each night have become household names, almost as high profile as those they report on.

They have been tasked with breaking the news in some of the biggest moments in history, so we ask them why the public has such an affinity with newsreaders?

Former ITV News anchor Dermot Murnaghan announced the death of Princess Diana live on air in 1997, while Trevor McDonald reported on the 1988 murders of corporals Derek Howes and David Wood at an IRA funeral in west Belfast. It was BBC News' Nicholas Witchell who brought us the news of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

Their newsreading was delivered in a calm, reassuring and comforting way, as viewers were glued to their television screens.

For UTV's Paul Clark (67) gaining the trust of the viewers isn't something that can be looked at in isolation. It comes down to the newsreaders' own experiences, getting the facts out to the public and the hard work put in by the entire newsroom team.

Expand Close Paul Clark reporting from Helmand headquarters / Facebook

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During what has been an unprecedented year with the Covid-19 pandemic, he explained that viewers are hanging on to newsreaders' every word and it is their responsibility to make sure they get it right.

"I don't think that anything that has been achieved in the area of presenting the news can be seen in isolation, because I'm only one part of the team and I couldn't do my job if I didn't have a team of correspondents and reporters with the gravitas that they have," says Paul.

"I'm only one part of the chain in that sense. It's not about Paul Clark and it never was. The news will always be more important than I am and I think I have to remain grounded in that fact; that the news is always going to be more important than me."

Paul, who worked with BBC Northern Ireland before joining UTV in 1989, hopes that with age comes experience as a newsreader - a role he loves dearly.

News anchors didn't just walk into the role; they really had to earn their stripes reporting in the field. And Paul feels all of those experiences have helped shape his style.

I will always remember being down at Kingsmill on the night of that massacre and theres an abiding memory I have from that night, and its half a set of false teeth lying in the road, he explains. That never leaves you  and that was in 1976. Its as fresh in my mind as it was then.

I can think of places like Omagh, Enniskillen, Loughinisland, Greysteel. I was there because it was part and parcel of your job. Whenever youre reporting on that and when youre reading it in the studio, you do have to keep your emotions in check because we are part of the same society and we all hurt.

Alongside Paul sits co-host Rose Neill (62), who is the UKs longest-standing newscaster at 44 years.

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Reflecting on why the public has that bona fide trust in newsreaders, Rose used the Northern Irish expression that a newscaster wont last long if they get a notion about themselves.

They are only one link in the chain, she says. Theres the news editor and they have their reporters, engineers, floor managers, producers and directors. Without one link in that chain, the chain becomes weak, or broken. We all need each other.

She felt that keeping public trust is all about putting personal opinions to one side as a newsreader.

Rose explained that she is simply the conduit between the news editor and the viewer and it is not her job to give a personal opinion on a story.

She recalled receiving a letter from a viewer around 25 years ago praising her interviewing technique as she was never rude, aggressive, condescending or ingratiating.

That mans words have remained with me to this day, Rose adds. There are certain newscasters who can be very rude to the people theyre interviewing and it doesnt win them any trust or support.

Sky News senior Ireland correspondent, David Blevins (50), felt particularly strongly about the never ending battle against fake news on social media.

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He argued that, throughout history, news anchors have been regarded as arbiters of the truth, as people expect them to consider both versions of a story and present it with authority, while there have been those who have disputed facts as it didnt suit their narrative.

David understands that newscasters must keep their emotions to one side, but wasnt ashamed to admit that he became overwhelmed during his coverage of the Omagh bomb in 1998. As he was driving to the memorial in the town a week after the explosion, he had to pull his car over and let his emotions out.

Impartiality doesnt require you to switch off your emotions, David says. If you switch off your emotions, then I dont believe your story is authentic. We all carry with us a little bit of our past: who we are, who are parents were, where we came from and how we were brought up.

Theres a little bit of that in all of us and I think you can be accurate and you can be fair, but if you try to switch off your emotions your story wont be authentic.

Theres something important about that for people watching news anchors and correspondents as well  the need to feel that they are being genuine, they are themselves and they are authentic.

Former BBC broadcaster Noel Thompson (65), who retired earlier this year after working there for four decades, explained that a newsreader is really a mouthpiece for the organisation they represent.

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The longer a newsreader works for an outlet the more he or she becomes identified with that organisation and the publics trust is put in that person as a representative of the company, he adds.

Noel stresses that it is a newsreaders job to be professional, but says that sometimes emotions can get the better of you as were all human beings.

He recalled the deaths of the young Quinn brothers in a firebomb attack on their home in 1998 and the Omagh bombing victims funerals as two examples where he was close to being unable to continue live on air.

I think sometimes, if its good news, if there ever is such a thing, you can get a bit carried away as well, adds Noel. I recall the Bill Clinton visit and, to a certain extent, we got a little bit caught up in the euphoria of that and you had to keep reminding yourself that not everyone thinks this is a good thing and it may not be a good thing.

BBC Newsline news anchor and Radio Ulster Evening Extra presenter Tara Mills says there is a fine line between not becoming the story yourself through showing your emotion and taking away from the subject, but its hard to be immune.

Growing up watching the Troubles unfold on television, she says she had a real trust in those delivering the news to living rooms across Northern Ireland.

Particularly during the Covid-19 crisis, Tara says there has been a huge moral duty on newsreaders, the teams behind them and journalists everywhere to present that facts to the public and keep asking questions.

That made the responsibility even more enormous to get it right and try our very best to make sure that the information we were giving out was correct, she says.

Tara took great pride and said she was taken aback with some of the comments she received from the public for BBCs news coverage of the pandemic.

You try to strike a balance by not making it too grim and reflecting on the good that happened this year, such as the Clap for Carers and the amazing sense of community spirit. People were out getting to know their neighbours  there have been some fantastic stories this year.
Srinagar :

Militants on Friday night opened fire at a patrol party of the security forces in Tral area of Pulwama district in Kashmir but no one was injured, police said.



The ultras fired at a patrol party of 42 Rashtriya Rifles at Hardumir at around 9 pm, a police official said.



There was no loss of life in the incident, the official said, adding the militants manage to escape from the spot.

Update: Encounter started at Saimu Tral. Reportedly 3 terrorists trapped, tweets J&K DGP Shesh Paul Vaid

Read | Petty to deny Modi's achievements in 3 yrs, but Kashmir remains dark blot: Omar Abdullah

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Given that India has set the goal of vaccinating 30 crore people with Covid-19 jabs by July, can the country procure enough doses to fulfil that goal?

To vaccinate 30 crore people, the country will need 60 crore doses as the two vaccines that are leading the race to get the approval from the government require two-doses per person for protection.

These two vaccines that the government is currently considering giving the approval are "Covishield" and "Covaxin"

While the Pune-based Serum Institute of India has partnered with Oxford-AstraZeneca for conducting clinical trials and manufacturing "Covishield", Bharat Biotech has collaborated with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for "Covaxin".

Approval for Covishield is expected soon as the Subject Expert Committee of the Central Drug Standard Control Organisation on Friday recommended its emergency use.

However, it now appears that the Serum Institute of India is planning to supply the government with 30 crore doses by July, enough for vaccinating 15 crore people, according to media reports.

If it works out that way, the government will be able to reach just half way of fulfilling the phase-1 goals with Covishield alone.

"For rolling out the vaccination campaign, cold chain equipment such as walk-in coolers, walk-in freezers, refrigerators, deep freezers are already procured and distributed to the states," Harshal R. Salve, Associate Professor at Centre for Community Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, told IANS.

"Vaccine storage capacities at airports and major railway staions are being created.

"You may have approval for another vaccine too in the meanwhile that can be included in the mass the vaccination drive," Salve added.

It now appears that the success of India's vaccination drive may rely on the efficacy of Covaxin in protecting people against Covid-19.

This is specially in view of the fact that India did not sign early procurement deals for the other two vaccines that have got approval in several countries including the US -- the vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

As these two vaccines are now in great demand, they appear unprepared to supply India huge number of doses quickly even if New Delhi fast-tracks their approvals.

Pfizer has already sought the emergency use authorisation for its Covid-19 vaccine in India.

Now experts believe that to achieve herd immunity against Covid-19, about 70 per cent of the country's population will have to be vaccinated, meaning about 90 crore people.

If other vaccines that are approved in the future also require two doses per person, this will mean that India will need 180 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines.

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan earlier this month said that about 30 vaccines against Covid-19 are in different stages of development in India.

How many of them get the required approval may say a lot about how quickly India achieves herd immunity against Covid-19.
Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 2 : The dry run for Covid immunization process is underway in Thiruvananthapuram, Idukki, Palakkad and Wayanad districts of Kerala as part of the nation-wide exercise.

There are six centres altogether in these four districts -- Thiruvananthapuram has three and the other districts one each.

In Thiruvananthapuram, the Primary Health Centre at Poozhanadu, district hospital at Peroorkada and KIMS hospital from the private sector are the three centres.

Dry run was also underway at Community Health Centre at Nenmara in Palakkad district; and Primary Health Centres at Kurukkanmoola in Wayanad and at Vazhathope in Idukki district.

At each centre, 25 health workers are participating in the procedure of vaccine administration to mimic the actual scenario.

The database will be collected in a digital platform called Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network (CoVIN).

State health minister K.K. Shailaja told the media at the Peroorkada that "the dry run is exactly a mock run of how the vaccine is to be taken and what all measures are to be taken before and after the shot is administered".

She also said that the distribution and cold storage system in the state is in place and added, "We are expecting a communique from the union government on the distribution of vaccines within a couple of days.

"Once the announcement is done and vaccines are made available, the state is ready to conduct the vaccinations".

The minister also said that the state was fully prepared for the actual vaccine distribution as it has recently received 20 large ice-lined refrigerators, 1,800 vaccine carriers, 100 cold boxes and 12,000 ice packs.

The department will also get 14 lakh syringes of single use nature.

Thiruvananthapuram District Collector Navjot Khosa, Vattiyoorkavu MLA V.K. Prasanth and a battery of senior health officials were present at the Peroorkada district hospital.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
A lot of the jokes, musical or otherwise, favor hit-and-run spoofs and references a la The Producers or Spamalot. Some are sharp and funny, such as a lyric about ratical songs for ratical rats (a Cats dig), while other, protracted jokes (A Chorus Line original cast member Priscilla Lopez, as the rat-hating provincial Mabel, revising What I Did for Love with rodent-loathing lyrics) are what they are: amusing enough to get by in this context. It is, however, wonderful to see Lopez and Mary Testa (as the scheming chef Skinner) dining out on the spirit of this philanthropic enterprise.
Trump, the first president to lose a reelection bid in almost 30 years, has attributed his defeat to widespread voter fraud, despite the consensus of nonpartisan election officials that there wasnt any. Of the roughly 50 lawsuits the president and his allies have filed challenging election results, nearly all have been dismissed or dropped. Hes also lost twice at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 13:11:59|Editor: huaxia

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PHNOM PENH, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- A Cambodian-American woman tested positive for COVID-19 upon her arrival to Cambodia from the United States, the Ministry of Health (MoH) said in a statement on Saturday.

The 36-year-old woman landed in capital Phnom Penh on Friday from the U.S. via a connecting flight in China's Taiwan region, the statement said.

"The result of her samples' test showed that the woman was positive for the COVID-19, and she is currently undergoing treatment at the National Center for Tuberculosis and Leprosy Control," MoH secretary of state and spokeswoman Or Vandine said in the statement.

The remaining nine passengers on the same flight have been placed under a 14-day mandatory quarantine at a designated quarantine facility in the capital, she added.

The Southeast Asian country has so far recorded a total of 379 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with zero deaths and 362 recoveries, said Vandine. Enditem
Bengaluru: The Karnataka Government on Saturday (January 2, 2021) permitted all shops and commercial establishments in the State employing ten or more persons to be open on 24*7 basis on all days of the year for the next three years.

"In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1) of section 11 read with sub section (2) of section 12 of the Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishment Act, 1961 (Karnataka Act 08 of 1962) and in partial modification of notifications issued in this behalf, the Government of Karnataka after holding an enquiry as required under sub section (2) of section 11 hereby permits all Shops and Commercial Establishments in the State employing ten or more persons to be open on 24 X 7 basis on all days of the year for a period of three years from the date of publication of this notification in the Official Gazette subject to the provisions of sub section (3) of section 12," said the official notification.

These are the following conditions:

1) The employer shall appoint additional staff in order to allow every employee to avail one day holiday in a week on a rotation basis, and the details of every employee shall be exhibited by the employer at a conspicuous place in the shop or commercial establishment.

2) Every employer shall exhibit details of the employees who are on holiday/leave on daily basis in a conspicuous place in the shop or commercial establishments.

3) The wages including overtime wages of the employees shall be credited to their savings bank account as prescribed under the payments of wages Act, 1963.

4) An employer shall not require or allow any person employed to work therein for more than eight hours in any day and forty-eight hours in any week and the period of work including overtime shall not exceed ten hours in any day and fifty hours in a period of three continuous months.

5) If employees are found working on any holiday or after normal duty hours without proper indent of overtime, penal action shall be initiated against the employer/Manager as laid down in the Karnataka Shops and Establishments Act, 1961, and Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments Rules 1963.

6) Women employee shall not be allowed to work beyond 8.00 pm on any day in normal circumstances. Provided that an employer after obtaining written consent from a women employee may allow her to work between 8.00 pm and 6.00 am subject to providing adequate protection to her dignity, honour and safety.

7) Transport arrangements shall be provided to the woman employee who works in shifts. A notice to this effect shall be exhibited at the main entrance of the shop or commercial establishment indicating the availability of the transport.

8) The employees shall be provided with restroom, washroom, safety lockers and other basic amenities.

9) Every employer employing woman employee shall constitute internal complaints committee against sexual harassment of woman under the Sexual Harassment of Woman at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (Central Act 14 of 2013) and the said committee shall be operative.

The notification said that the above terms and conditions shall be treated and implemented in addition to those provisions specified in the Karnataka Shops and Establishments Act, 1961. (Karnataka Act No. 8 of 1962) and The Workmen's Compensation Act, 1923 (Central Act 8 of 1923).

In the case of violation of any statutory provision or any of the above terms and conditions noticed by the inspector or otherwise necessary penal action shall be initiated against the employer/ manager as laid down in the Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1961 and Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments Rules, 1963.

Live TV
The January 1 episode of Bigg Boss 14 Weekend Ka Vaar begins with Salman Khan slamming Jasmin Bhasin and telling her that Rakhi Sawant is indeed hurt. He asks her to come out the 'kid mode. Salman also questions Eijaz Khan about not raising an objection when Rakhi got hurt. He then comes to Aly Goni and asks as to why he did not explain things to Jasmin as she only seems to understand when he talks.

Salman also blasts him for not understand the situation and for being very selective in such matters. The actor blasts Jasmin for doubting and accusing Bigg Boss. He tells her she does not understand the difference between thermacol and rubber and that they are not obliged to clarify to her. He says she feels she deserves special treatment as a face of Colors TV.

An upset Salman Khan tells the housemates that the makers consulted two doctors for Rakhi and the cosmetic surgeon said she needs an MRI. But due to the COVID-19 situation, he says Rakhi said no for treatment and preferred to stay with painkillers and is still taking them. He praises Rakhi for running the show the whole week and informs her that she is safe from nominations and has received a lot of love and votes from fans. Finally, Jasmin says sorry to Rakhi but Salman asks Jasmin if she was waiting for his clarification.

Salman continues the schooling and calls out the housemates for bullying Rakhi. He says that the contestants find her uncool and that only Vikas Gupta has been consoling her. Khan tells them that Rakhi has struggled a lot in life and is an entertainer come what may. He then states that says she is as cool as everyone and perhaps cooler than them.

Salman then shows the audience a clip where Rubina Dilaik offending Arshi Khan. He then blasts Rubina for being rude to Rakhi and says that she is very privileged and fortunate to sleep in the lap of luxury. He also calls her out over her complain about people talking at night. Aly chips in and says people are particular about sleeping. Rubina laughs a bit, and this angers Salman.

Arshi then calls Rubina arrogant and says she forces others to accept her opinion. She continues to complain further but Salman gives her a reality check about her 'friends in the house. He asks Arshi that Goni and Vaidya do not consider her as a friend. Arshi then brings up the gesture Rubina made during their argument. Rubina tries to explain herself and says she did it only to annoy Arshi.

The entire episode makes Abhinav Shukla complain about Arshi. The couple fight with Arshi and Salman is fuming with Abhinav. He reminds everyone that Arshi is being body-shamed by Aly, Rahul Vaidya and Jasmin. He also adds that Jasmin and Nikki Tamboli are talking about Rakhi's cosmetic surgeries. Salman advises everyone to be more direct when talking about people.

Arshi and Rubina continue their fight. In the meantime, Aly scolds Jasmin badly for the Rakhi incident. This is followed by Aly Goni and Rahul Vaidya confronting Arshi. It gets more heated up after Rubina calls Arshi 'filth Abhinav loses his cool at Arshi and charges at her. Jasmin and Vikas come in between.

This leads to another ugly fight between Aly and Vikas. Aly accuses Vikas of blackmailing people with screenshots. Vikas dares him to reveal names of people. Aly then talks about Vikas' strategy and that he only wants sympathy. He calls him a fraud and tells Vikas that he cannot make a fool of me.

ALSO READ: Bigg Boss 14 January 1 Highlights: Rakhi & Arshi Try Breaking Resolutions But Miss The Chance To Win Immunity

ALSO READ: Bigg Boss 14: Aly Goni Vows To 'Torture Rakhi Sawant, Calls Her 'Pagal Aurat' In An Ugly War Of Words


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Mumbai:

Swine flu has claimed as many as 221 lives in Maharashtra so far this year with Pune accounting for more than one-fourth of the fatalities, a government official said on Saturday.

Four of the victims hailed from adjoining Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh (two each) who were admitted to state hospitals, where they succumbed to the infection, according to a report compiled by the Maharashtra health department.

The report has figures related to H1N1 affected patients from January 1 to May 26.

During this period 15,003 patients showed swine flu like symptoms and were administered medicines as a preventive measure, Joint Director of Family Welfare Mukund Diggikar told PTI.

Of these patients, 1,106 tested positive for the deadly virus. Among them, 23 were from neighbouring states such as Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, he said.

H1N1 infection has been the cause of death of 221 people in Maharashtra between January 1 and May 26. There has been some fluctuation in the temperature, which is accelerating the infection, said Diggikar, who holds the additional charge of epidemic diseases in the department.

Also Read: Zika virus detected in India, health ministry confirms 3 cases in Ahmedabad

The common symptoms of swine flu include cough, fever and cold. It seems people are reporting their infection late. Most of the people must be assuming that these symptoms are that of common cough and cold. Hence, by the time H1N1 infection is detected, most of the patients are severely affected by the virus, Diggikar said.

Going by the district-wise figures, Pune has reported 58 swine flu deaths -- the highest in the state, followed by 30 in Nashik district, he said.

According to the report, Aurangabad district reported 20 deaths and Ahmednagar district 19. Nagpur district in Vidarbha has recorded 17 fatalities, the highest in the eastern region of the state.

Amravati district in Vidarbha reported 12 deaths, followed by Akola (8), Buldhana (7), Kolhapur and Solapur (five each), Satara and Thane (four each), Parbhani and Mumbai (three each), Latur, Beed, Sangli, Osmanabad, Washim and Dhule districts (two each).

Also Read: Woman dies of swine flu, death toll touches four in Kota this year

Jalna, Hingoli, Jalgaon, Wardha, Mira Bhayandar (a municipal corporation), Ratnagiri, Chandrapur, Yavatmal, Sindhudurg and Bhandara reported one death each due to H1N1 infection, Diggikar said.

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Many people will want to put 2020 firmly behind them. But governments around the world have pleaded with people not to see in 2021 with traditional New Year's Eve parties and street celebrations for fear of accelerating the spread of coronavirus.

The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, India and Australia are among the many nations where this year's New Year festivities remained a muted affair.

Exactly a year has passed since mysterious cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, China, were first reported to the World Health Organization. Over the following 365 days, Covid-19 has extended its reach into every corner of the globe, infecting more than 82 million people and causing at least 1.8 million deaths.

Millions of people are under lockdown and many more face tough restrictions on everyday activities as governments battle to keep health care systems afloat until newly approved vaccines can be rolled out.

In Australia, the traditional firework display lit up the skies above the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

But the display was shorter than usual and people were banned from gathering along the harbor unless they were in hospitality venues, where numbers were capped, the New South Wales government said.

New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian apologized Monday for the restrictions but said they were necessary to prevent a potential super-spreading event. "On New Year's Eve, we don't want any crowds on the foreshores around Sydney whatsoever," Berejiklian said.

A mass gathering on Sydney's Bronte Beach on Christmas Day, in breach of local anti-Covid-19 rules, caused public outcry at a time when authorities are tackling a cluster of infections in the city's northern beaches area.

Meanwhile, the neighboring state of Victoria issued fresh coronavirus restrictions hours before New Year's Eve celebrations were due to begin. Gatherings of more than 15 people are no longer allowed and masks are mandatory indoors.

The move came as Victoria reported three new locally transmitted Covid-19 cases on Thursday morning, breaking a 61-day streak of zero locally transmitted cases. There are currently 10 active cases in the state, according to Victoria's Department of Health.

New Zealand's widely envied success in stamping out coronavirus infections meant New Year's Eve could be celebrated more or less as usual. Fireworks lit up the night sky above Auckland as the city welcomed in the New Year.

In Hong Kong, the traditional New Year's celebrations were replaced by a virtual countdown with the Hong Kong Tourism Board live streaming a celebratory video to mark the arrival of the New Year.

In China, President Xi Jinping delivered a taped New Year speech on Thursday, praising the country for its response to the pandemic.

Fireworks went ahead as planned in Taiwan's Taipei, although some restrictions were placed on those attending public viewing spots. According to the Taipei city government's website, masks were mandatory and people were required to bring their cell phones for possible contact tracing. Food and drinks other than water were banned at the gatherings.

Several major cities in India issued restrictions on New Year's celebrations. Authorities in Delhi limited public gatherings to five people and imposed an overnight curfew between 11 p.m. on December 31 and 6 a.m. on New Year's Day.

Restrictions were also imposed in Mumbai and Bengaluru. "After 11 p.m., no parties -- whether they are in restaurants, bars, pubs, the beach or on rooftops will be allowed... And we will be monitoring all this through drones," S. Chaitanya, a spokesperson for Mumbai Police, told local media.

The rate of coronavirus infections has declined steadily in India since October. The country has registered a total of 10.26 million cases, with more than 148,000 deaths.

'Leave the parties till later'

In Europe, where cases have risen sharply in recent months, the usual end-of-year festivities have been heavily restricted in many countries.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged people to "see in the New Year safely at home" at a Downing Street press briefing Wednesday, as he said there had been a 40% increase in cases in England in the past week.

The UK recorded 964 coronavirus deaths and 55,892 new cases on Thursday, government figures show, as the country grapples with the rapid spread of a new, more contagious coronavirus variant.

"Covid loves a crowd so please leave the parties till later," said the National Medical Director of NHS England, Stephen Powis, as he too urged people to stay at home on New Year's Eve.

As of Thursday, more than three-quarters of the English population are now living under the country's toughest "tier 4" restrictions, which require people to stay at home except for work, education, exercise or essential activities. No household mixing is allowed indoors, while outside, one person from each household can meet with just one person from another household.

London's Metropolitan Police Service issued a warning to potential party-goers to "celebrate the New Year in the comfort of their own homes, not the homes of family and friends."

For the first time since he was elected in 2013, Pope Francis will not lead the traditional New Year's Eve and New Year's Day celebrations due to sciatic pain, the Vatican said in a statement Thursday.

Ireland situation 'extremely serious'

Ireland's Prime Minister, or Taoiseach, Micheal Martin, announced a full national lockdown Wednesday for "at least" a month. The step followed confirmation that the new, more virulent strain of coronavirus first discovered in the UK was now in Ireland, he said, fueling a 61% increase in confirmed coronavirus cases on the previous week.

The restrictions, which came into force Thursday, include a ban on household visits and the closure of non-essential shops. Schools will remain closed until January 11. No social or family gatherings are allowed in any setting, with an exception for very small wedding and funeral groups.

Martin described the situation as "extremely serious."

In France, a strict 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew is in place in a bid to stem rising coronavirus infections, curtailing public New Year's Eve celebrations across the country. Instead, a virtual concert marked the occasion.

Health Minister Olivier Veran warned Tuesday that the country could adopt an earlier curfew -- starting from 6 p.m. -- from January 2 in the areas where the virus is spreading fastest. The 20 or more "departments" affected do not include Paris.

Under government guidelines, gatherings are limited to six adults, although any number of children can be present. Restaurants are closed except for takeaway and cafes are closed, although shops, including non-essential shops, are open. Cinemas, museums and theaters are all closed.

Tough restrictions are also in place across Germany to limit the spread of coronavirus. In the Greek capital of Athens, fireworks marked the beginning of 2021 without the usual crowds. The city has been under a strict lockdown with residents only allowed to leave their homes in specific situation and with a movement permit.

'Super-spreader events' fear

South Africa, too, faced a less than festive New Year period. President Cyril Ramaphosa announced tougher restrictions Monday as new coronavirus infections climbed at what he described as an "unprecedented rate."

Under the tougher regulations, which are in place until mid-January, all indoor and outdoor gatherings are banned, the nationwide curfew has been extended from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. and alcohol sales are banned. Mask wearing was also made a legal requirement.

The move came after a new Covid-19 variant was detected in South Africa and cases surged during the festive season. More than 50,000 new cases have been reported since Christmas Eve, Ramaphosa said.

"The rapid rise in infections is being fueled by so-called super-spreader events, including end-of-year functions, family and social gatherings, and music and cultural events," Ramaphosa said.

Some leaders have also urged caution in the United States as coronavirus cases soar in many parts of the country.

No crowds will be allowed to enter New York City's Times Square this year for the famous "ball drop" celebration, usually witnessed by thousands of revelers.

The New Year's Eve Times Square event "will look completely different than it has any other time in history," New York Police Department chief Terence A. Monahan said Wednesday.

"We could all agree that 2020 has been a year unlike anything else we've experienced," he told a briefing, as he urged people to stay at home with their families. "Don't come," he said. "If you think you're going to be able to stand there and watch the ball, you're mistaken."

Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak on Wednesday urged people to "reconsider" going out to celebrate New Year's Eve to slow the spread of Covid-19 in the state.

"It's not lost on me that Las Vegas is known for being one of the best places in the world to ring in the new year. But this year, we must look different," Sisolak said during a news briefing.

"I know people want to celebrate the end of 2020, and I don't blame them. But if we don't start making smart choices at the start of 2021, we will look a lot and feel a lot more like 2020 than any of us want it to be."

Meanwhile, in California, among the last US states to celebrate the New Year, three new cases of the coronavirus variant first seen in the UK have been detected, health officials confirmed Thursday.

"The discovery of the additional cases leads county health officials to believe that the new strain of the virus is widespread in the community," a San Diego county spokesperson said.

The new cases of the UK variant, which is believed to be highly infectious, were found in two men in their 40s and one man in his 50s following diagnostic testing.

"Contact tracing shows two men did not travel outside of the county while the third case has yet to be fully interviewed," county health officials said in a statement. "None of the men had any known interaction with each other or the other confirmed case."
As the seventh round of talks between the famer groups and the central government will be held on Monday, farmer groups said on Friday that they would intensify their agitation if the government failed to resolve their demands for the repeal of the three controversial farm reforms and a legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP) during the meeting. Speaking to reporters at the Singhu border in Delhi, the leaders of the groups pointed out that only five per cent of the issues raised by them have discussed in meetings with the Union ministers. The farmers have also warned of a tractor rally on Wednesday if the reforms are not repealed.

It has been over a month since farmers have been protesting against the farm reforms at several border points in the national capital. Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar told news agency PTI said that the Centre was hopeful of a positive outcome at the seventh round of talks with farmer groups adding that the previous meet held on December 30 happened in a cordial atmosphere and there was a possibility of positive results in the interest of farmers at the next meeting on Monday.

Meanwhile, the Delhi Traffic Police on Saturday informed that Tikri, Singhu, Jharoda and other borders remained closed for traffic movement and urged commuters to opt for alternative routes. A 57-year-old farmer, who was a Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) supporter from Baghpat, died at the UP Gate protest site on Friday due to harsh weather conditions. Police said that the farmers family did not opt for a post mortem and his body was sent to his village for last rites. On the eve of the New Year, a tribute was paid to all farmers who have lost their lives amid the standoff . A candlelight march was also brought out.

Follow live updates here:

Congress leaders in Rajasthan to protest against farm laws tomorrow

Several leaders from Rajasthan Congress including Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, partys state unit chief Govind Singh Dotasara, former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot will stage a protest at Jaipurs Shaheed Smarak demanding the repeal of new agriculture laws.

Govts commitment to welfare of farmers unparalleled: Prakash Javadekar

A day after over 850 academicians came out in support of three agricultural laws, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said that the central governments commitment to the welfare of farmers is unparalleled.

If our demands are not met till January 26,then farmers will hold Kisan Gantantra Parade in Delhi: Yogendra Yadav

If our demands are not met till January 26,then farmers will hold Kisan Gantantra Parade in Delhi. We appeal to farmers from adjoining areas of national capital to be prepared and request every farmer family of country to send a member to Delhi if possible:Yogendra Yadav,Swaraj India.

Farmer dies at protest site, police suspect suicide

A police officer said that a 72-year-old farmer allegedly died due to suicide at a farmer protest site in Uttar Pradeshs Ghaziabad on Saturday morning. The deceased... was found hanging at one of the mobile toilets at the protest site. He has also left behind a note which is written in Punjabi, said circle officer Anshu Jain. Meanwhile, Shamsher Rana of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) said that the farmer blamed the Centre for not accepting the demands of the protesters.

Protesting farmers to take out tractor march in Delhi on Jan 26

Krantikari Kisan Union President Darshan Pal said Friday that the protesting farmers will hold marches towards governors houses in different States adding that a tractor march will be held in Delhi on January 26.

On 23rd January, we will hold marches towards Governors' Houses in different States, and 'tractor Kisan Parade' will be held on 26th January in Delhi: Krantikari Kisan Union President Darshan Pal#FarmLaws pic.twitter.com/y9h3oPmL0Z  ANI (@ANI) January 2, 2021

Confident ongoing farm stir will end: MoS Kailash Choudhary ahead of Jan 4 meeting

Before the Centres seventh round of meeting with farmers over the three farm laws on January 4, Union minister of state (MoS) for agriculture Kailash Choudhary said on Saturday that a solution would come up during the talks and that the ongoing stir would end.

Regarding contract farming,in the new bill,there can't be an investigation against farmer even if he is at fault. It also states there won't be any agreement regarding land of farmer.The bill is favourable for farmers & PM wants them to become 'atma nirbhar':MoS Kailash Chaudhary https://t.co/b2397FCsDF  ANI (@ANI) January 2, 2021

Sindhu, Tikri borders continue to remain blocked

The Delhi Traffic Police on Saturday said that Singhu and Tikri borders in the national capital continued to remain blocked due to the ongoing agitation against the Centres farm reforms. The police urged commuters to take alternate routes for coming to Delhi via chilla, Anad Vihar, DND, Apsara and Bhopra borders.

Over 850 academicians across India support new farm laws

More than 850 academicians from different parts of the country have supported the farm reforms passed by the parliament in September by saying that these reforms seek to free farm trade from restrictions and enable farmers to sell their produce at competitive prices. In a statement issued, the academicians said, The new laws provide full autonomy for farmers to sell their produce. We strongly believe in the governments assurance to the farmers to protect their livelihoods. The government is still firmly committed to delivering the principle of minimum government, maximum governance.
A new building for Jpura University View(s):

The University of Sri Jayewardenepura Engineering Faculty will receive a new building to expand their academic activities. The cutting of the first soil sod to mark the beginning of the construction took place on Thursday. Education Minister G.L. Peiris, University Grants Commission Chairman Sampath Amaratunga and University of Sri Jayewardenepura Vice-Chancellor Sudantha Liyanage were among the guests at the event. Pix by Indika Handuwala
A teaser image of tvN series "Cliffhanger" / Courtesy of A Story





By Kwak Yeon-soo







In 2020, K-dramas soared in popularity as pandemic-driven lockdowns drove viewers to the small screen. They made waves across the globe thanks to streaming platforms like Netflix.







Melodrama "Crash Landing on You" caused a sensation in Japan and historical zombie drama "Kingdom 2" attracted attention after viewers raved about the gripping storyline, sumptuous sets and elaborate costumes.







After such a strong year, some of the freshest new TV series will land on TV this year. They traverse genres including fantasy, thriller and period dramas. Here are our picks of the K-dramas of 2021 to watch.







TvN drama "Cliffhanger," also known as "Jirisan" starring Jun Ji-hyun and Ju Ji-hoon, is a mystery thriller that depicts mountain rescuers and park rangers trying to help lost hikers. Written by Kim Eun-hee ("Kingdom") and helmed by director Lee Eung-bok ("Mr. Sunshine" and "Sweet Home"), it is one of the most anticipated series to look out for.







"Hospital Playlist 2" is a follow-up to the popular tvN series about five doctors who have been friends since they went to medical school together in 1999. Actors Jo Jung-suk, Yoo Yeon-seok, Jung Kyung-ho, Kim Dae-myung and Jeon Mi-do will reprise their roles for the second season.







Legal drama "Vincenzo," fronted by actors Song Joong-ki and Jeon Yeo-bin, revolves around Vincenzo Cassano, a Korean-born but Italian-raised lawyer and Mafia consigliere who returns to his motherland to join a high-profile law firm.







Scenes from JTBC series "Sisyphus: The Myth" / Courtesy of JTBC





JTBC drama "Sisyphus: The Myth" is a sci-fi mystery about a genius engineer embarking on a perilous journey to uncover the hidden identity of mysterious creatures. Park Shin-hye and "Stranger" actor Cho Seung-woo will lead the cast.







Set in 1987, "Snowdrop" is a historical romance drama that features a stellar cast and crew. It's written and directed by the same team that created "SKY Castle" (2019), one of cable network's highest rated K-dramas. Jung Hae-in will star alongside Jisoo of BLACKPINK.







SBS will focus on producing period dramas to attract viewers. "Joseon Exorcist" is a fantasy action historical series that revolves around exorcists defending the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom from demons. Actors Gam Woo-sung, Jang Dong-yoon and Park Sung-hoon will play the lead roles.







Set in the Joseon era, "Red Sky" is a fantasy romance series based on the novel of the same name by Jung Eun-gwol, whose stories "Sungkyunkwan Scandal" and "Moon Embracing the Sun" have also been adapted into hit dramas. Kim Yoo-jung will play the female painter who was born blind but miraculously gains vision. Kim will star opposite rising star Ahn Hyo-seop.







From left, actors Gam Woo-sung, Jang Dong-yoon and Park Sung-hoon have been cast in SBS series "Joseon Exorcist." / Korea Times file





KBS will roll our school romance dramas to target the younger generation. "Dear. M" is about university students searching for "M," a mystery individual who is mentioned in an anonymous post on the university's online discussion forum.







Another coming-of-age series "School 2021," featuring Kim Yo-han of boy band Wei, follows a group of high school students as they go through various struggles.







In the MBC drama "Black Sun," actor Namgoong Min will play the role of an NIS agent who disappears and returns to the organization to track down the person who betrayed him. The TV network and local streaming platform Wavve invested 15 billion won ($13.8 million) into this 12-episode series.







Netflix will roll out several original K-drama series in 2021 including one-off special episode "Kingdom: Ashin of the North," zombie series "All of Us Are Dead" and director Yeon Sang-ho's "Hellbound."


Aspen, CO (81611)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low 43F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low 43F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
Udayangas Ukrainian tourists bend the rules, star hotels arm-twisted to slash rates By Namini Wijedasa View(s): View(s):

Organisers of the Ukrainian tour groups promoted by Udayanga Weeratunga, former Sri Lankan Ambassador to Russia, ignored safety protocols agreed upon with the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) when taking the visitors to pre-approved attractions yesterday.

The first group of Ukrainian tourists who arrived aboard a charter flight at the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (MRIA) on December 28 started their excursions after negative PCR tests and less than five days in quarantine. Ukraine is considered a high-risk country for COVID-19.

The tours are largely being handled by Mr Weeratunga with whom tourism authorities have been in touch, though he does not hold any formal designation or role. His official address is given as Temple Trees, Colombo 3. The three Ukrainian tour operators are Kompas, Join Up, and Travel Professional Group (TPG).

The first group was divided into smaller parties and loaded into buses to take them to designated tourist sites. At least one set did whale-watching in Mirissa while another went to Yala National Park. SLTDA was not notified officially of the arrangements.

It had been agreed that the organisers would coordinate visits to tourist sites through the SLTDA which drew up a list of designated drivers, tour guides and assistants who were expected to stay strictly inside a bio-secure bubble during the groups visit.

But at the Yala National Park, instead of liaising with the Department of Wildlife Conservation and SLTDA to hire safari jeeps, the handlers commissioned 28 vehicles separately from Tissamaharama with non-designated drivers. Similiary, at Mirissa, they hired private boats which had not been in the plan.

A safari driver who had turned down the offer to ferry the Ukrainians inside the Yala National Park because of health concerns said others he knew took the hire as they were paid more for it. He also said they were informed they would have to complete 14-day quarantine at a hotel after completing the excursion.

Six members of the first 180-member group initially tested positive for the virus. But only five are being treated at the University Hospital KDU as the report of one patient returned negative after a second PCR.

Meanwhile, it is learned that hotels in which these tourists are accommodated for their minimum seven-day stay had been arm-twisted to significantly slash their rates. One hotel that normally charges around US$ 250 (206 euros) a night for a full-board (standard room) sold the roomto the Ukrainians at around US$ 100 (around 83 euros) a night. Another four-star hotel offered a package of 799 euros (around US$ 970) for nine days, working out to 88.77 Euros (US$ 107) a day. Yet another gave a room for 110 euros a day (US$ 133).

From the start, rules were bent or adjusted to accommodate the Ukrainian tourist project which is being termed a pilot project. The Ministry of Health reduced the mandatory quarantine period from 14 to 7 and then agreed that the tourists could visit identified places if their first PCR tests returned a negative result in a bio-secure bubble.

But while in quarantine, before their test outcomes were received, they were permitted to use the beach (access-controlled through security arrangements) and common areas, provided they maintained social distance and did not come into contact with the staff.
As the Trinamool Congress suffered another setback in West Bengal after another leader Soumendu Adhikari switched over to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), TMCs Madan Mitra said anybody is welcome to leave. Mitra also said that TMC workers were becoming more and more devoted towards the party, which has been facing defections ahead of the assembly elections scheduled to be held in the state in April and May this year.

Anybody is welcome to leave. I dont think therell be any reflection in our party for the defection of Soumendu. Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers are becoming more and more devoted to the party, Mitra was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Also Read: TMC suffers setback after more leaders switch sides

Soumendu Adhikari left the TMC on Friday along with 14 other councillors and was inducted into the BJP in presence of his elder brother Suvendu Adhikari - another TMC defector, at the BJP Yogdaan Mela in East Midnapore. Addressing the gathering, Suvendu said, We will win this battle and form the next government in Bengal. We will move forward with Prime Minister Narendra Modis ideals and accomplish peoples dream of the Sonar Bangla.

Anybody is welcome to leave. I don't think there'll be any reflection in our party for the defection of Soumendu. Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers are becoming more and more devoted to the party: Madan Mitra, TMC leader https://t.co/M53mjCt8pP pic.twitter.com/0QPWgs6fSm  ANI (@ANI) January 2, 2021

Prior to joining the BJP, Soumendu was removed as the administrator of the Contai municipality by the TMC with Suvendu terming the removal a vindictive move on the part of the state government.

Suvendu also hit out at the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC by saying that the Adhikari family was not with the party of pishi and bhaipo - pointing to TMC chief Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhisek Banerjee - any more and accused it of delaying the municipal polls in the state. Soumendu has a long political career ahead of him. He has worked hard all these years... And the same goes for the other councillors. The Adhikari family is no longer with the party of pishi-bhaipo, Suvendu said.

A former minister in Banerjees cabinet, Suvendu Adhikari had joined the BJP in the presence of Union home minister Amit Shah on December 19.

(With agency inputs)
Drive: Newly manufactured automobiles leave on a car transporter from the Nissan plant in Sunderland, UK. Photo: Ian Forsyth/Bloomberg

Nissan is planning to further reduce its presence in Europe and outsource the sales and manufacturing of its cars to alliance partner Renault, it was reported yesterday.

As part of its global turnaround plan, which is reversing a rapid expansion led by the ousted former chairman, Carlos Ghosn, Nissan will cut its distribution channels in thirty countries, mainly in East Europe.

It is also planning to close its Avila plant in Spain and convert it into a warehouse, the report said.

The Japanese motor company is currently moving operations away from Europe and shifting focus to China, the US and Japan.

Nissan expects to post a record operating loss of 340bn yen (2.7bn) in the year to March 31, is cutting production capacity and model numbers by a fifth and aims to slash operating expenses by 300bn yen over three years.

The companys three-way alliance with Renault and Mitsubishi was plunged into uncertainty in 2018, when Mr Ghosn was arrested on financial misconduct charges, which he denies. He later fled Japan.

Reuters
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Jo Wood has watched CCTV footage that no mother should ever have to see.

The images, captured by a camera near the entrance of Debden Park High School in Loughton, Essex, show the final minutes of her 12-year-old son Harley's life as he left school with a group of friends one December afternoon in 2019.

'They were just walking home, talking about the usual stuff that teenage boys talk about,' Jo tells The Mail on Sunday in an exclusive interview. 'And that was it. It just happened so fast.'

She is unable to watch the footage beyond this point but she knows only too well the horror of what happened next.

Proud mum: Jo Wood with Harley, smiling in his smart uniform shortly after starting at Debden Park High School. She has watched CCTV footage that no mother should ever have to see. The images, captured by a camera near the entrance of Debden Park High School in Loughton, Essex, show the final minutes of her 12-year-old son's life as he left school with a group of friends one December afternoon in 2019

At about 3.20pm, a silver Ford Ka driven by Terence Glover, a violent paranoid schizophrenic, deliberately mounted the pavement behind Harley and his friends and ploughed into them.

Harley, wearing a blue backpack and his school blazer, went under the car and suffered a fatal head injury.

Witnesses say Harley's friends were 'flung like dolls' as Glover careered along the pavement on Willingale Road, injuring nine other children and one adult. Some were knocked unconscious but none of the other victims suffered life-changing injuries.

Terence Glover (above) killed Harley Watson and injured nine other children and an adult in a horrifying attack outside a school

Tears stream down Jo's face as she explains that the CCTV footage showed how Harley was initially walking on the left-hand side of the group and was the furthest away from the road.

Fatefully, about a minute before the attack, he skipped around the back of the group, placing himself next to the road  and directly in Glover's path.

'I don't know why,' she says. 'I don't know if his friends there were talking about something but he moves just about a minute before, so he is close to the road.

'They didn't stand a chance that day, they really didn't.'

Jo, 33, was in Central London, where she works as personal assistant at the headquarters of a major bank, when another mum from the school called and told her there had been an incident involving a car.

Panic-stricken, she hailed a taxi outside her work but after getting stuck in traffic, she jumped out and sprinted for Liverpool Street Tube station to head for home.

Meanwhile, Ryan, Harley's stepfather, and Jo's parents rushed to the school and found a scene of carnage, as traumatised children huddled under silver survival blankets and paramedics treated Harley.

Minutes later, Jo's friend called again with devastating news. 'My friend said to me they are resuscitating Harley. I was screaming and crying. I didn't know anything  I just knew he was being resuscitated.'

Above, Harley at the Louvre during a trip to Paris with his mother. Jo believes the NHS should be held accountable for failing to detain Glover under the Mental Health Act on five separate occasions, including just nine weeks before Harley's death

Jo arrived at the Accident & Emergency department of Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone minutes before Harley's ambulance pulled in and she watched in horror as a large team of medics fought desperately to save his life.

'I looked to my left and there was a woman on top of him on the bed and she was giving him chest compressions.

'They pushed him around to where I was standing and the doctor briefly explained what he was going to do. And all of a sudden, within about a minute, he looked at a nurse and he asked what the time was and I just knew that was it. And then they just stopped. I screamed and I begged them to keep trying and they just couldn't.'

We walked to school that day. I never imagined I would never see him again

Jo says it's crucial people understand that Glover's actions were deliberate and not some kind of terrible road accident.

A damning internal NHS report seen by this newspaper reveals police knew that Glover, who suffered paranoid delusions, had previously threatened to run children over in his car. Doctors, meanwhile, declined a string of opportunities to detain him in a secure hospital.

'People mustn't just see this as a hit-and-run,' Jo says. 'It's much bigger than that. There were so many warning signs which could have prevented it happening. What we have is a very, very long build-up which could have been stopped at any time. And people knew about it. People who had the power to stop him  they knew about it.'

She believes the NHS should be held accountable for failing to detain Glover under the Mental Health Act on five separate occasions, including just nine weeks before Harley's death.

Essex Police also have serious questions to answer, she says, including why Glover's car was not seized from him when officers knew he had threatened to use it as a weapon.

'They can't do everything, I understand that. But I am not convinced that they did everything they could have to prevent this happening,' she says.

Jo describes Harley as a 'kind, caring, selfless, intelligent and comical young man' who was an 'extremely loving person'.

'He was really funny and would make up jokes all the time. He was totally selfless as well  he would share everything.'

Jo and Harley's biological father split when Harley was two. His stepfather Ryan, 35, a mentor for primary school children from challenging backgrounds, joined the family three years later.

Budding actor: On stage at London's famous Sadler's Wells Theatre. Harley was a 'star pupil' at Debden Park High and was particularly good at maths. His favourite classes, however, were music, dance and drama and he dreamed of becoming an actor

He and Jo also have a five-year-old daughter. Harley and Ryan became exceptionally close, bonding over a shared love of Tottenham Hotspur and in recent years enjoying the ritual of watching Spurs play during the Christmas break.

Jo describes a 'complete family'. Half-terms were busy with trips to theme parks or London tourist attractions, and they enjoyed a family holiday to Majorca four weeks before Harley's death. 'He always made friends on every holiday we went on and he always stayed in touch with them.'

Jo and Harley would also go away for what she called 'just us two' trips to celebrate his birthday.

In July 2019, they enjoyed a blissful weekend in Paris for his 12th birthday. 'I wanted to do something that made him realise how special he was to me,' she says. 'We had such a great time there.

I hate Glover but if he'd had better support I'd still have my son

They have these pay-as-you-go electric scooters. We went to a big park and he could just about see over the handlebars. I remember him saying that was the best part of his trip  just scooting around together for an hour.'

Harley was a 'star pupil' at Debden Park High and was particularly good at maths. His favourite classes, however, were music, dance and drama and he dreamed of becoming an actor.

He had attended drama classes with performing arts organisation Theatretrain in Loughton and, to the immense pride of Jo, her mother and Ryan, performed in a show at Sadler's Wells Theatre in London on the weekend of his tenth birthday. A picture published today for the first time shows him on stage dressed as a science teacher in the performance of Special Measures.

Jo says: 'He was stood there at the front of the stage with everybody behind him. I just thought, 'Wow!' We were so proud of him. All the way home on the Tube, we were grinning and talking about it. Other passengers were talking to him because he was still wearing his costume. He was lapping it up, bless him.'

Harley was eager to learn a musical instrument and Jo and Ryan were planning to buy him a keyboard and pay for lessons last Christmas.

On the morning Harley died, Jo and her son had walked some of the way to school together. At Debden Underground station, they said goodbye.

Jo caught a train in to London, while Harley carried on to school. 'We got to the station and I gave him a kiss and a hug and said, 'Have a good day. Love you.' I never imagined this would be the last time I'd see him alive.'

Jo had always given Harley strict instructions about walking home, warning him that he did not need to cross any busy roads and he should not look at his phone.

'He did exactly what I asked him to do,' she says. 'He did everything by the book that day, but he didn't stand a chance.'

The horror of what happened to her son has left Jo unable to walk along the left-hand side of a busy road. 'I won't walk down a road if the traffic is behind me. I will cross over. I will always walk facing the traffic. Because if you can't see what is behind you, you are putting your trust in strangers.'

After Harley's death, a pupil at his school launched a parliamentary petition calling for the Government to make it a legal requirement that every school has a line of bollards outside to protect children from vehicles.

Meanwhile, the leaked report seen by the MoS reveals Glover took cocaine, sleeping pills and two boxes of paracetamol before driving his car at Harley and his friends.

In November, during a 15-minute hearing at Snaresbrook Crown Court, the 52-year-old admitted manslaughter by diminished responsibility and ten counts of attempted murder.

It was the first time Jo had seen Glover, who appeared via video-link from a secure hospital.

Jo is tortured by conflicting emotions. She hates the man who killed her son but is also angry that Glover did not get the medical support he so clearly needed.

'I despise the man for what he has done to my son and my family. But if he is as ill as everyone is telling me he is, he should have been better supported. Ultimately, if he had got better support I would still have my son. I hate him so much, I really do.'

Jo explains she has spoken out to ensure such a tragedy does not happen again.

'I want people to understand that these things are happening and they can be prevented. It shouldn't be just brushed under the carpet.'

She has described her overwhelming grief in a powerful personal statement prepared before Glover is sentenced on Friday.

'It wasn't just Harley's life that was taken that day. I lost my life as well. Now I merely exist so that my daughter can have a childhood with both her parents.

'I miss my boy beyond words and I would give my life for Harley to have his.'
When do young people become mature enough to make their own decisions? It sometimes seems like a movable feast. Until 1972, voters in Ireland had to be 21 to cast their vote, but it was then changed to 18. In Scotland, 16-year-olds can vote, and there is quite a lobby to allow suffrage to 16-year-olds elsewhere, too.



Yet a new regulation comes into force in Britain this year banning anyone under 18 from purchasing a lottery ticket, due to concern about youngsters being addicted to gambling.

In many American states, a young person cannot purchase alcohol  or even enter a bar  before the age of 21.

The age of sexual consent is 17 in Ireland, and 16 in Britain, but sometimes blind eyes may be turned to underage sexual activity, and there have been many examples of the law being ignored.

Even in the tragic case of Ann Lovett of Granard, which so horrified Ireland back in 1984, it emerged last year that this poor young girl was only 14 (and her boyfriend 16) when they began a sexual relationship. It would have been protective of the law to issue a warning about complying with the legal age of consent, and might even have prevented a dreadful tragedy. But with intimate relationships, the law doesnt always seem keen to intervene.

When it comes to transitioning from one sex to another, its been a learning curve. At Londons Tavistock Clinic, children as young as 10 had been considered competent to make their own decisions about changing sex  a serious and sometimes irreversible decision. But then Keira Bell, who had transitioned from female to male when a teenager, and then regretted that decision, brought a case against this well-known clinic. Three High Court judges ruled that children under the age of 13 were not competent to make that choice, and even between 14 and 16, it was doubtful youngsters could understand the full implications of such a momentous step. In Ireland, this question is still open  theres no lower age limit for children making the choice to transition.

Perhaps drawing a rigid line about when someone is old enough to make personal decisions is complicated because individuals vary so much in the rhythm of their maturing. I have seen 13-year-old boys handle tractors with great skill  a youngster may drive a vehicle within the bounds of their own property. But however skilled that individual kid may be, the age of legal driving on the highway remains 16. And if some are adept at 13, some youngsters are still risk-taking drivers at 17, 18 and above. The line has to be drawn somewhere.

In recent decades, the law has often moved towards being more protective of young people, and upping the age for conduct or behaviour that might be considered unwise. In many countries, the police can apprehend any youngster under 16 seen smoking. And teenagers arent allowed to buy cigarettes until they are 18  again, in many American states, until 21.

This is a major change from my childhood days, when I was regularly sent around to the corner shop in Sandymount to purchase 20 Craven A for my mother.

Generally, regulations around alcohol have also shifted, and become more protective  theres research showing the earlier a person starts drinking, the more likely theyll have alcohol problems. The age of sexual consent, too, has been raised over the years. In Victorian times, it was 12  it took the feminist Josephine Butler to get that changed.

The age of criminal responsibility has also altered in several of jurisdictions in recent years. In Ireland, it was raised from seven to 12 in 2006. Seven was once considered to be the age of reason  when a child could tell right from wrong. In Scotland, it was aged eight, until 2019, when it was raised to 12. In England and Wales, it is 10, although there are campaigns to raise it, as being cruel to charge a young child with legal wrongdoing. Yet the original idea was to discourage artful dodger kids being exploited by criminals.

Sometimes there is a difference between custom and law. Although the age of consent in some European countries was very young  traditionally 12 or 13 in Italy and Spain  there were duennas who chaperoned young maidens, defending them from sexual predators.

On the whole, childhood and adolescence seem to be growing longer. Gone are the days when youngsters were indentured into apprenticeships at 14.

In Gay Byrnes autobiography, he recalls that Guinnesss brewery  where his father worked  had a gradation system for their employees, whereby an apprentice would join at 13 or 14, when he would be a boy. At 18, hed graduate to a lad. And at 21, hed be treated as a full adult employee.

Such hierarchies wouldnt suit our times, but there was a quite sensible idea behind it: that maturing is a process, not an overnight development. Maybe thats why theres been so much inconsistency in deciding when youngsters are grown-up enough to decide matters for themselves.
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Residents of Kilcoole Lodge nursing home are flavour of the month after contributing to a new recipe book backed by celebrity chef Darina Allen.

Cecily, 88, and Hazel, 87, both residents of Kilcoole Lodge Nursing Home, are among the star chefs of the 'Nursing Home Bake Off' publication created by Mowlam Healthcare.

The idea to gather a collection of residents' favourite recipes was inspired by the trailblazing baking skills of a 91-year-old woman who lives in Ennis Nursing Home, Co Clare.

Ardent hurling fan and Liverpool FC supporter, Cissie Collins, bakes scones and apple cakes for fellow residents during baking demonstrations she hosts every Wednesday.

But it soon became evident that there was a large group of enthusiastic bakers throughout the countrywide group - sowing the seed of a book containing recipes from bygone days.

It led to Cecily and Hazel chipping in to the collection with their own special recipes.

Mother-of-two Cecily, who used to camp on the beach with her children - and had to come up with easy and quick recipes - shared her Strawberry Pavlova.

Dublin-born Hazel, who inherited her love of cooking from her mother, dazzled with a Pineapple Upside Down Pudding.

They were among 51 kitchen-savvy pensioners living in Mowlam Healthcare nursing homes across Ireland who contributed recipes.

Some of the recipes in the book date back three generations.

The 106-page book, which is not a commercial venture, transports readers into the heart of Irish kitchens to learn how to make simple, yet delicious, desserts.

It also tells the stories of the exceptional men and women who shared their recipes.

Chef Darina Allen backed the venture and gifted two of her own recipes to the book.

'I am so happy to support this inspired project, especially in the year that's in it.

Many wonderful recipes and stories of traditional home baking, with skills lovingly passed from mother to child down through the generations,' she said.

'Bravo to all the inspirational residents who contributed to the Recipe Book.

'How brilliant is it to see them living well and keeping up their skills in nursing home care. Keep baking and carry on.'

Joe Hanrahan of Mowlam said the group was 'delighted to facilitate the compiling and production of this beautiful book'.

'It is a fitting way to mark the end of our 20th anniversary year enhancing the quality of life of older people in Ireland,' he said.

'This would not have been possible without the dedication of our Mowlam teams in all our locations, with a special mention for our activity co-ordinators and catering teams.

'This book was a way of documenting recipes from yesteryear, learning from residents as well as supporting them to fill their days with meaning and purpose.

'While it has been different for residents in nursing homes due to the pandemic and restrictions on visiting, life did go on as normal.

'We are very proud that the skills and traditions of our residents are now in print and copies of the recipe book are being distributed to all Mowlam Healthcare homes.'

Wicklow People


By Kang Seung-woo



North Korea wants to forge a good relationship with the United States, according to a Wall Street Journal report, Thursday (local time), raising speculation that Pyongyang may return to nuclear talks with Washington.





North Korean leader Kim Jong-un / Yonhap
New Delhi:

As the Modi government completes three years in power on Friday, BJP president Amit Shah going gaga over the achievements of the Centre said what previous governments could not achieve in the 70 years of independence, PM Modi has attained in these 3 years.

Shah during a press conference on three years of Modi Govt said the politics of the country has changed and last years surgical strike in Pakistan was an outcome of Modis strong political will.

Excerpts from Amit Shah's press conference:

# In the last three years, the confidence of the people has increased.

# That's why our motto for the celebrations this time is: Saath hai, vishwas hai, ho raha vikaas hai.

# PM Modi had said at the outset that this government would be for the poor and downtrodden... the farmers and the Dalits. This government has worked relentlessly to ensure that this has been achieved.

# After years of corruption under previous governments, we finally have a government that not even the opposition can accuse of corruption.

# Our Govt. has distributed gas connection to more than 2 crore people.

# To increase the tourism, we have given e-Visa to 161 countries.

# Demonetisation was a great and courageous move of our govt.

# Our government has successfully implemented One Rank One Pension.

# Good and Services Tax (GST) bill was passed.

PM Modi inaugurates India's longest 9.15-km Dhola-Sadiya bridge in Assam, says it will now be named 'Bhupen Hazarika Setu'

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
(Natural News) With governments worldwide reopening their economies and lifting lockdowns, authorities and health experts have doubled down on their advice that people wear face masks when going out to shop or dine.

In fact, an economic report by researchers from the University of Utah even suggested that national mandates for face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic would persistently promote economic activity. But economist Peter Crabb doesnt seem to think so.

In an article online, Crabb, a professor of finance and economics at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, Idaho, said that the Utah report is flawed.

For one, it assumes that spending would not occur if there were no mask mandate. This is shown to be false by the fact that consumer spending is currently only 0.5 percent below its level at this time last year. So statewide mask mandates have no new spending to promote.

Crabb also noted that the report ignores potential negative responses to statewide mandates for face coverings. For instance, people might interpret such mask mandates as a sign that the pandemic is worsening. This could further discourage people from spending or, in the case of businesses, investing.

To elucidate his point, Crabb cited the parable of the broken window by the French economist Frederic Bastiat. The parable shows that using resources to fix the window will not increase its economic output. The window is only restored to its previous existing situation.

Likewise, mask mandates will not boost economic output despite fixing a problem caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Mask mandates dont reduce transmission rates or deaths

Meanwhile, researchers from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a non-profit organization in Massachusetts, found that nonpharmaceutical interventions, such as lockdowns, travel restrictions, stay-home orders, business closures, curfew and mask mandates, do not affect overall virus transmission rates.

The researchers came to this conclusion after looking at countries and U.S. states with more than 1,000 deaths related to COVID-19 as of late July. In all, they looked at 25 states and 23 countries.

Their findings revealed that while nonpharmaceutical interventions varied in their timing and implementation across states and countries, the trends in COVID-19 outcomes did not vary significantly. Therefore, neither the timing nor the implementation of these interventions can be blamed for their ineffectiveness.

On the other hand, Denis Rancourt, a former physics professor at the University of Ottawa in Canada, studied randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and meta-analyses of RCTs on face masks.

Rancourt found that many studies say masks and respirators do not prevent respiratory diseases like influenza and other illnesses believed to be transmitted by droplets or aerosol particles.

Overall, Rancourt said his paper shows the degree to which governments and mainstream media can decide to operate in a science vacuum or select science that serves their interests.

Not a one-size-fits-all solution

Meanwhile, two American economists, Steven Horwitz and Donald Boudreaux, explained why mask mandates dont work using fundamental concepts in economics.

One such concept is negative externality. The refusal to wear a face mask creates this negative externality. This means that the non-mask wearer imposes or externalizes the costs of their actions on mask wearers.

Horwitz and Boudreaux said that the economists ideal solution to this would be to tax non-mask wearers only to give them enough incentives to take the welfare of others into account and wear masks. This is what a mask mandate aims to do. (Related: Statewide coronavirus mask mandates spreading across the USA.)

But this solution assumes that people are selfish while authorities are concerned with only the publics interest whenever they enforce policies or create laws.

As such, economists who fail to account for these factors in their models of good policies and mandates should not be surprised when actual policies and mandates turn out to be ineffective, added Horwitz and Boudreaux.

Read the latest updates on the coronavirus pandemic at Pandemic.news.

Sources include:

IdahoStatesman.com

Investopedia.com

AIER.org

RCReader.com

DetroitNews.com
In the past year, we Americans learned a lot about our country.

And the biggest lesson we should be taking into 2021 is a clear picture of our vulnerability.

On Dec. 22, CNN aired an interview in which American billionaire Ray Dalio said the combination of political divisiveness, inequality and attitude toward debt in the United States is putting the nation on a dangerous path.

He urged the nations leaders to work together to look hard for solutions before the ugly consequences find us.

The worst alternative is that one side or another says, This isnt my country anymore. This isnt my population. Thats when the cause people are behind is more important than the means of resolving their disagreements. Thats a threatening situation. History has shown that to be the case, Dalio said.

Yikes. A billionaire warning about upheaval created by power, privilege and too many people owing too much?

History has a way of repeating itself. It isnt the first time trouble has brewed between the haves and the have-nots. Besides, its not just about the extremely rich and the very poor; were divided by economics, politics, race and gender. And at a time when too many Americans feel this isnt their nation anymore, that kind of talk can be revolutionary.

The past year, with stressors brought about by COVID-19, riots and election unrest, also saw a big increase in first-time gun purchases. As of Nov. 30, the FBIs National Instant Background Check System tallied a total of 2,119,665 checks this year in the Lone Star State alone. By comparison, Texans only asked about buying firearms 1,487,212 times during all of 2019.

Texas isnt the only state where records are being broken by those getting a gun the legal way. Thing is, not everybody bothers to ask.

Dalio, who reportedly predicted the economic downturn of 2008, is right about these being scary times. And hes right about the urgency to do something about it before its too late. Last year, Dalio blogged The World Has Gone Mad and The System is Broken on LinkedIn about how he believes the world is approaching a big paradigm shift because those with money and creditworthiness have access to opportunity while those without dont, and that reality will widen the wealth gap.

If this were just some guy with a keyboard hammering out Doomsday Rays Finance Blog, it might not mean much. But given that Dalio is the founder of Bridgewater Associates  according to U.S. News, the biggest hedge fund in the world  its safe to assume he has some insight.

So as we begin 2021, maybe we should consider the warning from Dalio, who thinks a revolution is just around the corner. Just maybe we can turn things around.

While we collectively demand that those we chose to represent us represent all of us, we could individually dial back the rhetoric and focus on finding solutions that will save us from taking each other down.

While we wait for our leaders to balance the scales of justice, we can use our own power to balance those scales in classrooms, workplaces and neighborhoods. And while we figure out how to close the gap that separates Wall Street from Main Street, we can continue to reach out, one by one, to those who were hit hardest by 2020, regardless of what divides us.

The biggest lesson we should have learned in 2020 is we really are all vulnerable. And when we dont work together, we can all be taken down.

mariaanglinwrites@gmail.com
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Copyright  2021 Albuquerque Journal

A suspect is accused of trying to rob a West Side bank at a drive-up window. The man did not get any money.

Court records say Daniel Hansen, 21, who is charged with attempted bank robbery in the Dec. 16 incident, had been picked up by Albuquerque police and had boasted about robbing banks hours before the attempt.

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According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court:

A man walked into the Bank of Albuquerque near Coors and Bluewater NW around 3:50 p.m. and was told by a teller that he had to use the drive-up window. At the window, the man was given a withdrawal slip, which he sent back to the teller with the written message, put $10,000 in 2 bags maybe youll survive NOW.

The teller told co-workers they were being robbed, backed away from the window and activated the alarm.

The suspect left empty-handed.

Authorities discovered that Hansen, wearing clothing that looked like the attempted robbers, had been kicked out of the Downtown train station hours earlier after an altercation where he told security he would shoot up the place and blow it up.

Due to his homicidal statements, Albuquerque police took Hansen to the University of New Mexico Hospital for a mental health evaluation.

During the ride, Hansen told officers he hoped UNMH would admit him and was boasting that when things get bad for him he robs banks.
A bipartisan Congressional provision condemning China's aggression towards India has become a law as the US Congress overrode President Donald Trump's veto on the USD 740 billion defence policy bill which among other things included calling out the Chinese government for its actions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

The National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) 2021, which became a law on Friday after Congress overrode Trump's veto, included a resolution urging the Chinese government to end its military aggression towards India along the LAC.

President Trump on December 23 vetoed the NDAA, which had bipartisan support, arguing it had provisions that would damage national security. As Congress dealt a humiliating blow to Trump in his last days in office, Indian-American Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi said: Through today's New Year's Day vote in the Senate, Congress has made the National Defence Authorisation Act into law, including elements of my resolution calling on China to end its military aggression towards India and others in the broader Indo-Pacific region.

The US House of Representatives and the Senate on December 15 passed the USD 740 billion NDAA, which included key components of Krishnamoorthi's resolution language urging the Chinese government to end its military aggression against India along the LAC. China and India have been locked in a military standoff along the LAC in eastern Ladakh since May this year. Several rounds of talks between the two countries to resolve the standoff have not yielded any concrete outcome.

Krishnamoorthi said: The Chinese military's violent aggression along the Line of Actual Control with India and elsewhere is unacceptable, and the passage into law of this legislation sends a clear message of support and solidarity to India and our other partners across the world as we enter the New Year. The inclusion of this provision, which Krishnamoorthi led as an amendment when the bill passed the House of Representatives, reflects the American government's strong support for its allies and partners like India in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond.

Expressing "significant concern" over the continued military aggression by China along the border with India, the NDAA says that China "should work with" India toward de-escalating the situation along the LAC through existing diplomatic mechanisms and refrain from attempting to settle disputes through coercion or force. Attempts by China to advance baseless territorial claims, including those in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and with respect to Bhutan, are destabilising and inconsistent with international law, says the bill.

China is also engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in both the South China Sea and the East China Sea. China claims sovereignty over all of the South China Sea. Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan have counter claims. Beijing has built up and militarised many of the islands and reefs it controls in the region. Both areas are stated to be rich in minerals, oil and other natural resources and are also vital to global trade.
Assessments for students in classes 1 to 8 in government schools across the city will be conducted online from next week for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out. Haryana government recently clarified that it planned to continue with online classes for such students for now. The education department will now conduct these monthly assessment tests through an app called AVSAR, which has been developed by it recently. Teachers said that the tests will give them some idea about the progress made by students since physical school visits for these students are restricted.

Schools across the country were closed last March and classes are being held remotely to contain the spread of Covid-19. While schools in Haryana reopened for physical classroom sessions in October for students in classes 9 to 12, they are yet to start physical classroom sessions for students in classes 1-8.

Raj Kumar, school principal, Government Senior Secondary School in Islampur, said that the monthly assessment tests would be conducted for students starting from next week for the first time since schools were shut in March. Kumar said assessment test for students in these grades were needed since students were not allowed to visit the school for doubt-clearing sessions, which helped teachers in mapping students progress. We have sent videos to students which will help them in navigating through the app interface. This is for the first time that we will be holding the monthly assessment test in a structured manner through this app, said Kumar. He said that the lack of smartphones might become a hurdle in the assessment process.

Suman Sharma, principal of Government Model Senior Secondary School in Sector 4/7, said that monthly exams would be conducted regularly starting this month through the app. Students will have to download the app to register for these exams. Theyll be able to access study material on the basis of which theyll be tested, said Sharma.

She said that while many students had made arrangements for a phone, volunteers or Shiksha Mitras appointed by the school will help those students who do not have a smartphone. The education department had appointed Shiksha Mitra in August. As per the departments definition, a Shiksha Mitra can be any parent, sibling, relative, neighbour or community volunteer, who has an internet-enabled smartphone and is in a position to lend the phone to the student daily for some time.

Deputy district education officer Kalpna Singh said that while the lack of smartphones was a concern among students in classes 1 to 8, an assessment mechanism was needed for charting the progress of students. The tests will be starting in the coming week. We will tap into volunteers or other resources if students face any hurdles, said Singh.
In the years since rising to fame on Love Island, she's become known for using her Instagram account as a space to candidly share her thoughts with fans.

And Olivia Atwood made some more revelations during a session on the image-sharing platform on Friday, when she disclosed that she has successfully battled both the novel coronavirus and the H1N1 virus, commonly called swine flu.

The former Love Island star, 29, was spotted stepping out in snowy Manchester just hours after sharing that she had overcome both potentially serious illnesses.

Survivor: Olivia Attwood was spotted stepping out in Manchester city centre on Saturday, hours after revealing she had battled COVID-19 and the swine flu

Taking to her Instagram Stories on New Year's Day, she told followers that her best friend was hospitalised after they contracted swine flu while on holiday in Cyprus, while she also managed to 'survive Covid'.

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'Girls, Thomas Cook said don't go, we were like, "No, it'll be fine". We pretty much all caught swine flu,' she explained.

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'My best friend was hospitalised in Cyprus for like two weeks, we had to leave her and her dad had to come out and look after her.

'It was not fun, so I can say that I've survived Covid and swine flu. I dunno if that looks bad on me or good on me.'

Big revelation: The former Love Island star made the revelation on Instagram Stories on Friday

Swine flu is a relatively new strain of an influenza virus that originated in pigs, but is primary spread from person to person.

Much like COVID-19 today, H1N1 dominated headlines back in 2009, when it was first discovered in humans and spread to the rate of becoming a pandemic.

As many of her reality star cohorts bent Tier 4 lockdown rules to crowd the beaches of Dubai over the recently concluded festive season, Olivia took a cheeky swipe at them in a hilarious pre-Christmas Instagram post.

The TV personality was asked whether she had any plans to travel to the UAE over the festive period, and in a cutting response said she'd rather 'stick pins in her eyes'.

Battles: She told followers that her best friend was hospitalised after they contracted swine flu while on holiday in Cyprus, while she also managed to 'survive Covid'

Spot of shopping: On Saturday, the TV personality appeared to have picked up some shopping

During a Q and A with fans, Olivia was asked why she wasn't spending Christmas in Dubai like 'everyone else'.

She wrote: 'Well... I love Dubai... love love love it, hence why we got engaged there.

'But... it feels like the whole of the UK is there right now and I'd quite frankly rather stick pins in my eyes. Am missing my girls though xx.'

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Elsewhere, Olivia has been keeping fans abreast of her wedding preparations on new reality show Olivia Meets Her Match, ahead of her lavish nuptials with fiance Bradley Dack.

Stepping out in casually cool style: She was casually dressed for the outing, donning a grey tracksuit with a Louis Vuitton fanny pack

In one episode, the reality star revealed to a stunned Bradley that she's planning on splashing an eye-watering 200,000 on the wedding.

The stunner joked that she could buy a Lamborghini for the price of their lavish nuptials, with Bradley none too impressed that his wife-to-be had gone way over budget.

Speaking to the camera, Olivia remarked: 'If I sit and think about the fact I could have a brand new Lamborghini for the cost of this wedding, then I could just cancel this wedding right now.

'But you can't think like that because... memories are priceless and all that s***.'

Nuptials: Elsewhere, Olivia has been keeping fans abreast of her wedding preparations on new reality show Olivia Meets Her Match, ahead of her lavish nuptials with fiance Bradley Dack
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After many months of upsetting news and challenging developments, there is good news at last, with a Covid-19 vaccine finally in Ireland, and due to be rolled out in Kilkenny this month.

It cannot come soon enough. Our hospitals and our nursing homes in Kilkenny must not be left to wait a moment longer than necessary given the magnitude of what they are facing. There is a serious onus on those in charge to explore every possible avenue to expedite the vaccines arrival.

It will not be a silver bullet, but it is a ray of hope at least  a welcome beginning as we turn the page on 2020 and move to a new chapter.

The rollout will begin with our most vulnerable the people in nursing homes around the county. The significance of this has been underscored in recent days with the upsetting news of a serious Covid-19 outbreak at Gowran Abbey nursing home.

Our thoughts are with the staff, the residents there and their families as they bravely deal with this most difficult of challenges.



BISHOPS NEWS

Congratulations and best wishes to Bishop  now Archbishop-elect  Dermot Farrell who has been appointed to his new role in Dublin. He has been a popular bishop during his time in this diocese, regarded as approachable, attending events and often seen out walking or visiting towns and villages across the different parishes here.

It has been a difficult year for the Church, many religious communities, and places of worship, where attendance and participation have been hampered by restrictions on gatherings.

At Christmas, many chose not to attend ceremonies, or found themselves one of a limited number of people inside a large, but overwhelmingly empty building. Some of our most cherished rituals weddings, funerals, baptisms  have been severely disrupted or put on pause, and there are more challenging months ahead.
Earlier this month, Netflix rolled out a brand-new "Audio-Only" mode for Android users as a beta feature.

As spotted by XDA Developers back in October, even though it wasn't accessible, the feature let users save some mobile data while keeping up with their favorite series or simply just giving a background noise at home while doing something else.

"We're always looking for new ways to improve the Netflix mobile experience for our members," a Netflix spokesperson exclusively said in a statement to Variety last December. "We run tests in different countries and for different periods of time - and only make them broadly available if people find them useful."

Read also: Netflix Rumored to Develop 'The Elder Scrolls' TV Series Adaptation; Details, Release Date, and MORE!.

How to Use Netflix "Audio Only" Mode

To use the "Audio Mode" on Netflix on your Android devices, simply choose the "Video Off" button on the playback screen. Tapping it will turn on the mode and leave a blank screen yet still show all playback controls like forward and backward, speed control, and so on.

The new feature also offers an audio-off option in the settings, letting viewers decide which device they want the audio to play.

According to Android Police, the feature should pop up in Netflix version 7.84.1 build 28 35243, which came earlier this month.

However, not every feature Netflix has ever rolled out ended up getting a major worldwide release on every platform. As previously stated, this feature is only temporarily available for Android users, and it may take some time for Apple users to see the launch.

Recommended Netflix Shows to Binge-"Audio Mode"

While the feature itself is excellent, especially if you're not really invested in the series and instead just looking for background noise while doing other activities, some shows are not meant to be enjoyed only by the audio.

Hit shows like "Breaking Bad," its spin-off "Better Call Saul," and the adrenaline-pacing "Money Heist/La Casa de Papel" use visuals as their best elements to build up the tension of the show.

However, there are still some great shows you can try this feature on, like special stand up comedies and documentaries.

Hasan Minhaj's "Homecoming King" is a great go-to, detailing how a Muslim, Indian-American first generation of immigrant family adapted in the US amidst the 9/11 crisis.

"Don't F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer" is another must-listen. It's based on real-life events and centers around members of a Facebook group who become entangled in a perplexing cat-and-mouse run against Luka Magnotta, a self-narcissistic serial killer.

"Death to 2020" is a satirically hilarious mockumentary from the creators of "Black Mirror." As the title suggests, it takes viewers to a train of time back to early 2020 in a comedic event of such a dreadful year.

Related article: 'Wonder Woman 1984:' Where to Watch and Buy Official Shoes.
Its a rare book that makes headlines before publication, but for Jordan Peterson, described by the New York Times as the most influential public intellectual in the world right now, controversy is par for the course.

In November, Penguin Random House Canada announced the follow-up to the Canadian psychology professors bestselling 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. Entitled Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, it is scheduled to be published in March.

The announcement marked Petersons return to public life following a long rehab stay for benzodiazepine addiction. It also provoked a heated response from some Random House employees. One anonymous staffer described Peterson to Vice News as an icon of hate speech, adding: Im not proud to work for a company that publishes him.

Petersons self-help advice is standard pull yourself up by the bootstraps fare: Stand up straight with your shoulders back (Rule 1); Pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient (Rule 7); Set your house in order before you criticise the world (Rule 6). An avid collector of Soviet art, his rejection of what he sees as totalitarian impulses in contemporary political and cultural life bring him into conflict with trans-activists, feminists and others, while winning him support from free speech advocates.

Throughout his ascent from little-known professor to self-help guru and international culture warrior, he has divided opinion. Depending on who you ask, his philosophy represents a much-needed ballast against identity politics or the worst excesses of extreme conservativism. What is clear is his popularity with young men seeking guidance in what can seem a hostile world.

Professor Petersons work appealed to me as a hurt young man who lost his father, as seems to be the case with so many of his fans, says David Kelly, a DCU graduate and student counsellor at PCI College in west Dublin.

For Kelly, Peterson is a misunderstood figure: The media and his critics believe his appeal is as the professor against political correctness. His followers can be political, but from my perspective, they tend to be young men who are starving for meaning in a postmodern world. Referring to another piece of Peterson advice, he adds: Clean your room isnt an alt-right slogan. Obviously.

Another reader, David Scahill, a lawyer from Galway who is based in Iceland, admires what he sees as Petersons rigour and common-sense ethos, but would not describe himself as a fan. I find his reliance on conjecture and over-simplification of big ideas quite offputting, he says. He often lacks clarity and by overcomplicating simple ideas to sound more profound. This has the effect of rendering his advice insincere.

Young men arent the only ones responding to Peterson. Zoe Marron, a mother of three from Magherafelt, Co Derry, became a fan after her son received 12 Rules for Life as a Christmas present. We as a family have continued to listen to his many interviews, lectures and podcasts and through our own discussions we have grown very fond of him for many reasons, she says, mentioning his love and dedication to his family and the way that his book has helped so many people around the world to take personal responsibility for their lives.

The Peterson phenomenon grew from an alternative media ecosystem that developed online before going mainstream. Uploading lectures to YouTube enabled him to reach an audience far beyond the lecture hall.

Mike Sheridan, the Irish broadcaster and journalist, felt a backlash from that following after interviewing Peterson for his show The Delve. Although Sheridan was nowhere near as confrontational with his guest as Cathy Newman was in an infamous encounter on Channel 4 News, he still got blowback from the Canadians more aggressive fans. The comments were all about my appearance, my voice; theres literally thousands of comments talking about the side of my head, he says.

Sheridan suggests that for some of Petersons admirers, his word has become a kind of gospel, where his political views are accepted as readily as his psychological insights. I think theres elements of his fanbase that wont look into it for themselves and wont do their own research, and I think it becomes a case of confirmation bias, he says.

Rather than tempering chaos, Peterson can be a provocateur. Take a 2017 tweet in which he asked his 1.7 million followers: Do feminists avoid criticising Islam because they unconsciously long for masculine dominance? He prefaced this as a question to get crucified for asking.

In a 2018 New York Times interview, he recommended enforced monogamy as a salve to male violence. Furious comparisons to Gilead, Margaret Atwoods patriarchal dystopia, inevitably ensued. In a blog post, Peterson rejected the suggestion he was advocating the arbitrary dealing out of damsels to Incels, short for involuntary celibates. He pointed to the terms use in fields such as anthropology: Enforced monogamy means socially promoted, culturally inculcated monogamy, as distinct from the police-state assignation of woman to man, he wrote. Yet for a public figure who urges his followers to be precise with their speech (Rule 10), moments like these appear contradictory.

People like Peterson effectively fan the flames of political-correctness-gone-mad rhetoric. They bemoan a culture of outrage and offence, but they are in fact the ringmasters of the outrage economy, says Dr Debbie Ging, associate professor of media studies at Dublin City University. Ging has researched the misogynistic cultures of the online manosphere for whom Peterson is a hero  an accolade he distances himself from.

Ging points to inconsistencies in his philosophy: On the one hand he blames feminism and the sexual revolution for mens failure to find a female mate; on the other hand, he claims that women are genetically hardwired to seek out alpha males, who are in short supply.

Peterson says that the feminine is chaos and the masculine is order. Even if you decide to entertain such populist bombast, he is ignoring the fact that wars, environmental destruction, crime and violence  in other words, all of lifes worst chaos  are perpetrated predominantly by men. Its generally women who clean up the mess and restore order.

With two months to go until publication, Beyond Order is already in the Amazon charts. In a not-yet post-pandemic world characterised by uncertainty, a crisis of truth and an ever-deeper merging of the offline with the online, the Peterson phenomenon shows little sign of waning.
About a thousand far-right activists marched through Kyiv on Friday to honour Stepan Bandera, a controversial Ukrainian independence leader who died in 1959.

The march was held in the Ukrainian capital on what would have been Bandera's 112nd birthday.

Bandera remains a deeply divisive figure in Ukraine, glorified by many in western Ukraine as a freedom fighter but dismissed by millions in eastern and south-eastern Ukraine as a traitor to the Soviet Union's struggle against the occupying German army.

He was a leader of Ukraine's nationalist movement in the 1930s and 1940s, which included an insurgent army that fought alongside Nazi soldiers during part of the Second World War.

(Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed; only the image & headline may have been reworked by www.republicworld.com)
Opinion Article

2 January 2021

Not every company out there has your best interests at heart, but it isn't always easy to tell if - or when - you've been deceived. Without asking the right questions, hoteliers could be misled into comparing apples to oranges when requesting results from technology partners, leading them to make rash decisions based on inaccurate information. No one wants to fall for misleading messages, so here are three of the most common ways hotels can be duped by dishonest collaborators.

1. Misleading Attribution Windows

Hotels thrive on direct bookings, and anything that can drive consumers to their website is beneficial to their business. This is why hoteliers strike up partnerships with other companies to promote their properties, paying a commission to these partners for any bookings they drive to the hotel's site. These companies lay claim to a period of time between when a consumer is directed to the hotel's site and when they make a booking, called an attribution window.

If a purchase is made within that time the partner earns a commission on the booking. But what if a company is caught manipulating their conversion rates in order to score bigger commissions, without actually benefiting the hotel?

This situation is far from uncommon, but one instance in particular stands out. A hotel in Pennsylvania expressed concern that a regional publisher promoting destinations in the Poconos was falsifying its numbers in order to inflate its commission earnings. This hotel estimated it was paying $75,000 each year to the publisher for its referral commissions, but the property's leadership wasn't sure if this publisher was actually responsible for driving significant enough conversions to justify such an expense.

The first issue this property faced was that the operators in charge did not understand attribution windows and how they impacted the commissions they were paying. In normal circumstances, an attribution window of roughly 30 days would be an acceptable time frame to prove the publisher influenced a guest's booking decision.

However, it quickly came to light that the company in question inflated its attribution window to 83 days, meaning the hotel was paying commissions to the publisher on bookings it had not made and were booked nearly three months after guests visited the website from completely different channels.

Marketing your hotel is expensive, considering hoteliers are expected to pay for their website, search engine optimization tools, Google ads, content writers, digital strategists, and more. Because costs add up it is important for hoteliers to understand which channels are the most efficient at attracting guests and trim the fat where necessary. The guest booking journey is long, with consumers often visiting between 10 and 15 websites before making a hotel booking. This property was paying commissions to a website their guests visited up to 83 days before buying a room, meaning there was scant data to prove the publisher was influencing bookings simply based on guest visits.

Any hoteliers who question the worth of their digital partners should research their attribution windows and obtain any figures from these partners in writing. The attribution window in this example was egregious, and after renegotiating their program the hotel eventually severed ties with the organization after seeing the true value of their relationship.

2. Hidden Media Markups

Digital marketing can be a treacherous arena for business to invest in because it is so easy to conceal unscrupulous behavior behind claims of privileged information and operators' lack of knowledge. In some cases, this allows digital marketers to funnel a portion of a hotel's marketing budget directly into their pockets using hidden markup tactics, costing hoteliers more over time while less and less of their money actually goes toward marketing.

Here is how it works: A hotel approaches a digital marketing agency with a budget to be put toward paid media each month. Then, the agency marks up the media behind the scenes, taking a portion of these funds for themselves before activating the remaining available budget for advertising. This leaves only a portion of the hotel's investment for actual media coverage while the digital marketing partner earns an abnormally high margin off of your marketing investment.

Even large hotel companies can fall prey to hidden media markup costs as they get lost in the shuffle while advertising their properties online. One such organization was stuck investing tens of thousands of dollars into digital media, only to find their digital partner was collecting a 15 percent media markup on top of a 10 percent management fee, costing them significantly more money than what they agreed on.

After switching to an organization with a larger upfront management fee with no media markup, this company was able to save a considerable amount of money while ensuring their investment was used for its intended purpose.

This issue stems almost entirely from a lack of transparency with digital marketing partners. Hoteliers should request direct access to their advertising and analytics accounts and a definitive breakdown of where their funds are being allocated if they want to ensure their investment is used as intended. In extreme circumstances it may be necessary to obtain an itemized list of digital marketing expenses.

Hoteliers should also be wary of digital marketing companies with oddly low upfront fees, as these companies could be fishing for rash hotel partners with the goal of recouping their full expenses through hidden markups. The best way for hoteliers to avoid being taken advantage of is to frequently ask questions about where their media spend is going and how effective it has been. If your hotel is investing heavily in media and seeing less than expected return, it's possible your partner could be skimming some of your contributions from behind your back.

Hoteliers should clearly articulate what they expect from their digital partners at the outset of their relationship. Then, they have to watch their books closely for any misconduct.

3. The Website Lemon

Your website is usually what introduces travelers and prospective guests to your hotel. This makes your site a valuable piece of online real estate, and it is not advisable to build one at a bargain. Still, there are many vendors out there who are willing to build a website for your business at a reduced rate - only to crush you later beneath nickel-and-dime charges after the site is already in operation. Schemes like this can trap hotels into paying higher costs over time that quickly spiral out of control, or may even force some operators to settle on a poor online presence in order to avoid feeding the beast.

These website scams target hoteliers who are fixated on driving all of their costs to the bottom. Underhanded vendors will work with these operators for a modest fee, building a rigid site that works in the short term. Then, when the hotel's owner or operators ask for any modifications to the site they are swarmed with multiple charges, often for each individual change. Some vendors will even charge business owners extra to provide the ability to manage their own content on the website they own and paid for.

One hotel in particular finished building a new website for $4,000, and management knew straight away that it needed ongoing maintenance before it would reach their desired specifications. After working with the property to assemble a list of foundational, necessary changes and forwarding it to the website partner, the property received an invoice for $7,300 before the partner would even consider making any improvements.

This is a classic bait-and-switch, but the key difference is that these seemingly low-cost agency partners have altered their goal to control your online identity while earning money off of your hopes for improvement. They know that a hotel's website is the key to capturing direct bookings and remaining competitive, regardless of the market, and that operators are desperate to remain relevant. Once you have reached this point there is no going forward. Your only option is to choose a new partner and start over, or risk showing your willingness to submit to ongoing, needless expenses.

The most dangerous aspect of this scam is that it impacts all chain scales. Even large brands are at risk because it is impossible for large organizations such as these to police every one of their property's websites. In addition, hoteliers with branded relationships often still work with independent and boutique hotels, who face the most risk of falling prey to buying the equivalent of a lemon website that never quite works right, no matter how much money you throw at it.

The old adage still rings true: If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Websites remain a substantial investment for any business, and cutting corners when developing online real estate is just as risky as it is in reality. Hoteliers are used to looking at their finances on a month-to-month basis, and they should continue to do so in order to hold their digital partners accountable for their actions. If any of these partnerships show signs of dishonest or unreliable behavior it is always less costly to cut ties early that it is to conduct business as usual in the hopes that one day the situation will improve.
Nearly half of Britons think the BBC no longer represents their values, new research suggests.

The survey, by polling organisation YouGov, found that 48 per cent said the BBC does not adequately represent their views, with the figure rising to 51 per cent in the North of England.

A further 47 per cent of people in Scotland were unhappy with the BBC's coverage, while the figure was 58 per cent among Brexit voters.

The findings come just a day after the broadcaster's complaints unit found a documentary about Dominic Cummings presented by Emily Maitlis broke accuracy rules.

Investigators concluded the programme broke the rules by implying Mr Johnson's former chief aid was prejudiced against Muslims.

Nearly half of Britons think the BBC no longer represents their values, new research suggests

The new survey, carried out for The Times newspaper, also found only four per cent of Britons think the BBC's values have become more like theirs.

By contrast 33 per cent said the corporation's values had become less like theirs.

Overall, older men living outside London and the South-east were most likely to be unhappy with the BBC's perceived values.

The findings of the survey come ahead of a review by the Government into public sector broadcasting.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has previously made no secret of his desire to reform the corporation.

There is speculation the licence fee could be scrapped.

A previous row was provoked over the suggested appointment of former Daily Telegraph editor and fierce critic Lord Charles Moore as BBC chairman.

Sir Robbie Gibb, who was senior at the BBC before becoming Theresa May's director of communications in Downing Street, told The Times: 'These findings show why the BBC's director-general, Tim Davie, is right to make improving impartiality his No 1 priority.'

The survey, by polling organisation YouGov, found that 48 per cent said the BBC does not adequately represent their views, with the figure rising to 51 per cent in the north of England. Pictured: BBC director-general Tim Davie

Mr Davie said last month an initiative to increase staff diversity was 'mission-critical'.

A BBC spokesman told The Times that 'recent research' showed people still align with the corporation's 'core mission to inform, educate and entertain.

They added that new director general Tim Davie had made it 'very clear' the BBC must work hard to represent 'a very broad section of views.'

The BBC's documentary on Cummings, called Taking Control: The Dominic Cummings Story, risked misleading viewers by taking quotes from a paper by his think-tank about migration out of context, the unit said.

The documentary reported from a paper titled 'How Demographic Decline and its financial consequences will sink the European Dream' published by Mr Cummings' New Frontiers Foundation in 2005.

The extract included in the programme stated: 'The consequences of economic stagnation coinciding with rising Muslim immigration cannot fill anyone familiar with European history with anything other than a sense of apprehension, at least, about the future of the Continent'.

According to the Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU), the quotation 'tended to support the impression' that Mr Cummings was prejudiced against Muslims.

The BBC lags behind Channel 5, Channel 4 and ITV among viewers for its perceived impartiality, according to previous research by Ofcom

The BBC is the least impartial main TV news provider, according to viewers

Instead the ECU argued that the quotation from the think-tank paper 'stood in a context which pointed to Europe's relative difficulty in integrating immigrants, rather than anything connected with Islam, as the source of tension'.

The paper itself concluded that 'there is little reason to be optimistic about Europe's capacity to avoid a growth of extremist political activity, or its desire to avoid the traditional response of polities in crisis  blaming foreigners'.

In the ECU's judgment, 'the quotation would have conveyed a different impression in the programme if more had been done to reflect its original context'.

'As this risked misleading viewers, there was a breach of the BBC's standards of accuracy, and this aspect of the complaint was upheld,' it added.

There was a huge row in May after Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis (pictured) delivered a highly critical monologue about the Dominic Cummings lockdown controversy

Research by regulator Ofcom last November found that viewers think the BBC is the least impartial of the main TV news providers.

It lagged behind Channel 5, Channel 4 and ITV for its coverage.

Only 58 per cent believed the corporation's coverage is impartial, a fall of 1 per cent on 2019.

This decline was enough to see it drop to the bottom of the list below Channel 5, which saw its own figure rise from 58 to 61 per cent in the year.
PM Narendra Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 2 said that students of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Sambalpur should use their managerial skills to give a global identity to the rich textiles, arts and tourism of Odisha.

Speaking at the foundation-stone laying ceremony of IIM Sambalpur's permanent campus, PM Modi said in a virtual address that these students will be able to give global recognition to the state's Sambalpuri textile and Cuttack Ikkat fabrics.

"This campus has given a new foundation for Odishas youth and will give a new identity to Odisha in management education. I hope these IIM graduates will help India in the Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant) mission," the prime minister said.

PM Modi also spoke about how these IIM graduates could find opportunities in setting up new-age startups in the region and lead them to resolve real-life problems.

"Despite COVID-19, India has produced new unicorns. When it comes to startups, these firms are now being developed in Tier 2/3 cities of India. These startups need good managers and IIM Sambalpur graduates will be able to make use of these new opportunities," PM Modi added.

The first batch of Post Graduate Programme (PGP) with 49 students commenced at IIM Sambalpur on September 23, 2015. But the institution was functioning from a temporary campus.

During his address, PM Modi also spoke about the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and how it will help India's youth become future-ready.

The Cabinet on July 29, 2020 had given its nod to NEP 2020. Consequently, the Human Resource Development Ministry was renamed as the Ministry of Education.

NEP 2020 proposes far-reaching changes in the system of education, not only in India. It also wants a self-sufficient domestic ranking system for Indian educational institutes.

Also read: All your NEP 2020-related questions resolved

The prime minister said that NEP is a reflection of IIM Sambalpur's motto which is innovation, integrity and inclusion.

"I hope you students will realise the potential of NEP which aims to give holistic education," he added.

PM Modi said that compared to 2014 when there were only 13 IIMs, now there are now 20 IIMs. He added that these institutes will bring out a big talent pool that will help India expand the Atmanirbhar Bharat mission.

Talking about the COVID-led changes in businesses, the prime minister said that it is essential for the students to be future-ready.

"In management, there is no longer the top-heavy approach being followed in companies. It is all about collaborative management. You will find that apart from people, bots and algorithms will also be your team-mates. So you need to prepare yourself for these changes," he added.

Due to remote working to prevent the spread of COVID-19 there is a greater reliance on technology to get mundane tasks done quicker and efficiently.
The servicemen of the armed forces of Azerbaijan, who participated in the Second Karabakh war, met after the end of hostilities.

The video posted on the Internet shows that both soldiers were seriously injured during the battles for the liberation of Karabakh, where their father's and grandfathers homes are. In particular, one of them lost a leg, and the other - an eye.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
(CNN)  Iranian conservative cleric Ayatollah Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah Yazdi died in Tehran on Friday, according to Iran's state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

The Imam Khomeini Educational and Research Institute, which Mesbah Yazdi headed, said he had been hospitalized over the past few days with a disease to his digestive system.

The prominent cleric played a major part in the 1979 uprising that overthrew the Western-backed Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, according to Iran's state-run Press TV.

Mesbah Yazdi was seen as a hardliner and anti-West in general, including holding anti-US positions. An outspoken critic of a liberal press, he was known to have ratified crackdowns on domestic opposition, feminism and gender equality.

According to regional experts, he was a spiritual mentor to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former Iranian President who served from 2005 to 2013.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani offered condolences on Mesbah Yazdi's passing, according to Press TV, which reported Mesbah Yazdi was 85 years old.

Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency said Mesbah Yazdi was close to the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Mesbah Yazdi was a member of the Assembly of Experts  the body responsible for electing and monitoring the performance of Iran's Supreme Leader  and the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution, Press TV reported.

This story was first published on CNN.com "Iranian conservative cleric dies, according to state-run media"
A woman said her 2005 Chevrolet Impala broke down and she left it near the Bonny Oaks Industrial Park. She said she left her wallet in the car and, while it was there, someone entered her unlocked vehicle and stole her wallet and its contents.

* * *

The office manager at Southern Window and Gutter on Cromwell Road said sometime over the weekend they had a company vehicle broken into. There were items taken, however the vehicle had apparently been damaged during the burglary attempt. Police observed damage to the driver side door handle. Police also saw heavy damage to the steering column and ignition. It appeared that someone had attempted to use a screw driver to work the ignition. The vehicle sustained damage to the point that it was inoperable.

* * *

A resident of Hickory Valley Road said sometime in the past four someone stole his Kimber 45 from the night stand of his bedroom. He said his girlfriend Amanda Colbert had brought in another man and he thinks he may be the one who stole his weapon. He said he did not see it taken and does not know which date it was taken. He described it as being a semi-automatic 45 caliber with silver frame and blue steel side, night vision and custom grips.

* * *

Officers checked out a Theft from Motor Vehicle at a hotel at 6240 Airpark Dr. Upon arrival, police observed a silver Honda Accord with both doors open. Officers waited on the owner, who reported that his Glock 43 had been stolen from the glove box of the Accord. Officers cleared the vehicle, and subsequently allowed the man to look through his car to see if any others were stolen. He said that was it. He said his vehicle was locked and no signs of forced entry were observed

* * *

A resident of Butterfly Drive said at some point during the early morning hours an unknown suspect broke into his vehicle. He said that the thief took a black gym bag which contained his wallet. It contained $150 in cash, his Tennessee driver's license, and various credit cards. He also said inside the bag was a set of keys to his residence and vehicle. The vehicle was left unlocked in his driveway. There was no damage to his vehicle.

* * *

Police checked out the theft of a trailer at Arrow Supply Company, 2209 Hamill Road. The business owner said one evening someone attempted to remove a trailer from the parking area. He said he has partnered with another business that uses the parking lot to store transport vans. The owner of that business recently installed cameras on the building to secure the lot. He said at 4:35 a.m. the other man had received a notification that was triggered by the cameras on the building. He immediately responded to the building and discovered someone had cut the lock on a 7x 20 car hauling trailer owned by Arrow Supply. The unknown suspect was able to remove the trailer from the area using his vehicle. The trailer owner said when reviewing the surveillance footage, he could see what appeared to be a White male parking a multi-colored pickup in a side lot then walking to the trailer, cutting the lock, then rolling the trailer away from the vehicle it had been locked to. He said the trailer had not been damaged in the attempted theft.

* * *

A woman said she went to sleep at her Shallowford Road apartment about 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning and woke up around 5:50 a.m. to her car alarm going off. She then discovered that her front door to the apartment was damaged and it looked like someone had tried to kick it in. There was damage to the door and frame and she said it was going to cost about $1,000 to repair. She said nothing had been stolen from the car and there was no damage to it. She said her neighbor had their rear view mirror stolen from their car.

* * *

In a case at 6032 Dayton Blvd., a business owner said someone stole the Miller Spectrum 375 X-Treme plasma cutter from a shed behind the business. He said it is usually locked and only when they are working is the shed unlocked. He said he had a few people working there over nights and it could have happened on one of those nights. The tool is worth $1.500.

* * *

A woman at a house on Vance Avenue said she was watching TV at night around 8:30 p.m. and heard someone trying to remove the screen off a window located next to her back door. The officer did observe that the screen was partially removed from the rear window, however there was no damage. She did not have any description on the suspect. She wanted her house to be put on a watch list for a few weeks.

* * *

An officer walking into Walgreens on S. Broad Street observed a man exit the store and, as he walked pass the alarm detectors, they began to go off. Police detained the man and asked if he had taken anything from the store. He replied that he had not. Police discovered a "Spider Wire Alarm" tucked inside of his shirt. Walgreens said the Spider Alarm did not belong to them. Police searched the man and did not located any stolen merchandise.The man with the Spider Alarm informed officers he only wanted to see what it would do.
(Newser)  Spray-painted political messages have been left on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's house in Louisville, evidently demanding larger stimulus checks for Americans. McConnell opposes $2,000 payments and has prevented the Senate from voting on the issue. The graffiti was discovered Saturday morning, Fox News reports. House Speaker Nancy's Pelosi's home in San Francisco was similarly attacked. The messages left for McConnell included a misspelled "Where's my money" and "Mitch kills poor." Police are investigating but so far have no suspects in the crime, per the Courier Journal.

story continues below

"I've spent my career fighting for the First Amendment and defending peaceful protest," McConnell said in a statement, adding: "This is different. Vandalism and the politics of fear have no place in our society." Past protests at McConnell's home include one in September over his plans to quickly approve a Supreme Court nominee after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He said Saturday he hoped "this radical tantrum" hadn't inconvenienced his neighbors. "My wife and I have never been intimidated by this toxic playbook," his statement said. (Read more Mitch McConnell stories.)
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Just after 1pm on May 26, 1921, Daniel McAleese was having lunch with colleagues from the civil service in the Custom House, the landmark Georgian building on Dublins Quays. Between the starter and the main course, he and his fellow diners were engrossed in conversation, but suddenly they heard shouting.

I looked towards the door and saw that three young men had entered the room with pointed revolvers and had ordered all the occupants to put their hands up, the civil servant later recalled in a witness statement to the Bureau of Military History.

We were marched out in single file to the corridor where we joined a number of others, both of the staff and the public.

Meanwhile, several young men passed us carrying tins of petrol. One of the leaders announced that the Custom House was being set on fire and warned us against causing any commotion.

On the following day, the Irish Independent told how IRA volunteers saturated the offices with petrol and finally, as the crown forces were arriving, the fires were started, and spread with alarming rapidity.

Up to 120 IRA volunteers had stormed the building in one of the most spectacular events of the War of Independence. Five years after the Rising and the battle at the GPO, another Dublin landmark was destroyed along with centuries of public records.

McAleese told of the frantic scenes as the staff gathered in the corridor were initially barred from leaving through the door on to the street amid sounds of gunfire from outside. The fire was spreading rapidly through the upper floors, smoke billowed through the corridors, accompanied by the crackling of burning woodwork.

When McAleese and his colleagues finally got out, semi-blinded by smoke, he spotted Black and Tans with rifles and machine guns trained on the building. There were armoured cars and soldiers kneeling with rifles.

He had just got away from the burning building when a heavy fusillade opened up. All of us dropped to the ground and sought shelter between the cobblestones. For at least five minutes (or so it seemed) the armoured cars and machine guns pumped bullets towards the exit from the Custom House, which we had just left.

The attack, apparently carried out on the recommendation of Eamon de Valera, may have made a spectacular impact, but it proved costly for the IRA. Five volunteers were killed in the fighting, over 100 were arrested and three civilians also lost their lives.

The burning of the Custom House will be one of the events commemorated by the State in the next phase of the Decade of Centenaries this year.

Although 1921 ultimately brought peace in the conflict between British forces and the IRA in the 26 counties, culminating in the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December, the first half of the year brought intense violence, with more than 1,000 deaths.

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A year ago, the last government was engulfed in controversy when the then minister for justice Charlie Flanagan planned to hold a commemoration of the Royal Irish Constabulary, a police force that during the War of Independence included the Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries as well as Irish recruits.

At the end of the year, the Sinn Fein TD Brian Stanley attracted controversy and was given a rap on the knuckles by his leader Mary Lou MacDonald when he linked the fatal attack on Auxiliaries at the Kilmichael ambush of November 1920 with the killing of 18 British soldiers at Warrenpoint in 1979.

Symbolic act

If anything, the centenary events in 2021 have the potential to create more controversy.

A key point of potential difference is over who exactly is being commemorated. Is it about remembering just one side in the conflict represented by the old IRA, or will commemorations include the Royal Irish Constabulary, Black and Tans, and the hundreds of civilians who were also victims?

Catherine Martin is ultimately responsible for the national line-up of events as Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. She takes advice from an expert advisory group on Centenary Commemorations, chaired by the former Fine Gael senator Maurice Manning.

The group has recommended that a formal commemoration for all of those who lost their lives during the Struggle for Independence be held on July 11, or on a suitable date close to the centenary of the truce that ended the conflict.

A spokesperson for the Minister told Review: It is envisaged that this symbolic act of national commemoration will focus on themes of remembrance and reconciliation.

A ceremony remembering all the dead of the conflict will perhaps be an easier proposition than the specific event to commemorate the RIC that proved to be such a political disaster for Fine Gael last year.

Maurice Manning has said he hopes that the commemorations will not be hijacked by people with their own agendas.

I think the emphasis should be on the archives being opened, he says. The more we know about what happened, the more people can make up their own minds.

We are looking at history, not current affairs. The story has to be told  parts of it are brutal, parts of it are terrible, but thats the way it was.

Organisers of events may hope that it will be an opportunity for detached historical exploration, but inevitably contemporary politics will intrude. So many of the issues that were uppermost in 1921 remain contested.

In May 1921, the partition of Ireland came into effect and in the following month the six-counties Northern parliament was opened by King George V. In recent years, Brexit has again focused attention on the Border.

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How does our government mark the centenary of the creation of the Border and the birth of the Northern Irish state? Unionists want to celebrate the event, but nationalists by definition feel differently..

Partition is a particularly difficult one, says Manning. What we are hoping for is a major academic conference looking at partition and its consequences.

We are in the early stages of looking at the possibility of a major study focusing on the effects of partition on minorities on either side of the Border  Catholics in the North, and Protestants in the South.

In the North, centenary commemorations are likely to focus on the conciliatory speech of King George V in Belfast as the new Northern State came into being.

In his speech, he said: I speak from a full heart when I pray that my coming to Ireland today may prove to be the first step towards an end of strife amongst her people, whatever their race or creed. In that hope, I appeal to all Irishmen to pause, to stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation, to forgive and to forget, and to join in making for the land which they love a new era of peace, contentment, and goodwill.

The war-weary British prime minister David Lloyd George and the president of Dail Eireann Eamon De Valera doubtless had complex reasons for seeking peace a few days afterwards.

But the historian AJP Taylor credited the king with by far the greatest service performed by a British monarch in modern times.

With their resources stretched after two years of guerrilla warfare, the IRA was taken aback when Lloyd George sought peace, having placated Northern unionists with their own parliament.

Michael Collins is said to have remarked to a British official later on that the IRA could not have held out for much longer in the conflict, and said: When we were told of an offer of a truce we were astounded. We thought you must have gone mad.

During the first half of the year, the conflict had been most heavily concentrated on Munster and Dublin. According to the historian John Dorney, almost 500 people died in Munster and 300 in Dublin. Some areas were relatively quiet, with just nine deaths in Cavan and seven in Wicklow.

The violence frequently followed a pattern of attacks on the crown forces in ambushes or smaller scale assassinations. These were followed by reprisals by crown forces, where houses were burned down in the neighbourhood of ambushes, or republican sympathisers were targeted.

The reprisals could lead to counter-reprisals, with the IRA burning down the homes of the landed gentry, who were considered sympathetic to crown forces.

This year, attention is again likely to focus on the motivation for attacks on civilians suspected of being spies or informers for the British. There has been intense debate among historians about whether many of those targeted were spies in the conventional sense.

One of the high-profile cases was that of the Cork Protestant Mary Lindsay and her chauffeur, who were kidnapped by the IRA and shot dead in March 1921. They got wind of an impending ambush at Dripsey in Cork, and she reported it to police, leading to the arrest of IRA men. Lindsay and her driver were held hostage by republicans and the authorities were warned that the pair would be killed if the IRA prisoners were executed.

When the executions were carried out, the hostages were shot and secretly buried.

Maurice Manning says he hopes that as far as possible, events will be organised at a local level. In the early part of this year, they are likely to be curtailed by the pandemic.

Catherine Martin has approved funding of 50,000 for each local authority for the centenary commemorations in 2021.

Battle of Crossbarry

Among the events that are likely to be marked in March 2021 is the Battle of Crossbarry in Cork, when Tom Barrys flying column of more than 100 men were encircled by crown forces, but escaped in a fighting retreat, inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy.

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It will be intriguing to see how the present coalition of Fianna Fail under Micheal Martin and Fine Gael under Leo Varadkar marks the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921, which ultimately led to a bitter split in the dominant political party of the time, Sinn Fein. It was this divide that led to the Civil War in the following year.

The side that supported the Treaty of 1921 backed by Michael Collins, which gave 26 counties a limited form of independence, became Fine Gael; and many of those who opposed the treaty, led by Eamon de Valera, formed Fianna Fail.

Attention is again likely to focus on the personalities of the two great rivals of the time, Collins and De Valera. While Collins, who was assassinated in the following year, has been treated as the James Dean of Irish history  a glamorised figure who died young  De Valera never had the same Hollywood appeal, his reputation dulled by longevity.

During the second half of the year, attention will be drawn to the negotiations over the treaty.

Inside 10 Downing Street at the talks, the Irish delegation was ranged against a shrewd tactician in Lloyd George, alongside some of the political titans of the age including Winston Churchill and the leader of the Tories, Austen Chamberlain.

One of the secretaries to the delegation, Kathleen McKenna, described an impressive scene in Downing Street as Collins and his team rolled up for the talks.

The paths were lined along the route with Irish exiles, including nuns and clergymen reciting the rosary, singing hymns, exclaiming good wishes... There were tricolours, banners, flags, lengths of cloth and cardboard with wishes and slogans in Gaelic.

When he returned home with a deal in December, seen off from London by cheering crowds at Euston Station, Collins had to face the wrath of De Valera, who led the faction opposed to the Treaty.

In the momentous Treaty debates that followed in Dail Eireann, Collins said: In my opinion, it gives us freedom, not the ultimate freedom that all nations desire but the freedom to achieve it.

In a years time, in January 2022, two key events in the birth of the independent Irish State will be marked.

On January 7, 1922, the Dail ratified the treaty by 64 to 57 votes.

The State is likely to hold a ceremony to mark the centenary of the official handover of Dublin Castle to Collins on January 16, 1922. The event symbolised the end of British rule in Ireland.

When Michael Collins arrived at Dublin Castle as head of the new Provisional Government the Lord Lieutenant FitzAlan is reported to have said: You are seven minutes late, Mr Collins.

The rebel leader replied: Weve been waiting over 700 years, you can have the extra seven minutes.

Read More

Key events in 1921 and January 1922

March 19, 1921

An IRA unit led by Tom Barry, fights off the British army in one of the biggest engagements of the War of Independence at Crossbarry, Co Cork.

May 3

The implementation of the Government of Ireland Act brings about partition of

the island.

May 25

The Burning of the Custom House in Dublin.

June 22

King George V opens the Northern Irish Parliament with a conciliatory speech

in Belfast.

July 10

Sixteen people, most of them Catholics, are killed in sectarian strife in Belfasts Bloody Sunday.

July 11

The Anglo-Irish Truce brings an end to the conflict.

December 6

The Anglo-Irish Treaty is signed in Downing Street.

January 7, 1922

The Dail ratifies the treaty by 64 votes to 57.

January 16

Dublin Castle is handed over to the new Irish Provisional Government.
Brian Austin Green is ready for new beginnings with the new year, after filing for divorce from Megan Fox in 2020.

And the former teen heartthrob appears to be moving on with a recent new romance of his own.

He wished for 'love and togetherness' Friday in a shirtless New Year's Instagram post during a romantic Hawaiian getaway with new flame Sharna Burgess at the resort where he married his soon-to-be ex-wife.

Shirtless new year: Brian Austin Green wished for 'love and togetherness' Friday in a shirtless New Year's Instagram post during a romantic Hawaiian getaway with new flame Sharna Burgess at the resort where he married Megan Fox

The 47-year-old leaned against the edge of an infinity pool with palm trees in the background, writing: 'Happy New Year to everyone!! Let's all find the connection to love and togetherness again :)'

He was previously spotted flying out of Los Angeles International Airport with Burgess, 35, on Christmas Day.

Green and the Dancing with the Stars pro have since taken to social media with similar photos from their getaway, without actually showing each other.

He posted a selfie from a seaside patio on New Year's Eve, writing: 'Aside from my kids nothing reconnects me to life like the sound of the ocean.'

Romantic getaway: The 47-year-old was previously spotted flying out of Los Angeles International Airport with Burgess, 35, on Christmas Day

Not so subtle: Green and the Dancing with the Stars pro have since taken to social media with similar photos from their getaway, without actually showing each other

Best vacation ever: Green shared a selfie from the same seaside patio as Burgess, who wrote: 'First vacation in a long time, best vacation in a lifetime'

Very new: Burgess teased her new relationship to Us Weekly in early December: 'I actually am not on the market anymore. But it's very new and very, you know, it's dating, essentially. No one's calling us a relationship yet' (pictured in October, 2020)

Burgess shared a snap from the same patio, captioned: 'First vacation in a long time, best vacation in a lifetime. Sending you all love. Stay safe and stay healthy. 2021 let's go.'

She wrote in another smiley Instagram post: 'I see things coming into my world that I have been manifesting for a long time. I believe that's because I am finally ready for them. The Universe... she knows. She always has.'

A source recently told People that the relationship is pretty new, revealing that Green 'has been seeing Sharna for a few weeks.'

The insider added: 'They are casually dating and having a good time. They are currently vacationing together. Brian was happy to leave LA for a few days.'

Burgess teased her new relationship to Us Weekly in early December: 'It's been really awesome. I actually am not on the market anymore. But it's very new and very, you know, it's dating, essentially. No one's calling us a relationship yet.'

Favorite spot: Their recent holiday getaway took place at the Four Seasons on the Island of Hawaii, where he tied the knot with Fox, 34, in June of 2010 (pictured in December, 2019)

Moving on: A source recently told HollywoodLife of the Jennifer's Body star's reaction to Green's new romance: 'Megan is very happy that Brian appears to be moving on and dating. It really does not bother her at all' (pictured in October, 2014)

Custody battle: It comes after he and Fox both filed for divorce on the day before Thanksgiving, during which he requested joint legal and physical custody of their three sons Noah Shannon, eight, Bodhi Ransom, six, and Journey River, four

The Australian dancer explained that they had to social-distance while dating, including 'separate blankets and sitting six feet apart' at a park, adding: 'How funny would it be if I actually found the love of my life during a pandemic?'

Their recent holiday getaway took place at the Four Seasons on the Island of Hawaii, where he tied the knot with Fox, 34, in June of 2010.

A source recently told HollywoodLife of the Jennifer's Body star's reaction to Green's new romance: 'Megan is very happy that Brian appears to be moving on and dating. It really does not bother her at all.'

It comes after he and Fox both filed for divorce on the day before Thanksgiving, during which he requested joint legal and physical custody of their three sons Noah Shannon, eight, Bodhi Ransom, six, and Journey River, four.

They announced their split back in May, and she's since been getting serious with her Midnight in the Switchgrass co-star Machine Gun Kelly, 30.
Ferry rates at Holbox to stay the same, at least for now

Holbox, Q.R.  Ferry rates to and from the island of Holbox will not increase, says the services company head. Ismael Moguel Canto, head of the Holbox Express ferry company that makes the runs, says there will be no increase in the price of the crossings to the island. At least not for now, and not for locals.

Moguel Canto says that the company intends to maintain the rates they have had since 2014, however, they do intend to analyze a feasible increase in the first quarter of 2021. Moguel says if ferry crossing rates are increased, it would be reflected only on tourist tickets.

Moguel Canto mentioned that the decision was made in a common agreement with the other ferry crossing company Los Nueve Hermanos. He says for now, they have agreed not to increase the price despite the increase in the price of fuel.

As it stands now, the cost is 120 pesos for tourists and 80 pesos for locals with municipal voter identification. He pointed out that despite the COVID-19 pandemic, national tourism is gradually resuming, which is why they are putting off a possible rate increase.
Minnie Mouse will always be a princess to Mickey. A few years after Walt Disney created to beloved and iconic Mickey Mouse, he introduced the world to one of Mickeys best friends, Minnie.

Since then, these characters starred in a number of short films, television shows, and movies, with their love being the thing connecting these adventures. Heres what we know about Mickey and Minnie Mouses relationship.

One of Mickey Mouses best friends is Minnie Mouse

Theyre two of the most iconic cartoon characters in television history. According to E Online, The first time Minnie appeared alongside Mickey was in a 1929 short called Plane Crazy. In it, Mickey invites Minnie along for a ride in his plane. When he kisses her mid-flight, she parachutes out of the plane.

Over the years Minnie has often been the impetus of the story for Mickey; the goal or prize hes fighting to obtain, Disney writer and historian Keith Gluck said, according to the Disney Parks Blog, adding, Minnie has also demonstrated that she can be quite independent when she wants to be.

Since their on-screen romance first began, this duo has gone on plenty of adventures with each other and with their friends. The common thread for all of their stories was the love they had for one another.

For one holiday special, Minnie Mouse sold her family heirloom to pay for a harmonica case for Mickey. Mickey on the other hand sold his harmonica to give Minnie a chain for her watch. For another, they portrayed the characters Bob Cratchit and Mrs. Cratchit.

RELATED: 1 Character From Frozen Shares the Same Name as a Villain From Disneys Zootopia  Well, Kind of

Mickey and Minnie Mouse already got married in private life

According to Mickey Mouse Fandom, Walt Disney stated that Mickey and Minnie Mouse got married in private life, but never are they actually wed during a cartoon. There was one cartoon where Mickey dreamed about married life with Minnie Mouse.

That was a 1932 production titled, Mickeys Nightmare. In it, Mickey dreamed of marrying his sweetheart and having about 20 children with her. For all the possible joys of children, a brood this size turns the dream into a nightmare.

With their relationship going strong for over 80 years, the nightmare didnt shake Mickey too much. Aside from that Mickey and Minnie Mouse often appear smooching in cartoons and while greeting guests at the Disney Parks, including Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.

Disney Channels Mickey Mouse Shorts | Image by Disney Channel via Getty Images

RELATED: Donald Duck Turned 85-Years-Old and Disney Fans Are Quacking up at the Jokes

Mickey Mouse stars in a new series available on Disneys streaming platform

Now, Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, Donald, and Daisy are set to embark on more adventures. These are thanks to the Disney+ original and exclusive series. This show features new songs and the same amination style as the Mickey Mouse cartoons, The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse.

For fans of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, head to Disneys subscription service. There, television shows like Mickey Mouse and The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse are available for binge-watching.

Episodes of The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse are available for streaming on Disney+, with new adventures premiering on a weekly basis.
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YPSILANTI, MI  Gabriels Cheese Steak Hoagie has been serving up one of southeast Michigans favorite Philly-style sandwiches for more than 60 years.

Were just big on fair price and high quality food, thats what weve always done, Owner Donny Ballard said.

The Ypsilanti restaurant, open since 1959, has been able to keep its lunch  a cheesesteak sandwich, bag of chip and a pop  under $10 for decades because of its unwavering commitment to quality and honesty, Ballard said.

We have a very limited menu so we do it right  90% of our sales is that cheesesteak, so to have a limited menu and be around for 60 years says a lot, Ballard said. We give a very big portion for a small price and I think over the years people have come to trust us.

The cheesesteak is packed to the brim with thin-sliced ribeye, in between a soft bun and topped with a choice of grilled onions, American cheese, mushrooms or other toppings.

People talk about how its just like how it is in Philadelphia, Ballard said. Customers from there will say this is just as good or better. The biggest compliment I always get is how good that quality of ribeye always is.

Keeping the price affordable is also a plus, Ballard said.

Most of our competitors are charging $1.75 more per cheesesteak and theyre not even giving them that high of quality steak, he said. We feel like were doing right by giving a very authentic product at a very, very fair price.

The restaurant has attracted dozens of new customers, Ballard said, crediting the community support over the course of the pandemic.

Weve gotten so many new customers because even the new ones go out and tell their friends. It feels really good to get the support that we have, Ballard said.

The restaurant never opened its doors for dine-in throughout the pandemic, and remains open for take-out by stopping by or calling ahead at 734-483-5846.

Gabriels Cheese Steak Hoagies, 2585 E. Michigan Ave. is open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sundays. The restaurant also has a second location at 1919 N. Wayne Road in Westland.

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Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky brought in the new year in style on Friday.

The Thor actor, 37, and his wife, 44, celebrated the end of 2020 with an epic space pirate-themed bash at his brother Liam's new $6.5million mansion in Byron Bay.

The star-studded guest list included Liam's model girlfriend Gabriella Brooks, The Voice host Renee Bargh and DJ Fisher.

Scroll down for video

Happy New Year! On Friday, Chris Hemsworth, 37, and Elsa Pataky, 44, brought in the New Year in style with an epic space pirate-themed bash surrounded by friends and family, which was held at his brother Liam's house

In a picture shared by the Thor actor himself, Spanish-born beauty Elsa was seen beaming in a jaw-dropping pirate costume which showed off her slender pins and svelte figure beautifully.

She donned a fluorescent pink wig, a pirate hat and glitter on her face, while she accessorised with eye-catching costume jewellery.

Chris looked utterly fabulous in a shiny multi-coloured shirt, which he unbuttoned down to his pecks to give just a cheeky flash of his ripped torso.

Making the effort! Elsa was seen beaming in a jaw-dropping pirate costume which showed off her slender pins and svelte figure beautifully

Stunner! While Liam wasn't pictured on the day, his jaw-dropping girlfriend Gabriella Brooks (right) looked like a million dollars in a glitzy gold ensemble in a photo shared by a pal

He teamed his look with a pair of white shorts some sunglasses.

While Liam wasn't pictured on the day, his jaw-dropping girlfriend Gabriella looked like a million dollars in a glitzy gold ensemble in a photo shared by a pal.

The sleek number showed off her sun-kissed pins, and glazed over her tiny frame beautifully.

She teamed her look with a strong red lipstick, and walked barefoot as she basked in the Byron Bay sunshine.

Wild time! Elsa partied the night away alongside popular Australian DJ Fisher (centre)

Here come the girls! Luke Hemsworth's wife Samantha (far right) looked stunning in her pirate gear, wearing a frilled white frock which she teamed with a flamboyant hat

Meanwhile, Luke Hemsworth's wife Samantha looked stunning in her pirate gear, wearing a frilled white frock which she teamed with a flamboyant hat.

Also in attendance was Renee Bargh, who looked absolutely incredible for the space pirate-themed event.

She wore a sequinned black bra, silver hot pants, a cape and goggles.

She teamed her sassy look with a pair of snakeskin boots, and carried a fake silver space gun in her hand as she posed for photos with her jaw-dropping pals.

A pal of Renee known as 'Blondie the DJ' - who provided the tunes at the shindig - also shared a string of unseen videos of the gang dancing the night away to the sounds of Abba.

In one video, Renee could be seen dropping to the floor while shaking her waist with a pal, before beaming at the camera.

Style icons! Also in attendance was Renee Bargh (far left) who looked absolutely incredible for the space pirate-themed event, wearing a sequinned black bra, silver hot pants, a cape and goggles

Dancing Queen! In one video, Renee could be seen dropping to the floor while shaking her waist with a pal, before beaming at the camera

He's got the moves: In front of Renee was Chris' hunky PT Luke Zocchi, who whipped out all sorts of wild dance moves underneath the vibrant disco lights

Pals for life! Luke (far right) has been training Thor actor Chris for years

Wild! Renee and her pals were seen dancing the night away to the sounds of Abba

In front of her was Chris' hunky personal trainer Luke Zocchi, who whipped out all sorts of wild dance moves underneath the vibrant disco lights.

Chris and Elsa only recently celebrated their ten year anniversary, sharing touching tributes to each other online.

'10 years together! Looking forward to the advancements of modern medicine and science and enjoying a couple hundred more!' Chris sweetly wrote.

'Here's to many more years of wonderful times, love you always and forever @chrishemsworth,' his wife added.
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Christmas has never been the same for Calab Lucketts family since that fateful day in 2016. At a time when many families gather to celebrate, his loved ones were forced to plan his funeral.

Calabs mother, Jennifer Schwartz, and his aunt, Nancy Byrd, are CNAs who work hard to provide for their families. And that year was no exception. They worked 16-hour shifts and, to make extra money for the holidays, they worked on Christmas Day. The plan was for their families to celebrate together later in the week. But they never got the chance.

Calab Luckett

Every year, we relive the heartache, Nancy told Dateline. My nephew had so much life ahead of him. And it was all taken away from him in an instant.

Calab Luckett, who lived in Evansville, Indiana, was just 18 years old when he was shot and killed on Christmas Day at Parkside Terrace, now known as Woodland Park Apartments, on Sunburst Boulevard.

Nancy told Dateline that her nephew had been visiting friends at the complex that weekend, since his mother would be working. On Christmas Eve, Calab and his mother spoke on the phone, discussing their holiday plans for later that week. It was the last time she would speak with her son.

Shes completely broken never been the same since that day, Nancy said tearfully. We both feel so much guilt about working that day. But were not wealthy. We struggle every day. So we were hoping that money would give our families the Christmas they deserved.

Nancy told Dateline that both their families had struggled financially for years. Each child who graduated high school had hopes of being the one who went to college, landed a good job and helped pull their families out of poverty. Calab was one of them.

He finished high school early and planned to go to college, Nancy said. Hed had his struggles and issues, but he knew he wanted to make a better life for himself. And for his family.

But the day after Christmas, Calabs family would receive the call that shattered their lives forever.

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His mom got a call from one of his friends who lived there, Nancy told Dateline. A body had been found in one of the vacant apartments. And this friend believed it could be Calab.

Calabs mother rushed to the scene where she ultimately ended up identifying her 18-year-old sons body by his tattoos.

Detective Kyle Campbell with the Evansville Police Department told Dateline that Calab had been shot and killed inside the vacant apartment on December 25. His body was found the next day by a maintenance worker.

My nephew laid there and bled out, all alone for hours, Nancy said tearfully. We dont know why he was there or who lured him there, but he did not deserve to die like that.

Detective Campbell told Dateline that he does not know why Calab was in the vacant apartment and does not know if Calab knew his killer(s).

An autopsy by the Vanderburgh County Coroner's Office confirmed that Calab died from a single gunshot wound to the head and his death was ruled a homicide.

For years, investigators followed up on numerous tips and leads, but nothing pointed to the person who pulled the trigger.

The detective who responded to the scene, and became lead investigator on Calabs case, has since retired. The case was then briefly transferred to another detective before finally being reassigned to Detective Campbell approximately a year and a half ago. He is hopeful hell be able to solved Calabs case and bring closure to his family.

Ive spoken with members of Calebs family and have seen the heartache that they all carry with them to this day, Det. Campbell told Dateline. Christmas is a hard time for them. Each year around this time, people will contact the family with information or the latest rumor theyve heard about Calebs death. Often its nothing new, but the same old stories being told over and over again. These people mean well, and think theyre helping, but they dont get to see how it actually hurts the family and extends their grief.

Detective Campbell told Dateline that he is following new leads in the case, but would not elaborate on details due to the investigation being open and active. But he added that if anyone is compelled to share information on Calebs death, he asks that they share it with law enforcement.

My heart goes out to Calebs family and friends, Det. Campbell said. I cant imagine what its been like for them and what theyve had to go through. I hope to catch Calebs killer, but I recognize that is not something that I can do alone. I need the help of the community. Someone knows the truth about what happened that Christmas. We just need to talk.

Calabs family continues to stay in close contact with Det. Campbell and is hopeful a fresh set of eyes on the case will finally bring them closure.

Nancy created Justice for Calab Luckett, a Facebook group that shares memories and photos of Calab, while pleading for tips and information that could help piece together a timeline of the weekend.

Its been a downhill spiral since that Christmas four years ago, Calabs aunt Nancy told Dateline. His mother quit living after his death. I was there for her in every nook and cranny, but all I can do is empathize. I couldnt truly feel her pain. Not like that.

Nancy told Dateline that every Christmas has been heartbreaking for their family but, little by little, they are starting the process of healing. And for the first time in years, Calabs mother has put up a Christmas tree.

I know the pain is still fresh for her, Nancy said. But were doing the best we can. We hope by sharing my nephews story, someone will come forward. We need peace for our families, and peace for Calab.

Anyone with information about Calabs case should call the Evansville Police Tip Line at (812) 435-6194. All calls are anonymous.
Vaccine manufacturers have rubbished claims made by ministers that a Covid vaccine shortage was limiting the inoculation programme, and insist that millions of doses have already been delivered to the NHS.

It comes after ministers and the UKs chief medical officers warned that shortages in the supply of vaccines is a global issue and a reality that cannot be wished away.

Boris Johnson said earlier this week that supply would be the rate-limiting factor that could hinder the NHSs ability to deliver the vaccines quickly, not distribution.

Currently, the NHS is doling out 250,000 jabs per week, and is confident it can exceed 2 million a week by February. NHS England medical director, Stephen Powis, said: Our aim is to get the jab into peoples arms as quickly as the manufacturers can supply that vaccine to us.

But both Pfizer and AstraZeneca have insisted there was no problem with supply, with Pfizer saying it has now sent millions of doses to the UK, reports The Daily Telegraph. These include 1 million jabs that were destined as the second dose for people who have already received their first jab  which will now be delayed following a change in policy.

According to the newspaper, more than 1 million Pfizer jabs could be administered over the next week, along with 530,000 doses of the Oxford vaccine. The latter received approval for use in the UK on 30 December.

By the middle of January, 2 million doses of the Oxford vaccine will be supplied each week, a member of the Oxford-AstraZeneca team told The Times.

The source said that by next week, there would be 2 million jabs ready in total, and the manufacturer plans to build it up fairly rapidly to 2 million doses per week by the third week of January.

Pascal Soriot, chief executive of AstraZeneca, has said before that the manufacturer would be able to provide 1 million doses and beyond per week.

The row over vaccines come as GPs cancelled tens of thousands of appointments for a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine at short notice, after the governments vaccination experts and medicines regulators decided to delay the follow-up jab to 12 weeks after the first dose has been given.

The change in policy is meant to ensure that as many people as possible get a first dose of either approved vaccine, with the UKs chief medical officers saying the first dose offers substantial protection.
Looking for your next binge-watch? Stacker ranked the 50 best Netflix original series according to IMDb user ratings.
1. Yes. The public must have assurances that ethical standards are met by everyone.

2. Yes. As long as an independent board hears the grievances, its a worthwhile idea.

3. No. The concept is too broad. It should be limited to the citys elected officials.

4. No. There are plenty of stipulations in place already. An ordinance is a waste of time.

5. Unsure. Its hard to say without seeing how it would be structured and applied.

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President Donald Trump's ally Rep. Louie Gohmert suggested supporters could 'go to the streets and be as violent as Antifa and BLM' in shocking remarks after courts denied his bid to overturn the election.

But Gohmert furiously backpedaled after outrage over his remarks - insisting his words had been 'twisted' and he was not advocating violence.

A U.S. judge on Friday rejected Gohmert's lawsuit against Vice President Mike Pence, who is set to preside Wednesday over a joint session of Congress to formalize the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The judge, appointed by Trump, said Gohmert and other Republicans who filed suit lack standing to bring the legal action seeking to overturn the election of President-elect Joe Biden.

Following the ruling, Gohmert, a Texas Republican, told Newsmax: 'But if bottom line is, the court is saying, 'We're not going to touch this. You have no remedy' - basically, in effect, the ruling would be that you gotta go to the streets and be as violent as Antifa and BLM.'

Louie Gohmert on Newsmax: "But if bottom line is, the court is saying, 'We're not going to touch this. You have no remedy' -- basically, in effect, the ruling would be that you gotta go the streets and be as violent as Antifa and BLM." pic.twitter.com/cZIdGTiQls  Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 2, 2021

Gohmert, a Texas Republican, told Newsmax: 'But if bottom line is, the court is saying, 'We're not going to touch this. You have no remedy' - basically, in effect, the ruling would be that you gotta go to the streets and be as violent as Antifa and BLM'

Antifa supporters with shields and umbrellas are seen after the 'Million MAGA March' on December 12. Fears are rising of violence as Trump supporters rally on January 6

After his remarks drew backlash, Gohmert issued a statement saying his words had been twisted, and that it was 'false' he had been advocating for violence.

'I have not encouraged and unequivocally do not advocate for violence,' he said. 'I have long advocated for following and teach the example of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. of peaceful protest.'

'That does not keep me from recognizing what lies ahead when the institutions created by a self-governing people to peacefully resolve disputes hide from their responsibilities,' he continued.

'Violence is not the answer. The appropriate answer is courts and self-governing bodies resolving disputes as intended,' Gohmert concluded.

Gohmert's suit sought to empower Pence to overturn the results of the presidential election won by Joe Biden when Congress formally counts the Electoral College votes next week.

Pence, as president of the Senate, will oversee the session Wednesday and declare the winner of the White House race.

Gohmert issued a statement denying his remarks were a call for violence

Gohmert's suit sought to empower Mike Pence to overturn the results of the presidential election won by Joe Biden when Congress formally counts the Electoral College votes

The Electoral College this month cemented Bidens 306-232 victory, and multiple legal efforts by Trump's campaign to challenge the results have failed.

The suit named Pence, who has a largely ceremonial role in next week's proceedings, as the defendant and asked the court to throw out the 1887 law that spells out how Congress handles the vote counting.

It asserted that the vice president 'may exercise the exclusive authority and sole discretion in determining which electoral votes to count for a given State.'

In dismissing the lawsuit filed by Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and a group of Republican electors from Arizona, Texas U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, wrote that the plaintiffs 'allege an injury that is not fairly traceable' to Pence, 'and is unlikely to be redressed by the requested relief.'

Trump is urging supporters to amass in Washington on January 6 for a last-ditch rally to pressure Congress to not certify Biden's election victory.

Thousands of supporters from around the country, from the Women for America First group, to StoptheSteal, to the violent Proud Boys, are expected to descend on the US capital pressing Trump's unsupported claim that massive voter fraud was behind his defeat in the November 3 election.

Proud Boys and Antifa fight after the 'Million MAGA March' from Freedom Plaza to the US Capitol in Washington, DC, United States on December 12, 2020

The Proud Boys have vowed to attend the rally incognito, disguised as their left-wing enemies Antifa, in a bid to sow chaos among the opposing ranks.

Trump tweeted twice this weekend urging supporters to attend, labeling the election 'the biggest SCAM in our nation's history.'

'See you in Washington, DC, on January 6th. Don't miss it,' he wrote Sunday.

The rally raised fears of fresh violence after the previous pro-Trump protest that included the Proud Boys on December 12 saw several people stabbed and dozens arrested.

Trump appears to hope that the protestors could pressure Congress to reject the final count of state-based electors and reverse his election loss.

'We the People must take to the US Capitol lawn and steps and tell Congress #DoNotCertify,' StopTheSteal declared online.

'Congress cannot certify this fraudulent Electoral College,' they said.
As President-elect Joe Biden builds his administration, he has drawn on his long experience in national politics, filling key positions with White House veterans and a sprinkling of newcomers. But the success of Mr. Bidens administration will depend not just on who gets big jobs but on the thoughtful management of his team. The new president needs a staff and cabinet that are cohesive in debate and unified in action.

Administration infighting is inevitable, but it neednt be paralyzing. Mr. Bidens goal should be to manage conflict, not to eliminate it. History points to three primary levers at his disposal: recognizing and managing ideological conflict, maintaining a strong decision-making process and dealing firmly with staff and cabinet misbehavior.

The most frequent White House divisions are along ideological lines. President Ronald Reagans administration was plagued by clashes between moderates, led by White House chief of staff James A. Baker, and committed conservatives, led by counselor Edwin Meese. Mr. Baker, in particular, was a master leaker and infighter. Still, when Reagan chose Mr. Baker over Mr. Meese as chief of staff, he directed Mr. Baker to make it right with Ed." The two joined with deputy chief of staff Michael Deaver to form the troika" that ran the early Reagan White House.

The lack of trust among the troika members wound up leaving them joined at the hip, reluctant to let each other meet privately with Reagan for fear that the others might use facetime with the president to their advantage. This need to stick together applied even after Reagan was shot in 1981. When the troika visited his hospital bed together, Reagan joked, I shouldve known I wasnt going to avoid a staff meeting." Yet getting the perspective of the two main competing ideologies within the GOP helped Reagan to hold on to both sides.

President Bill Clinton also used his ideologically divided staff to his advantage. His team initially pulled his administration leftward with an unsuccessful health care initiative, a tax hike and a push to end the Pentagons ban on gay people serving in the military. The liberal drift contributed to the Democrats loss of both houses of Congress in 1994. Smarting, Mr. Clinton brought in a secret adviserwhom he code-named Charlie"to help moderate his administration. This advisers tactics and mysterious identity unnerved liberal White House staffers like George Stephanopoulos and Harold Ickes, who found that progressive decisions made by day would shift to the right overnight.

Charlie" was soon revealed as the conservative consultant Dick Morris, which enraged many liberal staffers. Mr. Ickes was gleeful when Mr. Morris fell from grace in 1996 over his relationship with a prostitute. But the internal tensions may have been part of the plan. Mr. Stephanopoulos, who loathed Mr. Morris, later wrote that Mr. Clinton had been playing me off against Morris, taking the best from both of us and turning it into something better." A more moderate Mr. Clinton romped to reelection.

The second lever is process, which determines how information flows, who attends key meetings and when timelines are set for decisions. Poor processes set up administrations for unhealthy forms of dissent, including leaking while in power and score-settling for years afterward.

President Jimmy Carters White House was plagued by a bad decision-making process from the start. Mr. Carter initially refused to have a chief of staff, leading to chronic turbulence. On the first day of the administration, White House counsel Robert Lipshutz tried to assert himself by saying, I guess because Im the oldest one here. Ill call this meeting to order." It didnt work. Mr. Carters chief strategist, Hamilton Jordan, was asked how to proceed and said enigmatically, Well have a meeting when theres something to meet about." Another aide, Mark Siegel, witnessed this and wondered, My God, what would the KGB think if they could see us now?" Carter speechwriter James Fallows later wrote that a year was wasted as we blindly groped for answers and did for ourselves what a staff coordinator could have done."

George W. Bush, the first president with an MBA, recognized the importance of process, at least on domestic policy. His political adviser, Karl Rove, said that team members could go to the Oval Office and advocate a perspective diametrically opposed to the point of view of the person on the sofa across" from them, and even in defeat, you can link arms and go on, and be certain that your [losing] view wont appear in the paper." But the same discipline didnt carry over to foreign policy. Mr. Bushs State Department, Defense Department and Office of the Vice President were often at odds, as a less disciplined National Security Council process bred leaks and policy dysfunction.

Finally, presidents set the tone for how and whether to express dissent. President Gerald Ford was reluctant to confront troublemakers. His White House became one of the most rivalrous in history, chaotic and leak-prone. You dont suspect ill motives of anyone until youre kicked in the balls three times," Fords friend and speechwriter Robert Hartmann told him. As a human being, thats a virtue. As a president, its a weakness."

President Barack Obama maintained his No Drama Obama" ethos by making it clear that he disapproved of backbiting and aides who acted out of line. His recent memoir admits to some internal friction" and tension," as does the memoir of former White House deputy chief of staff Alyssa Mastromonaco. As she relates, she once took offense at an article describing her as responsible for overseeing scheduling, personnel and much more." She saw the description as a sexist slight and suspected it came from a colleague, leading her to reply all" to a senior staff email sharing the offending article with a very cutting, infuriated response." The next day, she recalls, Mr. Obama summoned her to the Oval Office and greeted her with the admonition, So, I hear you sent quite an email."

Another time, when White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel couldnt help venting to friends around town" (as Mr. Obama writes) about his unhappiness with the administrations early approach to health care reform, the president called him on the carpet. Mr. Emanuel was contrite, and Mr. Obama forgave him with a condition. You know what your real punishment is?" Mr. Obama said. You have to go pass the goddamn health care bill!"

The Biden team has seen both peaceful and tumultuous periods. In the primaries, reports of staff battles during his early losses in Iowa and New Hampshire led to a reshuffling of his top campaign personnel. The rejiggered group proved more disciplined during the general election, with scant public evidence of infighting.

Like so many presidents before him, Mr. Biden will soon be reminded that campaigning is one thing and governing another. As campaign promises give way to policy realities, disagreements quickly become more serious. If the president-elect wants to avoid letting infighting define his tenure, he will need the lessons of historyand the resolve to enforce them.

Dr. Troy served in 2007-09 as deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. His most recent book is Fight House: Rivalries in the White House From Truman to Trump" (Regnery).

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(Newser)  Acknowledging that their effort to keep President-elect Joe Biden from assuming office is unlikely to succeed, 11 Republican senators committed anyway Saturday to voting to reject Electoral College votes on Wednesday. The group said in a joint statement that a commission should be appointed by Congresss "to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed states," the Hill reports. Once the states have the findings, their legislatures could hold a special session to consider changing their electoral votes. "Accordingly, we intend to vote on Jan. 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not 'regularly given' and 'lawfully certified'" until the audit is in. The statement was signed by Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Steve Daines of Montana, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Mike Braun of Indiana. Sens.-elect Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama also were listed.

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This is what Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was hoping to avoid, per Axios. Republicans facing reelection in two years now will have to go on record as opposing President Trump's wishes to fight Biden's victory or as endorsing the battle cry of election fraud. Many of them already have rejected that notion. "We are not naive," the statement issued Saturday said. "We fully expect most if not all Democrats, and perhaps more than a few Republicans, to vote otherwise." Individual Republicans have said as much. "In the end, I dont think it changes anything," Sen. John Thune said. Sen. Ben Sasse said it's a stunt to help presidential hopefuls win over Trump's supporters. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri was the first senator to say he'd object; the 11 senators plan to cite more specific grounds for their votes. The announcement of the state-by-state election results will be made in a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. (Sen. Josh Hawley said he'll cite the roles of Facebook and Twitter in the campaign.)
A flurry of headlines this week flooded social media, documenting a seemingly concerning case of COVID-19 in a San Diego nurse who fell ill about a week after receiving his first injection of Pfizers coronavirus vaccine. But experts said the sickness is nothing unexpected: The protective effects of vaccines are known to take at least a couple of weeks to kick in. And getting sick before completing a two-dose vaccine regimen, they said, should not undermine the potency of Pfizers product, which blazed through late-stage clinical trials with flying colors.

Reporting that a half-vaccinated person has COVID-19 is really the equivalent of saying someone went outside in the middle of a rainstorm without an umbrella and got wet, said Dr. Taison Bell, a critical care physician at the University of Virginia. Bell received his first dose of Pfizers vaccine on December 15 and will be getting his second shot soon.

The California nurse, identified as Matthew W., 45, in an ABC10 News report, received his first dose of Pfizers vaccine on December 18. Six days later, according to news reports, he began to feel minor symptoms, including chills, muscle aches and fatigue. He tested positive for the virus the day after Christmas.

Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician at Brown University, said this should not prompt concern. So what???? she tweeted Wednesday in response to a Reuters article on the nurses illness. Its a 2-shot vaccination. Ranney received her first dose of Pfizers vaccine on December 18.

Framing the nurses illness as news, Ranney said in an interview, implies that it was a departure from the expected  and that there should have been protection about a week after the first vaccine dose. That is not the case at all.

Vaccines take at least a few days to exert their protective effects. Pfizers recipe is designed around a molecule called messenger RNA, or mRNA, which, once injected, enters human cells and instructs them to manufacture a coronavirus protein called spike. None of these components are infectious or capable of causing COVID-19. But they act as coronavirus mimics, teaching the body to recognize the true virus and vanquish it, should it ever come around.

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The production of spike is thought to occur within hours of the first shot. But the body needs at least several days to memorize the material before it can unspool its full arsenal of defensive forces against the virus. Immune cells take this time to study up on the protein, then mature, multiply and sharpen their spike-spotting reflexes.

Data from Pfizers clinical trials suggests the vaccine might start safeguarding its recipients from disease around one or two weeks after the first injection. A second jab of mRNA, delivered three weeks after the first, helps immune cells commit the viruss most prominent features to memory, clinching the protective process.

The timeline of the California nurses illness falls well within the window of post-vaccination vulnerability, Ranney said. It is also very likely he caught the virus right around the time he got the shot, perhaps even before. People can start experiencing the symptoms of COVID-19 between two and 14 days after encountering the coronavirus, if they ever have symptoms at all.

A similar situation appears to have recently unfolded with Mike Harmon, the Kentucky state auditor, who this week tested positive for the virus the day after receiving his first dose of an unspecified coronavirus vaccine.

It appears that I may have been unknowingly exposed to the virus and infected either shortly before or after receiving the first dose of the vaccine on Monday, Harmon said in a statement. Harmon reaffirmed his full faith in the vaccine itself, and the need for as many people to receive it as quickly as possible.

Jerica Pitts, a spokesperson for Pfizer, noted that the vaccines protective effects are substantially boosted after the second dose, supporting the need for a two-dose vaccination series.

Individuals may have contracted disease prior to or right after vaccination, she said.

Pfizers vaccine, when administered in its full two-dose regimen, was found to be 95% effective at preventing symptomatic cases of COVID-19  a figure that was hailed as very welcome news amid soaring coronavirus caseloads. Still, that leaves a small percentage of people who will not be protected after vaccination, Ranney said. Theres no vaccine thats 100% effective.

It is also unclear how well Pfizers vaccine can guard against asymptomatic infections or if it will substantially curb the coronaviruss ability to spread from person to person. That means measures like masking and distancing remain essential even after full vaccination.

Data collected by Pfizer during its late-stage clinical trials hinted that the vaccine could confer at least some protection after a single dose. But the study was not intended to specifically test how potent a one-shot regimen would be.

Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious disease physician at the Medical University of South Carolina, said a couple of her colleagues tested positive shortly after their first shots. None of this surprises me, given how rampant cases are right now, she said. Given the expected delay in the vaccines effects, this should not be thought about as vaccine failure. Kuppalli, who received her first dose of Pfizers vaccine Dec. 15, added that getting COVID-19 between vaccine doses should not dissuade someone from getting a second shot, with consultation from a health care provider.

In the past few weeks, more than 2.7 million people in the United States have received their first dose of Pfizers vaccine or a similar shot made by Moderna. Both vaccines require a second injection  and as they are rolled out to more and more people, it is important to maintain clear communication about how vaccines work and when, Bell said.

For the time being, we should stick with doses the way the trials were done, he said. Thats what will get you the maximum efficacy.

Katherine J. Wu c.2020 The New York Times Company
The Colorado Court of Appeals on Thursday reversed three felony convictions for driving under the influence, following the state Supreme Courts directive that all elements of the DUI crime must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
The taxpayer bill for the mental health care of former defence personnel has ballooned 35 per cent in five years, with nearly 20,000 former service members checking into rehab clinics every year.

The problem of addiction and mental illnesses among former service members is so great that some treatment providers are starting to offer veterans-only programs, including The Buttery in northern NSW kicking off a pilot study this month.

Senator Jacqui Lambie says alcohol and substance abuse issues are rife among veterans and the system is failing them at every turn. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The Australian Defence Force has more than 89,000 service members and about 6000 leave each year, often with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) alongside depression and addiction. They are then given unlimited access to mental health care, with clinics reporting some veterans are checking into rehab repeatedly to deal with deep-rooted problems.

The Department of Veteran Affairs (DVA) spent $241 million in 2018-2019 on mental health care for 55,500 veterans, including psychiatry, psychology and treatment in hospital or rehab clinics. The total figure also includes DVA-funded mental health treatment for war widows and dependants, plus the Open Arms counselling service for current and former service members and their families.
TVS Motor Company said the company's total sales grew 17.5% year-on-year to 272,084 units in December 2020 as against 231,571 units in December 2019.

Total two-wheeler sales grew by 20% to 258,239 units in December 2020 over December 2019. Domestic two-wheeler sales rose 13% to 176,912 units.

The company's total exports rose 28% to 94,269 units in the month of December 2020 as against 73,512 units in December 2019.

The company's three wheeler sales declined to 13,845 units in December 2020 as against 15,952 units in December 2019.

Shares of TVS Motor Company closed 1.06% higher at Rs 490.70 on Friday (1 January 2021).

TVS Motor Company is a two and three-wheeler manufacturer and is the flagship company of TVS group.

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Coronavirus

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Eligible Texans cant get answers about the COVID-19 vaccine. Its not clear who  if anyone  has them.

Jason Garza for The Texas Tribune Jason Garza for The Texas Tribune A patient receives a COVID-19 vaccine in Edinburg on Dec. 19.

On Dec. 22, Gov. Greg Abbott sat in a conference room at the Ascension Seton Medical Center in Austin and rolled up his sleeve for the cameras. A nurse pricked a dose of Pfizers COVID-19 vaccine into his left arm and state officials and hospital staff in the room applauded.

Abbott then threw up his arms: Its that easy, he said.

The event was a celebration of a major milestone in the battle against the coronavirus. Although cases were still mounting in Texas and new hospitalizations were climbing, 1.4 million health care workers and vulnerable Texans were set to receive the vaccine by the end of 2020, Abbott said, with millions more to come soon after.

But in the days since that celebration, getting that vaccine to the people eligible to receive it has proven far from easy. The vaccines rollout has been marred by poor messaging from state officials, technical errors and logistical delays.

As the final hours of 2020 ticked away, it was unclear whether anyone in the state knew how many doses of the vaccine had been administered here. And after state officials had expressed concern that vaccines were going unused and urged providers to give them to anyone who was eligible, many who met the qualifications were finding it difficult  if not impossible  to track down anyone with vaccines to give. Many counties asked Texans to sign up via an iPhone application or through an online registry, and some elder Texans are finding those technologies onerous.

The confusion left medical experts and people urgently awaiting the vaccine frustrated and questioning how the state would be able to handle smoothly administering vaccines to a population of nearly 30 million in the coming months.

All of this seems to have been avoidable if it had been properly thought through, said state Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin.

Mixed messages and confusion

State officials never planned to administer the vaccines themselves. Instead, a state panel would set their own eligibility guidelines based on recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. State officials would allocate an appropriate number of vaccine doses to providers, such as pharmacies, doctors offices, hospitals and medical clinics. The providers would receive shipments from the federal government.

Shipments of the vaccine first began arriving at Texas hospitals on Dec. 14. The limited supply, under Phase 1A of the states rollout, was reserved for front-line health care workers and residents and staff members of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, which have been decimated by the virus. State officials estimated there were 1.9 million Texans eligible in that first tier.

One week later, on Dec. 21, Dr. John Hellerstedt, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, announced that Texans 65 and older, and people who are at least 16 with certain medical conditions, would be next in line. Health officials said it would likely be at least a few weeks before that group, referred to as Phase 1B, could receive their vaccinations.

But two days later, Hellerstedt moved up the timeline. The states vaccine tracking system, ImmTrac2, reported a significant portion of vaccine in Texas may not be administered yet, according to a letter he sent to health care providers that had received shipments of the vaccine. Hellerstedt directed providers to administer their entire allotment with all deliberate speed. At the time, DSHS spokesperson Chris Van Deusen said the Dec. 23 letter was meant to encourage providers not to wait until everyone in the 1A group had been vaccinated before moving on to the 1B group.

Abbott gave a similar message on Tuesday. In a tweet, he suggested that an excess supply of vaccine was available and criticized providers for not moving quickly enough to administer it.

A significant portion of vaccines distributed across Texas might be sitting on hospital shelves as opposed to being given to vulnerable Texans, he said.

That same day, Hellerstedt directed providers to immediately vaccinate all eligible Texans, including those in the 1B group. State data showed at the time that just 136,700 people had been vaccinated with at least one dose of the vaccine, a fraction of doses reportedly available. Earlier, state health officials said 1.4 million doses were allocated to providers across the state before the end of the year, but by then their allocation estimate had decreased to 1.2 million.

The state data suggested that there was an ample supply of vaccine  enough to expand eligibility to the 1B group weeks ahead of time. But in reality  as thousands of Texans would soon discover  doses of the vaccine remained in short supply.

Carrie Williams, a spokesperson for the Texas Hospital Association, challenged Abbotts claim that there was an excess inventory of vaccines, saying the industry is moving as fast as possible.

We are certainly not sitting on vaccine, Williams said. Vaccine is not sitting on hospital shelves.

Vague messaging from state health officials left Texans who were desperate to get vaccinated without clear answers of where and how they schedule a vaccination. Many frantically called pharmacies, where they get their flu shots, for help.

Marie Theresa Hernandez, who is over 65 and a professor of world cultures and literatures at the University of Houston, said a new surge in COVID-19 cases has put her and her family on edge. In recent days, the vaccine confusion added another layer of stress: false hope.

Earlier this week, her adult children in Austin and London were led to believe over social media that vaccinations were easily available in her home of Fort Bend County. But after two days of calling around, Hernandez could not find anyone who could give her one.

Were all kind of in limbo, she said.

But mostly, she misses her grandchildren in London.

We didnt get to see them this year because of COVID, she said. We were hoping then maybe with the vaccine we could go a little sooner than later and now, its like, we have no idea.

Pharmacies like CVS and H-E-B say they are still focusing on vaccinating medical workers or people in long-term care facilities. They dont have enough doses to vaccinate the general population, they said.

Dya Campos, H-E-Bs director of government affairs, said Thursday the grocery chains pharmacies have the capacity to administer around 100,000 doses of vaccine each week. Just a week after receiving its first shipment of 28,000 doses of vaccine, the company has administered or scheduled every single dose. Now its left waiting for the state to tell it both how much vaccine it will receive in its next shipment and when that shipment will arrive.

Right now, across its hundreds of Texas stores, it has none. Customers who call the H-E-B pharmacies receive pre-recorded answers saying they are not yet distributing vaccines to the general public.

We are prepared to vaccinate more Texans, and we are just waiting to see how much allocation were going to get on a weekly basis, Campos said.

This uncertainty makes it nearly impossible to schedule people in the next phase. Once H-E-B does get more doses, Campos said eligible customers will be able to schedule a time to get their vaccine on the website or by calling. Eventually, if the pharmacy has enough doses, it hopes to accept walk-ins.

CVS, which plans to spend the next three months focusing on vaccinating 275,000 residents and staff at 2,000 long-term care facilities in Texas, is also not yet opening up vaccine appointments to the general public.

When that does happen  John Fratamico, a CVS district leader in Texas, said this could occur in March  customers will sign up for what Fratamico called a round-trip ticket. Using the pharmacys website or app, or a 1-800 number, eligible Texans will schedule both the first and second doses of the vaccine on a first-come-first-serve basis.

In all our lifetime, think about it, nothing like this has ever come up, Fratamico said.

Because CVS is focusing on long-term care facilities for the next few months, Fratamico said they will wait to figure out those plans with the state for the general public until closer to then.

In the meantime, CVS and H-E-B, as well as many other pharmacies, are inundated with questions from Texans wondering how and when they can get vaccinated.

Debbie Garza, the chief executive of Texas Pharmacy Association, cautioned that as hard as pharmacists are working to get this vaccine out, fielding calls could delay the process.

This takes a lot of pharmacy staff time to explain over the phone, Garza said.

CVS is encouraging its customers to download its app, which will send a push notification once they are eligible to schedule appointments.

Hospitals, many of which are waiting on shipments of the vaccine, are also being overwhelmed by calls from the general public seeking the vaccine. Williams, the spokesperson with the Texas Hospital Association, said this creates further operational challenges for hospitals flooded with COVID-19 patients.

On Thursday, the final day of an unprecedented year, more than 12,200 Texans were hospitalized with COVID-19, breaking a record for the fourth straight day. Texas seven-day average rate for tests that come back as confirmed COVID-19 cases has also remained above what Abbott once called a warning flag level for more than a week while the state reported a near-record low 660 staffed ICU beds still available. Texas also reported 349 new deaths.

Hospitals are in full force, vaccinating everyone they can while managing record-level hospitalizations, Williams said. And there are still hospitals that have not received any vaccine for their frontlines.

Many rural and psychiatric hospitals, Williams noted, still have not received any vaccine for their front-line workers.

Data errors and delayed deliveries

The state has reported more than 282,000 people have received at least one dose as of Thursday. But local health officials say that number is surely an undercount.

DSHS did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Abbotts office did not answer a list of emailed questions, including whether he is receiving briefings on the vaccine rollout or who is leading the states efforts. Instead, spokesperson Renae Eze said in a statement that Abbott has directed DSHS and the Texas Department of Emergency Management to deploy medical teams to aid in vaccination efforts across the state.

With new shipments arriving each week provided at no cost, the State of Texas urges providers to swiftly vaccinate as many people as possible from the at-risk groups rather than these live-saving vaccines and medications sitting on shelves, Eze said, repeating a claim that many vaccine providers say isnt true.

Part of the issue lies with the tracking system ImmTrac2, said Howard, the state representative. Her office spoke with DSHS staff on Wednesday and she participated in a regularly scheduled briefing between the agency and lawmakers.

She said health officials are trying to fix data entry errors in the system, which likely resulted in a major overestimation of available doses.

More vaccine had been administered than was being revealed by the registry system, Howard told The Texas Tribune. I think [the decision to allow the 1B group to get vaccinated] was done before we had all the information we probably shouldve had, because there wasnt the capacity to meet that new edict.

Williams, of the Texas Hospital Association, said members of her association reported similar problems.

With regard to state data on administered doses, we have no certainty it is accurate at this point in time, she said. The number of doses administered is higher than whats indicated.

Technical errors are just one facet of Texas vaccine struggles. Shipments from the federal government, which distributes doses of the vaccine to providers, have arrived damaged or late, Howard said. In some cases, expected distributions never arrived.

States across the nation have reported similar delays. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told NBCs TODAY show that nationwide the rollout has been disappointing.

Some Texas providers are just now receiving doses of the vaccine that were scheduled to be delivered last week, Howard said. Next weeks allotment is expected to be much smaller than previous weeks, she said.

Other batches had to be returned or discarded because the vaccine, which must be stored at below freezing temperatures, arrived spoiled.

Meanwhile, hospitalizations continue to surge, Abbott has ruled out the idea of future lockdowns and the state has a long way to go before the vaccine could slow the spread of the virus. To finally get past the pandemic, public health experts have said the country needs to achieve herd immunity, when enough of the population has immunity from the virus that the spread slows. Some believe that herd immunity is only achieved when 80% of people  24 million people in Texas  have the antibodies.

Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert and dean at the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, tweeted Thursday that with 30 million people, Texas has its work cut out for vaccinating 80% of the state by the middle of the year  especially with the troubled roll out.

We need to vaccinate almost one million Texans per week, Hotez wrote. Lots of work ahead.
Eddie Izzard has defended J.K. Rowling, saying she doesn't believe the author is transphobic.

Last June, J.K., 55, was accused of transphobia after making a controversial comment about menstruation, two years after she liked a tweet which referred to transgender people as 'men in dresses'.

The author denied claims of transphobia as she insisted she 'respects every trans person's right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them.'

Eddie, 58, who last year asked to be called a 'she', after previously refusing to be pinned down on gender, told the Daily Telegraph: 'I don't think JK Rowling is transphobic. I think we need to look at the things she has written about in her blog.'

Support: Eddie Izzard has defended J.K. Rowling, saying she doesn't believe the author is transphobic (picture this month)

Eddie went on: 'Women have been through such hell over history. Trans people have been invisible, too. I hate the idea we are fighting between ourselves, but it's not going to be sorted with the wave of a wand.

'I don't have all the answers. If people disagree with me, fine - but why are we going through hell on this?'

J.K. was accused of transphobia last year when she reacted to an online article titled 'Opinion: Creating a more equal post COVID-19 world for people who menstruate.'

''People who menstruate.' I'm sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?', the award-winning writer told her 14.2million followers.

Under fire: Last June, J.K., 55, was accused of transphobia after making a controversial comment about menstruation (pictured in December 2019)

Disappointed fans and other users of the micro-blogging site branded the screenwriter's remarks 'anti-trans' and 'transphobic', as transgenders, non-binary and gender-nonconforming individuals can also menstruate.

The producer stood by her tweet as she later insisted: 'If sex isn't real, there's no same-sex attraction.

'If sex isn't real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn't hate to speak the truth.'

The media personality insisted she 'respects every trans person's right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them.'

Fury: '"People who menstruate." Im sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?', J.K told her 14.2million followers last year

Speaking out: The wordsmith seemingly denied claims of transphobia, before retweeting a fan's comment which slammed 'extremists' for 'insisting biological sex is an illusion'

J. K. elaborated: 'The idea that women like me, who've been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they're vulnerable in the same way as women - ie, to male violence - 'hate' trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences - is a nonsense.

'I'd march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it's hateful to say so.

'I've spent much of the last three years reading books, blogs and scientific papers by trans people, medics and gender specialists. I know exactly what the distinction is. Never assume that because someone thinks differently, they have no knowledge.'

Applauded: Meanwhile, Eddie was applauded last week for requesting the use of 'she' and her 'pronouns' during a TV appearance

Meanwhile, Eddie was applauded last week for requesting the use of 'she' and her 'pronouns' during a TV appearance.

The comedian appeared on the Sky Arts programme Portrait Artist Of The Year in which contestants had to create a portrait of the star.

And viewers catching up with the programme over the weekend were impressed at Eddie being addressed with her preferred pronouns, with one even remarking: 'Thanks for being a trailblazer.'

During the show, Eddie directly asked if she could publicly be referred to as 'she' and her', confirming that she was 'gender fluid.'

She said: 'This is the first programme I've asked if I can be she and her, a little transition period. People just assume, well, know me from before... I'm genderfluid, I just want to be based in girl mode from now on.'

Izzard identified as a transvestite on rising to prominence in the 80s, but more recently has preferred to use the term 'transgender'.

The star told The Mail on Sunday in September: 'When I'm in girl mode I am happy to be known as 'she' and when I'm in boy-mode, I am happy to be known as 'he'. But I am equally happy to be referred to as Eddie or 'Hey mate'.'
With its history of swapping between French and German control throughout the years, the Alsace region is an intriguing mix of the two countries cultures as well as its former Roman occupiers.

The attraction for the Romans was the fertile soil and its potential for viticulture so youll get to taste plenty of wine  and beer  during your four-day river cruise.

The cuisine, meanwhile, comes in generous portions and is enjoyed with family and friends in a lively way.

Vintage crop: Youll get to taste plenty of wine during your four-day river cruise. Pictured is a typical Alsace vineyard

And who better to enjoy this fabulous foodie trip with than popular Saturday Kitchen host Matt Tebbutt.

Matt credits his family holidays to France and Italy as a young man as the inspiration for his passion for food. The TV chef spent his early career working at the Michelin-starred restaurant Chez Bruce, which was opened by Bruce Poole in 1995. Youll get to see Matt in action during an exclusive cookery demonstration, as well as hearing him give a talk. Hell also take part in a Q&A session.

Matt wont be the only culinary star guest on board. Making your river cruise even more spectacular, Matt will introduce Marc Haeberlin, a two-Michelin-star chef, and Alsaces finest sommelier, Serge Dubs.

You will stop at Rhinau, a small town located on the Rhine about 20 miles from Strasbourg

OUR SPECIAL GUEST You will be joined by Matt Tebbutt Saturday Kitchen presenter Matt Tebbutt trained at Leiths School of Food and Wine before working as a trainee for Marco Pierre White, then learning from a master of classic French food, Bruce Poole, at Chez Bruce. Matt has also written two cookbooks and presented Food Unwrapped, Family Food Fight, Save Money: Good Food and Market Kitchen. Advertisement

Marc, head chef at Auberge de lIll in Illhaeusern, will prepare a dinner for you on board while Serge will give you hints and tips during a private wine-tasting.

Im part of the fourth generation of chefs, says Marc. This passion comes from my father. Now I like to redevelop dishes that he has created and find the balance between tradition and modernity.

REASONS TO BOOK

Exclusive events with Matt Tebbutt: The much loved host of BBCs Saturday Kitchen will talk to you about his culinary journey and share his passion for French cuisine during an exclusive chat aboard your CroisiEurope ship. Hell also answer your foodie questions and present a cooking demonstration.

Michelin-starred chef: The Haeberlin family opened a small inn in Illhaeusern more than 150 years ago. Since then, theyve been synonymous with Alsatian food and the restaurant, Auberge de lIll, has two Michelin stars. In what is sure to be a memorable evening, head chef Marc Haeberlin will prepare a dinner for you on board.

World-class sommelier: To go with your fantastic dinner, youll enjoy the very best wine pairings as chosen by Serge Dubs. Serge began working as an assistant at Auberge de lIll when he was 19 and worked his way up to head sommelier. Hes been awarded Best Sommelier in France, Best Sommelier in Europe, Master of Port and Best Sommelier in the World.

Discover Alsace: You will stop at Rhinau, a small town located on the Rhine about 20 miles from Strasbourg. The village has moved inland from the bank of the river over the centuries, and at periods of low water, you can see the old foundations of the village.

In Rhinau, youll have the chance to join an Alsace wine tour and visit the church of St Michael, which dates from 1519.

Across the river is Breisach, a town on the edge of the Black Forest. Its distinctive landmark is the cathedral of St Stephansmunster, which is built on a hill overlooking the majestic Rhine Valley.
It saddens me to read letters to the editor in The Republican by my fellow Americans accusing those on the right or those who support Trump as their enemies or enemies of American Democracy.

The divide between ideologies is thus: Those on the right look at those on the left as good people with bad ideas; and those on the left look at those on the right as bad people with bad ideas.

What if China were to conquer the USA? What would they do? Is it a far stretch to say they would ban guns, restrict religion to only state-approved methods of practice, put everyone on state health care and have the state be the leading controller of the life of the individual?

China would most certainly enforce abortion and euthanasia for those deemed unnecessary. They would also divide us up by demographics-identity politics to keep us in our place. Did I not just list many of the goals of the Democratic Party? And havent many members of the Democratic Party had recent close ties to China, though finance, personal assistants and honey pots?

I want to live in a country where government is limited, the Bill of Rights is king and individual liberty is cherished. If that makes me your enemy, I feel sorry for you and worry about the future of our nation.

Michael Dialessi, Agawam
Paris, Jan 2 : Paris St Germain on Saturday officially announced Mauricio Pochettino as their new manager. The French Ligue 1 club said in a statement that the Argentinian former Tottenham Hotspur manager has signed a contract until June 30, 2022 plus an optional year.

This will be Pochettino's second stint at the Parc des Princes, having made 70 competitive appearances for PSG as a defender between 2001 and 2003.

"I return to the club today with a lot of ambition and humility, while also being very eager to work with some of the most talented players in the world," said Pochettino in the club's statement.

"This team has fantastic potential and I will do everything with my staff to optimize the results of Paris Saint-Germain in all competitions. We will also do our utmost to give our team that combative and offensive playing identity that Parisian supporters have always loved." Pochettino was previously the manager of Tottenham Hotspur from 2014 to 2019 and led the team to the final of the Champions League in the 2018/19 season.
Yes, along most or all of the coast

Yes, but only places where an entry fee can cover their cost

No, people can continue swimming at their own risk

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Doctor Who

Rating:

The Serpent

Rating:

Daleks in Downing Street  that ought to liven up the Cabinet reshuffles. Admit it, there were moments last year when youd have paid good money to see a couple of those murderous, upturned dustbins shrieking Exterminate! as they chased Dominic Cummings up Whitehall.

Doctor Who (BBC1) went one better. Four Daleks were stationed outside the black front door of No 10, where a uniformed bobby usually stands. They turned on wicked Prime Minister Harriet Walter and zapped her with their ray guns.

A nation cheered  and then perhaps felt a little guilty for enjoying the spectacle so much.

Still, after such a subdued Christmas, were entitled to be a little vindictive.

This whole episode, the Doctors only appearance for 12 months and her last for the foreseeable future, was thoroughly satisfying, and not only because it delivered that excessive blast of payback. Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) was back, full of sassy quips as ever.

Have you had work done? demanded the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker), who hadnt seen him for a few millennia.

You can talk! Captain Jack snapped. Fair enough  last time they met, the Time Lord was wearing a crumpled suit and David Tennants face.

Barrowmans presence gave the story a lively zip. He turned up at a space prison, in the cell next to the Doctors, with a time-freezing device that doubled as a magic bubble for walking through walls. Well, it beats a cake with a file in it. A couple of minutes later, he was flirting with Yaz (Mandip Gill) and also making passes at Graham (Bradley Walsh)  Hey, silver fox! Poor old Brad couldnt look more shocked if one of the Chasers on his teatime quiz show blew him a kiss.

Since Broadchurch creator Chris Chibnall took over the show, Doctor Who has too often become a self-righteous dose of political correctness  not so much time-travelling as rewriting history in the service of womens rights and racial equality. All very laudable, but not very entertaining.

The ethical posturing was forgotten, as the PM teamed up with an American businessman and Donald Trump lookalike (Chris Noth) to build an army of Daleks using 3D printers. The idea was to use them for crowd control and policing airports. Crowds at airports... now that really does sound like science fiction.

There was one turgid scene, when the overgrown teenager Ryan (Tosin Cole) had a whinge about his feelings. But well overlook that, because the big moaner left the Tardis in a sulk at the end and went back to Earth, where he learned to ride a bicycle.

Four Daleks were stationed outside the black front door of No 10, where a uniformed bobby usually stands... They turned on wicked Prime Minister Harriet Walter and zapped her with their ray guns

Christopher Stevens said a nation 'cheered' when the robots stormed Downing Street, but we are 'entitled to be a little vindictive'

It was an inglorious exit, when compared to Billie Pipers as Rose (trapped in a parallel universe) or Karen Gillans as Amy (stranded in the past). Ryans chief achievement was taking his stabilisers off.

Electric notice boards, the kind once familiar at railway stations and air terminals, provided a neat method of time travelling in The Serpent (BBC1), a true crime drama.

Every time the story slipped back or forward a few months, the letters and digits whirred to tell us where wed landed. Mostly, we were in the Thai capital of Bangkok in the mid-Seventies, where former Doctor Who star Jenna Coleman was Marie-Andree Leclerc  a glamorous predator, befriending naive back-packers and luring them to their deaths.

The villa she shared with boyfriend Charles Sobhraj (Tahar Rahim) seemed to be the scene of a permanent pool party, fogged with alcohol and marijuana, a bluesy rock soundtrack throbbing queasily. Everything about the couple was creepy, from Marie-Andrees backless trouser-suit to Sobhrajs wire-framed Reactolite glasses. They looked like walking photofits.

Coleman was especially believable as the persuasive, flattering siren. She never smiled as she drew her victims in.

Youre really pretty, she wheedled to a Dutch hippy girl, Lena (Ellie de Lange). I just want to help you. She seemed sad and damaged  and to the innocent girls she entrapped, that made her more trustworthy.

It was short work for Sobhraj to crush up a few sleeping pills, steal their cash and dump the bodies in the sea or in a ditch.

Billy Howle plays Herman, the clumsy, diligent diplomat at the Dutch embassy who starts to investigate the disappearances with his clever German wife, Angela (Ellie Bamber, last seen as Mandy Rice-Davies in The Trial Of Christine Keeler).

Tim McInnerny is having huge fun as the alcoholic Belgian consul whos happy to help Herman, so long as he can take the mickey out of him: What can I do for you, my clog-wearing friend?

And of course all of them  Billy, Ellie, Tim and Jenna  are doing accents that would make Hercule Poirot blush.

Jenna Coleman was Marie-Andree Leclerc  a glamorous predator, befriending naive back-packers and luring them to their deaths

The first part ended with a truly sordid crime, the abduction and murder of a reckless American girl from a wealthy family who was taking a sheaf of travellers cheques to a monastery in Nepal... and wound up in a strip joint in Bangkok instead.

Already the timeline is tangled and trippy, and it promises to become still more confusing when the drama continues tomorrow night.

With its retro fashions and woozy colours, the production feels like a classy Euro crime serial, without the inconvenience of subtitles.

Sobhraj is a psychopath and Marie-Andree is the monster who activates his evil. Theres a strong suggestion from the start that his crimes will go unpunished. Finding out how that is possible will be a dark and unsettling ride.
Good riddance to a nightmare year haunted by a new, deadly virus By Nadia Fazlulhaq View(s): View(s):

The dawn of 2021, was not a usual one.

It was an end to an extremely exhausting, miserable year to many. This clearly was portrayed by the unusually loud firecrackers at long intervals lighted by those thrilled to end the year of the coronavirus pandemic and pain to welcome a year of hope.

A deadly new coronavirus was reported in Wuhan in Hubei province of China on December 31 afternoon and spread rapidly to engulf the whole world within days. Sri Lanka was not spared.

Tired of a year of death and destruction visited on them from afar, some Sri Lankans decided in the late hours to express their hopes for better days.

In some areas of Colombo, firecracker bursts lasted close to half an hour.

Even vendors were taken by surprise when sales picked up in the last few hours of 2020.

We did not expect sales to go up, and in fact, all manufacturers were complaining of possible losses. The evening rainy weather on the 31st also hurt our expectations. Then, suddenly, we were getting calls telling us that sales are picking up and by 10:00 p.m. almost 75 percent of our stocks were over, said B.M.P.K. Fernando, owner of Tharakaloka Prasanna Fireworks, Negombo.

He suspects that those who were confined to their homes just wanted to celebrate the ending of a miserable year.

More fireworks at the dawn of the New Year were definitely a way to welcome a year of hope, especially for the youth, said Sandeepa de Silva from Moratuwa.

There were no lavish New Years Eve gala dinners, big displays of fireworks, live music as people bid adieu to 2020 and welcomed the New Year with dinner and drinks in the company of family and friends in their homes, or at hotels.

The president of Colombo City Hoteliers Association and Vice President of Hotels Association of Sri Lanka, M. Shanthikumar, said hotels in Colombo, known for well-organized New Year Eves galas had no opportunity to do so this year.

Even the usual dinner service saw fewer people. It was very low key. The year ended with a bad note for hotels, he said.

With over four decades of experience in the tourism and hospitality industry, Mr. Shanthi Kumar said this was the most severely impacted year-end celebration.

Even during the [terrorist] conflict, people were attracted to New Year celebrations. But this is a pandemic and there was a clear risk for those with [underlying] health conditions, he said.

Even places of worship drew few people and many elderly stayed home.

Mask clad parents with young children either wearing masks or face shields, were seen in temples offering flowers and lighting oil lamps.

Only a few patronised popular dining spots in Colombo.

An owner of a leading liquor store in Colombo, said there was less demand for spirits and profit margins dropped.

There were no celebrations at the Galle Face Green  no musical shows and no fireworks spectacles.
mfanukhona@times.co.sz

MBABANE  Top businessmen reiterate their stance that the country must lower cost of doing business to restore economic growth.

They said reduction of corporate taxes, cancellation of penalties and interests by the Eswatini Revenue Authority (SRA) could go a long way in helping companies to recoup their investments.

Andrew Le Roux, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Montigny, said 2020 was one of the most difficult and disruptive years in decades. He said they mourned the loss of friends and colleagues, and further sacrificed jobs and employment opportunities. Businesses and people suffered, he said.

On a positive note, he said, the year 2020 could also be viewed as a time for innovation, unity and learning to do things better. Speaking for Montigny, he said, as a private sector, they had excelled. We are smarter, fitter and wiser. And whatever 2021 brings, I am optimistic that we can overcome it together, he said.

He said they only needed continued policy certainty from government, open borders, lowered cost of doing business and critically an accelerated vaccine rollout. Le Roux said they had a unique opportunity to make Eswatini the best, most competitive and safest place in Africa to do business. Lets take that opportunity. All the very best to every business and entrepreneur in 2021! he said.

He is also the president of Business Eswatini. Business Eswatini is the force behind organised business and employers in Eswatini.

Business Eswatini emerges out of the amalgamation of the Swaziland Chamber of Commerce and Industry (formed in 1916) with the Federation of Swaziland Employers (formed in 1964) in July 2003. From the amalgamation, it was named FSE&CC.

SMEs crucial - Motsa

Moses Motsa, a business tycoon, described 2020 as a disaster, lamenting the emergence of COVID-19, which crippled businesses in the country.

He said he was sure all businesses were affected, small, medium and big. Motsa said it was even difficult to make predictions for 2021. He only appealed to government to create a conducive environment that would keep emaSwati in business.

Government must do everything in its power to create an environment that will keep everyone in business. This is the time when we cannot afford to see businesses that contribute a lot of money to the GDP closing down. Small businesses must be kept active as well, he said.

It has always been governments wish to reduce corporate tax from 27.5 per cent to 12.5 per cent. That could be done to make Eswatinis corporate tax the lowest in Africa.

The businessman said the situation meant businesses should spend wisely. He said it meant business risks should be managed appropriately. Dont sow where you know you wont harvest, warned Motsa.

Recovery Plan crucial -

Du pont

Henry du Pont, another local businessman, urged government to first show willingness to abide by law. He said there was also a need to identify a business model that would suit emaSwati or local entrepreneurship. Du Pont said it was important that they learnt from other countries with major economies, but Eswatini should have its own model.

He said Eswatini should weigh the implications of closing down certain businesses or locking down children. He said the Post-COVID-19 Economic Recovery Plan should be used as a benchmark for all the decisions that the country could take.

He said businesses contributed to the plan which was launched by the late Prime Minister Ambrose Mandvulo.

He said businesses and government should identify priority areas and observe precautions for sustainability and growth. He said the future of the country lies with leadership as it has the privilege to show direction through laws and policies.

Prior to COVID-19, Eswatini faced numerous developmental challenges with stagnating poverty and economic growth. Lockdown measures were introduced from March 17, 2020, including schools closures, limitations on public and private gatherings, the suspension of non-essential travel within cities, and border closures.

Economic activity has been damaged further by South Africas strict containment measures and the closure of some ports of entry with South Africa.

In its Post COVID-19 Economic Recovery Plan, government recognised that the COVID-19 pandemic was not just a health crisis but also an economic crisis.

Before COVID-19, the Kingdom of Eswatini was already experiencing key economic challenges and so the pandemic exacerbated an already fragile economic situation.

In the 2019-2022 Economic Outlook provided by the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development, growth in Eswatini declined from 2.4 per cent in 2018 to 1.3 per cent in 2019 because of a slowdown in economic activity in the primary and tertiary sectors of the economy. Another key factor contributing to subdued economic growth in Eswatini was governments large footprint as the key driver of the economy.

As a result of many businesses/economic activities being dependent on government, the current fiscal challenges have constrained public expenditure and limited ability of the economy to create employment and opportunities for growth.

While economic growth forecasts for 2020 had given prospects for economic recovery with a projection of more than two per cent growth, the global outbreak of COVID-19 resulted in a downward revision of the growth projections so that in the next coming months, the Eswatini economy was expected to experience a significant contraction in economic activities.

Noting the looming economic contraction and potential negative spillovers it would have on the different sectors of the economy, government found it necessary to draw up a national economic recovery plan to save the economy and livelihoods. On April 27, 2020, the late former Prime Minister, Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini, assembled a team of Cabinet ministers and tasked them to develop a Post COVID-19

focus on key sectors

Economic Recovery Plan to address the impacts of COVID-19 on the economy by creating opportunities for income generation and wealth creation in key priority sectors of the economy.

The purpose of the Plan is to resuscitate the economy and reignite economic growth through high impact private sector-led projects that will be implemented as soon as the country comes out of the COVID-19 state of emergency.

It must be said that the Recovery Plan did not replace Eswatinis current Development Plans and Strategies towards achievement of the countrys Development Vision 2022. These include: The Kingdom of Eswatini Strategic Roadmap 2019-2022;

The National Development Strategy (NDS); and the National Development Plan (NDP) 2019-2022; The Strategy for Sustainable Development and Inclusive Growth (SSDIG), among others.

Instead, the Post COVID-19 Economic Recovery Plan is a short-term but very high impact economic stimulus that was launched to resuscitate the economy by igniting a large number of productive economic activities as soon as the COVID-19 pandemic subsides.

In other words, government said it was meant to boost the number of viable and profitable economic activities within 18 months after launch as well as accelerate the implementation and delivery of the National Development Programmes in order for Eswatini to gain significant strides towards achieving Vision 2022 and implantation of the strategic room.

The Post COVID-19 Economic Recovery Plan is necessary in order to generate sufficient momentum for the Eswatini economy to come out of lockdown at a high speed of economic production and productivity.

It will trigger profitable/high impact projects that will in the medium and long-term overcome the social and economic losses that have been imposed by the pandemic since the wake of COVID-19 in January 2020.

Through this Recovery Plan, the Government of Eswatini intends to increase employment opportunities, expand the tax base, and restore the viability and sustainability of the Eswatini economy.

Much of the proposed projects will support the governments goal to reverse the decline in economic activities, will enhance productive sectors of the economy and will create jobs as well as restore the economy into a much higher level of production and productivity.
RTE's Editorial Standards Board has found a sketch that aired on RTE's New Year's Eve show does not comply with RTE's own standards, and broader regulations and will be removed from RTE Player.

Speaking about the decision, Dee Forbes, the Director General of RTE said the broadcaster accepts the findings of the Editorial Standards Board and has apologised on behalf of the network.

We accept the findings of the Editorial Standards Board that this sketch was not compliant with our own guidelines or with our obligations under the relevant codes.

"On behalf of RTE, I fully apologise for that. We will now review the processes involved and engage constructively with the BAI," she said.

The programme has remained available on the RTE Player with a warning, despite an apology from the broadcaster and calls for it to be removed.

The Editorial Standards Board found the sketch did not comply with two provisions:

The provisions of Section 39 (1) (d) of the Broadcasting Act 2009 and the BAI Code of Programme Standards in relation to material that causes undue offence;

The provision of Principle 5 in the above Code (Respect for Persons and Groups in Society) regarding due respect for religious beliefs.

The board also found the sketch did not comply with the provision in the RTE Journalism and Content Guidelines regarding sensitivity to peoples religious beliefs.

Since the findings of the board, the broadcaster has decided to make a voluntary disclosure of non-compliance to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) and engage with the authority in this process.

The network is to request the Editorial Standards Board to review the processes involved in the broadcast of the sketch and will also carry an apology and public statement with due prominence acknowledging the sketch did not meet editorial standards.

RTE has said the sketch is intended as satire and described the comedy genre as an important of their offering to their audience.

A statement from the broadcaster said: "It is RTEs view that satire is an important part of the offering to our audience.

However, satire, no more than any other aspect of our output, must adhere to our own standards and the standards set out in the Broadcasting Act 2009 and the BAI Codes.

RTE has previously apologised for airing the mocked-up news report as part of its New Year's Eve programming.

The sketch, created by Waterford Whispers News, featured former RTE reporter Aengus Mac Grianna reading a report explaining that god had been arrested over "sexual harassment scandals."

Archbishop Eamon Martin criticised the sketch after it was aired. File picture.

In the piece, Aengus Mac Grianna reads: The five-billion-year-old stood accused of forcing himself on a young middle-eastern migrant and allegedly impregnating her against her will, before being sentenced to two years in prison, with the last 24 months suspended.

A man dressed as God is seen being led away by a member of the gardai, and is heard shouting It was 2,000 years ago.

The former news broadcaster Aengus Mac Grianna has since apologised for his part in the sketch.

It is understood that more than 4,750 complaints were lodged with the broadcaster over the piece.
New Delhi:

Obesity has been found to be a 'major factor' that leads to osteoarthritis and it is mostly at the moderate or severe stage that patients seek medical treatment, according to a city-based study.

The Arthritis Foundation of India (AFI) carried the epidemiological study on the situation of osteoarthritis in Delhi on 600 OPD patients drawn from four hospitals.



"Most respondents sought medical treatment at a moderate to severe stage. It could have been possible to prevent the progression of the disease and the suffering to quite an extent had it been reported in the mild stage," the study said.



In addition, women reported it more than men, the study said.



The AFI, member of the International Osteoporosis Foundation and the WHO, conducted the multi-centric study at Hedgewar Hospital, Vir Savarkar Hospital, Jagpravesh Hospital and R K Hospital.



"55 per cent of the patients were women. Shockingly, the severity of arthritis was also much higher in women as compared to men," it said.



"Obesity was a major contributing factor, with 53 per cent of the respondents found to be obese. Also with risk factors like hypertension, diabetes, thyroid, etc., the progress of the diseases was much quicker in many cases, within two years," it added.



Over 73 per cent of the patients who attended the arthritis OPD for knee arthritis, were aged more than 40 years. However, an alarmingly high incidence of arthritis, i.e. 26.5 per cent, was reported among younger people, in their 30s, the study further said.



It throws light on the prevalence of osteoarthritis in Delhi, and the general public's response to the disease. Unfortunately, there is very little awareness among the masses, which is not a good sign and is preventing people from getting the right treatment at the right time, said Sushil Sharma, Senior Orthopedician and Chairman, AFI.
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New Years Eve was a busy one for San Antonio police, who responded to at least three shootings and two car crashes.

With less than two hours left in 2020, a dispute over a missing cellphone triggered an exchange of gunfire that left an 18-year-old man dead and four others wounded.

A group of three men had gone to a trailer park in the 5300 block of Southcross Ranch Road to confront another group of three men about the missing phone, police said.

The two groups exchanged gunfire, ending with five of the six men being hit by bullets, reports showed. All six were between the ages of 18 and 21.

The group that went to the trailer park then drove away, stopping in the 4100 block of Roland Avenue, about 3 miles away, police said. The 18-year-old who died had been part of that group. Hed been shot twice in the abdomen, police said. He has not been identified.

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The other four men who were injured were taken to local hospitals for treatment and were in stable condition as of Friday morning, police said.

The shooting happened about 10:40 p.m., reports showed.

Two hours later, police responded to another shooting, this one at a bus stop near Larkspur and Belair drives.

Officers found a 15-year-old boy with a gunshot wound to the left thigh. The teen was with three friends, who told police they were walking home from a party when a car drove by and someone inside fired a gun at them.

The teen was taken to a local hospital. There were no suspects as of Friday morning.

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A third shooting occurred shortly after 6 a.m. at the Knights Inn at 4039 E. Houston St.

A witness told officers that a 43-year-old man was inside his room when a 38-year-old man started kicking in the door to get in. When the door was breached, the man inside the room fired a handgun at the other man, hitting him multiple times, reports showed.

The man who fired the shots left before officers arrived, police said. Officers found the other man lying on the ground outside the hotel. He was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. He also has not been identified.

In addition to the shootings, police responded to two vehicle collisions early Friday, one of which resulted in a driver being killed.

In the first incident, a 14-year-old girl was hit by a pickup minutes after midnight as she was riding a scooter in the 1000 block of West Amber Street, according to police.

Reports stated that the driver, 28, slowed but then continued driving, spurring the girls family to chase the truck. They managed to stop it, leading to an altercation in which the driver was stabbed, police said.

Both the girl and the driver were taken to the hospital. The driver was arrested and booked for failure to stop and render aid and driving while intoxicated, police said.

Hours later, around 2:55 a.m., a man died when he crashed into a large utility pole while driving east near Division Avenue and Pleasanton Road, reports showed.

There were no other vehicles involved, and there was no one else inside the car, police said. The driver has not been identified.

Staff writer Mark Dunphy contributed to this report.

andy.picon@hearst.com | Twitter: @andpicon
Ahmedabad, Jan2: Four persons who recently returned to Gujarat from the United Kingdom (UK) have tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus, a top state health department official said on Saturday. Results of the 15 samples that had tested positive for coronavirus on arrival in Ahmedabad from the UK are currently pending with the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune, the official added.

"All the passengers who had reached Ahmedabad from the UK were screened, and the samples of those who had tested positive for coronavirus were sent to the NIV. We have received intimation that the UK strain of coronavirus has been detected in four such cases," Principal Secretary (Health), Jayanti Ravi told reporters. All these four patients are already kept in isolation at Ahmedabad's SVP Hospital as per the Centre's guidelines.

"Results of the 15 samples tested positive for coronavirus on arrival in Ahmedabad are pending with the NIV," Ravi added. The government of India took cognisance of the reports of virus reported from the UK and put in place a proactive and preventive strategy to detect and contain the mutant variant, the Union Health ministry had said.

This strategy includes temporary suspension of all flights coming from England with effect from the midnight of December23 till January 7 and mandatory testing of all UK- returned air passengers through RT-PCR test..

.
Foul play has been ruled out following the death of talented Cork musician Reuben Lynch who played in the well known band, the Lynch Mob, alongside his father and brother.

Mr Lynch, 45, was found dead by his family just after 4pm on New Year's day at a house in Curraheen Drive in Bishopstown on the southside of Cork city.

Reuben Lynch was found by family at the residence on Curraheen Drive shortly after 4pm. File photo: Billy MacGill

A postmortem was carried out at Cork University Hospital (CUH) as a precautionary measure. However, it was determined that there was nothing suspicious about the passing of the well known bass player.

Tributes have continued to flood in for Mr Lynch whom friends described as being "a beast on the bass" such was his level of skill as well as describing Mr Lynch as a clever, gentle beautiful human, a lovely guy, such a dude, an absolute gent and a hidden Gem among the masses.

Shocked and saddened to hear of the passing of Reuben Lynch. Seeing him perform at Henchy's with his father Ricky are some of my happiest memories with my family in Cork. He was gentle and kind. My thoughts with Ricky and the family. Rest in Peace https://t.co/OjWGOikOLV  Jared Garfield (@jaredgarfield1) January 2, 2021

Mr Lynch had performed in numerous venues in Cork including Cork Opera House. Counihans bar on Pembroke Street posted a statement in which they indicated that the artistic community was a lesser place following the loss of a "kind, gentle and gifted musician." He played alongside his father Ricky and his brother Graham.

Very sad news, Reuben Lynch bass player in his father's band, The Lynch Mob has passed away. RIP Reuben. https://t.co/PbNhbt97Tb  Cork Folk Festival (@CorkFolkFest) January 1, 2021

Musician Hank Wedel said the passing of Reuben represented the "end of an era in Cork city." He stated Reuben would be remembered for his "gentle spirit" and "lovely heart."

Two fantastic musicians and friends gone too soon... this photo was taken after a Song Collector Session at The Pav. Thank you Liam Reilly & Reuben Lynch for sharing your passion with us. https://t.co/PMi2zd75cT  SongCollectorSession (@TheSCSessions) January 2, 2021

Tributes also came in from amongst others Cork Folk Festival, musician Roy Buckley, broadcaster PJ Coogan, the Song Collection Sessions, traditional Irish music trio Arundo, and Crowley's Music.

In 2013 artist John Adams painted a portrait of the the Lynch mob band comprising of father Ricky and sons Graham and Reuben. It was unveiled at Cork City Library as part of the Cork Folk Festival that year with father and sons performing at the event.

An inquest in to the death will take place in Cork Coroner's Court later this year.

Funeral arrangements will be finalised in the coming days.
Syracuse, N.Y. - As state lawmakers last week passed another ban on evictions during the coronavirus pandemic, Assemblywoman Pam Hunter used the moment to call for larger reforms that would keep out-of-town slumlords from ignoring their properties and leaving their tenants in squalor.

We are falling very short of long-term planning, Hunter said. Weve come a long way and were still not far enough.

Hunter cited a recent report by syracuse.com | The Post-Standard that exposed a British man who dealt nearly 100 Syracuse houses to overseas investors in a get-rich-quick scheme that blighted neighborhoods and left people living in horrifying conditions.

Hunter said she had extreme concern about the report, which showed more than half of the homes involved in Simon Slees scheme are in the 128th Assembly District, Hunter said on the floor of the New York State Assembly in late December.

We absolutely must do better, she said, going on to cite specific cases revealed by syracuse.com, where squalor prevails and people are living in it, she said.

One crumbling house on Rich Street was being propped up with a beam that leaned against the house next door. Another on Cannon Street has been cited 27 times for things like broken windows, missing smoke detectors and a broken water heater. Several sinks in the house dont work. Theres a broken pipe in the basement oozing sewage.

This is an example of housing in my district, Hunter said.

Syracuse has made strides in recent years tackling housing and landlord issues, Hunter said. She cited the creation of a land bank, a local agency that returns tax-delinquent properties to productive use. Last fall, the city banned evictions by landlords who ignore a rental registry meant to enforce code violations such as exposure to lead paint.

Hunter last week voted for the states latest housing protections, which also mean to help homeowners who are unable to make mortgage payments because of the pandemic.

But she warned that short-term help doesnt do enough to protect renters throughout the state from future investors looking to make money rather than invest in neighborhoods.

I dont want my community to fall prey, again, to predatory investors, she said. They are looking to make a quick money on the backs of our very poor.

Hunter also noted lags in dispersing the federal and state money meant to help renters and landlords already sent to places like Syracuse, another issue syracuse.com exposed last month.

Hunter said some landlords in the 128th District are working with tenants to get through the pandemic. They are trying to work it out, she said.

Yet short-term thinking isnt enough, she added. We absolutely must do better, she said.

Got a story idea or news tip youd like to share? Please contact me through email, Twitter, Facebook or at 315-470-2274.
TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

The first Bahraini baby of 2021 was a boy, and he arrived an hour after midnight at the Salmaniya Medical Complex (SMC). Born to Sayed Hassan Hashem and his wife Sherifa Jaafar Mohsen, the baby boy was the first amongst 11 new babies born in Bahrain on 1 January 2021.

During the first 12 hours of 2021, Bahrain was blessed with 11 babies - six boys and five girls.

Following the first boy, was a baby girl - the second birth of the New Year. She was born to Ali Maneh Ali and his wife Asma Saleh Moqbel. The baby girl opened her eyes at 1.09 am at SMC in Suite 308.

Next Khaled Ibrahim Ali and his wife Zainab Syed Hassan got their moment at 1.40 am, also in the form of a baby girl.

A few hours later, a baby boy followed her. Jaafar Ali Shaban and his wife Fatima Syed Hussein welcomed him to the world at 4.36 am and at 6.20 pm Muhammad Ibrahim and his wife Afrah Mirza Radhi were also blessed with a baby boy.

Meanwhile, according to UNICEF, the first baby of 2021 was from Fiji in the Pacific. The last baby of the day was welcomed by the USA. UNICEF says an estimated 371,504 babies were born around the world on New Years Day.

Globally, over half of the 371,504 births are estimated to have taken place in 10 countries: India (59,995), China (35,615), Nigeria (21,439), Pakistan (14,161), Indonesia (12,336), Ethiopia (12,006), the United States (10,312), Egypt (9,455), Bangladesh (9,236) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (8,640).

In total, an estimated 140 million children will be born in 2021. Their average life expectancy is expected to be 84 years.

The children born today enter a world far different than even a year ago, and a New Year brings a new opportunity to reimagine it, said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore. Children born today will inherit the world we begin to build for themtoday. Let us make 2021 the year we start to build a fairer, safer, healthier world for children.
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Gurugram, Jan 2 : Hundreds of students of the government girls college situated in sector-14 of Gurugram blocked the road near Mahavir Chowk on Saturday demanding cancellation of second semester exams. The protest led to a huge traffic jam.

The students were protesting against the college management for again conducting their second semester exams despite getting promoted to the third semester.

The students alleged that they had given an online exam consisting of 20 marks during the second semester and at that time the management had assured them they will be promoted to next semester and the exam of the second semester will not be conducted. Now, the management wants to conduct the second semester examination in the next 10 days.

The students demanded the cancellation of the exams and sought written assurance about their promotion to the next semester.

Many students also alleged that the college is conducting exams despite promotion on the basis of internal assessment for all inter-semester students.

"We are preparing for final year semester exam and now how it could be possible to give second semester exams without any preparation even without any classes or without books," said a protesting student.

"We are studying for the third semester since the previous year. How can we write the exam on the second semester in next few days?" a student from the girl's college told IANS.

Furthermore, going ahead with the protest, students are planning to block the road till their demands are not met.

Speaking to IANS, Government Girls college Sector-14 principal R.K. Garg said, "We are following UGC directions to conduct pending semester exams. Even earlier, we have said that the decision of postponement of the exam can be changed if the situation becomes favourable. However a meeting in this regard will be held on January 4 with the university and further course action taken as per their directions."
A man has been charged by police after allegedly attempting to sneak meth and syringes into a Perth quarantine hotel hidden inside a fast food takeaway order.

It is the second time police have foiled a plot to smuggle drugs into a city quarantine hotel inside a food order after a man was found with illicit drugs stashed inside a bag of french fries in November.

The drugs were hidden inside a hamburger. Credit:

According to police, the courier arrived at the Adelaide Street hotel at 12.15pm and told staff he wanted to drop some takeaway food off for a person isolating in one of the rooms.

After noticing the man looked nervous, police and security guards searched the order and found four syringes hidden inside a thickshake and a bag containing 1.2 grams of meth stashed in a hamburger.
Bulls were in control in 2020 with the market benchmarks - Sensex and Nifty - gaining 15.75 percent and 14.90 percent, respectively.

It was a year of hope and despair for the market. While COVID-19 loomed as a grave threat on the market, liquidity boost, better corporate earnings and hopes of vaccine kept the market high.

Top market voices express their views on emerging trends in the market, the art of investment and areas of opportunities. Take a look:

Chris Wood, Jefferies (to CNBC-TV18)

We have raised our allocation to India. It makes sense to remain overweight in India. The key assumption in our India upgrade is that India won't go into renewed lockdowns.

The reducing number of COVID cases in India is a marked departure from what one is seeing in Europe.

Asset quality in banking is still a risk. We hope that the loan restructuring will remain manageable in India. The real estate sector is looking promising.

Shankar Sharma, VC & Joint MD of First Global (to CNBC-TV18)

In the year 2020, especially in the last quarter, India has started to show signs of life and that is a very good sign. I think that augurs well for this year. India is cyclically due for a good year in 2021.

After a 10-year bull market, 2020 saw a bit of a cyclical bear market in the US dollar. Now investors should move away from dollar-denominated stocks due to the greenbacks depreciation.

Again from a tactical perspective, we are playing the cyclical so we had a very good run on the metal plays. In India, we really have limited choice we are placed in Tata Steel, and Hindalco and all that.

We have played cement as well. We have not played the banks. So you can play cyclical without taking excessive risk and we are playing that without taking a lot of leverage or leverage plays.

Sunil Singhania, founder of Abbakkus Asset Management (to CNBC-TV18)

As we move forward, there are apprehensions because of the rapid rise in stock prices. On a one-year basis, we are still maybe 15 percent which is not a very big rise.

As we move forward there is a lot of tailwinds also quite visible. The biggest tailwind has been all the money printing that has been done globally, that liquidity is going to not only drive flows into the market but also aids the businesses.

I still like the digital theme, I am a traditional investor and normally I dont like very high PE companies, but this is a theme that is going to last for a long period of time.

We still like the IT space and spending on technology is increasing globally and the topline and bottom-line performance of these companies will surprise.

On the metal front, you cant take a five-year view but there are some companies with an integrated model which is trusted upon earlier which can be looked at from a couple of years' point of view.

Pharma is going to be a sector that cannot be ignored. I would prefer good pharma companies at 20-25 PE rather than buy FMCG companies at 50-60 PE.

N Jayakumar, MD, Prime Securities (to CNBC-TV18)

Government-owned companies and PSU banks will be the biggest contributor to earnings growth going ahead.

Even the capex cycle is going to be fuelled by multiple PSU companies that have been low on debt and now are willing to take up the load.

So if you are talking about manufacturing and capex revival, it is largely going to be reflected in the PSU companies which will have earnings that will be dramatically different from what they were two years ago.

I believe the top 2-3 banks will not face this challenge of the NPA cycle. I think the numbers there compared to the losses they had to bear where they had these large one-off NPAs are going to be very different.

Nilesh Shah, MD, Kotak Mahindra AMC (to CNBC-TV18)

What are good businesses? Businesses, which over a business cycle will earn more than the cost of capital.

Who are good managers? There is no thumb rule about good managers but experiences on the people who will not cheat with minority shareholders are by and large good managers. People who have a vision, as well as execution capability, are by and large good managers.

What is a good price? "You are not always lucky to get it at a bargain price, but we believe in paying a fair price where you believe earnings growth will be higher than expectations of the market, then the price you are paying is generally having fairness about it.

The above report is compiled from information available on public platforms. Moneycontrol advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
WASHINGTON - For years, West Coast cities have borne the brunt of violent confrontations between far-right extremists and counterprotesters who come to meet them.

Brawls broke out in Berkeley, Calif. White-supremacist rallies in Sacramento ended in bloodshed. Violent clashes have become common in Portland, Ore., where gunfire broke out at demonstrations over the summer. Demonstrators in Olympia, Wash., recently fired weapons into a crowd, wounding at least one person.

Up and down the western United States, protests have devolved into violent clashes replete with thrown rocks, exploding fireworks and streams of caustic chemicals.

But the nation's capital - with its strict gun laws and history of orderly, peaceful protest - has largely avoided these violent conflicts.

Until now.

Extremism experts who study the far-right warn that the District of Columbia is on a path to become the next battleground in increasingly violent confrontations with left-leaning counterdemonstrators.

In the weeks since the 2020 presidential election, a coalition of loyalists of President Donald Trump, conspiracy theory adherents, white nationalists,self-proclaimed militia members and other fringe figures have flocked to the nation's capital to support the president's baseless claims of election fraud. As Trump's hopes of reversing the election results have faltered, those who falsely believe the election was stolen or fraudulent have grown increasingly angry and desperate.

Extremist groups intent on sowing chaos and division have capitalized on these feelings to recruit members and spread disinformation, experts say. In online chat groups and forums, political rage and disbelief metastasizes into calls for violence.

"They feel Trump won the election and that the country is being stolen from them, so this is their last chance to save America," said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism and the former director of intelligence at the Southern Poverty Law Center. "They're a lot angrier now, and that worries me. It worries me that now they're deciding if they're going to bring guns to the street fight."

During two weekends of pro-Trump demonstrations in November and December, violent melees spilled into the streets of downtown Washington.

Longtime District protesters, many of whom have been demonstrating since the May police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, have called for District residents and supporters to join them to stand against groups they see as an existential threat. Both times, they have been outnumbered.

"D.C. is not exactly a Proud Boy-friendly city," said Eric Feinberg, who monitors online activity from extremist groups as vice president of content moderation at Coalition for a Safer Web. "Activists are in a more defensive position here. They see it as protecting their turf. But what happens is then you get these other groups like the Proud Boys that want to cause violence, and they know that if they come to D.C. they'll be confronted by these left-wing activists - that's where it gets dangerous."

On Wednesday, Trump's supporters and a litany of far-right groups who believe the president's baseless claims of voter fraud will again converge in the District to demand that Congress overturn the results of the election. That same day, Congress is set to convene to certify electoral college votes, declaring President-elect Joe Biden the winner.

Trump continued on Friday to publicize the right-wing demonstrations on Twitter. "The BIG Protest Rally in Washington, D.C., will take place at 11.00 A.M. on January 6th," Trump tweeted, although none of the organizers requesting permits gave that start time. "Locational details to follow. StopTheSteal!"

The District is no stranger to protests. The city has averaged more than 800 permitted demonstrations annually in recent years and many more that gather without permits. While arrests have increased as protesters have sought to use civil disobedience to make a point, the arrests often are planned and choreographed.

When violence has erupted, it has largely targeted property - not people.

But security experts who study extremist movements and terrorism threats say street brawls are part of the ethos of far-right agitators. Experts said these groups will continue to return to Washington well after Biden is sworn into office.

Trump's far-right supporters have announced plans to return to the District on Jan. 17 and in the days around Biden's Jan. 20 inauguration, during which some militantsare touting a "Million Militia March."

"This is where people come to march. Historically, this is where hate groups have come to march, as well," Beirich said. "Washington is a far better target for them than [the West Coast]. You get better press coverage, there's a lively anti-fascist movement in D.C. so you're almost guaranteeing you'll get some clashes in the streets. That's what they thrive on."

On Wednesday, four simultaneous rallies are expected to draw pro-Trump demonstrators to areas around the Washington Monument, Freedom Plaza and the Capitol to hear speeches from prominent conservatives, including Trump ally Roger Stone and incoming Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has endorsed the baseless QAnon conspiracy.

Permit applications estimate thousands of attendees will spread throughout various sites downtown, chanting and waving flags. But in encrypted chat apps and online message boards, a different kind of day appears to be taking shape.

For weeks, anonymous users have posted tips and strategies for smuggling firearms into the District, where carrying without a permit is prohibited and guns are banned at protests. Organizers on the left and right have warned their followers to prepare for violence.

Neo-Nazis took to Telegram, an encrypted chat app that allows users to broadcast to a channel of subscribers, to encourage followers to attend, saying they need "boots on the ground" to intimidate lawmakers and push for a nationalist agenda.

Comments on a YouTube video announcing the Hotel Harrington's decision to close during the days leading up to Wednesday's protest - after a Washington Post report on how the District's oldest continuously running hotel became a Proud Boys rallying spot - devolved into calls for violence and an armed takeover along the Mall.

"At what point do armed Americans seize DC and start hanging politicians? It's an honest question that is not without merit or precedence," wrote a user in a post that was up-voted by other contributors more than 1,100 times.

A number of commenters indicated they believed - or hoped - a civil war may soon begin against a perceived band of enemies that includes communists, socialists and anyone deemed a member of "antifa."

Members of the Proud Boys, an all-male far-right extremist group with ties to white nationalism, boasted about their plans to break off into smaller groups to roam the streets looking for counterprotesters to confront.

Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, who did not respond to a request for comment for this article, wrote in a post that was widely shared on Parler and Telegram that the group will turn out "in record numbers on Jan. 6," promising "1,000 boots on the ground."

Tarrio and other Proud Boys leaders also told followers to ditch their signature black and gold dress in favor of all-black clothing - an apparent attempt to make far-right agitators harder to pick out in a crowd of black-clad anti-fascist and anti-Trump demonstrators.

"We will be incognito and we will spread across downtown D.C. in smaller teams," Tarrio posted on Parler.

Other likely attendees include members of various armed groups, such as anti-government groups like the Three Percenters and Oath Keepers. Members of the youth-led Groypers, a white-supremacist group, are also likely to return. On Dec. 12, they cheered as bands of Proud Boys carried a Black Lives Matter sign torn from outside a historically Black church, then set it on fire.

Experts say far-right groups have used Telegram channels and other social media to exchange taunts and threats with left-leaning activist organizations. Supporters of the Proud Boys gleefully reposted and highlighted videos in recent days of black-clad demonstrators being punched and pushed to the ground at previous rallies.

"They're putting this stuff online to taunt each other, to try and get the other side riled up," Feinberg said. "It's memetic warfare."

Online fundraisers have cropped up to solicit donations for travel, communications equipment - such as earpieces, microphones and radios - and help covering the medical bills of Proud Boys who were hospitalized after Dec. 12 stabbings in a chaotic altercation across from Harry's Bar, the in-house pub at the Hotel Harrington.

Street medics, who volunteer to treat those wounded at protests, and members of left-leaning groups have launched similar fundraising campaigns. Some money goes to purchase radios to track real-time movements of the opposition and to send warnings, or marching orders, to their allies.

During the Dec. 12 rally, men dressed in Proud Boys colors pressed radio receivers into their ears as they awaited instructions.

"They found antifa - we have to get to E Street," a man said to a small crowd gathered around him.

These small, roving gangs often did not unearth antifa - a loose collective of activists who identify as anti-fascist - but instead were involved in violent attacks on passersby.

One man caught in the fray was 25-year-old Christopher Langley, a U.S. Army specialist who said he had stopped in the District for sushi after spending the warm December day at Six Flags America with his siblings and a friend.

As he walked through crowds downtown, Langley said, he was attacked by men wearing vests marked with the yellow letters "PB." He was punched in the head, knocked to the ground and surrounded by at least four Proud Boys, he said.

Langley said he received four stitches at George Washington University Hospital to close a cut on his lip.

"It was surprising in that I didn't do anything to provoke them," he said. "I wasn't wearing anything they disagreed with."

Experts say this escalation - marking anyone who is not with them as the enemy - indicates that far-right groups are growing more volatile and less concerned about appealing to mainstream Americans.

Rita Katz, executive director of SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks extremism and terrorism threats, said the posture of many far-right groups changed after Trump's election loss.

"Before that, they were trying to create an image that they were the victims, that antifa was attacking them, that antifa was the real threat," Katz said. "They still hold this victim mentality, but their message has evolved to suggest that it's now their turn - if not their 'duty' - to spark confrontation. Essentially, 'this is it; be prepared and bring whatever you need to fight.' "

Incoming District police chief Robert Contee III, who will oversee the police response on Wednesday, said "violence will not be tolerated" at protests. He said he was "on the ground" during the last visit from the Proud Boys and saw the kind of violence that night wrought.

He said violent protests "are not an anomaly" in the District and compared the last two far-right demonstrations to racial justice protests in late May after George Floyd's death. At that time, swells of angry and grieving demonstrators converged downtown for weeks. At times, confrontations with police escalated as protesters threw rocks and water bottles or shot fireworks at the police line. Federal police officers fired tear gas and rubber bullets into crowds of protesters.

On Dec. 12, tight lines of District police officers denied roaming clusters of Proud Boys - some wearing helmets and body armor, or carrying clubs and shields - entry to Black Lives Matter Plaza for much of the night as clashes exploded nearby. Frustrated, members of the group yelled at officers, telling them to "do your job."

In online discussion groups this week, posts from far-right demonstrators showed a growing disillusionment with police officers. Some called for police to stand back, while others called for violence to be exacted against "corrupt" police.

"The optics aren't pretty any time you have 200 to 300 people brawling in the street and you're trying to arrest those involved in violent behavior," Contee said. "It's totally unacceptable. When we see and we are safely able to take people into custody, we will do so."

- - -

The Washington Post's Emily Davies and Peter Hermann contributed to this report.
Protesting farmer unions on Saturday said they will take out a tractor parade towards Delhi on January 26, when the country will celebrate Republic Day, if their demands are not met.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will be in the national capital on January 26. He will be the chief guest at the Republic Day parade which will be held at Rajpath.

Addressing a press conference, farmer leader Darshan Pal Singh said their proposed parade will be called "Kisan Parade" and it will be held after the Republic Day parade. The next round of talks between the government and protesting farmer unions is scheduled to be held on January 4.
On the first day of 2021, at 10am, a volunteer team consisting of writers, artists, Communist Youth League members and ordinary citizens walked onto the Trestle Bridge (one of the most sought-after tourist destinations in Qingdao) to distribute the mystery boxes to the passersby. The program's launching ceremony was originally scheduled to take place there, but was canceled due to the precautions against COVID-19. However, this made the gift-giving more surprising.

"I've received gifts from my family, lover and friends, but it was the first time that I received a gift from a city. What's a special love confession!" said a young tourist from Shanghai.

"The gift is so exquisite and creative. I've been moved by the city's sincere welcome," said Miss Wang from Shenzhen.

Five young people from Shandong province's Tai'an and Liaocheng, Shanxi province's Datong, Sichuan province's Liangshan and Anhui province's Chaohu, who entered a university in Qingdao after the 2020 national college entrance exam, also expressed their gratitude and blessings for the city.

It is learnt that the program attracted 100 Qingdao-native writers, artists, exhibition planners and movie stars who are living in and outside Qingdao to make short videos as endorsers for the city. In their videos, they hold the "blue gift box" in their hands to introduce the program to the viewers.

Different recipients could find different gifts in the mystery boxes they got. It might be a book about the city's culture and folk customs, a ticket for a local museum, or a beautiful postcard designed based on the wood engraving picture titled "My Qingdao" created by Qingdao-born artist Jiang Yongjie for the program. Besides, each of them could get a Red Run apple, a specialty of Qingdao's Baoshan Town.

It is reported that the "Gift from Qingdao" program is expected to become an annual campaign in Qingdao in the future. The city in robust development will prepare more gifts to give more surprises to both local citizens and guests from other places.

Contact: Ms. Zhu Yiling

Tel: 0086-532-85911619

Website: http://www.qingdaochina.org

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/qingdaocity

Twitter: https://twitter.com/loveqingdao

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1393788/Stadt_Qingdao.jpg

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1393789/Stadt_Qingdao.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1245709/Qingdao_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Stadt Qingdao
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The Prominent Civil Rights Advocacy group-: HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has strongly criticised the Inspector General of Police Mohammed Adamu and the Nigeria Police Force for incessantly physically tormenting and harassing the Civil Rights campaigner and publisher of saharareporters Mr. Omoyele SOWORE only for carrying out peaceful protests.

The Rights group said the arrest of the activists confirms the intelligence it got before the New Year that the year 2021 will be tough for the organised community of civil rights campaigners in Nigeria because the Federal government will unleash what it calls scorched-earth anti-activists policies whose components will include forced disappearances, armed abductions and mass arrests of human rights activists.

The Rights group said the reported threats to the lives of OMOYELE SOWORE and his associates by armed police from the Federal Capital Territory's command who rounded the protesters up during their solemn CROSS OVER CIVIL RIGHTS CANDLE LIGHTS PROCESSION was not just unconstitutional and illegal but amounted to the violation of the Rights to religious freedoms, Freedoms of Movement, Association and PEACEFUL ASSEMBLY as guaranteed by chapter 4 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 as amended.

"This Nigerian Police Force has indeed refused to heed to the voice of reason by decisively changing their terrible modus operandi as a force for evil and as an anti democratic reactionary elements. The Nigerian Police Force needs to be tailored and refocused to confront and combat the widespread violence tearing apart the fabrics of our nation State and join the men and officers of the Armed forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to battle the expanding frontiers of TERROR attacks in the North East of Nigeria and the North Western Southern Kaduna State. The Police should learn to respect the Constitutionally protected and guaranteed fundamental freedoms of the citizens such as Rights to civil and PEACEFULASSEMBLY and PROTESTS. What OMOYELE SOWORE and his associates did by assembling in Gudu junction in the nation's capital has in no way constituted any threats to the National Security interests of Nigeria. We call on President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to order that the Police should immediately release unconditionally the publisher of saharareporters Mr OMOYELE SOWORE and his associates".

HURIWA recalled that the media reported that the Nigerian police have again arrested the publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore, for leading a protest in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.

HURIWA said Sowore and some activists were arrested at the #CrossoverWithProtest, a planned procession across the country on New Year eve just as Some of the protesters who escaped arrest confirmed to the media that Mr Sowore was whisked away in one of the seven vans of the Nigerian police mobilised to the protest ground.

Recall that HURIWA'S NEW YEAR MESSAGE dated December 31st 2020 titled :"PREPARE FOR SCORCHED- EARTH ANTI-ACTIVISTS POLICIES BY GOVERNMENT" had stated the following:

The Prominent Civil Rights Advocacy group-: HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has expressed disappointment and consternation at the declining respect for the fundamental human rights of Citizens and the fast shrinking civic spaces in Nigeria under the current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari just as the Rights group said the coming year of 2021 may be the toughest one for independent minded opinion moulders and activists in the Country.

HURIWA also expressed fears and anxieties that the declining state of governance in the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory would push millions of Nigerians into absolute state of poverty even as youth unemployment, persistent strikes in tertiary educational institutions, armed violent cult groups, lack of respect to Child Rights will worsen the standards of living of over 150 million Nigerians and lead to a spike in violent crimes with blood cuddling consequences.

The Prominent Civil Rights Advocacy group-: HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) stated that millions of frustrated youngsters will take the inevitable risks of embarking on illegal and irregular migration to foreign jurisdictions just to beat the widening spectre of violence, anarchy and collapse of Law and order in Nigeria in the year 2021. TERRORISTS will also expand the frontier of attacks on soft targets because of the non availability of sustainable counter terror measures to deal with the armed Islamists who had in the Christmas season increased the rate of attacks targeting Christian minorities in North East of Nigeria and North West region.

In a short new year message, the Rights group said there are ominous signs that there could be a deliberate activation by the Federal government of President Muhammadu Buhari of some sets of anti-people policies that may be targeted at abridging the constitutionally guaranteed fundamental freedoms of the citizens such as the Rights to civil liberty, Freedoms of movement and ASSOCIATION and most importantly, there could be a renewed resolve by this government to curb the freedom of Expression and Speech. "The clear failure of President Muhammadu Buhari to halt the wave of terrorism and insecurity in Nigeria would in 2021 compel Nigerians to demonstrate and this will be greeted with violent crackdown by an intolerant government that had in the past deployed armed security forces to forcefully kill peaceful protesters".

In the media statement endorsed jointly by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf, HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA)said that there are an abundant of supporting facts to show that President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration will in the year 2021 seek to further tighten the noose around the determination of social critics and human rights activists to speak out loud and clear against the rise in the violent abuses of the Constitutionally protected and guaranteed fundamental freedoms of the citizens.

HURIWA said President Muhammadu Buhari encourages his loyalists and followers to verbally attack civil rights activists only for expressing their own opinions on some notorious and toxic policies of the President Muhammadu Buhari's government that offends the norms and practices allowed under Constitutional democracy.

"From available empirical evidence, this federal government does not tolerate divergent thinking and opinions and to make matters worse, the Federal Government is in the habitual pastime of motivating and encouraging mushroom platforms set up by highly subjective and partisan religious and ethnic bigots to go all out to attack voices of dissent to the policies of the administration."

"As we have seen such groups like the Moslem Rights Concern (MURIC) that was recently allegedly indicted by a top Chadian Intelligence Chief of funding the Boko haram terrorists, these are the kinds of groups that lack credibility that President Muhammadu Buhari is encouraging to continue to attack such eminent patriots such as the Bishop of Sokoto Diocese of the Roman Catholic church Right Reverend Dr. Mathew Hassan Kukah only because the Reverend gentleman exercised his Constitutional rights of Fundamental freedoms by critiquing the policies of President Muhammadu Buhari's government that consistently offends the Federal Character principles of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 as amended such as the government's one sided appointments of only Fulani/Hausa/Kanuri Moslems into strategic national and internal security Architectures."

"It is clear that with less than two years before Muhammadu Buhari retires into his palatial mansion in Daura, Katsina State near Niger Republic upgraded fantastically with tax payers money, this government will deal decisively with activists who will speak out against such evil and outrageous policies like deployment of Nigerian Commonwealth to develope infrastructures in Niger Republic."

"This government that is notorious for mind boggling crimes of corruption in the Federal ministries of Petroleum, Power, Works and Housing amongst others, will show more resistance to the continuous voicing of dissenting voices against any of the policies of this central government of President Muhammadu Buhari. So we are urging all activists to remain resolute and principled even as we are to brace up to the inevitable risks of forced disappearance, armed abductions and imprisonment only for exercising their legal rights to fundamental human rights of Citizens as safeguarded by the Grund Norm of Nigeria".

"Sadly, the National Assembly is a rubber stamp contraption of the executive arm of government just as the Judiciary has already been bought over with the installation of a misfit as the Chief Justice of Nigeria through the illegality of an interim injunction of the CODE OF CONDUCT TRIBUBAL domiciled within the Executive arm of government ".
Gohmert Appeals Dismissal of Lawsuit Seeking Clarification on Pences Role

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and other plaintiffs seeking clarification on what power the vice president has during congressional sessions for counting electoral votes filed an appeal late Friday after a judge dismissed their case.

District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, ruled earlier in the day that the plaintiffs in Gohmert v. Pence lack standing.

Plaintiffs were seeking a court ruling that would uphold their view that the vice president has the exclusive authority to decide between competing slates of electors. They allege the Electoral Count Act of 1877 violates the Constitution because it restrains the vice presidents authority.

Vice President Mike Pence and Democrats aligned in asking the court to reject the suit, because, they argued among other reasons, it named the wrong defendant.

According to a notice filed with the court, the plaintiffs shortly before midnight filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The 6-page notice included no arguments.

Vice President Mike Pence looks on during a press conference at the White House in Washington on March 2, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

Gohmert said late Friday that Kernodles ruling was wrong and plaintiffs hoped to get an answer from the appeals court before Jan. 6, when the joint session of Congress is set to take place.

Thats my hope and prayer. And yes, I think they will take some action before the 6th, whatever it is, he said during an appearance on Newsmax.

The court case doesnt affect plans from roughly 52 members of Congress to object to electoral votes during the congressional session.

The group plans to file objections because of alleged voter fraud and irregularities. Theyre targeting crucial swing states where Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden won, including Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Nevada. President Donald Trump claims he actually won the states.

The group grew by 11 on Saturday. In a joint statement, 11 senators and senators-elect said they were going to join the effort because the allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetime.
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A recent research report added by Decisiondatabases on the Wireless Security Cameras Market provides a comprehensive view of this business sector by giving a detailed description of the global market shares, regional & country-level market size, growth, trends, and forecast analysis. This report also focuses on value chain optimization, recent developments, opportunities analysis, and industrial sector expansion.

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Arlo

Ring

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CP Plus

Shenzhen ZhuoChuang Vision Technology

Panasonic

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TP-Link(Kasa Smart)

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Canary

YI

Amcrest

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Standard

Compact

Segmentation by application: breakdown data from 2015 to 2020, in Section 2.4; and forecast to 2025 in section 11.8.

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Industrial

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Around 840,000 private renters in England and Wales have built up rent arrears since lockdown measures began, according to new research.

A survey of tenants for the National Residential Landlords Association, carried out by research consultancy, Dynata, suggested that seven per cent of all private renters had built arrears due to Covid.

Whilst the average arrears were between 251 and 500, the survey found that 18 per cent now have rent debts of more than 1,000, equating to 150,000 individual renters across the private rental sector.

Tenant trouble: The data suggests more renters are falling into arrears with their landlords

Figures provided by the charity, Shelter, have also shown that the number of renters in arrears has more than doubled since August last year.

'11 million people rent in England - and the pandemic has revealed how insecure private renting can be,' said Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter.

'Hundreds of thousands have been pushed to the brink, struggling to pay rent due to job losses or reduced working hours.'

'As the economic shockwaves of the pandemic continue, the situation will get worse if the government doesn't act swiftly,' said Neate.

The self-employed who rent were most likely to be in arrears, according to the NRLA research, with 17 per cent saying they had developed rental debts since March.

In terms of age groups, the survey found that younger people were most likely to have been affected, with 14 per cent of renters aged 18 to 24 having built arrears since March.

The West Midlands had the largest proportion of rental arrears across England and Wales with 11 per cent of tenants having built rental deficits since March.

The next worst hit area was London, where nine per cent of renters reported accruing arrears.

Over the course of the pandemic, tenants have been far more likely to see their income fall than homeowners say Hamptons.

'Our research highlights in stark terms the rent debt crisis now engulfing the rental market,' said Ben Beadle, chief executive of the NRLA.

'Ministers need to accept that simply banning repossessions does nothing to keep tenants in their homes long term.'

'It will achieve the complete opposite, as kicking the can down the road just means larger debts piling up, creating a bigger problem for tenants and also for landlords.'

The NRLA is asking the Government to provide tenants with guaranteed interest-free hardship loans as well as boosting benefit payments.

'To sustain tenancies the Government needs to provide an urgent financial package to get rent debts accrued during the pandemic paid off,' added Beadle.

Tom Mundy, chief operating officer at lettings technology company Goodlord believes that today's figures are a true reflection of what is being seen across the UK's lettings market.

Mundy warns that without intervention from the Government, there will likely be mass evictions and huge pressures on the courts come spring.

What is the advice for renters in arrears?

The most important thing is to keep lines of communication open with your landlord.

'Be open and honest and see whether a mutually agreeable plan can be created with your landlord or letting agent,' said Mundy.

'Burying your hand in the sand over rental arrears won't help anyone; once the courts start allowing eviction procedures to move ahead, your debts will catch up with you.'

'Receiving a Country Court Judgement can stay on your credit record for up to five years, which can have a whole range of repercussions in other areas of your life,' he added.

'Crucially, having over six months worth of arrears means any eviction processes can be sped up once the ban is lifted - dropping from six months to four weeks' notice.'

'Look to keep any debts below that threshold if you're hoping to stay in your current property whilst paying back your debt gradually.'

What is the advice for landlords?

Landlords should have rental insurance in place, and where your tenant is in arrears, take professional legal advice.

'For landlords who are not receiving rental payments but still paying out on mortgages, this is a particularly stressful time,' said Mundy.

'Having rental insurance in place could help cover landlords for a certain amount of missed rent and any legal costs.'

'We also strongly recommend that landlords take legal advice as it is vital to have trusted guidance from someone who understands this area and can help you deal with it properly and legally.'

Meditation and looking to compromise via repayment plans should always be the first port of call though, according to Mundy.

'For example, it's worth considering negotiating whether your current tenant can move out ahead of the end of their lease if they're unable to pay, as there is still strong demand in the market from new tenants.'
SEBI Imposes Rs70 Crore Penalty on Reliance Industries, Mukesh Ambani for Fraudulent Trading in F&O of RPL in 2007

Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has imposed a penalty of Rs70 crore on Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), the company chairman Mukesh Ambani, Navi Mumbai SEZ Pvt Ltd and Mumbai SEZ Ltd, for fraudulent trading in the futures & options (F&O), or derivatives, space in Reliance Petroleum Ltd (RPL). This is in addition to a previous order for disgorgement of nearly Rs1,000 crore with interest, which was upheld by the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) and is now being challenged in the Supreme Court by RIL.

In an order passed on first day of 2021, BJ Dipil, adjudicating officer (AO) of SEBI says, "In the instant case, the general investors were not aware that the entity behind the above F&O segment transactions was RIL. The execution of the aforesaid fraudulent trades affected the price of the RPL securities in both cash and F&O segments and harmed the interests of other investors."

The order mentions that RIL had entered a scheme of manipulative trades in respect of the sale of 5% of RIL stake in RPL. "However, before undertaking sale transactions in the cash segment, RIL fraudulently booked large short positions in the RPL November futures through 12 agents with whom it had entered into an agreement to circumvent position limits for a commission payment."

"As a result, RIL fraudulently cornered nearly 93% of open interest in RPL November futures, when the said 12 agents took short positions in F&O segment on its behalf. The funding for the margin payments by the said agents was provided by Navi Mumbai SEZ and Mumbai SEZ. A common person connected with RIL had placed orders in the cash segment on behalf of RIL and in the F&O segment on behalf of the agents."

"On the date of settlement of RPL November Futures, i.e., on 29 November 2007, RIL sold 1.95 crore RPL shares on NSE cash segment in the last 10 minutes of trading resulting in fall in the prices on the cash segment, which artificially depressed the settlement price of RPL November Futures. This resulted in profits on the huge short positions held by the agents in RPL November Futures and the said profits were transferred back to RIL by the agents as per prior agreement."

"The above strategy undertaken by RIL has resulted in manipulation of settlement price of RPL November Futures and prices of RPL shares in the cash segment. I note that Mukesh Ambani, being the Managing Director of RIL, was responsible for the manipulative activities of RIL...the transactions executed by Noticees were structured and executed in such manner so as to escape the notice of regulatory authorities, investors as they were not in public domain. Therefore, I conclude that the said scheme of manipulation was deceptive and against the interest of the securities markets," the SEBI order says.

In November 2020, the SAT, by a 2:1 majority order had dismissed an appeal filed by RIL against SEBI order of 24 March 2017. Through its March 2017 order, SEBI had banned Reliance Industries and 12 others from equity derivatives trading for one year and had directed the company to disgorge nearly Rs1,000 crore for alleged fraudulent trading in a 10-year-old case.

In an order, the SAT bench comprising Justice Tarun Agarwala, Dr CKG Nair and Justice MT Joshi, say, "In view of the majority opinion, the appeal is dismissed with no order as to costs. Appellant no1 (RIL) is directed to make payment of the disgorged amount of Rs447.27 crore along with simple interest calculated at the rate of 12% per annum from 29 November 2007 till the actual date of payment to SEBI within 60 days from the date of this order."

Read: SAT Asks Reliance Industries To Pay Rs447 Crore with Interest in RPL Shares Case; RIL To Move SC ) "Further, the fact that disgorgement of Rs447.27 crore + interest imposed on RIL is a sizable sum does not make that direction harsh both because it is only a remedial action and what is disgorged is only what has been gorged by contravention of the specified laws. Nothing has been taken out of the RILs own funds/ assets in the process. Since it is only an equitable remedy there is no question of that being harsh or a penal action," the Tribunal had said. (

The Mukesh Ambani-led RIL was by asked by SEBI to pay Rs447 crore, which, along with an annual interest of 12% since 29 November 2007, took the total disgorgement liability for the company to nearly Rs1,000 crore.

According to the March 2017 order passed by SEBI's WTM (whole-time member) G Mahalingam, 12 entities, Gujarat Petcoke and Petro Product Supply Pvt Ltd, Aarthik Commercials Pvt Ltd, LPG Infrastructure India Pvt Ltd, Relpol Plastic Products Pvt Ltd, Fine Tech Commercials Pvt Ltd, Pipeline Infrastructure India Pvt Ltd, Motech Software Pvt Ltd, Darshan Securities Pvt Ltd, Relogistics (India) Pvt Ltd, Relogistics (Rajasthan) Pvt Ltd, Vinamara Universal Traders Pvt Ltd, and Dharti Investment and Holdings Pvt Ltd were front entities of RIL.

"As the investigation revealed that each of the front entities of RIL had undertaken F&O transactions in the scrip of RPL under respective agreements with RIL, as stated earlier in this order and as RIL was its ultimate beneficiary, it was alleged that such agreements are benami contracts and therefore, illegal and invalid in terms of the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988. It was further alleged in the show cause notice (SCN) that such arrangements were part of a scheme / artifice intended to manipulate and/or defraud the market. It was alleged that the object of entering into such agreements and executing such trades was to avoid detection of the breach of the client- wise position limits in derivative contracts imposed by the SEBI and NSE circulars issued in this connection," the order had stated.
Washington: President-elect Joe Biden's choice for Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, collected more than $US7 million($9.1 million) in speaking fees over the past two years from major corporations and Wall Street banks that have a keen interest in the financial policies she will oversee after her expected confirmation to lead the Treasury Department.

Yellen's paid speaking appearances  which included $US992,000 from investment bank Citi for nine appearances  were among the lucrative payments from a range of Wall Street, Big Tech and corporate interests to three prominent prospective members of the incoming Biden administration.

President-elect Joe Biden's choice for Treasury secretary Janet Yellen, former chair of the Federal Reserve. Credit:AP

The payments, revealed in disclosure statements covering the previous two years and released on New Year's Eve, have caused consternation among progressive activists concerned about the influence of special interests around Biden, who they see as part of a Democratic establishment that has not sufficiently embraced liberal priorities.

Biden's choice for secretary of state, Antony Blinken, was paid nearly $US1.2 million ($AU1.56 million) by a consulting firm he helped found, WestExec Advisors, where he advised a range of corporations including Facebook, Boeing, private equity giant Blackstone and asset management company Lazard.

on Saturday conducted a dry run at 17 centres for the rollout of COVID-19 vaccination that showed successful working of the processes involved and it was a learning experience as well, a top state health official said here on Saturday.

The exercise showed that all preparations were in 'ready' mode for the roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccine in the state, Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan said, adding that overall, the processes worked successfully.

The dry run was held at three centres each in the districts of Chennai, Tiruvallur, Nilgiris, Tirunelveli and five in Coimbatore.

"An initial learning was that the room earmarked for vaccination should be more spacious," the secretary told reporters, adding officials from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) also witnessed the drive.

Quoting initial inputs, he said the dry run, involving about 2,000 personnel and 510 participants, showed overall satisfactory results, adding that the focus of the exercise was preparation and planning for the proposed roll out of the vaccination.

The mobile application and other processes, including identification of beneficiaries worked well and aspects like internet connectivity in hilly regions were also studied and all of these observations would be sent to the Centre,he said.

After perusing all reports related to the dry run, if needed, changes would be suggested by to the Centre in the pattern of processes and its working, he said.

The objective of the exercise was preparatory in nature, where the working of various processes involved for successful hassle free vaccination was tested.

The overall management scenario of vaccination,right from bringing vaccines to inoculation centres from cold chain amenities and verifying beneficiaries in a mobile application following initial identification were among aspects studied.

Availability of requisite drugs and presence of a doctor in an observation room to monitor people who received the vaccine shots for unlikely reactions or adverse events was also evaluated, the top official said.

About 100 people could be vaccinated in a day in a given centre with all amenities, including separate entry and exit points and this feature was also evaluated.

The beneficiaries also received SMS on their phones informing them of 'successful' (dummy message during practice session) vaccination, he said.

As many as six lakh health personnel have already registered for the vaccination and other frontline workers were set to register themselves, followed by the elderly and those with co-morbidities, he said.

In Chennai and other districts,teams have been set at the level of zones and unions respectively and 45,200 sites for providing vaccination and 51 walk-in coolers, 2,800 secondary cold storage points with capacity to store 2.5 crore ampules are ready , he said.
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Page Content

As of January 10, 2021, St. Maarten will roll out the SXM Protection Plan, a mandatory health coverage for its visitors that is very affordable and assures the tourist a relaxing and safe vacation. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, St. Maarten wants to ensure that all visitors are properly protected, and have an advanced protection in case they test positive while vacationing on our friendly island.

A visitor who tests positive for COVID-19 in St. Maarten, will have very few, if any, out-of-pocket expenses, giving the visitors a peace of mind in case they test positive, and if they cannot be assisted in St. Maarten, the SXM Protection Plan covers also medical evacuation costs. The overall maximum limit for all benefits together, except Medical Evacuation, is $50,000. Emergency medical evacuation to the nearest qualified hospital to prevent loss of life, is up to a maximum limit of $20,000, provided the patient cannot be treated locally in St. Maarten.

In case of hospitalization, the expenses to treat severe COVID-19 symptoms includes specialist fees, diagnostic x-rays, lab expenses and nursing costs. Costs of specialized transportation of a Covid-19 infected person. It also covers a maximum sublimit of $125 per day, max. 14 days, in case of a positive Covid-19 test result. Intensive Care Unit charges for treatment of a critical ailment caused by COVID-19. Costs of doctor consults. Max. 4 medically necessary Covid-19 tests as outpatient with a sublimit of $75 per test.

Tests are only covered with referral from the St. Maarten Government Health Department. Emergency medical evacuation to the nearest qualified hospital to prevent loss of life. Preventive government mandated quarantines for fellow travelers and those who tested negative are NOT COVERED.

The insurance is required for all foreign nationals with the exception of residents, visitors who arrive, leave the same day, crewmembers and transit/transfer passengers who do not need to recheck their luggage.

The St. Maarten Visitors Protection Plan sold and processed via the mandatory online health form on www.stmaartenentry.com

For detailed information on the St. Maarten Visitors Protection Plan please visit www.sxmprotectionplan.com

About St. Maarten: St. Maarten is the smallest island in the world to be shared by two nations  Netherlands and France  creating a destination with European charm and Caribbean flair. Located at the northern end of the Lesser Antilles, the islands 37 square miles has 37 breathtaking beaches and is home to many historical and family-oriented attractions. Direct air service is available to Princess Juliana International Airport from major U.S. and Canada, South America, Europe and the Caribbean gateways.
Stop the Steal Rally

Yesterday, President Trump sent out a tweet reminding everyone about the Stop the Steal rally.

The BIG Protest Rally in Washington, D.C., will take place at 11.00 A.M. on January 6th. Locational details to follow. StopTheSteal!

From what I'm reading, it sounds as if Trump plans to be present on Wednesday. He also said lots of evidence of election fraud will be presented to the joint session of Congress and the American people.

Sundance at Conservative Treehouse/The Last Refuge reports:

From what can be ascertained from social media and inbound grassroots communication to CTH, this is shaping up to be the largest DC gathering in recent history.

He also provides useful tips and information, which I've linked to below. There are also several comments on the thread linked above that are informative for anyone planning to be in and/or already en route to D.C.

Link to tips written by a patriot who lives in D.C. and has attended other protests includes information about travel, accommodations, restrooms, safety, cell phone service (don't count on it), and maps: here.

Link to March for Trump website that appears to be organizing buses: here.

Link to Stop the Steal website that has information about protests in all of the states in question. There will also be events in numerous other states (perhaps almost all of them), but the organization is focusing on these states for the obvious reason. They also have links to make it easy to contact elected officials. All information can be found here.

The weather report

As of this writing, the weather looks as though it will be good, if not a bit cold, given the time of year. Please pray that the weather holds and patriots gathering in D.C. are not subjected to additional burdens.

Objections to the Electoral College votes

Congressional representatives and senators have the right to object to some or all of the votes. As of this writing, it appears that there will be at least 140 congressmen and 1 senator objecting.

I feel a bit of uncertainty about exactly how this process works with respect to the time allotted when an objection is made. Does each challenge set off a debate process that lasts up to two hours, or is two hours the maximum total time allowed to debate all the challenges? Please see three excerpts below from the Congressional Research Service and weigh in if you're so inclined. (The third excerpt address the time issue.)

Excerpt 1 explains the initial step to object to a vote or votes:

When an objection, properly made in writing and endorsed by at least one Senator and one Representative, is received, each house is to meet and consider it separately[.]

Excerpt 2 explains the general process and confirms that we have no hope of winning using the objection process since both houses must agree to the objection in order for it to stand. Since we don't have a majority in the House and since our Senate majority is riddled with cowards, the objection process will be symbolic but will not change the outcome, at least the way I understand it. Still, I think it is important that it be done.

The joint session does not act on any objections that are made. Instead, the joint session is suspended, the Senate withdraws from the House chamber, and each house meets separately to debate the objection and vote whether, based on the objection, to count the vote or votes in question. Both houses must vote separately to agree to the objection by simple majority. Otherwise, the objection fails and the vote or votes are counted[.]

Excerpt 3 addresses the time allowed to debate objections.

Section 17 lays out procedures for each house to follow when debating and voting on an objection. These procedures limit debate on the objection to not more than two hours, during which each Member may speak only once and for not more than five minutes. Then "it shall be the duty of the presiding officer of each House to put the main question without further debate." Under this provision, the presiding officer in each house held in 1969 that a motion to table the objection was not in order.20In the House, the Speaker announced both in 1969 and 2005 that he would attempt to recognize supporters of the objection and opponents in an alternating fashion for the duration of the two-hour period. In one instance in 1969, the Speaker inquired whether a Member supported or opposed the challenge before he agreed to recognize him to speak. Members can yield to each other during debate as they can during five-minute debate in the Committee of the Whole, and many chose to do so in 2005. The Speaker also entertained unanimous consent requests to insert material in the Congressional Record.

Here's an excerpt from The U.S. House of Representatives historical website:

During the Joint Session, lawmakers may object to individual electoral votes or to state returns as a whole. An objection must be declared in writing and signed by at least one Representative and one Senator. In the case of an objection, the Joint Session recesses and each chamber considers the objection separately for no more than two hours; each Member may speak for five minutes or less. After each house votes on whether to accept the objection, the Joint Session reconvenes and both chambers disclose their decisions. If both chambers agree to the objection, the electoral votes in question are not counted. If either chamber opposes the objection, the votes are counted.

Louie Gohmert lawsuit against Vice President Pence

Congressman Gohmert's original lawsuit sought to expand the vice president's powers so that he could reject votes from states where there is evidence of massive fraud. Pence's lawyers asked a federal judge to dismiss the case, noting that he was not the appropriate defendant. Now Gohmert has appealed and hopes the 5th Circuit will rule by January 4.

Link to interview with Gohmert yesterday where he discusses what's at stake and his thoughts moving forward, including his fear of violence if we don't remedy this through a legal process: here. Congressman Gohmert is one of the rare members of the GOP who's the real deal. He's a tireless patriot who stands up for what's right, for truth, and for the Constitution. If you'd like to thank him for doing everything he can in this election fight, a link to his website can be found here.

Prayer

Keep it up!

Photo credit: public domain image via Picryl.
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The Week

After publicly expressing "grave concerns" over Arizona's audit of the 2020 election results, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) was "stripped" of her ability to "defend election lawsuits" by the state's Republican-led House Appropriations Committee, reported Arizona's ABC 15 on Tuesday. The duty was transferred "exclusively" to Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) through the end of the 2023 fiscal year. Democrats say the move is retaliation against Hobbs' defense of Arizona voters in "lawsuits filed by the State Republican Party and others challenging Arizona's election results," per ABC 15. "It can't be just a coincidence" that Republicans are blocking a "vocal critic of the audit," writes Elvia Diaz for azcentral.com. Democratic State Rep. Randy Friese reportedly called the move "troubling," "disturbing," and "quite nefarious." Furthermore, the Appropriations Committee removed Hobb's "oversight of the Capitol Museum," ABC 15 reports, after Hobbs angered state lawmakers when she "flew a gay pride flag from the building's balcony" in 2019. Katie Hobbs has conscientiously supervised elections in Arizona. Republicans there just stripped her of some powers -- including her ability to litigate election lawsuits. They gave control of that process to the state AG, a Republican. This is how democracy gets dismantled. https://t.co/VamVgXfxgR  Tim O'Brien (@TimOBrien) May 25, 2021 In an article for azfamily.com, Hobbs labeled the entire audit "a political stunt," adding that it is "dangerous to people's safety and to the integrity of our democracy." She later tweeted a photo on Tuesday of a fruit basket sent by Stacey Abrams and Fair Fight, saying that's how "you know you're doing it right." When @staceyabrams, @gwlauren, and their crew at @fairfightaction send you a fruit basket, you know you're doing it right. pic.twitter.com/yQ11UdmXso  Katie Hobbs (@katiehobbs) May 25, 2021 Read more at azfamily.com. More stories from theweek.comBiden says he underestimated Trump's ability to spread 'the big lie'Biden needs some braggadocioReport: D.A. convenes grand jury expected to hear Trump investigation evidence
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Preparations for the three-tier Panchayat polls which would be conducted between March 15-30 are in full swing across Uttar Pradesh. The official announcement of dates will be out by February 15, said Panchayati Raj Minister Bhupendra Chaudhary.

The work of reorganization of gram sabhas has been completed while the delimitation of wards is under process. The four districts of Moradabad, Gonda, Sambhal and Gautam Budh Nagar are under full delimitation and the work for districts under partial delimitation is going on.

Panchayati Raj Minister stated that by January 14 the delimitation work will be completed, following which the work of reservation will be concluded. As of now the reservation for gram panchayat seats was fixed at district headquarters, however, this time the process has been moved online. The reservation of seats for gram sabha, BDC, Pradhan and Zilla panchayat members in gram panchayats will be decided from Lucknow. The population of revenue villages will be assessed to implement reservation in panchayats.

Talking about how the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party will gain in panchayat elections, Bhupendra Chaudhary added,  Panchayati Raj Department has built more than 2.5 crore toilets under the Swachh Bharat Mission. Panchayat buildings, community toilets have also been built in rural areas. More than 80,000 primary schools have been rejuvenated under Operation Kayakalp. The work of the government will definitely benefit the BJP in the panchayat elections.

In democracy, everyone has the right to speak. The opposition will also contest elections, but BJP will get the benefit of its development work, he added.

Before the notification is issued, the work of cleaning the board with the names of village heads will also be done by the District Panchayat Raj Department. In this regard, the DPRO has directed the officials concerned that wherever the boards of the village head names are installed in the district, the names of the village heads should be removed from them.
The Advocate held a virtual economic outlook summit at 9 a.m. Thursday looking at the Baton Rouge-area economy for 2021.
Blaze Cromwell, a 24-year-old cashier living in Washington, D.C., doesnt order from Amazon.com or shop at Whole Foods. He doesnt watch movies or shows on Prime Video. He doesnt own a Ring or a Kindle. And he doesnt use Audible, Twitch or Zappos. Hes about as close as one can get to abstaining from Amazon entirely.

Cromwell began the work of cutting the company out of his life in 2017, after reading reports about Amazons working conditions and what he saw as generally unethical practices.

I reasoned that financially withdrawing from Amazon.com, and later on its subsidiaries, was one of the most material things I could do as a working-class person with disposable income from time to time, he said.

Leaving Amazon requires some determination, he said, but its less daunting once you get started.

Its a matter of people changing both their habits and expectations for their consumption, he said. Its not just a choice, he noted, but an ongoing practice. (He has, occasionally, looked up titles on IMDb, an Amazon subsidiary since 1998. Hes in the process of finding alternatives.)

People have been advocating boycotts of Amazon for nearly as long as the company has existed. In 1999, programmer and activist Richard Stallman led one related to a lawsuit the company filed against Barnes & Noble to protect a patent covering 1-click ordering, which he worried would stifle competition in e-commerce. (The lawsuit against Barnes & Noble was settled, and the patent has since expired.)

There have been countless attempts to shed Amazon since: by authors and booksellers, political activists, labor organizers, my colleagues. (Even the most determined abstainers find their limit when trying to eliminate Amazon Web Services, which counts among its clients thousands of other companies, including popular websites and apps, as well as The New York Times.)

Meanwhile, Amazon has grown into a company larger and more powerful than almost any retailer in the world. It sells everything. It directly employs more than 1 million people. Its founder is a household name. It undergirds much of the internet. And its intertwined with politics by default, drawing ire from across the political spectrum. (My anti-capitalist liberal college student and her uber-capitalist conservative grandparents are both boycotting Amazon, one Twitter user shared in December.)

Unlike in 1999, or even 2009, today the question of whether or not to interact with Amazon has already been answered for many people. The choice is no longer whether to enter the Everything Store. Its about trying to locate the exit.

I refused to go to Walmart, and as a small child went to United Farm Worker protests, said MaryBeth Haslam, 54, an Amazon abstainer from Philadelphia. Dropping Amazon hasnt been particularly difficult, she said. Just inconvenient.

I could get certain grocery items there that are hard to obtain elsewhere, she said. So you just get different stuff, no big deal. Not every Amazon alternative is a beloved local business, of course  I have to admit Target has been getting more business out of me, she said  but Haslam has specific issues with Amazon and in particular with Jeff Bezos, who, she said, doesnt need any more of my money.

Haslams abstention is thorough, but she recently hit a snag: Christmas. A niece asked for a specific gift from Amazon. A nephew asked for an Amazon gift card, which would give him the ability to order whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

It kind of hurt to shop there, honestly, she said.

Char Wells, a 31-year-old Etsy seller, avoids Amazon as much as possible, for reasons both broadly ideological and personally specific. Wells, who is disabled and takes nongendered pronouns, objects to the idea that small vendors on other sites should be expected to meet Prime delivery expectations. Still, sometimes they need something they cant easily get somewhere else, or for an item to arrive quickly.

Not every Amazon abstainer has a coherent or specific critique of the company  for some, its merely the most visible representation of consumerism, concentrated wealth and big business, taking Walmarts place in a variety of broad lamentations about culture and the economy.

It was Nike for a little while. Its been Nestle, then Coca-Cola, said Tim Hunt, an editor of the British nonprofit magazine Ethical Consumer. We can add Amazon to the list of corporate boogeymen, and I dont mean that flippantly, he said.

Most abstainers dont suffer any illusions about what theyre doing; Amazon clearly hasnt suffered from their absence, and their numbers arent large enough to make demands  many more people are currently turning to Amazon than are turning away. Instead, for some, opting out of an increasingly ubiquitous and assertive Amazon offers a sense of control and agency, however slight.

The sheer scope of Amazons business interests  including surveillance devices (Ring), government contracts (through Amazon Web Services), and a workforce that includes both low-wage gig workers and the actual richest person in the world  makes finding a reason to opt out of Amazon nearly as easy as finding something to buy on it. But plenty of Amazon abstainers arent merely coping with guilt, reclaiming a lost sense of control, or fighting the thought that ethical consumption sounds oxymoronic.

Chris Smalls is the former Amazon warehouse worker whose March protest about working conditions at a Staten Island, New York, fulfillment center, and subsequent firing, turned him into a leader in the nascent movement to organize Amazon workers. Hes an activist now with a potent personal story and a long list of specific demands. He has planned marches on Jeff Bezos homes.

Asking people to voice support for his cause is one thing. Asking them to actually leave Amazon, it turns out, is quite another.

A lot of my own relatives, they used to be frequent customers of Amazon, Smalls, 31, said. It was a struggle for them, since they were so accustomed to it. Some of them used to order from Amazon almost every single day.

Even sympathetic audiences can be hesitant about disentangling themselves from the company.

My advice is, do it at your own pace, he said. Im always advocating to stand in solidarity with the workers, but I know how hard it is as a customer to stop using the service.

Amazons ubiquity, and the millions of habits its customers have formed, put Smalls in a strange and exhausting position: appealing for empathy for a largely invisible workforce laboring through a pandemic, while also sympathizing with Amazon customers accustomed to a relatively new convenience.

Ten years ago we werent ordering toilet paper from Amazon, Smalls said. Maybe thats how long it will take to get over it, too.

Harold Pollack, a professor at the University of Chicago, was interviewed by The New York Times in 2012 for a story about customers who were leaving Amazon. Pollack, who teaches public health, said at the time, I dont feel they behave in a way that I want to support with my consumer dollars. He has since written critically of Amazon, including, in 2018, an op-ed titled Better Ways for Jeff Bezos to Spend $131 Billion, recommending that Bezos divert his winnings to philanthropy rather than space travel. (In 2020, that figure would be somewhere north of $180 billion.)

Reached by phone, Pollack said his critiques of Amazon had both widened and deepened, but that hes also now a frequent customer.

Its chastening, he said when asked to revisit his stance. I do use Amazon more in my life than Im entirely comfortable about. Its part of the infrastructure of my life in the same way it is the infrastructure of others lives, during COVID especially.

Pollack then offered a fresh analysis, one that attempted to incorporate, or at least acknowledge, his ambivalence.

I think my own trajectory is emblematic of why there need to be public policy solutions to this, he said, mentioning concerns about antitrust, Amazons broader place in the economy, and, as was his focus in 2012, the welfare of the companys workforce. Amazon, he said, presents an enormous collective action problem.

The company has seeped further, inexorably, into his life. Using Amazon makes getting work reimbursements simpler. Amazon gift cards have become de facto standard inducements for study participants (notwithstanding the concern of some fellow researchers). Plus, like most people, Pollack is busy.

Amazon provides tremendous value to consumers that allows us to look past a lot of things, he said. Going forward, he plans to do the easy things that allow me to minimize my reliance on Amazon and feel good about it, but I will basically not do the things that are less easy. And if Im honest, you cant rely on me to discipline the company.

Smalls, the former warehouse worker, offered a gentle, practiced take on customers like Pollack: Using Amazon might be like an addiction, or at least something that takes weaning.

In an interview earlier this year, though, he was perhaps more candid about the companys habitual consumers. You think you need Amazon? he said in April, shortly after his firing. OK, what were you doing a few years ago?

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Cases of maternal deaths saw drastic reduction at the Bono Regional hospital in Sunyani with the facility recording only three cases in 2020 compared to 20 cases in 2019.



The Supervisor at the Antenatal Clinic of the hospital, Mrs Joval Nyarko-Ababio told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that anaemia, eclampsia and sickel cell contributed to most of the deaths.



She therefore appealed for monitors, BP apparatus and more doctors, assuring that the facility would not record any maternal death in 2021 if the needs were provided.



Earlier, the Bono Regional Minister, Mrs Evelyn Ama Kumi Richardson, visited various wards and feted patients on admission.



The Minister supplied the patients with Christmas packages including tin tomatoes, cooking oil, rice, spices and beverages.



Mrs Kumi-Richardson urged the patients to adhere to advice from health workers and take their drugs to facilitate their healing processes.



The Midwife in-charge of maternity at the hospital, Mrs Vida Tiwaa, said nine babies comprising four boys and five girls were born on December 31, 2020.



As of 12:00 G.M.T., five babies had been delivered, she said adding that some pregnant women were also in labour.



Mrs Tiwaa appealed to pregnant women to attend regular ante-natal clinics to protect themselves and their unborn babies.







Source: Graphiconline.com









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A former Royal Marine Commando and Special Forces Sergeant, Jason Fox is well qualified for his role on hit Channel 4 series SAS: Who Dares Wins, putting ordinary people though punishing physical and psychological tests. Having joined the army at 16, he worked in hostage rescue, surveillance and counter terrorism among other things, before leaving the military with PTSD two decades later. He's written several books since, the latest of which - Life Under Fire - looks at building inner strength and resilience.

Here, Fox (44) talks to us about life after the military, and why mental health might be his most important cause...

Do you have an addiction to danger?

"I enjoy challenging myself, and did from an early age. It gives me a sense of achievement, so I like being in uncomfortable situations. But I don't go out of my way to find new and wonderful ways to kill myself; if something looked like it was going to be certain death, I wouldn't do it. I don't deliberately push my luck."

You've talked about beating your demons and having suicidal thoughts...

"Demons are like your emotions. Human beings are driven by emotions, and we can sometimes allow them to control us, or be embarrassed by them. That makes us not talk about them, and when I went through my sticky patch and was contemplating suicide, I wasn't being honest with myself about what my emotions were. I was trying to ignore them, which was just compounding the issue. They're my emotions, and it's up to me what I do with them."

How would you describe yourself now versus then?

"My description might be different to what others might say, but I'd say I'm a very positive person who enjoys life. I'm glad I went through what I did because it's made me much more rounded in my approach to myself. I like to think I'm a reasonably aware person - not just of my own feelings but hopefully other people's too."

Did you on some level enjoy the chaos of war?

"It's difficult to understand why soldiers miss it. It's not that I miss the violence, I think what comes with the chaos is a very strong bond between you and the people you experience it with. That feeling of brotherhood with people you can trust with your life. It's unfortunate you have to experience it in such dark places, but it is an addiction. It's the sense of belonging that people miss."

Do you think you've managed to find that again with your work?

"Yeah, I think so. My purpose now is to enjoy life, but also to help people in whatever capacity I can. Whether that's through talking about mental health, or through my organisation (Fox co-founded Rock2Recovery which supports people in the forces, veterans and their families dealing with stress).

And what do you think Who Dares Wins does for people?

"We all put in an awful lot of effort to give people a life-changing experience. It looks like we're just screaming and shouting, but there's a lot more than is shown. It's an opportunity for people to really push themselves - to see what they're actually capable of. I love the way all the people who come on are so surprised by what they can achieve."

What was your journey out of the Army like?

"It wasn't sudden. On my final tour of Afghanistan, there are moments I can pinpoint when I felt strange things.

Like lying in a ditch and suddenly thinking about being at home as a 10-year-old boy, when I'm supposed to be a seasoned combat veteran. When I came back from that tour, I was so unmotivated. I wasn't having flashbacks or anything, but I was supposed to be a leader and it just wasn't right.

I tried to explore that, to restore my military mojo, and it turned out I'd contracted PTSD and was in a fit of depression."

Did you feel a loss of purpose?

"Yeah. I was told the thing that would fix me was leaving the military. I wasn't totally happy with it, but I had to listen. Then I woke up expecting to feel better, and I didn't, I felt worse. I'd lost my sense of belonging, and no longer felt part of something that had been a massive part of my life since I was 16. There's an identity there, so you're left thinking, 'Who am I? What's my purpose?'"

Do you look back on your Army days and think about the lives you cut short, or those you couldn't save?

"Not any more, because it is what it is. The by-product of that job is extreme violence, but I enjoyed soldiering. I enjoyed the sense of purpose, the camaraderie, the different skills. I didn't enjoy being extremely violent, and I genuinely believe most of the blokes I worked with didn't enjoy it either.

"When you're in a gunfight, no one's angry, no one's happy - it's just what you do. And the people I couldn't save - I can't change it. I did revisit it for a period and it wasn't helpful for my mental health, so I learned from that and moved forward."

You talk a lot in the book about hiding your PTSD. Do you think there is still an inclination among men to close down?

"It's a by-product of old attitudes. Different things work for different people, but to blanket men with this idea that you just need to shut up and 'man up' is not helpful. It obviously doesn't work for a lot of people, because men are killing themselves at an astonishing rate.

"We need men to know that if they don't feel good, that's all right, and it's a natural reaction to something. It's called being human.

"Don't get me wrong, I don't want it to be an excuse - 'I can't do this and I can't do that' - you've got to find a little bit of grit and determination to help you through tough times. But please, please find the right people you feel comfortable talking to, because that 100% saved me."

Was it a bit of a revelation when you did open up?

"Yeah. One of the most pivotal moments was on the first series of Who Dares Wins, as one of the main reasons I went on the show was to use it as a platform to talk about mental health.

"I knew when episode two came out at nine o' clock on a Monday, it was (going to be) me on national TV saying, 'I've been medically discharged for PTSD and I suffer from depression'. I was so scared, so anxious, and not a nice person to be around that day.

"I had no idea how it was going to be received, but when it went out, the feedback was awesome. I felt such a sense of empowerment, like the biggest weight had been lifted, because I'd admitted something real and said: 'That's who I am'. I didn't need to keep up this facade of being this super tough bloke. I'm so pleased I did it."

What would your older self say to your younger self?

"If you start to feel a certain way and it doesn't sit right - address it. Talk with someone you trust. That's probably the only thing, really - you're going to go through some things, but it's okay.

"Don't be ashamed of it. Talk to someone."



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Life Under Fire: How To Build Inner Strength And Thrive Under Pressure by Jason Fox is published by Penguin Random House, 20

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A 72-year-old cultivator allegedly died by suicide at a farmer protest site in Uttar Pradeshs Ghaziabad on Saturday morning, a police officer said. He was a part of the sit-in protest farmers have been staging at the site since November 28 against the three farm laws enacted in September to liberalise the agriculture sector.

The deceased... was found hanging at one of the mobile toilets at the protest site. He has also left behind a note which is written in Punjabi, said circle officer Anshu Jain. Jain added the farmer was from Rampur district. The farmers committee has decided against conducting the autopsy. Prima facie, it appears to be a case of suicide and nobody has suspected any foul play. The note recovered from his possession will be examined, said Jain.

Shamsher Rana, the national media co-ordinator of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, said the farmer, in his suicide note, blamed the government for not accepting the demands of farmers. [He] has also mentioned that his funeral be conducted at the UP-Gate [protest site]. However, it is likely that his body will be sent to his native place and handed over to his family, he said.

On Friday, a 57-year-old farmer from Uttar Pradeshs Baghpat died at the protest site. The cause of his death could not be ascertained as his family refused permission for a post mortem. His brother said that the deceased had complained of breathlessness on Friday morning and died later.

Hundreds of farmers from Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh have been protesting against the three farm laws for over a month at UP-Gate. Apart from the UP-Gate, thousands of farmers from Punjab and Haryana are camping at Delhis borders with Haryana at Singhu and Tikri. Farmers from Uttar Pradesh have also occupied one lane at the Chilla (Delhi-Noida link road) border. Farmers unions have threatened to intensify their agitation if their demands --- primarily the repeal of the farm laws --- are not met in their eighth round of talks with the Centre on Monday.

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Home Search ICH Question Everything! Purpose and Intent of this website: Biden's pick to lead Treasury made over $7M in speaking fees



President-elect Joe Bidens choice to be treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, collected more than $7 million in speaking fees in 2019 and 2020 from major financial firms and tech giants including Citi, Goldman Sachs and Google



Via AP news wire



January 01, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - President-elect Joe Bidens choice to be treasury secretary, Janet Yellen collected more than $7 million in speaking fees in 2019 and 2020 from major financial firms and tech giants including Citi, Goldman Sachs and Google, according to disclosure forms filed as part of her nomination



Yellens was one of three financial disclosures filed by Biden transition officials that were made public on Thursday by the Office of Government Ethics. In a separate filing, Yellen listed firms and banks where she had received speaking fees and said she intended to seek written authorization from ethics officials to participate personally and substantially in matters involving them.



Yellen was the Federal Reserve chair from 2014 to 2018. Her term was not renewed by President Donald Trump. No Advertising - No Government Grants - No Algorithm - This Is Independent Media Get Our Free Newsletter Her selection by Biden to lead the Treasury Department has been cheered by progressive Democrats, who support Yellens work as a labor economist who has long prioritized combating economic inequality. Since her nomination was announced, Yellen has pledged to work to combat systemic racism and climate change.



But receiving steep payments from Wall Street bankers and other powerful corporations could become an issue as her nomination works its way through a closely divided and potentially contentious Senate. Hillary Clinton faced criticism from the left wing of the Democratic Party while running for president in 2016 for having received past, lucrative speaking fees at Wall Street firms.



Also released Thursday were disclosure forms from Bidens choice to be secretary of state, Antony Blinken, who detailed advising clients including Bank of America and Facebook as part of a consulting firm he co-founded. Avril Haines, Bidens choice to be national intelligence director, disclosed being a consultant at the same firm, WestExec Advisors. - " Source " - Post your comment below Registration is necessary to post comments. We ask only that you do not use obscene or offensive language. Please be respectful of others. See also Look, just because Janet Yellen took $217,000 to make a single-speech to Citigroup last year and then took $217,000 to make *another* speech to Citigroup the very next day doesn't mean she'll go easy on the financial industry.



I'm sure she's just a really riveting speaker! pic.twitter.com/sV711EbbAz  Jesse Crall (@jessecrall) January 1, 2021 Search Information Clearing House The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. Click Here To Support Information Clearing House Your support has kept ICH free on the Web since 2002. Click for Spanish , German , Dutch , Danish , French , translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load.
With 2020 keeping everyone locked down for extended periods, Hawk's Well Theatre's popular Cultural Companions initiative has come into its own, blossoming to bring together four artists with four older people to create four exciting new works.

Come Together - The Cultural Companions Collective has paired local artists with people cocooning alone to produce new pieces, and the theatre is delighted to present 'The Diary Entries' on 10th January, via a special streaming event.

Cultural Companions was an initiative set up in 2019 with the aim of providing increased opportunities for older people to engage with Sligo's vibrant cultural and arts scene by setting up a network of people who would accompany each other to cultural events at the theatre.

With the 2020 pandemic closing the theatre for most of the year, and the fact that older people cocooned alone during lockdown, the Hawk's Well was inspired to revisit the project, acutely aware that connecting with and supporting each other in new ways became more important than ever before in 2020.

Over August and September 2020, Hawk's Well Theatre paired four artists with four older people who had been cocooning alone in Sligo. The artists and hosts got to know each other through a series of conversations, after which the artists wrote an original piece of work inspired by the host and their conversations together. These new pieces of work will be performed in the host's own home to an invited audience in due course when such an interaction is allowable.

Cultural Companions - The Diary Entries documents the journey these four duos took together and publicly premieres the new works created in an online format.

The streamed programme will premiere these new pieces of work and also includes interviews with the four pairings about the process involved and their experiences as well as their reactions to the new pieces written for them.

The Cultural Companions involved are local musician Kieran Quinn and Maire Dufficy; Traditional musician Mossie Martin and Maura Hever; Theatre Artist Seamus O'Rourke and Ann Murray, and well-known local musician Seamie O'Dowd and Patricia Feeney.

Offering a unique perspective, this project is supported by The Community Foundation for Ireland and is part of the First Fortnight; Ireland's Mental Health Arts & Culture Festival 2021.

This streamed event on is on sale now at www.hawkswell.com and at only 5 per household (plus 1 booking fee), is simply too good to miss.

Sligo Champion
The US Senate, following the House of Representatives, overturned the veto of US President Donald Trump by a majority vote and approved the draft US defense budget, which includes sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

Thus, the budget is considered approved despite the veto of the head of state.

The document received the required two-thirds of the votes in the upper house before the end of the vote. The Senate voted 81-13 for National Defence Authorization Act. In the Senate and in the House of Representatives, both Democrats and Republicans spoke out for the defense budget. That is why it was possible to gain enough votes to overturn the presidential veto.

As noted by local media, this is the sixth time since the beginning of 2000 when the US Congress was able to override a presidential veto. The last time this happened under President Barack Obama when he vetoed a bill that would allow the families of 9/11 victims to file lawsuits against Saudi Arabia.

Earlier in December, both houses of Congress had approved the bill by an overwhelming majority. However, on December 23, Trump vetoed the bill. According to the American leader, the defense budget in its current form will be "a gift to China and Russia."

The bill provides for the allocation of $ 740.5 billion to fund the activities of the Pentagon and programs in the field of defense and security through the US Department of Energy. It also includes provisions for tougher US sanctions against the Russian pipeline projects Nord Stream 2 and Turkish Stream. In addition, the document implies the introduction of sanctions against Turkey for the acquisition of Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems, Interfax reports.
Julian Assange gestures to the media from a police vehicle on his arrival at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London on April 11, 2019. (Jack Taylor/Getty Images)

UK Judge to Rule on US Extradition for WikiLeaks Assange

LONDONWikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will find out Monday whether he can be extradited from the UK to the United States to face espionage charges over the publication of secret American military documents.

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser is due to deliver her decision at Londons Old Bailey courthouse at 10 a.m. Monday. If she grants the request, then Britains home secretary, Priti Patel, would make the final decision.

Whichever side loses is expected to appeal, which could lead to years more legal wrangling.

However, theres a possibility that outside forces may come into play that could instantly end the decade-long saga.

Stella Moris, Assanges partner and the mother of his two sons, has appealed to U.S. President Donald Trump via Twitter to grant a pardon to Assange before Jan. 20, when he may leave office.

U.S. prosecutors indicted the 49-year-old Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse that carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.

Read More Assange Tried to Help Mitigate Damage From State Department Cable Leaks, Recording Suggests

Lawyers acting on behalf of the U.S. government said in their closing arguments after the four-week hearing in the fall that Assanges defense team had raised issues that were neither relevant nor admissible.

Consistently, the defense asks this court to make findings, or act upon the submission, that the United States of America is guilty of torture, war crimes, murder, breaches of diplomatic and international law and that the United States of America is a lawless state, they said. These submissions are not only non-justiciable in these proceedings but should never have been made.

Assanges defense team argued that he is entitled to First Amendment protections for the publication of leaked documents that exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan and that the U.S. extradition request was politically motivated.

Buildings are reflected in the window as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is taken from court, where he appeared on charges of jumping British bail, in London on May 1, 2019. (Matt Dunham/AP)

In their written closing arguments, Assanges legal team accused the United States of an extraordinary, unprecedented and politicized prosecution that constitutes a flagrant denial of his right to freedom of expression and poses a fundamental threat to the freedom of the press throughout the world.

Read More Will Assange Be Offered Plea Deal for Revealing Source of DNC Emails?

Defense lawyers also said Assange was suffering from wide-ranging mental health issues, including suicidal tendencies, that could be exacerbated if he is placed in inhospitable prison conditions in the United States.

They said his mental health deteriorated while he took asylum inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for years and that he was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. Assange jumped bail in 2012 when he sought asylum at the embassy, where he stayed for seven years before being evicted and arrested. He has been held at Belmarsh prison in London since April 2019.

His legal team argued that Assange would, if extradited, likely face solitary confinement that would put him at a heightened risk of suicide. They said if he was subsequently convicted, he would probably be sent to the notorious ADX Supermax prison in Colorado, which is also inhabited by Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Mexican drug lord Joaquin El Chapo Guzman.

Lawyers for the U.S. government argued that Assanges mental state is patently not so severe so as to preclude extradition.

Assange has attracted the support of high-profile figures, including the dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and actress Pamela Anderson.

Canadian actress Pamela Anderson in a file photo. (Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images)

Daniel Ellsberg, the famous U.S. whistleblower, also came out in support, telling the hearing that they had very comparable political opinions.

The 89-year-old, widely credited for helping to bring about an end to the Vietnam War through his leaking of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, said the American public needed urgently to know what was being done routinely in their name, and there was no other way for them to learn it than by unauthorized disclosure.

There are clear echoes between Assange and Ellsberg, who leaked over 7,000 pages of classified documents to the press, including The New York Times and The Washington Post. Ellsberg was subsequently put on trial for 12 charges in connection with violations of the Espionage Act, which were punishable by up to 115 years in prison. The charges were dismissed in 1973 because of government misconduct against him.

Assange and his legal team will be hoping that developments in the United States bring an end to his ordeal if the judge grants the U.S. extradition request.

By Pan Pylas
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BCCI president Sourav Ganguly admitted to hospital over heart issue



Sourav Ganguly, the current BCCI president and the former India captain has been admitted to a hospital in Kolkata after complaining of a heart issue on Saturday morning. Ganguly was rushed to the Woodlands hospital in Kolkata after falling ill this morning while working out in the gym at his residence. He was not feeling well last night. However, he decided to continue his morning routine on Saturday and suddenly felt dizzy. The preliminary doctors are trying to identify the cause of this sudden blackout it might be because of a cardiac problem or any other problem, a hospital source told.



Ganguly will be discharged on Saturday itself after getting an angioplasty done. His condition is said to be stable and all tests are being conducted on him. Earlier in July, Ganguly had gone into home quarantine after his elder brother and CAB joint secretary Snehasish Ganguly had tested positive for COVID-19.
Beijing, Jan 2 : Xiaomi is reportedly planning to launch the Pro version of its recently announced flagship smartphone Mi 11 next month.

The smartphone maker is expected to launch the Mi 11 Pro after the Spring Festival in China, which marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year and kicks off from February 12, reports GizmoChina.

Mi 11 was announced last month as the first phone powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor and now Mi 11 Pro will come with an improved 108MP primary camera as well as some more improvements over the regular model.

The main camera on the Mi 11 Pro is said to come with a newer 108-megapixel camera that could theoretically offer improved performance The Pro model will support faster charging compared to Mi 11. The standard Mi 11 comes with 55W fast charging, 11 Pro is expected to come with 120W fast charging that the company revealed earlier this year.

The standard Mi 11 comes with a 6.81-inch AMOLED HDR10+ display with curved edges. The screen comes with a QHD+ resolution and supports up to 120Hz refresh rate. There is a hole-punch cutout on the top-left corner for the 20MP front camera.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Editorial

January 01, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - The New START treaty, global peace and security, the Covid-19 pandemic and vaccination, economic recovery, and climate defense, are among the many challenges facing humankind. They all emphasize the urgent need for international cooperation as the only remedy, the only solution.

Russias President Vladimir Putin sent New Year greetings to US President-elect Joe Biden and other world leaders calling for greater international cooperation. The message is more pertinent than ever and should be heeded.

The devastating worldwide impact over the past year from the coronavirus pandemic on human health and economic conditions is perhaps the most stark illustration of the need for international cooperation and solidarity. We are all in this crisis together and we must get out of it together. As the world develops vaccines to overcome the disease, there must be a systematic process and spirit of cooperation between all nations to ensure effective control of the pandemic. Russias Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was correct to admonish any politicization of vaccines which will only thwart the necessary eradication of the disease. To that end too, it is deplorable in this context for the United States to impose sanctions on other nations which is hampering their access to vaccines. Indeed, it is execrable that any nation should be applying sanctions at this critical juncture. The European Unions economic restrictions levied on Russia, Syria and Venezuela, among others, are another reprehensible example. Such measures flagrantly violate the principle of cooperation and solidarity, and ultimately are self-defeating. This year must see the end of unilateral sanctions, which should be properly defined as a crime against humanity.

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The New START treaty limiting nuclear weapons held by the United States and Russia is another glaring example of the need for cooperation. The decade-old treaty is due to expire in a few weeks because the outgoing Trump administration refused to renew it in spite of earnest appeals to do so from Russia. If New START is abandoned then it will be a huge retrograde step undermining global security and peace. A new arms race looms. President-elect Biden has indicated he is in favor of extending the treaty. When he is inaugurated on January 20, Biden must make it a top priority.

But here is the catch. Biden and many others in his incoming administration, as well as the wider US political class, are obsessed with anti-Russian ideology. This animosity has dominated American politics and media for the past four year. It is an anachronistic throwback to the Cold War. The most recent expression is the hysterical and unfounded claims of Russian cyberattacks on US governments and corporations. Indeed, far from seeking cooperation and a reset in bilateral relations, Biden is vowing retaliation against Russia when he takes office. This is lunacy. One can imagine the arrogant, and ignorant, disdain the new president showed when he received Putins New Year letter.

Nonetheless, the world has undergone a seminal change for the better. The United States no longer has the unipolar dominance it could claim after the Soviet Union collapsed nearly 30 years. A multipolar world is emerging in which Washington no longer has a global monopoly or veto on developments.

The signing last week by the European Union and China of a major trade and investment pact is a clear signal of this new multipolar world.

Practical necessity of partnership and progress prevailed over an ideology of confrontation. The Comprehensive Agreement on Investment is a landmark step towards further integration of nations and economies. It also has wider benefit for the entire Eurasian continent, from Russias far-east to the western arc of Europe. It was also highly notable how the United States objected to the EU concluding this accord with China, which was seven years in the making.

The needs and means of todays global economy make Cold War-style zero-sum mentality a relic of the past. It is untenable and unviable. It is dangerous and destructive. It is a fetter on global progress.

Lamentably, the United States and its ruling class is the single-biggest repository of this regressive ideology. The nature of US capitalist power is predicated on imperialist hegemony. Confrontation is the currency of its ambitions. Cooperation is anathema.

We only have to look at the present array of international tensions. Virtually all of them have the United States as the common denominator. Whether it is tensions with Russia over NATO expansionism and relentless Russophobia regurgitated on a daily basis in US media, or tensions with China over the South China Sea and Taiwan, or tensions with Iran from US military threats in the Persian Gulf. The list of American aggression goes on. War is the ultimate and ineluctable result of the ideology that dominates the American regime. But even without a catastrophic outcome of war, the manifestation of confrontational ideology is seen in a plethora of pernicious problems, from poverty, insecurity, to frustrated cooperation between nations and the many harms that entails for human development and health.

We have reached a point in history where confrontation and conflict are no longer justifiable in any form. They are seen nakedly as the criminal function of American capitalism. Cosmetic propaganda can no longer hide the ugliness that lies beneath.

The only way forward is for cooperation in the spirit of common humanity and mutual economic planning. And there is much to be hopeful for  despite the terrifying threats of war that the United States rulers are synonymous with.
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Delhi and its neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan have suffered a loss of about Rs 27,000 crore due to the ongoing farmers protests over the three farm law, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has said. Farmers have been agitating against the new agricultural laws for more than a month on the Delhi border, due to which roads connecting the national capital to many states are closed.

CAITs national president BC Bhartia and national general secretary Praveen Khandelwal, according to HTs sister publication Hindustan, said the supply of goods coming from Punjab and Haryana to Delhi has been affected badly. The supply of goods to Delhi from Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and other states of the country has also been adversely affected, they added.

Bhartia and Khandelwal said that every day about 50,000 trucks come to Delhi carrying goods from different states and about 30,000 trucks carry goods outside the Capital. Due to the farmers protest, not only the arrival of goods to Delhi but also the supply from the national capital to the whole country has been greatly affected. In such a situation, the sooner the solution is reached through discussion between the government and farmer leaders, the better it will be.

Also read | Nagar Kirtan, dance performance mark otherwise muted New Year celebrations at Singhu Border

The traders body said CAIT and the All India Transport Welfare Association (ATWA) are ensuring that the supply of essential commodities continues without any disruption and that there will be no shortage of essential commodities.

CAIT has said that the joint efforts of All India Transport Welfare Association (ATWA), the largest organisation of CAIT and transport sector, are working to continue the supply of essential commodities uninterrupted. For this, vehicles carrying goods from other states to Delhi have to travel longer as they are taking alternative routes except for highways.

Leaders of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha have said they would intensify their agitation if the government did not accede to their demands during the next round of talks on January 4. The leader of the farmers collective protesting three recent agriculture laws said they are ready with their agitation schedule and will be activated depending on how the talks would go.

Also read | Not an astrologer: Tomar on January 4 meeting, farmers to intensify protest if demands not met

Darshan Pal, a senior leader of the farmers agitation, also said that the boycott of goods and services of certain industrial groups, including fuel stations and shopping malls run by them, would continue. Pal said all toll gates would be picketed on major highways to allow vehicles to pass freely as part of the protests.

Farmers have launched one of the largest strikes in decades to demand that the Centre revoke the three contentious laws approved by Parliament in September. The laws essentially change the way Indias farmers do business by creating free markets, as opposed to a network of decades-old, government marketplaces, allowing traders to stockpile essential commodities for future sales and laying down a national framework for contract farming.
It's been a long holiday season of boozy hot chocolate, gingerbread cookies and thick slices of ham, and maybe you're feeling like it's time for a fresh start. Ever heard of Vegan January? (We tried it last year, if you're curious about what it's like.) Well, you don't have to commit to a whole month of eating a plant-based diet, but if you're interested in seeing what meatless and dairy-free options the Bay Area has to offer, we've got a few ideas. And bonus: A lot of it resembles your favorite junk food.

These are the best new vegan restaurants in San Francisco, Oakland and beyond to check out this January.

Eva I. via Yelp

Cozy Wok

Father-and-son duo Keguang Zhao and Dan Zhao opened this Chinese vegan and vegetarian restaurant in East Oakland in October. It's a "ghost kitchen" based at Jingletown Eats, meaning it's takeout-only. Not everything on the menu is vegan, but quite a bit is, from the orange peel chicken to the mapo tofu with Beyond Meat.

Cozy Wok, 2353 E 12th St., Oakland. Open 11 a.m.-9 p.m. every day except Tuesday.

John A. via Yelp

Malibu's Burgers

Originally a pop-up, Malibus Burgers opened a brick-and-mortar in Oakland on Dec. 5. Find smashburgers made with Impossible Burger and plant-based American cheese, onion rings and vegan milkshakes at this popular spot.

Malibu's Burgers, 3905 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Open 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

Lion Dance Cafe

The chefs behind popular Oakland pop-up S + M Vegan finally opened their first restaurant, Lion Dance Cafe, in September. Their legion of Instagram followers ride hard for their mouthwatering Singaporean-Chinese offerings, from shaobing sandwiches stuffed with grilled seitan to spicy coconut-rich laksa.

Lion Dance Cafe, 380 17th St., Oakland. Open 5-8 p.m., Friday-Saturday for dinner (preorder starting Wednesday 12 p.m. weekly) and every second Sunday 10 a.m.-2 p.m. for brunch (walkup only). Lion Dance Cafe is currently closed through Jan. 7, 2021.

Courtesy of Don't Be Chick'n / @asideofsweet

Don't Be Chick'n

Sacramentos favorite vegan fried chicken relocated to Oakland this winter as a pop-up at AU Lounge on Broadway. Check out their vegan crispy chicken sandwiches, KFC-style fried chicken buckets, buttermilk biscuits and popcorn shrimp."

Don't Be Chick'n, 2430 Broadway (inside AU Lounge), Oakland. Open 4 p.m.-12 a.m., Saturday-Monday.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGate

Vegan Mob

Since it opened in late 2019, Vegan Mob has taken the Bay Area vegan scene by storm. The wildly popular barbecue and soul food spot is helmed by Toriano Gordon, a charismatic former rapper from the Fillmore. Check out the Mob Plate, which gets you a vegan protein (brisket, ribs or barbecue fried shrimp) plus a choice of sides including smackaroni and cheese, creamy Cajun potato salad and collard greens.

Vegan Mob, 500 Lake Park Ave., Oakland. Open 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Tueday-Sunday.

David K. via Yelp

Senor Sisig Vegano

For vegans who have always lusted after this popular Filipino-Mexican food truck (which now also has a brick-and-mortar in the Mission), it was an exciting day this fall when Senor Sisig launched a vegan version of its food truck. The full slate of Senor Sisigs usual offerings is available, from plant-based cheesy loaded fries to veganized meat versions of their burritos and nachos.

Senor Sisig Vegano, 701 Valencia St., San Francisco. Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Jen B. via Yelp

Gay 4 U

Formerly known as Classic Cars West pop-up Hella Vegan Eats, this Oakland spot offers everything from fried chicken mac and cheese and doughnuts to a quinoa rice bowl with braised kale. They also offer a free meal for any transgender people of color.

Gay 4 U, 1327 Peralta St., Oakland. Open 10 a.m.-2:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
Farmer leader Darshan Pal Singh said their proposed parade will be called 'Kisan Parade' and it will be be held after the Republic Day parade

Issuing an "ultimatum" to the government ahead of the next round of talks, protesting farmer unions on Saturday said they will march into Delhi with a "tractor parade" on the Republic Day if their demands are not met.

Addressing a press conference, the union leaders said the time has come for "decisive" action as their demands for a repeal of the three agri laws and a legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP) have not yet been addressed by the government.

"The farmers' movement delivered an ultimatum to the Government of India and announced that farmers will march into Delhi on January 26," Sankyukta Kisan Morcha, an umbrella body of around 40 protesting unions, said in a statement.

Farmer leader Darshan Pal Singh said their proposed parade will be called "Kisan Parade" and it will be be held after the Republic Day parade.

British prime minister Boris Johnson will be in the National Capital on 26 January. He will be the chief guest at the Republic Day parade which will be held at Rajpath.

The next round of talks between the government and the protesting farmer unions is scheduled to be held on January 4. On Friday, the unions had announced that they would have to take firm steps if the meeting fails to resolve the deadlock.

After the press conference, farmer leader Abhimanyu Kohar told PTI that farm unions are hopeful about the 4 January meeting, but cannot trust the government going by their experience.

Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab and Haryana, have been camping at three Delhi border points, Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur, for more than a month, pressing for a repeal of the three farm laws, a legal guarantee for minimum support price for their crops, besides two other demands.

"We intend to be peaceful and we told the government during previous talks that it has only two options  either repeal the three laws or use force to evict us (from Delhi border points). The time has come for decisive action here, and we have chosen 26 January as the Republic Day represents the supremacy of the people," the union leaders said.

Pal said if their demands are not met, thousands of farmers will have no option but to march towards Delhi with their tractors, trolleys and the Tricolour on 26 January.

Asked about the route and timing for their planed 'Kisan Parade', Pal said the unions will announce it later.

The farmer leader said their plan for tractor-march on Kundli Manesar Palwal (KMP) highway on 6 January will remain unchanged and described it as a "rehearsal" for their "January 26 tractor parade".

Swaraj India leader Yogendra Yadav said it is a "plain lie" that the government had accepted 50 percent of the farmers' demands. "We have got nothing on paper yet," he said.

"We were peaceful, are peaceful and will be peaceful, but will stay at Delhi borders until new farm laws are repealed," another farmer leader said.

Farmers' leaders said that in the last round of talks, the government agreed to two "minor" demands of the farmers' movement and even these are yet to be secured in writing or legal form.

The major demands of the protesting farmers remain unresolved, they asserted.

"On the demand to repeal the three central farm acts, the Centre had asked the farmers' organisations to come up with 'alternative proposals', and the farmer leaders responded by saying that there is no alternative other than repeal.

"The government has refused to agree, even in principle, to our demand for legal right to purchase at MSP. We have no alternative," Samyukt Kisan Morcha said in the statement later.

Farmer leader B S Rajewal said that the court has also held that "peaceful protest is one's right", adding "we are not here for confrontation."

After the sixth round of formal negotiations on Wednesday, the government and farm unions reached some common ground to resolve protesting farmers' concerns over rise in power tariff and penalties for stubble burning, but the two sides remained deadlocked over the main contentious issues of the repeal of three farm laws and a legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP).

Farmer leader Gurnam Singh Choduni said, "In our last meeting, we posed a question to the government that will you buy 23 crops on MSP. They said 'no'. Then why are you misinforming the people of the country?"

So far, over 50 farmers have been "martyred" during our agitation, he said.

Braving the cold, thousands of farmers, mainly from Punjab and Haryana, are protesting at various borders of the National Capital for more than a month against these three new laws.

Enacted in September, the three laws have been projected by the government as major agriculture reforms aimed at helping farmers and increasing their income, but the protesting unions fear that the new measures have left them at the mercy of big corporates by weakening the MSP and mandi systems.

Slamming the government over the reported death of farmers during the agitation, the opposition parties asked it to abandon its "obstinate attitude" and agree to their demands.

"According to media reports, 57 farmers have lost their lives while scores are unwell. The government is showing gross insensitivity by not acceding to the demands of the protesting farmers," Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra alleged.

The government should "abandon its obstinate attitude and withdraw the three black laws immediately", Congress' chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala tweeted.

Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav termed the death of a 57-year-old farmer, Mohar Singh, due to a heart attack while protesting at the Ghazipur border as "disturbing".

In a Hindi tweet, he said, "On the first day of the new year itself, the news of the martyrdom of a farmer at the Ghazipur border is disturbing. The farmers are sacrificing their lives in the dense fog and cold, but the ruling party is sitting heartless. The ruthlessness seen in the BJP has never been seen so far."

Meanwhile, a 75-year-old farmer protesting against the new agri laws allegedly committed suicide at the Uttar Pradesh-Delhi border in Ghazipur on Saturday morning, local police said.

Sardar Kashmir Singh, a native of Bilaspur in Uttar Pradesh's Rampur district, hanged himself in a mobile toilet using a rope, they said.

Deputy Superintendent of Police of Indirapuram Anshu Jain told PTI that a suicide note written in Gurumukhi was found on him.

The government has presented these laws as major agriculture reforms aimed at helping farmers and increasing their income, but the protesting unions fear that the new legislations have left them at the mercy of big corporates by weakening the MSP and mandi systems.

With inputs from PTI
TORRINGTON  Hatfield & Co Jewelers  a landmark in the community for 30 years  has closed its doors for good on East Main Street.

Owner Lisa Soliani Croci said the growing popularity of purchasing jewelry online contributed to her fine jewelry business closing. However, she believes a jewelry business should be hands-on, and before buying any piece, the customer should see it in person.

You really have to try it on. You have to touch it in the light. It could look completely different than how it looks in a photograph, she said. We were very much that kind of business. We would fall in love with the pieces that we chose for our clientele.

When vendors came into the store with their products, Croci said she would involve her entire staff in the buying process because we all had very different tastes, so it was a group effort.

She and her staff went through all the designs and decided what to purchase. We tried to bring in some pieces that you wouldnt see any place else, she said. This included inlaid jewelry and recycled metal and vegan ivory jewelry.

Another reason Croci said she closed is due to the economic slowdown from the coronavirus pandemic. As a non-essential business, Hatfield was closed from the end of March through the end of May. For those who lost their jobs or were furloughed and now struggling to buy necessities, jewelry is not high on their list of purchases right now, she said. We were working just to pay the bills.

Croci, 58, a mother of two and has one grandchild, said her 80-year-old mother, Marie Soliani, worked at Hatfield for many years. Soliani is also a justice of the peace who offered to marry customers for free if they purchased the engagement ring at Hatfield.

She did this about two dozen times, Croci said. On some occasions, the couples would marry at the store.

One couple  the son of someone who works for us and his soon-to-be husband, asked my mom to marry them. We brought in a cake and champagne. We did a whole ceremony, Croci said. There was not a dry eye in the house.

Croci plans to continue serving as the executive secretary for the Torrington schools superintendent. Its a position shes held for two years.

History

Originally called Hatfield Jewelers, the store was opened by Torrington resident Stacey Hatfield in 1990, at 491 Winsted Road.

The Hatfields were close family friends of the Soliani family, according to Croci, whose mother began working at the store in 2002.

In 2011, Croci said she decided to pursue her dream to become a business owner. [Hatfield] had always asked me if I would be interested in buying it, Croci said. It was something I always entertained. I always wanted to own my own business.

In 2013, Hatfield moved to 1875 E. Main St., and in 2106, it moved to its final location.

Nutmeg Fudge Company, across the street at 11 Main St., will be moving into Hatfields location in March.

Reflecting on her many years in the jewelry business, Croci said she feels blessed to have been able to share in so many milestones and memories with customers.

While she came into the business with no formal jewelry background, she said she has a real love of the product.

I love the details of jewelry, and the design, she said. Im very grateful to have played a part in the lives of those people, and well miss them. Everybody has those pieces that mean something to them, no matter what they are. We bent over backwards for people but we loved to do it because we knew that deep down inside, its meant a great deal to somebody, and that was what was important.

sfox@milfordmirror.com
ASHGABAT (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 02nd January, 2021) Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov has held phone talks with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to discuss the bilateral cooperation in energy and transport, Turkmenistan's state-run Neytralny Turkmenistan (Neutral Turkmenistan) newspaper reported on Saturday.

The phone call was initiated by Erdogan, according to the report.

"Acknowledging the positive dynamics of the development of trade and economic ties, the interlocutors emphasized the importance of further expanding partnerships in the energy, transport and industrial sectors," the news release read.

Berdimuhamedov was quoted as describing Turkey as a "brotherly country" for Turkmenistan, with the bilateral cooperation being of long-term and strategic nature.

Turkey pursues a new energy project that would transfer Turkmen gas to Europe via the Caspian Sea and Turkish territory.
More than 20,000 people cross border of Ukraine on first day of 2021

Over the past day, on January 1, about 10,000 people arrived in Ukraine, the same number left the country, according to the press service of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine.

"During border control measures, 22 persons were denied entry to Ukraine, of which 16 are potential illegal migrants," the report says.

Also, 4,300 cars were recorded, of which about 1,000 more cars were moving to Ukraine.

For comparison, on the first day of 2020, some 175,000 people and about 30,000 vehicles were registered at the border. Almost 90 people and 22 potential illegal migrants were not allowed through.
Advertisement

The brilliant technology in smartphones allows us to show off our photographs to friends and family with confidence. And the New Year is a great time to ramp up those burgeoning skills, with a specialist holiday that will get you snapping away like a professional.

Whether you are capturing colourful street vendors in a Cambodian market or stormy waves crashing on to a North Devon shoreline, travelling is an inspiring way to improve your photography. And the best specialist holidays offer a small group of like-minded enthusiasts the chance to have fun while learning something new and rewarding.

At the luxury end there are worldwide experiences, with guidance from professional photographers, such as those offered by Creative Escapes (creative-escapes.co.uk). The firm says it will take guests  in groups up to a maximum of eight  from beginner to Bailey while staying at highly rated boutique hotels in exotic locations.

The New Year is a great time to ramp up those burgeoning photography skills, with a specialist holiday that will get you snapping away like a professional

Its ten-day holiday in March to Cambodia offers some sensational photo opportunities: visiting sea-gypsies who live in stilt houses above the water, tours of city markets and a helicopter flight over the famous Angkor Wat temple. Prices start from 2,680, excluding flights and meals.

Even more luxurious photo trips are available from National Geographic, the publishing empire whose magazines have a reputation for fabulous travel photography.

Admittedly some of the trips are like lottery-winning fantasies, such as a 20-day luxury tour of Africa in a private jet with National Geographic photographer Sandesh Kadur in July  it costs a mere 66,000 per person.

More affordable options include joining a larger group with a photographic guide for a five-day full-board cruise of Mexicos Baja peninsula from 2,110, or an eight-day Rhine cruise from 3,149 (nationalgeographic.com)

While the ever-changing travel restrictions may mean many of us have to stay in the UK for a while, there are still plenty of photography holidays available here.

Note that the prices include the costs of getting around once youre there, but not getting to the destination itself. Youll also find that some trips involve walking in rugged landscapes, so ensure you have all the right kit.

Creative Escapes is hosting a ten-day holiday in March to Cambodia with sensational photo opportunities

Light & Land (lightandland.co.uk) has highly rated guides and tutors. For example, you could spend a four-day break amid Exmoors babbling streams, wild ponies and rugged coasts in a small group, receiving incredible advice from locally based award-winning landscape photographer Peter Hendrie. The course costs 1,499 full-board, staying at the ivy-covered riverside Exmoor White Horse Inn at Exford.

If you prefer snapping wildlife, Natures Images (natures-images.co.uk) offers tuition from award-winning professional nature photographers. Its photographic guide works for BBC Wildlife and the sensational images on its website will give you an insight into the standard of its work, which is so high that many of its trips are booked up more than a year in advance.

A three-night trip in October to the East Midlands to see rutting red deer clashing antlers and fighting for supremacy sounds perfect for ambitious photographers. It costs from 625 full-board, with accommodation in a rural guesthouse. Note that, like many of these trips, single supplements apply.

Hot shot: Learn how to capture cheetahs on an Africa tour with National Geographic photographer Sandesh Kadur in July

HF Holidays (hfholidays.co.uk), Britains largest outdoor specialist holiday company, offers a wide choice of breaks using its own country-house bases.

Because of the boom in the popularity of photography trips, it now runs more than 18 of them, which range in location from the Scottish Highlands to the Isle of Wight.

Four nights in the Highlands (August or October) costs from 579 on a full-board basis, staying in the former loch-side home of the Bishop of Argyll. Guests will explore the mountains and waterfalls of Glen Coe, while also on the lookout for wildlife.

And a four-day holiday near St Ives in Cornwall in August, photographing glorious sunsets and seabirds sitting on lobster pots, costs from 595.

Sights to behold: A three-night trip in October to the East Midlands to see rutting red deer clashing antlers and fighting for supremacy sounds perfect for ambitious photographers

An unlikely holiday operator is Jessops, the high-street chain of photography shops. It operates a series of well-organised, well-priced residential holidays in five venues from Cornwall to the Lake District.

Each costs 600 for three days and guests learn the classic skill of capturing great sunrises and sunsets.

Because of the organisational difficulties of various lockdowns and tier restrictions, the full dates and venues of its holidays are being released later this month, so check the Courses section of the website soon as they are expected to be booked up quickly (jessops.com).

All of these holidays emphasise the use of proper camera equipment, which is more sensitive and creative than a phone lens  but also far more expensive. But what if you are quite happy with the pictures that you take on your smartphone? Dont worry, there are even specialist photography holidays for you.

Light & Land offers a four-day holiday with two expert tutors, based at the beachside Art Deco Saunton Sands Hotel in North Devon. Prices are from 999pp.
With COVID-19 making the year 2020 a year of learning and turbulence, the textile and sector is confident of achieving the much needed growth in 2021.

The sector can make 2021 a year of progress by focusing on USA for apparels, as the had benefited from the volumes in the market in the first 10 months of 2020, Indian Texpreneurs Federation (ITF) convenor Prabhu Dhamodharan said on Saturday.

"Now, its time to step up the efforts to repeat the same success in the US market for our products," he said.

Vietnams Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the European Union would intensify competition for India, and at the same time a level-playing field with top competing nations for the US market in terms of duty combined with quick economic recovery make a compelling case for Indian sector for immediate growth, he said.

"We need to intensify efforts and focus on all levels, including those at the government, cluster and companies to grab our share in the US markets," he said.

Stressing on value addition with new capex, he said using the low-interest and easy liquidity combined with robust demand during post-COVID-19 times, the sector can hit the target of 20 per cent increase in per product revenue.

The sector should use the forthcoming production- linked incentive scheme as the stepping stone for much-needed product diversification and innovation to attract global buyers, the convenor said.

Stating that all manufacturing units need to invest in technology adoption and digital initiatives, he said to equip the industry and eco system, culture-building of having an agile mindset is the forward to institutionalise the success.

The industry is currently managing the trade well with sufficient liquidity due to infusion of funds in the system with Central governments Emergency Credit Line Guaranteed Scheme, he said.

The sector needs to utilise the opportunity to maintain the financial discipline to work on shorter credit terms across the value chain to improve the business performance and sustain the recovery momentum, he said.

As a dynamic textile association, ITF would enable the strategies in line with these focus areas with its member companies and work towards the theme and goal of 2021 'A Year of Progress for the Textile and Apparel Sector', 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.)
Gibraltar begins another lockdown from 10pm tonight (Saturday), with people being called upon to remain in their homes unless for essential shopping, medical appointments, exercise, taking children out etc. Nobody will be permitted to cross the border into Spain unless they live or have a second home there, for medical appointments or because they have a flight booked from a Spanish airport.

Border closed

Nobody from Spain will be allowed to cross the border into Gibraltar unless for work or to catch a flight.

Workplaces will remain open, but the government is calling on people to work from home unless this is impossible.

More active cases

The chief minister said there have been 92 more active cases since yesterday, and yesterday there were 172. The R rate on the Rock is now 1.51 and the Gibraltar Health Authority is under tremendous pressure, especially as many of those having to self-isolate are frontline workers. A second Critical Care Unit has now been opened, and day surgeries cancelled.

The present rate of community transmission is so high, Picardo said, that this may be the new massively infective strain of the virus although at present it is not possible to confirm that. He pointed out that social behaviour will have assisted the virus to spread; many people have been going into Spain to get around the rules in Gibraltar or to do things they are unable to do at home because of the restrictions, and have then come back across the border, potentially bringing the virus with them.

This new lockdown is initially in force for 14 days, but will be reviewed every seven days.

Hope

The chief minister pointed out that there is finally hope, as Gibraltar is due to receive the vaccine on 9 January. After taking expert advice, it will be adopting a one-dose strategy and the 5,000 doses in the first tranche will ensure that all or almost all the elderly and vulnerable residents of Gibraltar will be vaccinated.

Today, though, we have to concentrate not on hope but on effort, as a community, he said. We need to see the back of this damned virus, but the government and GHA cannot do it alone. Please, support us in this final push to get rid of this virus.
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The OPEC+ ministerial meeting comes after oil consumption tanked in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic and a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia

Members of the OPEC group of oil producers and their partners will meet via videoconference on Monday to decide on production levels for February, hoping to turn the corner on a difficult year.

The OPEC+ ministerial meeting comes after oil consumption tanked in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic and a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Despite a pick up in prices towards the end of last year, the market levels for black gold remain uncertain.

After their last summit, from November 30-December 3, the OPEC+ members agreed to increase production by half a million barrels per day in January.

Also at that meeting the 13 members of the OPEC cartel, led by Saudi Arabia, and their six allies, led by Russia, agreed to meet at the beginning of each month in order to decide on any adjustments to production volumes for the following month.

Russia and Saudi Arabia are respectively the second and third biggest oil producers in the world after the United States.

The decision illustrates OPEC's desire to maintain a strong influence on the oil market and the gravity of the situation for crude producers last year.

- 'Remaining demand uncertainty' -

Before the pandemic, OPEC members were content with two summits per year at the organisation's headquarters in Vienna.

"Finally, we saw a strong demonstration of OPEC+ will and capability to manage the market, laying the groundwork for Brent's recovery to over $50 per barrel despite remaining demand uncertainty in the market," JBC Energy analysts said in a statement.

The two contracts of reference, North Sea Brent Crude and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude both ended the week around the $50 per barrel level, far lower than the prices seen at the start of 2020 but well up on the lows seen last year.

In March, Moscow and Riyadh embarked on a brief but intense oil price war which led prices to plummet.

On April 20, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude collapsed to minus $40.32 per barrel -- meaning producers paid buyers to take the oil off their hands.

Story continues

The climate between the two oil giants has eased since then, with the Russian and Saudi energy ministers meeting in mid-December in a display of unity.

It remains difficult, however, to predict the evolution in demand as governments begin rolling out vaccination programmes against the coronavirus.

Last month OPEC predicted a slight rebound in the market while noting continued uncertainties, particularly in the transport sector.

Despite the heft of the OPEC+ countries, countries outside the system have a major impact on the oil market; principally the United States which is still producing 11 million barrels of crude per day.

Even within its ranks, OPEC will have to pay attention to developments in the three members which have been granted exemptions from quotas -- Libya, Iran and Venezuela.

Libya's production had been almost wiped out by civil conflict but has spiked since October after the signing of a ceasefire deal.

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Vice President Mike Pence speaks during a White House Coronavirus Task Force press briefing in the James S. Brady Briefing Room of the White House on Nov. 19, 2020. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Against Pence Over Electoral College Vote Count

A U.S. judge on Friday rejected a lawsuit filed by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and other Republicans against Vice President Mike Pence, who is due to preside over a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 for the formal certification of states electoral votes for the president of the United States.

Gohmert (R-Texas) and others filed a lawsuit last week that concerns Pences role as president of the Senate. The lawsuit, filed against Pence, requested that the court grant Pence the exclusive authority and sole discretion in determining which electoral votes to count for a given State on Jan. 6.

Pence argued that he was not the correct defendant to the lawsuit. A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction, his attorney said in a Thursday filing in Texas (pdf).

In an order of dismissal on Friday (pdf), U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle wrote that plaintiffs lack standing to bring the legal action that would prevent Pence from confirming Joe Bidens electoral victory.

Plaintiff Louie Gohmert, the United States Representative for Texass First Congressional District, alleges at most an institutional injury to the House of Representatives. Under well-settled Supreme Court authority, that is insufficient to support standing, he wrote.

The other Plaintiffs, the slate of Republican Presidential Electors for the State of Arizona (the Nominee-Electors), allege an injury that is not fairly traceable to the Defendant, the Vice President of the United States, and is unlikely to be redressed by the requested relief, he added.

Republican electors in seven battleground states had cast alternative slates of votes for President Donald Trump on Dec. 14, asserting that Trump was the true winner in those states. They alleged that election fraud took place, and contested election officials who declared a win for Biden.

Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert. (The Epoch Times)

Gohmert and other Republicans argued in their lawsuit against Pence that the U.S. Constitution clearly outlines the protocol for when alternate slates of electors are presented to the president of the Senate. They say the president of the Senate has exclusive authority and sole discretion under the 12th Amendment to determine which slates of electors for a state, or neither, may be counted.

Pences attorney in the Thursday court filing claimed that the plaintiffs have sued the wrong defendant, noting that suit objects to procedures in the law and not any actions that Vice President Pence has taken, so he should not be the target of the suit.

The power of the vice president to count or reject electoral votes is disputed.

In a brief (pdf) filed on New Years Day, Gohmert wrote that he and 140 Republicans in the House plan to object to the counting of electors that states certified for Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden on Jan. 6.

At least one senator is needed to sustain a challenge. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has said he will object.
New Delhi, Jan 2 : As India gears up to launch the world's largest immunisation drive against coronavirus, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Saturday that the vaccine will be free across the country.

"Not just in Delhi, it will be free across the country," Vardhan said when asked for the government's position on the issue.

The comment is significant, given the fact that India has recorded the second highest numbers of corona infections after the United States.

Notably, the coronavirus vaccine is slated to be rolled out soon as the one developed by Oxford-AstraZeneca has been recommended by an expert panel, tasked with vetting Covid-19 vaccine proposals, and forwarded to the Drug Controller General of India for approval.

"The Drug Controller General of India will soon give its recommendation on the applications," Vardhan said. According to top government sources, the vaccination process will begin from January 6.

The central government plans to vaccinate nearly 30 crore persons in the first phase of the immunisation drive. The vaccine will be administered to one crore healthcare workers, along with 2 crore frontline and essential workers, and 27 crore elderly, mostly above the age of 50 with comorbidities.

On Saturday, authorities were conducting a mega drill at 259 sites in all states and union territories to help officials practise how to manage vaccine supply, storage and logistics, including cold chain management.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Police who chased suspects in an armed robbery of a Northeast Portland marijuana dispensary told residents of the Hollywood neighborhood to stay locked in their homes Friday afternoon and early evening as they searched for suspects who got away.

Officers from the Special Emergency Reaction Team were searching for as many as three teenage males and say they might be armed. Shortly before 6 p.m., they announced they had detained five people in total and lifted the lockdown.

It began at about 1:45 p.m. Friday, when officers were called to the site of a marijuana dispensary in the 2800 block of Northeast Sandy Boulevard where multiple teens with guns were reported to have carried out a robbery, officials said.

Emergency dispatchers broadcast a description of the getaway vehicle and, at 2 p.m., an officer located a vehicle matching that description near Northeast 99th Avenue and Northeast Prescott Street. The officer attempted to stop the vehicle, but the driver did not pull over. So the officer initiated a pursuit.

The vehicle drove onto Interstate 84 westbound and traveled at speeds estimated to be as fast as 100 miles per hour. The vehicle exited the highway at Northeast 43rd Avenue, and the suspects jumped out of the vehicle and ran, police said.

Officers were able to arrest two suspects. But investigators believed three other suspects were still at large. They described them as young males in their upper teens. Police established a perimeter on Northeast Halsey Street and Northeast Broadway between Northeast 41st Avenue and Northeast 48th Avenue. Because there were possibly armed suspects hiding, supervisors called in the Special Emergency Reaction Team (and the Crisis Negotiation Team.

Neighbors within the perimeter were asked to stay where they were and lock doors. Police have not announced details about who they detained and what if any charges were lodged against them.

-- Betsy Hammond; betsyhammond@oregonian.com; @OregonianPol
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Following accounts of potential allergies to the COVID-19 vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, scientists have outlined steps on safely receiving the second dose of the therapeutic in individuals who develop a reaction to their first dose. The research, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice, summarised what is currently known about allergic reactions to vaccines like those developed against COVID-19.

In the study, a team of experts led by allergists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in the US, proposed detailed advice so that individuals with different allergy histories can safely receive their COVID-19 vaccine.

After closer review of the data related to allergic reactions, the US FDA recommended that the mRNA vaccines, based on the genetic material of the novel coronavirus, be withheld only from individuals with a history of severe allergic reactions to any component of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also advised that all patients be observed for 15 minutes post-vaccination by staff who can identify and manage such reactions. In the review research, Aleena Banerji, MD, clinical director of the Allergy and Clinical Immunology Unit at MGH and her colleagues outlined steps on safely receiving the second dose in individuals who develop a reaction to the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

"Our guidelines are built upon the recommendations of US regulatory agencies and provide clear steps to the medical community on how to safely administer both doses of the vaccine in individuals with allergic histories," Banerji said. According to the experts, allergic reactions to vaccines are rare, with a rate of about 1.3 per 1 million people. They said the mRNA vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna will have a similarly low rate of occurrence of allergic reactions.

The researchers recommend that individuals with a history of anaphylaxis to an injectable drug, or vaccines containing polyethylene glycol or polysorbate speak with their allergists before being vaccinated. Banerji and her co-authors also suggested that vaccine clinics monitor all patients for 15 to 30 minutes to manage any allergic reactions that occur.

They said even patients with severe allergies to foods, oral drugs, latex, or venom can safely receive the COVID-19 vaccines.

Also read: Sourav Ganguly admitted to hospital after suffering mild cardiac arrest

Also read: Coronavirus vaccine to be given for free to Delhi residents: Satyendar Jain
Emergency and Rehabilitation Officer, Dakar, Senegal

Organization: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Country: Senegal

City: Dakar, Senegal

Office: FAO Dakar, Senegal

Closing date: Wednesday, 13 January 2021

2002965

Emergency and Rehabilitation Officer

Job Posting: 23/Dec/2020

Closure Date: 13/Jan/2021, 10:59:00 PM

Organizational Unit : Subregional Office for West Africa, SFW

Job Type: Staff position

Type of Requisition : Professional Project

Grade Level : P-4

Primary Location: Senegal-Dakar

Duration : Fixed-term: one year with possibility of extension

Post Number : 2008263

CCOG Code : 1S01

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Please note that Closure Date and Time displayed above are based on date and time settings of your personal device The length of appointment for internal FAO candidates will be established in accordance with applicable policies pertaining to the extension of appointments

FAO is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality, background and culture

Qualified female applicants, qualified nationals of non-and under-represented member nations and person with disabilities are encouraged to apply for this position

FAO does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

All applications will be treated with the strictest confidentiality

The incumbent may be re-assigned to different activities and/or duty stations depending on the evolving needs of the Organization.

Organizational Setting

The Regional Team for Resilience, Emergency and Rehabilitation for West Africa (REOWA), within the Subregional Office coordinates and serves as liaison between the different FAO country offices in West Africa/Sahel and the Dakar-based humanitarian aid network of the subregion. REOWA also provides strategic resilience assistance to FAOs country representations in the subregion. REOWA allows FAO to liaise and coordinate with the large humanitarian and resilience community based in Dakar, including the Subregional Offices of the United Nations agencies based in Dakar, the Office of the United Nations Special Envoy for the Sahel, the International Federation of the Red Cross, Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) donors and subregional institutions such as the Permanent Interstate Committee of the Sahel Drought Control (CILSS), the permanent secretariat of the G5 Sahel (G5 Sahel). REOWA covers the 15 Members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in addition to Chad, Cameroon and Mauritania.

In line with FAOs Strategic Programme 5 (SP5) "To increase the resilience of livelihoods to threats and crises" and FAOs Regional Initiative 3 (RI3) "Building Resilience in Africas Drylands", REOWA is supporting FAO programme on strengthening the resilience vulnerable communities livelihoods through better prevention and mitigation approaches, better preparedness and better response to recurrent food, nutrition and pastoral crises and through the promotion of information sharing for informed decisions and actions.

Reporting Lines

The Emergency and Rehabilitation Officer reports to the Senior Emergency and Rehabilitation Officer, Head of the Subregional Team for Resilience in West Africa and the Sahel (REOWA) and works under the overall guidance of the Subregional Coordinator, (SFW), in close collaboration with the FAOs Regional Office for Africa (RAF), the FAO Country Representations in the Sahel and West Africa, technical divisions, OER, NSAG and partners.

Technical Focus

Support to implementation of FAOs resilience agenda at global, regional, subregional and/or country level.

Key Results

Technical and policy expertise to support the planning, development and implementation of programmes, projects, products and services in accordance with FAOs Strategic Objectives.

Key Functions

Plans and leads components of multidisciplinary teams, coordinates, and/or participates in Organization-wide committees, and provides technical expertise on international committees and working groups;

Develops and updates the supporting approach, methodology, tools, systems/databases, policies and/or standards to support programme delivery and specific objectives, services and outputs of Division teams focusing on (i) humanitarian policy, interagency collaboration and mobilization of emergency resources; (ii) response, food chain crisis, special operations, level 3 emergency preparedness, early warning and support to transition; (iii) and/or programming to integrate resilience into FAO planning at all levels;

Develops position papers, proposals and/or policy briefs to support humanitarian policy development, coordination and liaison with international partners such as the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF), NGOs and other humanitarian groups involved in emergency and recovery activities;

Undertakes FAO emergency needs assessment activities and missions, conducts food and nutrition security assessments and analysis, coordinates in-country early warning alerts and further coordination with all partners;

Provides technical support to ongoing operational emergency and recovery projects and programmes and related capacity development in countries, and regional and subregional offices supported with Standard Operating Procedures, surge mechanisms and Level-3 capable response systems;

Promotes best practices and provides technical support/services to Decentralized Offices, in collaboration with Regional Offices, to facilitate emergency programming, resource mobilization and integration of emergency and development work in countries, as well as to provide capacity during critical phases of emergencies;

Monitors, promotes and coordinates resource mobilization activities including corporate appeals, donor macro grants, CERF/SFERA submissions, annual appeals and midyear reviews, as well as collaborates with countries and Regional Offices to facilitate resource mobilization through project and programme formulation;

Maintains and updates FAO emergency information systems, crisis communications, information and advocacy, as well as providing up-to-date information for reporting, audits, evaluations and inputs to FAO governing body documents;

Performs other related duties as required.

Specific Functions

Coordinates the pastoralism GLONET project (GCP/SFW/516/EC), monitors the implementation, including financial execution, of the project and support FAO Country Offices and stakeholders on project results achievement;

Provides support for the representation of project to the donor and maintains and facilitates transparent and regular communication with partners of the project;

Ensures the coordination of the project and respects for internal deadlines approved according to the Implementation plans developed by the Project Managers in each country;

Ensures and supports the integrated implementation of the project activities and consistency between different countries and global GLONET project by coordinating the multicountry project team;

Supports the development of the Feed Balance Sheet in coordination with CILSS and AGRHYMET (Agriculture, Hydrology, Meteorology) Regional Center in West Africa and the Sahel and its integration into the Cadre Harmonise;

Coordinates with ongoing programmes at G5 Sahel level (PIP Pastoralism) for which FAO is lead agency, CILSS (PRAPS1 and 2), ECOWAS (PREDIP);

Provides technical support, assistance, back-stopping, reviews of documents, procurement requests and facilitates the implementation of pastoralism, animal health and production and conflict sensitive projects in West Africa and Sahel that support SFW, ECOWAS and the Regional Animal Health Centre;

Provides technical support in formulating integrated policies supporting pastoralism and conflict mitigation, programmes, concept notes, frameworks, action plans, etc., in West Africa and Sahel including reviewing reports for technical competence;

Supports the preparation and/or implementation of livestock, animal health and production, farmer field school, or pastoralist trainings in West Africa and Sahel;

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

Advanced university degree in agriculture, food security, economics, natural resources, rural development, business administration and management, international relations or other field related to the work of the Organization;

Seven years of relevant experience in public and/or private sectors related to programming, planning and technical cooperation in food and agriculture, including experience in developing countries, especially in countries that are vulnerable to disaster or other emergency risks;

Working knowledge of English and French.

Competencies

Results Focus

Teamwork

Tags animal health architect capacity development cluster coordination conflict mitigation continuous improvement crisis communication drought control dryland early warning systems emergency preparedness food and nutrition food security information systems international relations knowledge sharing livestock natural resources needs assessment nutrition security pastoralism pastoralist procurement project manager refugees resource mobilization rural development standards of conduct technical cooperation trainings transparency west africa

Communication

Building Effective Relationships

Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical/Functional Skills

Work experience in more than one location or area of work, particularly in field positions is desirable;

Extent and relevance of experience at international level in formulating policy and programming managing field operations;

Extent and relevance of experience in identifying and preparing programme strategies and policy position on humanitarian and transition contexts, at both global and country levels;

Extent of knowledge of international humanitarian architecture, including agencies, NGOs, and other partners;

Extent and relevance of experience in needs assessments, cluster coordination, UN consolidated appeal process and/or emergency operations for Level 3 emergencies;

Extent and relevance of experience in rehabilitation and humanitarian policies development, programme formulation and implementation;

Experience in response management and surge support coordination.

Please note that all candidates should adhere to FAO Values of Commitment to FAO, Respect for All and Integrity and Transparency. GENERAL INFORMATION

FAO reserves the right not to make an appointment CONDITIONS OF SERVICE

A competitive compensation and benefits package is offered. For information on UN salaries, allowances and benefits, click on the following link: http://www.un.org/Depts/OHRM/salaries allowances/salary.htm Other benefits, subject to eligibility, include:

Dependency allowances

Rental subsidy

Education grant for children

Home leave travel

30 working days of annual leave per year

Pension fund entitlements under the UN Joint Staff Pension Fund

International health insurance; optional life insurance

Disability protection

FAO encourages a positive workplace culture to increase inclusivity and diversity within its workforce. FAO applies measures in which all staff members contribute equally and in full to the work and development of the Organization. This includes:

elements of family-friendly policies

flexible working arrangements

standards of conduct

HOW TO APPLY

To apply, visit the recruitment website at Jobs at FAO and complete your online profile. We strongly recommend that your profile is accurate, complete and includes your employment records, academic qualifications and language skills;

Candidates are requested to attach a letter of motivation to the online profile;

Once your profile is completed, please apply and submit your application;

Your application will be screened based on the information provided on your online profile;

Please note that FAO only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU) / United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed at http://www.whed.net/

Candidates may be requested to provide performance assessments and authorization to conduct verification checks of past and present work, character, education, military and police records to ascertain any and all information which may be pertinent to the employment qualifications;

Incomplete applications will not be considered;

Only applications received through the FAO recruitment portal will be considered;

We encourage applicants to submit the application well before the deadline date.

If you need help, or have queries, please contact: Careers@fao.org
Tensions are believed to be growing between Australian-born Princess Mary and her sister-in-law Princess Marie in a simmering feud threatening to tear the Danish royal family apart.

The relationship between Mary - who married Prince Frederik of Denmark in 2004 - and her sister-in-law is believed to have gone rapidly downhill in recent months.

The frosty attitude towards each other is thought to have begun when French-born Marie - the wife of Frederik's younger brother Prince Joachim - aired her complaints about having to move her family to Paris permanently this year.

Joachim suffered a life-threatening health scare in July while studying at a military school in France when doctors found a deadly blood clot on his brain.

But eyebrows were raised after Frederik visited his brother at his French residence Chateau de Cayx with Mary nowhere to be seen.

Tensions have grown between Crown Princess Mary (pictured second from right with husband Frederik) and Princess Marie (left with husband Joachim)

Princess Mary meanwhile celebrated Christmas with just her husband and children - with royals suggesting the decision had little to do with COVID-19 rules on small gatherings.

The recent tensions follow speculation first reported by Daily Mail Australia in 2015 that Princess Mary had become estranged from her own family back Down Under.

A Danish Royal House spokesman at the time denied any rift had taken place.

Prince Joachim's family temporarily moved to Paris at the start of 2019 as the royal took part in the highly intensive six-day-a-week military training program.

He was due to return to Denmark by the end of 2020 but after his health scare he decided to stay on and took up the role of defence attache at the Danish embassy in Paris.

Princess Marie said in July the decision to stay in France wasn't entirely theirs.

'No. It is not always us who decide. I think that's important to know,' the French princess told Danish magazine See and Hear.

'I loved living in Denmark. Denmark is just such a wonderful country to be in. Everything works well and there are not many problems.'

Princess Marie's comments have since been likened to Meghan Markle's bombshell interview in South Africa when she said she was not coping with royal life.

The relationship is believed to have gone downhill after Princess Marie, who is married to Prince Joachim, aired her complaints about having to move her family to Paris (pictured Princess Mary, and Princess Marie with Queen Margrethe of Denmark and children)

The Hobart-born princess married Prince Frederik, the next in line for the Danish throne, in 2004 after a chance encounter at a Sydney pub in 2000

Marie, who is French, became Joachim's second wife in 2008

Sister-in-laws in arms: Princess Marie and Crown Princess Mary at Copenhagen Fahion Week in January 2013

Danish businesswoman and royal commentator Anna Thygesen told the Daily Telegraph the two princesses had little in common.

'They are very different people, one is European and not only European, she is French, where Mary is the Princess of Denmark and this makes her number one,' she said.

More questions were raised after the two princesses were seen at clashing events in recent months.

Princess Marie returned to Denmark in September for a charity opening in Copenhagen.

Just two hours earlier, her sister-in-law had been in the city to present the annual DI Prize to a company that had made sustainable and eco-friendly construction panels.

The pair have also been spotted several times in outfits that are near identical to ones the other had earlier worn.

Because Joachim is Prince Frederik's younger brother he will not take the throne - meaning unlike Mary, Marie will never be queen.

Red hot: Mary turned heads in this layered gown for a water pageant in 2013 (left) while Marie wore a similar dress to Amalienborg Palace in 2014 (right)

Bringing in the New Year: Mary first wore her red velvet gown to a New Year's banquet in 2014 (left), a dress similar to the pink frock worn by Marie to a New Year's banquet in 2013

Princess Mary married Frederik in 2004 and the pair have four children together.

Speculation arose of a rift between Mary and her family after a series of posts that appeared to be written by her brother John Donaldson surfaced in 2015.

A spokesperson for the Danish Royal House suggested the posts referring to Mary as 'she who shall not be named' were false.

'We believe that this is a case of obvious abuse,' Royal House press officer Lene Balleby told Danish publication BT.dk.

Princess Mary is seen with her four children and husband Frederik. Frederik is the next in line to the Danish throne

Crown Princess Mary of Denmark as a patron of DRC Danish Refugee Council in marking the one-year anniversary of the Global Refugee Forum in December 2020

'It is all too easy to make false profile pages, and in this case it is [Mary's] brother's identity that has been misused.'

Speculation about a family feud between Mary and the Donaldson family were aired in weekly magazine New Idea, which highlighted a Facebook post from August 2014 on a profile belonging to a John Stuart Donaldson.

'Holiday with the sisters in Rome. Not sure if I'll be keeping the scruff this way... Happy to see my sisters again, having a great time,' the post read, alongside a photo of John Donaldson, 45, in colourful holiday wear.

In a comment below the picture, a Facebook profile belonging to 'John Dalgleish Donaldson', the name of Princess Mary's father, remarked: 'I hope the 3 of you have a great time. Take lots of pictures. Enjoy it, you've deserved it. Lots of love from Susan and I.

Princess Marie Of Denmark is pictured stepping out of a car in Germany in 2011

'She who shall not be named': A Facebook post from 2014 on a profile appearing to belong to John Stuart Donaldson sparked the speculation - but the royal family has suggested it is fake

They added: 'Has she who shall not be named refuse to go with you or you did not extend her the offer [sic]?'

'Did not bother to ask, dad. Trish isn't speaking to her right now and we wanted to enjoy ourselves. Will do on everything else!' was the reply.

While it is unclear who the woman the Facebook users are referring to is, it was speculated that they were discussing Crown Princess Mary, and that 'Trish' refers to their sister Patricia Bailey.

The posts were eventually made private or removed from the Facebook profile.

Mr Donaldson, Mrs Bailey and their sister Jane Stephens grew up very close to Mary, with Mr Donaldson, as godfather of Mary's son Prince Vincent, attending his christening in 2011.
I found it intriguing that Atlantic writer McKay Coppins, in this article about Mormonism (Coppins is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), used the term "preposterous" as a description of some Mormon beliefs.

Coppins dug back into the magazine's ancient archives to find an 1863 article about his faith tradition, founded in America in the early 1800s just outside Rochester, N.Y. He writes this:

"In 1863, a writer for The Atlantic named Fitz-Hugh Ludlow traveled to the Mormon settlement in Utah, and was surprised by what he found. In his 11,000-word dispatch, Ludlow presented the strange desert civilization of exiles as a study in contradictions. The Mormons were clearly theocratic, yet he found no evidence of corruption. Their open embrace of polygamy was scandalous, yet somehow appeared more practical than lascivious. Their beliefs were preposterous, but sincere."

Preposterous. It's an interesting word. The "pre" part of it refers to something coming before something else. The "post" part of it refers to something coming after something else. So in something that's preposterous, the thing that should be first by normal reasoning comes last and the thing that comes last, by normal reasoning, should be first.

If you know much about the New Testament, perhaps this is ringing a bell. Hear what Jesus is reported saying in Matthew 20:16: "So those who are last will be first. And those who are first will be last."

Preposterous.

It's what healthy religion does. It challenges conventional wisdom. It puts beggars at the banquet table.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, refers to this upside down god in the first chapter of the gospel of Luke in what's called "The Magnificat." Hear her preposterous words:

"He has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations. He has pulled the powerful down from their thrones and lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty-handed."

You can find this kind of preposterousness -- or at least some claims for it -- in all or nearly all the great world religions. For instance, many people have contended that the the angel Gabriel spoke the Qur'an to an illiterate man named Muhammad. There are questions about whether the Prophet Muhammad was really illiterate, but if he was it's an example of something preposterous, an illiterate man coming out with such a book. The Buddha preposterously walked away from family wealth to devote his life to a world full of sufferers. Moses killed a man but God chose him anyway to lead the people of Israel from slavery to freedom. Jesus was murdered on a cross on a Friday but rose from the dead on Sunday.

And on and on.

The point, of course, is not that religion should be rejected because it contains preposterous stories. The point, rather, is that adherents of one faith tradition should be instinctively reluctant to criticize the stories of another faith because it can rightly be said that all religions offer preposterous stories and thoughts -- and often do that on purpose.

That doesn't mean we toss out reason and rationality when it comes to faith so that absolutely anything goes. That's how you get to hijackers murdering people so they can spend eternity with 72 virgins each. But to call aspects of religions not our own preposterous is to fail to recognize those aspects in our own that deserve that term, too.

* * *

A PEEK AHEAD AT THE RELIGIOUS SCENE

You are welcome to look back on 2020 all you want, given that it's sometimes hard to stop staring at a multi-car wreck. But it's 2021, and I'm focusing on what's ahead. So is Religion News Service, which, in this article, looks toward stories its reporters expect to be covering this year. And so is the National Catholic Reporter, which, in this article, quotes experts on what they see coming on the religious scene in 2021. In the meantime, let's stay well, get vaccinated and be kind to one another. (Is that so preposterous to imagine?)


Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a New Year speech Thursday evening in Beijing to ring in 2021. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)

BEIJING, Dec. 31 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday hailed the country's hard-won achievements in COVID-19 response, economic recovery and poverty eradication in the "extraordinary" year of 2020.

Xi called for continued efforts to score more "glorious" achievements while delivering a televised New Year speech to ring in 2021, a year deemed crucial by the Chinese leadership as it will mark the 100th founding anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and kick off a 15-year endeavor to build China into a "modern socialist country."

2020: AN EXTRAORDINARY YEAR

China has written an epic in fighting COVID-19 as the country put people and life first and fought the epidemic with unity and perseverance, Xi said.

Numerous people including medical workers, scientists, community workers, volunteers and construction workers have devoted themselves to building an iron wall to safeguard lives, he said.

"Greatness is forged in the ordinary, and heroes come from the people. Every single person is remarkable," the president said.

Xi expressed sympathy to all the COVID-19 patients and saluted all the ordinary heroes. "I am proud of the great motherland and the people. I am proud of the unyielding national spirit," he said.

The president said China has overcome the COVID-19 impact and secured major achievements in coordinating epidemic control with economic and social development.

He said the country's 13th Five-Year Plan has come to a successful conclusion, and the 14th Five-Year Plan has been comprehensively designed.

Overcoming challenges brought by COVID-19, China has become the first major economy in the world to register positive growth, and its GDP is expected to exceed 100 trillion yuan (about 15.38 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2020.

Xi also hailed the country's 17 consecutive years of bumper harvest in grain production, major scientific breakthroughs including its Mars mission and lunar probe, and its success in taming severe floods.

China has secured a great historic achievement for fully building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and a decisive victory in poverty eradication, Xi said.

In 2020, all of China's nearly 100 million impoverished rural residents living below the current poverty line have shaken off poverty after eight years' efforts, and all the 832 poor counties have been lifted out of poverty.

Xi said the country will continue to work hard to paint a magnificent picture of rural vitalization, and steadily march toward the goal of common prosperity.

He also vowed to further deepen reform and expand opening-up with greater vision and courage.

Noting that the eventful year has driven home the significance of building a community with a shared future for humanity, Xi said solidarity and cooperation against the virus have been the most discussed topic in his diplomatic phone calls and video conferences.

"People across the world should make joint efforts to drive away the dark clouds of the COVID-19 pandemic at an early date and build the planet Earth into a better home for all humanity," he said.

2021 AND BEYOND

Highlighting the CPC centenary in 2021, Xi praised the Party as a gigantic vessel that navigates China's stable and long-term development.

"Upholding the principle of putting people first and remaining true to our founding mission, we can break the waves to reach the destination of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," he said.

After building a moderately prosperous society in all respects in 2020, China will embark on a new journey of development in 2021 and strive to achieve socialist modernization by the year 2035, according to the schedule designed by the CPC. "The road ahead is long, and striving is the only way forward," Xi said.

"We will make continued efforts and forge ahead to make more glorious achievements," he said.
Posted Saturday, January 2, 2021 10:22 am

The debate over help for renters and landlords during the pandemic is likely to spill into the 2021 legislative session in Olympia, even with the extension of the eviction moratorium and more federal help.

Gov. Jay Inslee on Thursday officially extended the state's rental eviction moratorium through the end of March, with new supports for landlords and property owners. The moratorium prevents landlords from evicting tenants for failure to pay rent during the pandemic. It also requires tenants to pay back any past rent once it lapses. It mirrors a federal eviction moratorium that was extended through Jan. 31 as part of the federal COVID-19 relief package.

Several Yakima Valley lawmakers expressed concern over the long-term impact of the policy during a virtual Greater Yakima Chamber of Commerce meeting on Wednesday.

State Sen. Curtis King, R-Yakima, said for those who have not paid rent in several months, there will be thousands of dollars of back payments owed when the moratorium lifts that renters will be unable to afford.

Sen. Jim Honeyford, R-Sunnyside, agreed, saying he worries renters will move out, leaving landlords without payment.

State Reps. Gina Mosbrucker and Jeremie Dufault  who is a landlord himself  said the moratorium left landlords paying or defaulting on mortgages without the same government moratorium to help them. They both suggested that a better policy would be to provide rental vouchers to individuals who proved that they lacked a job or income, providing payment to landlords and ensuring renters weren't left with overwhelming repayments.

"I think obviously when we get back into session we're going to have to look into what funding is available to do this. But I think we also need to rein in this moratorium," state Rep. Chris Corry echoed.

He said had lawmakers been involved, safeguards to require proof of inability to pay rent would have been put into place. He also said supports would have been created for landlords, to prevent them from defaulting on mortgages.

"We know a lot of people are falling behind," he said, adding that this could shrink the pool of affordable housing and hurt renters in the long run. "If you want to cause an economic crisis, you create this big default on mortgage payments."

More than 171,000 Washington renters are behind in rent.

The governor's proposed operating budget includes $17 million to support an anticipated increase in homeowners seeking foreclosure relief when moratoriums lapse.

Inslee's press secretary, Mike Faulk, also pointed to $100 million in rent assistance for low-income individuals at risk of homelessness distributed in late June directly to landlords statewide. Another $20 million was distributed in November and the governor's budget proposal asks lawmakers to approve another $100 million in rent assistance in the upcoming session.

He said he was not familiar with rent voucher proposals, so could not comment on the proposal. But he defended the governor's approach to maintaining stable housing.

"We have openly, repeatedly said that if you can pay your rent, you should pay it and that the debt has not been eliminated," he said.

Faulk also said when the White House and Republican-led U.S. Senate failed to sign a bill that would provide continued Pandemic Unemployment Assistance to Americans, Inslee's office stepped in to provide local support  a decision it maintained even after the federal government approved new assistance funds after the old plan lapsed.

"The fact that it's 2020 matters and the fact that it's a pandemic matters in these debates," he said. "These are unprecedented times that require support from the state. It requires support from the federal government, and the federal government has been extremely lacking in leadership, including getting funds to people to be able to actually pay their bills.

"People are on hard times through no fault of their own, and we think and have been encouraging the federal government for a long time now to get benefits into people's pockets who need it."

Reach Janelle Retka at jretka@yakimaherald.com or on Twitter: @janelleretka

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(c)2021 Yakima Herald-Republic (Yakima, Wash.)

Visit Yakima Herald-Republic (Yakima, Wash.) at www.yakima-herald.com

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Copyright  2021 Albuquerque Journal

Nearly 20 farms in southern New Mexico are one step closer to receiving state grants to stop using groundwater for a year as part of a water management pilot project for the Lower Rio Grande.

Grants considered by the Interstate Stream Commission last week ranged from $9,000 to $90,000, and totaled more than $500,000.

The Office of the State Engineer has certified that the farms, trusts and corporations have valid water rights. The staff will now verify land deeds before signing the grant agreements, which represent about 1,600 acres.

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John Longworth, an engineer with the Interstate Stream Commission, said the state team will work with southern New Mexico water managers to model what a reduction in groundwater pumping does to local water levels.

We want to better understand how the aquifer system is going to react to different kinds of groundwater conservation scenarios, Longworth said.

The state Legislature allocated $7 million this year for a three-year Lower Rio Grande water management project. The original amount was $17 million, but that was slashed during special session budget cuts.

The program aims to find water management tools that work in the Rio Grande valley from Elephant Butte Dam to the Texas state line.

Monitoring wells in the Rincon and Mesilla valleys will measure the programs effect on regional aquifer depletions. Most of those wells are managed by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Elephant Butte Irrigation District.

Longworth said the team may use the well data to decide whether future grants should focus more on areas where the aquifer is severely depleted, or regions where less pumping would directly benefit Rio Grande flows.

Besides paying farmers to fallow their land, the pilot program may also pursue aquifer recharge projects. Improving water infrastructure and augmenting groundwater supply with brackish water are other possible strategies.

Commissioner Paula Garcia said she is curious about the pilot programs implications for the future of New Mexico water policy.

In some areas of the state, curtailment and shortage sharing are very routine, Garcia said. Im wondering if that could be part of these scenarios, or if the major tool is to pay people not to pump as a future strategy.

Farms had to be at least 10 acres of regularly irrigated land with valid groundwater rights to qualify for the pilot program grants.

The Office of the State Engineer will use site visits, photos and meter readings to ensure grantees are not irrigating the land during the 12-month period.

Applicants could request grant payments ranging from $400 an acre to $800 an acre.

Longworth said that in this first round of funding, the farms that requested less money per acre to not water their land are mainly pastures.

The most expensive requests came from farms that plant multiple crops and use far more groundwater.

To get the higher consumptive use farms (to participate), its likely going to take more money in terms of dollars per acre, Longworth said.

Theresa Davis is a Report for America corps member covering water and the environment for the Albuquerque Journal.
WASHINGTON : Congress on Friday overrode President Donald Trump's veto of a defense policy bill, a first by lawmakers since he took office nearly four years ago, ensuring that the measure becomes law.

In an extraordinary New Year's Day session, the Republican-controlled Senate easily turned aside the veto, dismissing Trump's objections to the $740 billion bill and handing him a stinging rebuke just weeks before he leaves the White House.

Trump lashed out on Twitter, saying the Senate missed an opportunity to eliminate protections for social media platforms that he said give "unlimited power to Big Tech companies. Pathetic!!!''

Trump also slammed lawmakers for rejecting his call to increase COVID-19 relief payments to $2,000: "Not fair, or smart!''

The 81-13 vote in the Senate on the widely popular defense bill followed an earlier 322-87 override vote in the House. The bill affirms a 3% pay raise for U.S. troops and guides defense policy, cementing decisions about troop levels, new weapons systems and military readiness, personnel policy and other military goals.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the sweeping and overwhelmingly bipartisan votes" in the House and Senate "delivered a resounding rebuke to President Trumps reckless assault on Americas military and national security.''

Trump's veto of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, would have hurt the health, financial security and safety of our servicemembers, their families, our veterans and our allies and partners worldwide,'' Pelosi said. "Instead of keeping Americans safe, the president continues to use his final moments in office to sow chaos and undermine our security.''

The defense bill, which now has the force of law, looks after our brave men and women who volunteer to wear the uniform,'' said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. "But its also a tremendous opportunity: to direct our national security priorities to reflect the resolve of the American people and the evolving threats to their safety, at home and abroad. Its our chance to ensure we keep pace with competitors like Russia and China.''

The Senate override was delayed after Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., objected to moving ahead until McConnell allowed a vote on the Trump-backed plan to boost COVID relief payments to $2,000. McConnell did not allow that vote; instead he used his parliamentary power to set a vote limiting debate on the defense measure, overcoming a filibuster threat by Sanders and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York.

Without a bipartisan agreement, a vote on the bill could have been delayed until Saturday night. Lawmakers, however, agreed to an immediate roll call Friday once the filibuster threat was stopped.

Trump vetoed the defense measure last week, saying it failed to limit Twitter and other social media companies he claimed were biased against him during his failed reelection campaign. Trump also opposed language that allows for the renaming of military bases that honor Confederate leaders.

Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a close Trump ally, hailed the override vote.

Today, the Senate sent a strong message of support to our troops,'' Inhofe said. "Not only does this bill give our service members and their families the resources they need, but it also makes our nation more secure  pushing back against China and Russia (and) strengthening our cyber defenses.''

Trump has succeeded throughout his four-year term in enforcing party discipline in Congress, with few Republicans willing to publicly oppose him. The bipartisan overrides on the defense bill showed the limits of Trumps influence in the final weeks of his term.

Earlier this week, 130 House Republicans voted against the Trump-backed COVID relief checks, with many arguing they were unnecessary and would increase the federal budget deficit. The Democratic-controlled House approved the larger payments, but the plan fizzled in the Senate amid opposition from McConnell and other Republicans, another sign of Trumps fading hold over Congress.

Only seven GOP senators voted with Trump to oppose the defense bill override. Forty Republicans  including the entire GOP leadership  voted for the override, along with 41 Democrats. Sanders and five other liberals who opposed the defense bill also voted against the override.

Besides his concerns about social media and military base names, Trump also complained that the bill restricted his ability to withdraw thousands of troops from Afghanistan and Germany. The measure requires the Pentagon to submit reports certifying that the proposed withdrawals would not jeopardize U.S. national security.

Trump has vetoed eight other bills, but those were all sustained because supporters did not gain the two-thirds vote needed in each chamber for the bills to become law without Trumps signature.

Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called Trump's Dec. 23 veto a parting gift" to Russian President Vladimir Putin and a lump of coal for our troops. Donald Trump is showing more devotion to Confederate base names than to the men and women who defend our nation."

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Phuket suffers first death in New Year road-safety campaign

PHUKET: Phuket suffered its first death from a road accident for the New Year when a pickup truck struck a motorbike on Chao Fa West Rd in Wichit early yesterday morning (Jan 1), killing the 54-year-old rider.

accidentsdeathtransportSafety

By The Phuket News

Saturday 2 January 2021, 10:55AM

Mr Kasemsan, 54, was waiting at the traffic lights on Chao Fa West Rd to turn right onto Kwang Rd when he was struck by the pickup truck. Screenshot: Google Maps

The Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM-Phuket) confirmed the death in its daily report for the Seven Days of Danger road-safety campaign this morning (Jan 2).

The report, for Day 4 of the campaign (Jan 1), marked one death and six people injured in seven accidents across the island yesterday.

The report noted that at 00:12am yesterday, Kasemsan Kamphan, 54, was waiting at the traffic lights to turn right from Chao Fa West Rd onto Kwang Rd when he was struck from behind by the pickup truck.

Mr Kasemsan suffered serious injuries and was rushed to Vachira Phuket Hospital, but was later pronounced dead.

The report noted that Mr Kasemsan was wearing a helmet when he was struck by the pickup.

The pickup driver had been tested for alcohol. He measured a reading of 262% (the equivalent of 0.262*), the report noted.

Of the six other accidents reported by the DDPM for the 24 hours of Jan 1, two occurred in Muang District, two were in Kathu, and the remaining two were in Thalang. Four of the people injured were male, and two were female.

So far 28 people have been injured and one person killed in 28 accidents in Phuket since this years campaign began.

Meanwhile, Phuket police reported issuing 199 fines for moving violations during the 24-hour period on Jan 1, as follows:

4 people fined for operating an unsafe/illegally modified motorcycle

6 people fined for not wearing seatbelts

48 people fined for driving without a licence

0 people fined for speeding

11 people fined for ignoring traffic signals

12 fined for ghost driving (driving opposite traffic flow)

2 fined for dangerously cutting off other motorists in traffic

7 fined for using mobile phones while driving.

1 person arrested for drunk driving

108 people fined for not wearing helmets

Across Thailand, a total of 100 people were killed and 4,535 injured in 4,635 accidents on the Day 4 of the campaign yesterday, according to the website for the national road-safety agency ThaiRSC.

Bangkok recorded the highest number of accidents with 318 people requiring hospital treatment.

Surin and Nakhon Sawan both had the most deaths from road accidents yesterday, recording five deaths in each province on Friday (Jan 1).

* In Thailand, the standard Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) limit is set at 0.05%, which means you are legal if there is no more than 50 milligrammes of alcohol per one decilitre of blood. In normal circumstances, 50 mg/dl means about two glasses of beer.

See also:

Phuket traffic fines in clear view

Questions & Answers: Thailand alcohol blood level driving legal limit
Queensland has reported just one new case of COVID-19 on Saturday in hotel quarantine, as the state's top doctor raised concern about the spread of cases across Victoria and asked recently returned travellers to quarantine at home until cleared of the virus.

One close contact of a Victorian case has been identified in the Mackay region, while a casual contact had been confirmed on the Gold Coast, with Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young expecting more to come.

With the number of locally acquired cases continuing to grow in New South Wales and Victoria, and other states expanding border bans, Dr Young had so far only warned people to reconsider their need to travel as the situation could change "really quickly".

"While we are not announcing hotspots in Victoria at this stage, I am very concerned how the situation is escalating," she said in an update on Saturday.
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As motivational messages go, the pictures on the wall at Irish Waters Ringsend wastewater treatment plant are more taunting than encouraging.

Water quality in Dublin Bay will be good enough for Blue Flag status, declares one over a vista of sparkling sea meeting azure sky.

Dollymount, Sandymount and Merrion strands will meet all EU bathing standards, vows another. Dublins finest amenity, declares a third with a bird's-eye view of the plant itself.

Within two years of the plants completion in 2005, it was overloaded. The beaches have often been subject to swimming bans, Merrion has officially been de-designated a bathing area and, around the bay, blue flags remain elusive.

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That was before..., Niall Gleeson, Irish Waters managing director doesnt finish the sentence. Ringsend was built a decade before Irish Water existed, but he knows the public dont want chronology; they just want the problem sorted.

Easier said than done. The plant was designed to treat the sewage of 1.64 million people but it receives a load equating to 1.98m with daily peaks as high as 2.38m.

It is creaking, and in heavy rain when stormwater drains add run-off to the load, it cannot cope. After basic filtering to remove toilet paper and the like, the excess is diluted and released untreated into the bay.

Ringsend is being upgraded to handle a population of 2.1m by 2023 and 2.4m in 2025 but thats little more than the peaks it faces today.

That gives a bit of headroom but it wont keep you going for long, Mr Gleeson warns.

With no room for further expansion at Ringsend, Irish Water wants to build a new plant at Clonshaugh in north Dublin, the Greater Dublin Drainage (GDD) project.

It had planning permission but this was quashed by the High Court after objectors argued An Bord Pleanala erred by approving the project despite an incomplete suite of environmental assessments.

The matter returns to court soon and is technically a matter between the objectors and Bord Pleanala so Mr Gleeson wont discuss it, except to say the GDD is essential.

This place is going to be up at 2.4m in 2025, he says of Ringsend, but the city is going to continue to grow and thats not going to be enough.

Within a few years well need the extra capacity that GDD will provide. Its needed for the further growth of the city, for housing and development.

The worst-case scenario would be, if we cant get planning for the GDD, or something else, that you would stop growth in the city because it will get to a point where you have to say stop. You cant keep feeding into a system where the plant is over-capacity.

Objections to infrastructure are not confined to Dublin. In Arklow, Co Wicklow, work begins soon on a treatment plant that was opposed for 30 years while raw sewage flowed daily into the Avoca river, and Irish Water is having to use compulsory purchase orders to get sites for plants.

In Co Sligo, where householders using the Lough Talt drinking water supply were on boil water notices for two years, Irish Water only succeeded in getting permission to upgrade the water treatment plant, which is in a Special Area of Conservation, when it invoked the EUs IROPI (Imperative Reasons for Overriding Public Interest) clause  the first time this mechanism has been used successfully in Ireland.

There are bottlenecks all over the country between water and wastewater treatment, Mr Gleeson says. Everyone wants them in their area but no-one wants them beside their house.

Delays in the planning system must be addressed, he says. A dedicated planning and environment court as mentioned in the Programme for Government might help but he also says there are contradictions between Irish and EU environmental legislation that need tidying up to streamline the process.

Irish Water will play its part, he adds, through pre-planning consultation and any design features that make a project more palatable.

I have seen sites [abroad] that blend into the background, blend into mountainsides, and have grass roofs and all that sort of stuff and if thats the requirement, well put it in.

Possibly the biggest planning battle of all lies ahead. The utility wants to pipe water from the Shannon to Dublin to meet the citys growing thirst.

Dublin needs around 600 million litres of water a day and 80pc of that comes from one source, the LIffey, which gives about 40pc of its flow to the citys taps.

During the heatwave early last summer, demand went to 620m litres but the dry spell meant only 580m was being supplied.

Even now, demand has been running at the highest it has ever been for this time of year, hitting 585m litres.

Upgrades at Vartry and Leixlip plants will add 15m litres capacity next year but demand is growing by 10m litres a year.

The headroom in Dublin is terrible, Mr Gleeson says, delivering the same warning as he did about the wastewater infrastructure.

If you look 10 to 20 years ahead, Dublin is going to run out of water so we have to find an alternative source. We cant take any more from the Liffey.

If we dont have another source, well have restrictions and maybe FDI (foreign directive investment) wont come in because they cant be guaranteed supply.

Industrys water use has become a bone of contention for critics. Food processing and pharmaceutical operations use large volumes as do data centres.

On request from Irish Water, the most recent centres incorporated alternative cooling systems but earlier centres remain an issue.

Retrofitting has not been suggested but, Mr Gleeson says: It might be something we revisit.

Dublins difficulties dont wash with many Shannonsiders who fear damage to the river, and hundreds of landowners and numerous community campaign groups are adamant the pipeline wont happen.

The project has hurdles to clear before it even goes to planning. It needs legislation, the Water Abstractions Bill, and the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities is reviewing Irish Waters arguments as to why it is needed.

The company is preparing a study on alternatives, such as ground water sources in the Curragh, taking water from the Boyne, and desalination, the results of which will be published in May.

Mr Gleeson is not enthusiastic about them, however, and particularly not about desalination, a method used mainly in countries that experience prolonged drought.

People tend not to drink it so wed have to blend it with water from other sources which would be a huge task and you have a lot of contaminants to deal with.

It would be a shame in Ireland with the amount of rain we have and with a reservoir like the Shannon available, but were doing the studies, well present the comparisons and take it from there.

One of the arguments, he hears repeatedly is that, if Irish Water fixed leaks, Dublin would have plenty of water.

Repairs are happening and the leakage rate has fallen from 50pc overall to 37pc in Dublin and 41pc nationally.

Progress on leaks on private property has slowed since water charges were discontinued but the hope is that pushing the conservation message will prompt householders to act.

The excess water charge was supposed to impose some form of financial penalty but its introduction has been repeatedly delayed by government and, with pandemic handwashing messages taking precedence, Mr Gleeson doesnt expect the go-ahead any time soon.

The legacy of the shambolic attempt by the Fine Gael-Labour government to introduce water charges when Irish Water was established in 2014 still lingers but Mr Gleeson says it is waning.

When I started here two years ago and Id get into a taxi with colleagues, the driver would ask where we worked and wed all hesitate before answering. Now, we get mainly positive comments but we still have work to do on that. Our biggest issue now is that well deliver 920m worth of capital projects this year so people will say, you have the money, why isnt everything fixed?

But weve identified 15-20bn worth of upgrades so theres a huge amount of work to do. He looks at the pictures on the wall. Thats still what were aiming for. Thats why we havent taken them down.

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Kangana Ranaut has accused the Maharashtra government of running a fake propaganda against her. A civil court in Mumbai ruled that she violated the sanctioned plan by merging three flats at her residence in Khar. She said that her entire building has only one apartment per floor and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is targeting her mischievously.

Sharing a news article about the court order, Kangana wrote on Twitter, Fake propaganda by Mahavinashkari government, I havent joined any flats, whole building is built the same way, one apartment each floor, thats how I purchased it, @mybmc is only harassing me in the entire building. Will fight in higher court.

Fake propaganda by Mahavinashkari government, I havent joined any flats, whole building is built the same way, one apartment each floor, thats how I purchased it, @mybmc is only harassing me in the entire building. Will fight in higher court  https://t.co/4VBEgcVXf3  Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) January 2, 2021

The court rejected Kanganas plea for interim restraint on BMC from taking any action for demolishing all the modifications. The civic body served a notice to her in March 2018 for unauthorised constructions in her Khar apartment. In another notice, it asked her to restore the structure to its original position, along with a warning that the unauthorised portion will be demolished if she fails to do so.

I find that the plaintiff (Ranaut) being an owner of three flats converted these three units into one unit, said the city civil court judge, LS Chavan, while rejecting Kanganas plea last month.

Also read | Mohnish Bahl thought his career was finished before Maine Pyaar Kiya: I was planning to become a pilot

She has covered the sunk area, duct area, common passage as per her own convenience and included FSI-free into habitable area. These are the grave violation of the sanctioned plan for which the permission of the Competent Authority is required, the judge added in his order that became available earlier this week.

Kangana has been involved in a war of words with the ruling Maharashtra government, since she criticised the Mumbai Police and compared Mumbai to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in September last year.

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RTHK: Republican senators back challenge to Biden victory

US Senator Ted Cruz on Saturday said he will be among a dozen Republican senators who will challenge President-elect Joe Bidens victory when Electoral College results are tallied in Congress next week  a largely symbolic move that has little chance of preventing Biden from taking office.

The Republicans join Senator Josh Hawley, who earlier this week became the first sitting member of the Senate to announce he would challenge the election result. A number of Republicans in the US House of Representatives also plan on contesting the vote tally.

In a statement, Cruz and the other senators said they intend to vote to reject electors from swing states that have been at the centre of President Donald Trumps unproven assertions of election fraud and will call for the establishment of a commission to investigate claims of fraud on an emergency basis.

Cruz was joined in the statement by Senators Ron Johnson, James Lankford, Steve Daines, John Kennedy, Marsha Blackburn, Mike Braun, along with Cynthia Lummis, Tommy Tuberville, Bill Hagerty, and Roger Marshall, all of whom will be sworn in as senators on Sunday in the new Congress.

Biden will be sworn into office on January 20. (Reuters)

This story has been published on: 2021-01-02. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif urged US President Donald Trump on Saturday not to be trapped by an alleged Israeli plan to provoke a war through attacks on US forces in Iraq.

He issued the warning on the anniversary of the US killing of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani by a drone strike in Iraq. There was no immediate comment by Israel.

Washington blames Iran-backed militia for regular rocket attacks on US facilities in Iraq, including near the US embassy. No known Iran-backed groups have claimed responsibility.

New intelligence from Iraq indicate(s) that Israeli agent-provocateurs are plotting attacks against Americans  putting an outgoing Trump in a bind with a fake casus belli (act justifying war), Zarif said in a tweet.

Be careful of a trap, @realDonaldTrump. Any fireworks will backfire badly, Zarif wrote.

New intelligence from Iraq indicate that Israeli agent-provocateurs are plotting attacks against Americansputting an outgoing Trump in a bind with a fake casus belli.Be careful of a trap, @realDonaldTrump. Any fireworks will backfire badly, particularly against your same BFFs. Javad Zarif (@JZarif) January 2, 2021

Esmail Ghaani, who succeeded Soleimani as head the elite Quds force, said on Friday Iran was still ready to respond.

The US military flew two nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to the Middle East in a message of deterrence to Iran on Wednesday, but the bombers have since left the region.
WWE 205 LIVE REPORT: EVER RISE AND NOT A COWBOY CURT IN ACTION, ATLAS VERSUS MANSOOR, AND MORE

We are at the Capitol Wrestling Centre and your announcers are Nigel McGuinness and Vic Joseph.

We see footage of Mansoor returning to Saudi Arabia to visit his family.

Match Number One: Mansoor versus Jake Atlas

They lock up and Atlas with a wrist lock and take down. Mansoor with a reversal into a side head lock and side head lock take down. Mansoor goes to the turnbuckles and uses the momentum to take Atlas to the mat. Mansoor with a side head lock take down. Mansoor lands on his feet on a belly-to-back suplex attempt. Atlas with an arm drag into an arm bar. Mansoor with an arm drag using the ropes for momentum. Mansoor with an arm drag and he gets a near fall. Manssor with an ankle lock and then he connects with a knee drop. Mansoor with an ankle lock. Atlas kicks Mansoor to the apron and Mansoor with a sunset lfip into a single leg crab.

Atlas kicks Mansoor away and then kicks him into the turnbuckles and Mansoor lands awkwardly. Atlas gets a near fall. Atlas sends Mansoor into the turnbuckles and Atlas with a chop and neck breaker. Atlas gets a near fall. Mansoor with a kick and elbow. Mansoor is put in the ropes and Atlas with a forearm to the back for a near fall. Atlas with a cravate. Mansoor with a forearm and he goes for the ankle. Atlas sends Mansoor into the turnbuckles and Mansoor kicks Atlas. Atlas with a cartwheel on a clothesline attempt by Mansoor. Mansoor with a clip and a few dragon screw leg whips. Mansoor with a single leg crab. Mansoor with a spinebuster into a Scorpion Death Lock.

Atlas gets to the ropes to force a break. Mansoor goes for the ankle and Atlas with a back elbow. Mansoor with a backslide for a near fall. Mansoor goes for the leg but Atlas blocks it and Atlas with a neck breaker for a near fall. Atlas goes for a suplex but the knee gives out and Mansoor with an inside cradle for a near fall. Atlas and Mansoor alternate near falls. Atlas with a brain buster and he goes to the turnbuckles for the rainbow DDT but Mansoor with a dragon screw and he gets a figure four rollup and bridge for the three count.

Winner: Mansoor

After the match, Mansoor offers his hand adn Atlas shakes it.

We go to commercial.

We are back with a look at the tag match from NXT with Gran Metalik and Lince Dorado against Joaquin Wilde and Raul Mendoza.

We are reminded that Santos Escobar will defend his title at New Year's Evil against Gran Metalik.

Curt Stallion says everyone is asking him who he wants to win at New Year's Evil. He says maybe he would say let the best man win but he wants Escobar.

Matt Martel says that if Daivari and The Singhs have an issue with Cowboy Curt then they have a problem with them. Chase tells Matt that Curt isn't a cowboy and they talk about how they have been calling him partner and Curt says it is because they are tag team partners.

Match Number Two: Chase Parker, Matt Martel, and Curt Stallion versus Samir Singh, Sunil Singh, and Ariya Daivari

Daivari and Stallion start things off and Stallion with a side head lock. Daivari with a knee to the midsection. Daivari wtih chops in the corner but Stallion with a chop. Daivari with a shot to the throat and then he hits a belly-to-back suplex for a near fall. Daivari tells the Singhs he won't tag them in because he doesn't need them. Daivari with a knee for a near fall. Stallion with an inside cradle for a near fall. Samrir tags in and Stallion with a drop kick. Martel tags in and Samir with a knee and Sunil tags in. Martel with a double clothesline. Parker tags in and he hits a knee lift for a near fall. Stallion tags in and kicks Sunil.

Stallion with a chop. Parker and Martel tag in and they hit a double shoudler tackle and then they hit a triple fist drop. Martel with an arm bar. Martel kicks Sunil when he drops down. Martel is sent into the corner but Martel with elbows. Sunil goes for a punches in the corner. Samir tags in and hits Martel from behind. Samir with forearms. Daivari wants to be tagged in but Sunil is tagged in. Samir and Sunil with a double suplex for a near fall. Sunil with a chop. Samir tags in and he kicks Martel and goes to the turnbuckles and hits a bulldog for a near fall.

Samir with punches and Martel with an Irish whip that sends Samir sternum first into the turnbuckles. Sunil tags in and he applies a side head lock on Martel. Martel with a jaw breaker and Daivari tags in and he knocks Parker off the apron. Daivari with a neck breaker set up but Martel blocks it and he tries for a backslide but Daivari escapes. Both men with clotheslines at the same time and both men are down. Stallion tags in and so does Samir. Stallion with forearms and then he knocks Sunil and Daivari off the apron. Stallion with a kick in the corner followed by a hesitation drop kick. Stallion with a DDT for a near fall. Martel and Parker tag in and Parker with a forearm. Martel with a drop toe hold and Stallion with a knee drop to the back and Parker with one too.

Stallion with a cross body to Daivari. Sunil with a series of near falls on Stallion. Daivari tags in and he punches Stallion. Samir tags in and he goes up top and hits Daivari with a back elbow when Stallion moves. Daivari says he is done with the Singhs. Stallion wiht a Fosbury Flop onto Daivari, Samir, and Sunil. Martel tags in and then Parker tags in and they set for the double hot shot and a running head butt for the three count.

Winners: Chase Parker, Matt Martel, and Curt Stallion

We go to credits.

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A New Year. A new beginning. Time to look ahead to the future. A Brexit deal was finally done on Christmas Eve.

A negotiated settlement based on zero tariffs, which I suspect is the preferred outcome for the majority of businesses on both sides of the Channel. It is certainly my preferred outcome.

Some bumpy moments might lie ahead as businesses adjust to practical and procedural changes but the important thing is that a deal was done. Its time for British businesses to look ahead to the future and seize the opportunities.

Eight years have passed since we were promised an in/out referendum on EU membership. Much has changed since then. One thing that has not changed is what sets us apart as a trading nation.

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We have always been an outward-looking nation and global trade has always been pivotal to our economic prosperity.

This New Year begins with news from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) that the UK is once again the fifth-largest economy in the world, after the US, China, Japan and Germany.

An excellent foundation on which the UK can now build for the future, if businesses seize the available opportunities.

As an independent trading nation, there has never been a better time to accelerate efforts to grow our exports. Not just to EU countries under the terms of the deal, but also to markets further afield, such as Commonwealth nations.

According to a May 2020 report by the think-tank Civitas, the UKs fastest growing export markets are now Nigeria, India (both Commonwealth countries), Thailand and Taiwan.

Let us be more like Germany with exports

Why is it then that so few British companies export? Only 9.6 per cent of businesses in Britains non-financial economy are actively engaged in exporting. An astonishingly low percentage.

Just imagine if it were to increase to 15 per cent, or even double to 20 per cent. Given that exports account for around one-third of GDP, if many more companies could get actively involved in exporting, the benefit to the British economy would be significant.

Does this low proportion of exporting businesses in Britain today explain why the UKs balance of payments  the amount of money flowing into the country compared to the amount going out  has been consistently negative as a percentage of GDP since the early 1980s?

According to a May 2020 report by the think-tank Civitas, the UKs fastest growing export markets are now Nigeria, India (both Commonwealth countries), Thailand and Taiwan

I am not an economist, but when you compare our trade deficit in 2019 of minus 2 per cent with Germanys very healthy surplus of plus 6 per cent in 2019, you have to wonder what Germany is doing right and where the UK is going wrong.

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In my view, we should look to Germany a lot more for lessons in operating an economy and running businesses. Two countries, with broadly similar populations, but with very different balance of payment figures. In simple terms, far more German products are sold overseas than imported into Germany, compared with the UK.

No less than 63 trade deals in just two years

Germany is the worlds third largest exporter  the UK is tenth. Let us be a lot more like the Germans when it comes to exporting. We really do need to be exporting a lot more.

My own company, JCB, recently marked 75 years in business. Since 1945, JCB has grown to become a global company selling to over 150 countries. This did not happen by accident  it is the result of a laser- sharp focus on exporting from the early days.

Our home market here in the UK was  and still is  very important. Trading with our closest neighbours  Ireland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany  is also vitally important to JCB, not least because of these markets proximity to our shores and to our factories here in the UK.

Proximity isnt everything though. Take the United States, for example, the largest economy in the world. Its also the single largest market in the world for the kind of equipment that JCB manufactures.

Last week, Liz Truss and her Turkish counterpart locked in tariff-free trading arrangements between the UK and Turkey

It may be further away from our shores, but it is a market that offers so many opportunities and it is easily accessible from British ports  in fact, hundreds of JCBs make their way across the Atlantic from Southampton every week. Even further afield, in India, in South East Asia, and as far away as Australia, there are many export possibilities for British companies.

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We just need to seize more of the opportunities. I accept, of course, that many companies might need help and mentoring in order to make the leap into exporting. Chambers of Commerce and the Government export credit agency, UK Export Finance, are good places to start looking for advice and support.

The trading environment for exporters is improving all the time. Something that has been overlooked in recent weeks and months is the success of the International Trade Secretary, Liz Truss, in securing trade agreements with Canada, Singapore, Vietnam and Kenya.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Department for International Trade signed a trade agreement with Mexico. The pace is relentless. No less than 63 trade agreements have been secured in just two years.

Last week, Liz Truss and her Turkish counterpart locked in tariff-free trading arrangements between the UK and Turkey, paving the way for a more ambitious trade agreement in the future.

This particular development will prove to be very important to the manufacturing sector. Such trade agreements open doors to British companies. They create the opportunities that the Prime Minister now wants us to seize. Doing so will grow the economy and create jobs. Its also bound to help improve our balance of payments, once such an important barometer of economic performance.

'I am enthusiastic about the opportunities that offshore wind can offer, particularly when deployed to make green hydrogen,' says Lord Bamford

After several years of debate about our future relationship with the EU, its time for British companies to look to the future and raise their game by exporting more, making Britain a true global leader in free trade.

Now that the deal is done and the transition period has ended, Ministers will hopefully have more time to focus on other priorities.

Dealing with Covid-19 is obviously top of the list, but the list is long. Delivering the national infrastructure strategy is crucial for businesses, upgrading the road and rail networks, improving connections between cities and regions and so on. Dealing with the scourge of potholes on our local roads network is also a priority for motorists.

Another priority high on the list is the Prime Ministers ten-point plan for a green industrial revolution. Boris Johnson is right to accelerate our path to net zero.

As a businessman, I am enthusiastic about the opportunities that offshore wind can offer, particularly when deployed to make green hydrogen.

Fossil fuels are the enemy in the battle against climate change. I believe hydrogen has a very significant role to play as a zero carbon fuel of the future, particularly for public transport, industry and businesses.

Protecting our natural environment is another important part of the PMs plan, which is in everyones interest as citizens of our planet Earth.

Lets hope that Ministers can now dedicate a lot more time and effort into delivering on the remaining priorities of British businesses and the British people, including the promised levelling up agenda.

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Lord Bamford is Chairman of JCB and a Conservative peer.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 18:52:29|Editor: huaxia

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Passengers are seen at the arrival hall of Kuwait International Airport after the airport resumes flights in Farwaniya Governorate, Kuwait, Jan. 2, 2021. Kuwait resumed flights at Kuwait International Airport on Saturday. The Kuwaiti government had decided to suspend all international commercial flights from and to Kuwait and close its land and sea border crossings from Dec. 21, 2020 to Jan. 1, 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic situation. (Photo by Asad/Xinhua)
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 00:22:13|Editor: huaxia

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Aerial photo taken on Jan. 1, 2021 shows the Three Gorges Dam in central China's Hubei Province. The Three Gorges Hydroelectric Power Station on China's Yangtze River has generated 111.8 billion kWh in 2020, a new world record. (Photo by Xiang Hongmei/Xinhua)

WUHAN, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- The Three Gorges Hydroelectric Power Station on China's Yangtze River has generated 111.8 billion kWh in 2020, a new world record.

It beat the previous world record for hydropower generation of 103.098 billion kWh set by Brazil's Itaipu hydroelectric plant in 2016.

The clean energy produced by the Three Gorges Hydroelectric Power Station in 2020 is estimated to be equivalent to saving about 34.39 million tonnes of standard coal and preventing the emissions of carbon dioxide by 94.02 million tonnes.

Chen Hui, head of the Three Gorges hydroelectric plant, said the new world record is of great significance considering the COVID-19 epidemic and floods in the Yangtze River basin in 2020.

At the beginning of 2020, the hydropower station continued to increase its output and the clean electricity it transmitted to eastern, central and southern China reached the highest level in the same period in history, which provided a strong basic energy guarantee for epidemic prevention and control and work resumption in China.

With 34 hydropower turbo-generators, the hydropower station has a generating capacity of 22.5 million kilowatts. Enditem
The subject expert committee (SEC) of India's drug regulator on Friday gave its recommendation to the Oxford-AstraZeneca-Serum Institute 'Covishield' vaccine for emergency use. Post a final assent from the DCGI, this would pave the way for the vaccine's rollout in India which, after the United States, has the highest number of coronavirus infections in the world. Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan has reviewed the preparedness for the mega vaccination dry run that has got underway on Saturday. India has also allowed the import and export of Covid-19 vaccines without any value limitation.

READ | Oxford Vaccine Has 'winning Formula', Expected To Be Approved Within Days In UK: CEO

More than 50 million doses of the Covishield vaccine have already been stockpiled by its India manufacturer, the Serum Institute of India (SII), and sources said the shots could start to be transported from cold storage to all states as early as Saturday. Large parts of the planning for the Oxford vaccine has been done well in advance, with Adar Poonawalla having taken a bet on the Oxford candidate months before it even went into clinical trials.

READ | Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine Deemed 'safe & Effective' As Phase 3 Data Gets Peer-reviewed

Here's everything you need to know about the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine

Efficacy: The Oxford-AstraZeneca-SII Covishield vaccine's efficacy in preventing symptomatic infections was 70.4 per cent as 30 of 5,807 people who got the two-dose vaccine developed COVID-19, compared with 101 of 5,829 people who got a placebo, in the clinical trials.

For participants who received two full doses at least one month apart, vaccine efficacy was 62%, and in those who received a low dose followed by a full dose, efficacy was 90%.

Cost: Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla has said earlier that for the Government of India, the price of the vaccine will be about USD 3 per dose, so USD 6 [Rs 440] per person, but for the private market it will cost around Rs 700-800.

Storage: The vaccine could be kept at normal refrigerator temperatures, between 2 and 8 degrees celsius. In comparison, the Moderna vaccine needs to be stored at -20 degree Celsius and the Pfizer/BioNTech product must be kept at -70 degree Celsius.

Technology: The vaccine entails a version of a virus that usually infects chimpanzees and has been modified with a portion of the COVID-19 called the "spike protein" to fire the immune system. Once it enters the human cells, the vaccine would help stimulate the production of antibodies that recognize the virus.

Safety: According to The Lancet, a medical publication, Oxford's COVID-19 vaccine is safe and efficacious against symptomatic coronavirus disease. The safety was monitored for a median of 3.4 months in all 23,745 participants from the UK, Brazil and South Africa. Out of 23,745 participants, 168 experienced a total of 175 severe adverse events over the period, but 172 events were unrelated to the COVID-19 or control vaccines.

Doses: The world's biggest producer of vaccines (Serum Institute of India), has already stockpiled about 50 million doses, enough for 25 million people.

Approval in UK: On December 30, The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was authorized for emergency use in the United Kingdom (UK). It has been given the go-ahead by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). It is the second vaccine to be approved in the UK after the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was given the go-ahead in December. UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced on Wednesday that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine will be rolled from January 4 across Britain.

SII had applied to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) for EUA for Oxford COVID-19 vaccine on December 6, while the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech had sought the nod for its indigenously developed Covaxin on December 7.

READ | Oxford COVID-19 Vaccine May Become The First To Get DCGI Nod For Emergency Use

READ | India's COVID-19 Vaccine Dry Run Begins In All States, Day After Covishield Recommendation

(With Agency Inputs)


Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Delhi deputy chief minister (CM) Manish Sisodia challenged Uttarakhand urban development minister Madan Kaushik for an open debate in Dehradun on development works done by both Delhi AAP government and Uttarakhands BJP government.

Sisodia floated the challenge on Twitter and posted, On the invitation of open debate by minister Madan Kaushik, I would be in Dehradun on January 4.

I am willing to hold discussion on works done in health, education, power, water and unemployment at Dehraduns IRDT auditorium. Also, I am inviting for a debate in Delhi on January 6, stated Sisodia.

Minister Kaushik, while countering Sisodias challenge, said that he has totally accepted his challenge for open debate but will answer him in AAPs den- Delhi.

He has said that he is coming to Dehradun for the debate but I would tell him not to take so much efforts. I am preparing all the list of development works done by our government which I will show him during an open debate in Delhi. He need not come here as I will go to Delhi, said Kaushik.

Sisodia had earlier challenged the Trivendra Singh Rawat-led government to list at least five development works done by it in its three and a half years of tenure during his first Dehradun visit last month.

Also read: Expert panel gives nod to Covaxin for restricted emergency use

He had then attacked the BJP government during an event in the capital saying, It will not be able to list any of the development work because there are none.

Rawats government is not zero tolerance to corruption government but zero work government, said Sisodia in a jibe to Rawats claim of zero tolerance to corruption in Uttarakhand.

AAPs Uttarakhand president SS Kaler on Sisodias visit said that It will be good for the people of Uttarakhand to know what sort of development works this BJP government has done in its last three and a half years of tenure.

However, if Kaushik fails to appear for the debate on January 4, it will show that there are no works to show. We will be then be going among people to expose this government which would also enable the people to consider the development issues while voting in next assembly elections in 2022, said Kaler.

Amid the ongoing politics on debate challenge, political expert says that it is all a tactic by AAP to make its presence felt in state political scenario.

AAP which has declared to fight the next assembly election of 2022 on all 70 seats, is trying to make its presence felt with such tactics, said MM Semwal, state-based political expert who is a professor of political science in Garhwal Central University, Srinagar, Pauri Garhwal.

Though it seems to be difficult for it to make any significant impact in the elections, but its trying hard to shake the political scenario of the state with its senior leaders like Sisodia throwing challenges of debate to Kaushik who too is a very clever politician, said Semwal.
In the New Year, all eyes will be on how the NDA government in Bihar puts up a united front in the face of growing perception about glaring differences on key issues of governance.

Though ruling allies BJP and JD-U claim all is well, the continued impasse over issues such as cabinet expansion, nomination of MLCs and other important appointments is sending contradictory signals and keeping the RJD-led opposition interested, which is citing defection of six JD(U) MLAs to BJP in Arunachal Pradesh recently as a sign of the internal rumblings in the alliance.

NDA leaders say both sides will have to resolve all outstanding issues. Maybe, after January 14 (when the inauspicious Kharmas period ends), efforts will start in that direction, said a senior JD-U leader, adding that Nitish Kumar handing over the party presidents post to Rajya Sabha MP RCP Singh was an indication that he would not like to be bogged down by political issues on a day-to-day basis any further and would instead focus on governance.

The BJP, on the other hand, seems to be in no hurry despite a truncated Nitish cabinet and the CM himself throwing the ball in the allys court when asked about expansion.

The government has got going on the 7-Resolves  Part-2 without wasting any time. In a coalition, not much should be read into some delay. All issues will be resolved soon, said JD-U spokesman Neeraj Kumar.

BJP spokesman Nikhil Anand said senior leaders of both the parties were in touch and everything would be resolved in course of time. The opposition should stop day dreaming. There is no confusion in the NDA, he added, without elaborating how quickly the outstanding issues will be resolved.

Also Read: Mukesh Sahani is the richest minister in Nitish Kumar government

Congress leader Premchandra Mishra said that the way the Nitish government was running in Bihar, nothing was left to be said. Everyone is watching the growing fissures and how the BJP is trying to outsmart the JD-U on every front, while the governance suffers, he said.

Cabinet expansion

Never in the past has Nitish Kumar continued with such a small cabinet, with one minister saddled with several key departments. The Opposition sees it as an indication of a weakened Nitish Kumar, while the CM has put the onus on the BJP. This is the first time BJP is the senior partner in the government.

Union Cabinet expansion

JD-U leaders say the Nitish Cabinet expansion cannot be seen in isolation. Along with it, several other key issues will also have to be resolved, including JD-Us participation in the Union Cabinet, which has been due since 2019. It had brought the JD-U and the BJP face to face two years ago.

Nomination of MLCs

The nomination of 12 members to the Bihar Legislative Assembly has been hanging fire for over a year. With the BJP emerging a bigger party, it is reportedly staking claim to more seats, while last year it was the JD-U that had put its foot down over accommodation of LJP despite BJPs insistence. Ashok Choudhary and Mukesh Sahni are ministers in the Nitish government but not members of any House.

Advocate Generals appointment

The appointment of Advocate General is said to be another bone of contention between the two allies. BJP, being the senior partner this time, wants it should have the say in the appointment to the key position, as it happened in the case of Speaker. At present, the AG with the previous government is continuing, but BJP leaders say a decision will soon be taken on it.

Boards and corporations

A large number of boards and corporations are without heads for a long time due to delay on the part of the ruling alliance partners in finalising names for posts. The same is the case with 20-point programme implementation committees at the block and district levels.
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A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
From pizza shops and crepes to brewery and chocolates, these resilient and safety-focused businesses opened during the pandemic to welcoming and excited communities. Quality ingredients, well-trained staff and outstanding products have kept these places afloat, and hopefully, they will be in full sail this year. Heres to a big good riddance to 2020 and a heartfelt Happy New Year to family and friends as we welcome in, with relief, 2021.

16 New Camp Hill Watershed Pub set to open October 2

The Watershed Pub, 2129 Market Street, Cumberland County, 717-761-5000

The Millworks restaurant and brewery in Midtown Harrisburg has a new West Shore partner, The Watershed Pub. Centrally located on Market Street at the heart of Camp Hill borough, this mindful, locally focused eatery has already piqued the curiosity of nearby residents. After only two weeks of opening, reservations are booked up. Safety is a top priority here from the moment you step through the entrance of the modernized, centuries-old home. Customers are required to wave wrists across the free-standing instant-read temperature check machine before being seated at carefully spaced tables either outside on the lawn, beneath heaters on the patio or inside the building equipped with an HVAC system that filters airborne pathogens. The menu highlights sustainable-sourced seafood from the Chesapeake Bay watershed, grass-fed local harvest beef and produce as well as heirloom grains and organic greens. And prices reflect these sustainable, high-quality efforts and ingredients. The disposable one-page menu is well-thought-out and creative, from Maryland blue crab dip and garlicky grilled bread ($15); raw Chesapeake Bay oysters; half dozen (($14) signature Long Island wood-grilled swordfish loin ($28) with stone-ground raw milk cheddar grits; wallet-sized, Koji aged braised crimson short rib and grits ($29); to Fox Meadow sustainable ice cream ($7) and warm doughnuts served with chocolate, rich and buttery caramel and chai custard sauces. Keep in mind that buffalo-style (deep-fried with naturally fermented housemade hot sauce, shaved celery and bleu cheese) farm-raised Maryland snapping turtle boneless and breaded gimmicky wings demand far more chewing than crisply, fried, delicate and delicious buttermilk marinated clams ($13) served with intense charred oniony dipping sauce and delightful tarragon tweaked tartar sauce.

Rubber Soul Brewing is opening later this summer in Hummelstown. Facebook photo

Rubber Soul Brewing Co., 136 S. Hanover Street, Hummelstown, 717-220-1741

Move over Troegs, theres a new brew kid in the town next to Hershey. Robust, multi-nuanced brews made in-house range from locally named and always popular Flight of the Falcon (Lower Dauphin mascot) IPA dry-hopped with citra and bursting with pineapple ... and coconut, to a Czech-style pilsner called Soul Patch, to a sticky bun-inspired stout called Sticky Stout that hints of cinnamon and candy sweetness. Take home a 32-ounce can orcrowler (a play on growler only in can form.) or housemade cocktail, winter mule, cranberry fizz or spiced margarita with your next take-out order. We will all look forward to being able to sit inside at this cool, edgy, transformed municipal building space either at the custom copper-etched bar counter or at tables spread across patterned concrete flooring. A pub-style hearty menu features appetizers, soups, salads, pizza and sandwiches. Even if you are not a beer drinker, the food stands up to brews in bold flavor and quality. Crisp and flaky pizza crusts spin out of the brick oven with delicious toppings such as artichoke pizza garnished with black olives, mixed greens, mozzarella and a sprinkle of balsamic dressing. Soft and buttery perogies ($8) are hot and slathered in roasted sliced peppers and chopped bacon, and the soul burger ($15) intensifies the meat patty by layering pastrami, brie cheese, caramelized red onions, lettuce and chipotle sauce under the bun. Add either the hand-cut fries, ($2), onion rings ($2) or outstanding sweet potato fries ($3) to this massive and messy signature burger.

Chef de Crepe opened Dec. 12 at 20 W. Main St. in Mechanicsburg. Photo by Annie Phillips Photography

Chef de Crepe. 20 West Main Street, Mechanicsburg, 717-603-3821

Chef de Crepe is a glimmering sign of hope that despite the pandemic its business as usual at this cheery, family-owned exclusive Main Street shop. French music livens the mood as local residents stop in for take-out friendly sweet and savory crepes. Twin crepe stations behind the counter are thoroughly prepped and ready for numerous orders, so wait time is minimal even for walk-ins. Come in early before the ever-popular chicken salad runs out. I missed out on the chicken salad but I wasnt disappointed by the second choice, chicken Florentine ($10.75) (Florentine always means a garnish of spinach)intensified by sauteed mushrooms and creamy bechamel sauce. House-made toothsome crepes include the Mexi breakfast crepe ($10.25), which is best eaten with a knife and fork. This morning meal consists of egg, guacamole, nuggets of Angus beef, cheddar cheese and salsa. For dessert, go with either the Oreo lovers ($10.75) New York cheesecake, Oreos and Nutella or grandmeres apple pie ($11.25) with homey apple pie filling and dulce de leche.

Chandra Kotzatoski of Simply Greek restaurant in Briarcrest Square in Hershey, Pa., Apr. 23, 2020. Hours: Monday - Saturday 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Takeout and curbside orders caon be placed on their website simplygreekhershey.com, or by calling 717-298-6668. Delivery is available through Doordash. Simply Greek specializes in traditional Mediterranean fare, including Gyros, souvlaki, saldas, moussaka and spanikopita, along with a large variety of house-made desserts. Mark Pynes | mpynes@pennlive.com

Simply Greek, 23 Briarcrest Square, Hershey, 717-298-6668

Even before the pandemic, Simply Greek was set up to succeed as a takeout and delivery business. There is very limited seating at this small clandestine eatery, but you can use delivery apps like GrubHub, Uber Eats and DoorDash to order out.

The authentic Greek fare here is fabulously flavorful and addictive. The hands-down most popular item is the signature shrimp pita ($9.99), slathered with your choice of housemade sauce: tzatziki, creamy or spicy feta and Harissa yogurt sauce. Youll want to add an order of hand-cut French fries ($1) to the interior of this soft pita package thats already stuffed with oversized shrimp, tomato and onion slices and fresh parsley. And youll be back for such classic Greek dinners as macaroni and ground beef layered pastitsio ($12.99), eggplant layered moussaka ($12.99) and spanakopita ($9.99). The nut and honey-laced baklava and baklava cheesecake are just two of the mouth-watering, homemade desserts for sale here.

Vegetarians will go nuts over all of the choices, beginning with an order of samosas ($5.99 for two), deep-fried tender pastries filled with cumin-scented potatoes and peas.

Tuskers Indian Fusion, 3716 N. 6th St., Harrisburg, 717-210-3931

We signed the lease to the building one week before everything shut down, said Tuskers owner Lycka Dsouza. With restrictions across the state and the difficulty in finding an Indian chef that could work right away, we waited until June 29 to open. We were really scared at first but the neighborhood has really been amazing and supportive. Things have been slowly picking up.

Vegetarians will go nuts over all of the choices, beginning with an order of samosas ($5.99 for two), deep-fried tender pastries filled with cumin-scented potatoes and peas. Gobi Manchurian ($10.99) are a deep-fried cauliflower entree piquant with chiles and substantially substitutes for a meat dish. As a popular Indian street food item, pani puri ($6.99) are delicate, crispy dough balls filled with potato, chickpeas, tamarind and a minty liquid. (It was suggested that I watch the YouTube video at home before tackling these one-bite appetizers.) The tomato and cream-laced butter chicken melts in your mouth. Just dont dare take a bite of chicken in the car or youll be wearing the sauce on your shirt.

Danias Kitchen opens in Harrisburg and serves Puerto Rican and Dominican food. August 11, 2020 Sean Simmers | ssimmers@pennlive.com

Danias Kitchen, 316 N. 2nd St., Harrisburg, 717-695-0006

The storefront is tiny and almost missed if not for the crimson trim outlining the entrance. Once youve stepped inside, the wafting scent of roasted meat permeates the small, uncluttered room. Latino and American specialties are spelled out in Spanish (time to brush up on your languages) on the printed take-out menu. Start your meal with empanadillas ($2) fork-crimped deep-fried flaky turnovers enveloping meat, chicken or ham. From papas cargadas (loaded fries), pasta Alfredo con camarones (with shrimp) and fried fish dishes to mofongo; a Puerto Rican specialty dish consisting of a mounded, thick cake of mashed, garlic-laced plantains. Prices hover between $8 and $15. The mofongo specialty dish ($8-$12) can also be sumptuously toppled by grilled sliced chicken breast or seared skirt steak. As a meal ($10), mofongo comes with a side salad and tender pinto beans simmered in a flavorful broth. My favorite item over mofongo or papas fritas (french fries) is pulled pork  thick shards of slow-roasted crispy-edged meat. The portions are generous, but save some room for dessert. Its worth it. Traditional tres leche (three milk) cake is very moist, especially with that milky vanilla moat. This recipe is one of owner Damiana Lopezs  a.k.a. Dania  and it is a keeper.

The Captain Krab Cajun Seafood & Boil will open at 421 Friendship Road in Swatara Township. Photo by Sue Gleiter|sgleiter@pennlive.com

Captain Krab Cajun Seafood & Boil, 421 Friendship Road, Swatara Twp., 717-412-4233

This expansive, wood-trimmed, nautical-themed restaurant has brought the seafood boil trend to the Harrisburg area. Its currently open for business with safety features in place  the restaurant provides plastic gloves, oversized bib and wet wipes while you provide the enormous appetite needed to finish those large portions. Make your own seafood combo by selecting pounds or clusters of snow crab legs ($12), shrimp ($16 no head, $14 with head), crawfish ($12), black mussels ($12), baby clams ($11), Dungeness crab cluster ($33) and even lobster tail ($18). Next, add a seasoning: garlic butter and Louisiana flavor Cajun, lemon butter or Crabs house special sauce  they are all exceptionally good and there is no skimping. Its a little weird picking through and plucking freshly steamed seafood from doubled up plastic bags. However, the shrimp, tender mussels and buttery clumps of snow crab are perfectly steamed and exceptionally succulent. There are big red potatoes and chewy halves of corn thrown into the boil as well.

34 La Bella Sicilia Bakery and Gelateria at 5510 Carlisle Pike

La Bella Sicilia Bakery & Gelateria, 5510 Carlisle Pike, Hampden Twp. 717-590-8188

While most businesses were closing or closed due to the pandemic at the beginning of April, La Bella Sicilia Bakery & Gelateria was just opening its doors.

We had to open to pay the rent. And thats exactly why I wanted to open, because everyone else had closed, said Jon Giampiero Faranone, co-owner with Sheri Tolomeo.

Opening in April was really good for business and people really liked that we had pastries, pasta, Italian coffees and house-made gelato available for takeout and curbside pick up. We have people from all parts of the world that live here in Hampden Township  French, Romanians, Tunisians, Indians, Italians  and they are very appreciative of the business, Faranone said.

This dazzling, clean Sicilian bakery and gelateria is like nothing youve ever seen in central Pa. You almost have to pinch yourself that, yes, those dramatically lit showcases full of cookies, eclairs, mimosa and cannoli cake slices, tartlets, cannolis, pastries and more are for real and edible. Products and ingredients at the bakery are sourced from Italy. Lets note that theres a case off to the side of the main counter containing savory, oversized, creatively topped focaccia, and individual aluminum containers mounded with pasta dinners ($9.95) al dente rigatoni, freshly sliced mushrooms and ground beef in cream-laced bechamel sauce. Keep in mind the bakery charges an additional 3 percent if paying by credit card.

Three ingredients: a simple menu, a simple vegan (no animal products) soul food concept and a novelty slap burger have piqued the publics interest in this tiny takeout establishment in midtown Harrisburg.

House of Vegans, 1426 N. Third St., Harrisburg, 717-963-7120

Three ingredients: a simple menu, a simple vegan (no animal products) soul food concept and a novelty slap burger have piqued the publics interest in this tiny takeout establishment in midtown Harrisburg.

We had planned to open in April but then the pandemic hit. We waited until now once things got better, said owner Stefan Hawkins, who came up with the idea with his fiance and co-owner La Quana Barber. For now Im keeping my day job driving a Pepsi truck so we arent able to open until 3:30 p.m., but the way things are going who knows?

Three versions of these plant-based, teetering burgers ($10-$14) are on the menu: The Slap Burger, made with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, cheez and house sauce; the Big Zaddy with mushrooms, provolone cheez, sauteed onions, lettuce, BBQ sauce, and a mayonnaise-based house sauce; and the Open House, consisting of onion ring, bacon cheese, jalapenos, lettuce, pickles, BBQ and a house sauce.

In the assembly-line case, youll find classic Southern favorites such as house favorite Baked Moka Mac n cheese, collard greens, potato salad, peppery sauteed cabbage, breaded crunchy deep-fried cauliflower floret, mock drumsticks and BBQ pork served on a bun. Surprisingly no meat or dairy is used in any of these recipes. Jackfruit has the chunky appearance of fork-tender pieces of pork slathered with barbecue sauce. The breaded drumsticks, however, resemble poultry in texture but dont have quite the same taste. The assorted colorful rosette topped cupcakes are prepared by baker Alisha Perry.

12 Blaze Pizza at Capital City Mall

Blaze Pizza

3506 Capital City Mall Drive, Camp Hill, 717-677-2727

Blaze Pizza takes the CDC guidelines for COVID-19 so seriously that a list of Wayz to Blazin It Safe is posted on the front door. Youll be impressed by masked faces and gloved hands behind the counter, team member wellness checks, hand-washing and contactless pickup.

Skip the socially distanced line at lunchtime by ordering from the blaze pizza app, blazepizza.com, or by phone. Head straight to the Bakers Shelf against the wall to pick up sealed, piping hot pizzas. Theres no extra charge for toppings or if you order the classic dough (vegan). Gluten free, cauliflower, high-rise dough and Keto crust will cost an extra $2.99.

Slim, crisp crusts lie beneath fresh, artisanal ingredients. The signature art lover pizza ($8.49 for an 11 pie with unlimited toppings) is a colorful palette of red sauce, mozzarella circles, strokes of garlic pesto (you get to choose your sauce), and sculpted mounds of ricotta, garlic and pieces of artichoke. The Blazin Hot Chicken Pizza features ghost pepper, chicken meatballs, mozzarella, Franks red sauce and a Scorpion pepper slaw. Have a glass of milk ready on the side for this incendiary pizza  and maybe the smore pie, made with cookies, melted chocolate and marshmallows.

Cocoa Creek Chocolates is opening a shop in Camp Hill. Provided photo

Cocoa Creek Chocolates, 18 South 18th St., Camp Hill, 717-697-6950

If anyone can open a business during the pandemic and make it work, its Diane Krulac. owner of Brittle Bark in Mechanicsburg; she recently opened Cocoa Creek Chocolates in September. This tiny, walk-in closet-size boutique showcases shelves of artistically detailed chocolates and confections from truffles, caramels and creams to bar collections. Every chocolate tells a story is the motto at this boutique shop. But who has time to wait and listen to a gloriously rich maple bacon chocolate, speckled with real bacon bits and cast in a dark chocolate shell? Fine chocolate sourced globally is the key to micro-batches of exceptionally beautiful and uniquely flavored chocolates and bars. For a little something extra added to your gift of wine or champagne, purchase the 4-pc. Truffle Bottle hanger ($8). Its a box of chocolates that is meant to dangle from the neck of the bottle. The Warm up to the holidays collection is based on hot drinks featuring individual truffled chocolate flavors: hot cocoa, hot buttered rum, mulled cider and hot toddy.
A day after the civil aviation ministry decided to resume flights between India and the UK from January 8, civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Saturday offered more clarification and said flights from India to the UK can start on January 6, while operations from the UK to India will begin on January 8. The schedule is valid till January 23. Till then 30 flights will operate every week, including 15 each by Indian and UK carriers, the minister said.

Resumption of flights between India & UK:



India to UK from 6 Jan 2021.

UK to India from 8 Jan 2021.

30 flights will operate every week. 15 each by Indian & UK carriers.



This schedule is valid till 23 Jan 2021. Further frequency will be determined after review.  Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) January 2, 2021

In the wake of the new mutant strain of Coronavirus, which is believed to be more contagious, India put an embargo on flight operations between the two countries on December 21, which became effective from December 23. Initially, the ban was till December 31, but was later extended to January 7. On Friday, the civil aviation ministry announced that the embargo will be partially lifted starting from January 8, with only a limited number of flights.

After India resumed regular flights to the UK under its air bubble agreement, 70 flights per week have been operated. The number has been brought down to 30 and will be revised only after January 23.

So far, 29 people in India have tested positive for the new strain of virus.

As the flight operations are being resumed, the health ministry has drawn up a detailed guideline on how international passengers will be checked. All passengers will have to submit a self-declaration form on the online portal www.newdelhiairport.in at least 72 hours before the scheduled travel. Carrying a negative RT-PCR test report is must, a copy of which is to be uploaded on the portal.
Maintaining and strengthening international support for Ukraine is the number one priority for the diplomatic team of Ukraine in 2021, Ihor Zhovkva, the deputy head of the President's Office of Ukraine, the diplomatic advisor to the president of Ukraine, has said.

In the article "Foreign Policy Priorities of Ukraine in 2021," published in the ZN.UA, the official explained that the key goals that determine the priorities for foreign policy will be "peace in the de-occupied Donbas, Crimea within our state, Ukraine as an active international player."

"Through the development of active bilateral cooperation with the strategic partners - the United States, Great Britain, Germany, France, Canada, Poland, Lithuania, Azerbaijan - we will work to ensure that Ukraine always has in its arsenal enough external tools and means to confidently overcome world challenges," the article says.

Ukraine also poses a number of important tasks in a bilateral dialogue with the key partners.

The article notes that the newly elected President of Moldova Maia Sandu plans to pay an official visit to Ukraine on January 12, 2021, and French President Emmanuel Macron in the first half of the year.

Zhovkva also named the main tasks in relations with the EU and NATO.

"Among the most important tasks in relations with the EU for 2021 is the start of consultations on updating the Association Agreement, as well as the signing of an agreement on the common aviation area in early 2021. At the end of the first quarter of 2021, the EC expert mission will be able to provide its conclusions on Ukraine's readiness to sign an "industrial visa-free" agreement, and we will begin to implement the relevant recommendations. Based on the results, we should begin formal negotiations on the conclusion of this agreement. In 2021, we also intend to start a substantive dialogue with the EU on involving Ukraine in the implementation of the European Green Deal," the article says.

In the sphere of relations with NATO, Ukraine sets the task of making the most of the status of a NATO partner with expanded capabilities to bring Ukraine closer to membership in the alliance.

"We are waiting for the partners' reaction to the proposals on this matter, which the president made to the NATO Secretary General," Zhovkva explained.
Ireland has not yet seen the worst impact of the surge in Covid-19 cases on hospitals, the head of the Health Service Executive (HSE) has warned.

The high levels of coronavirus cases across the country have sparked warnings from health officials about the rising number of patients in hospital.

Paul Reid, chief executive of the HSE, urged the public to follow health guidelines.

There are fears about the backlog in the system which is likely to see an additional 9,000 cases reported in the coming days.

We now have 581 #COVID19 patients in hospital. There are 50 people in ICU. We have likely not seen the worst impacts yet. But everything we do today to stop this virus spreading makes a huge difference. Please let's all play our part to protect our health service.@HSELive  Paul Reid (@paulreiddublin) January 2, 2021

Mr Reid tweeted on Saturday: We now have 581 Covid-19 patients in hospital. There are 50 people in ICU. We have likely not seen the worst impacts yet.

But everything we do today to stop this virus spreading makes a huge difference. Please lets all play our part to protect our health service.

The number of Covid-19 patients in hospital has been rising in recent weeks, with the number of coronavirus cases in ICUs more than doubling in two weeks.

On Friday, Irelands chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said the health system will not continue to cope with the high levels of cases.

Dr Holohan said: The most concerning trend at present is the rapidly increasing number of people being admitted to hospital  we are now admitting between 5070 people a day to our hospital system.

Unfortunately, we expect this to get worse before it gets better. Our health system will not continue to cope with this level of impact.

We have also seen a significant increase in positive laboratory tests in recent days, reflecting a true increase in the incidence of the disease as well as the delay in people coming forward for testing over the Christmas period.

As our systems catch up with these effects, it places significant pressure on our reporting system.

Further testing this week of #SARSCoV2 samples dating from #December 23rd to 29th has detected 9 additional #UKvariant cases in #Ireland. This brings the total number of cases identified @nvrlucdireland to 16 (of 169 tested to date) 1/2 https://t.co/gBEy0VjXO7  Cillian De Gascun (@CillianDeGascun) January 1, 2021

More than 109,000 coronavirus tests have been carried out in the last seven days, with a positivity rate of 16%.

It has also been reported that a further nine cases of the variant form of Covid-19 found in the UK have been detected in Ireland.

Cillian De Gascun, medical virologist, said that further testing of SARSCoV2 samples dating from December 23 to 29 found the additional variant cases.

He said it takes the total number of cases found to 16.

On Friday, 11 further deaths related to Covid-19 and an additional 1,754 cases were reported.

Download the Belfast Telegraph App Get quick and easy access to the latest Northern Ireland news, sport, business and opinion with the Belfast Telegraph App.

PA
The German couple behind the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine have criticised the European Union for failing to order enough doses.

The process in Europe was not as quick and straightforward as it was in other countries, Prof Ugur Sahin, the billionaire scientist and CEO of BioNTech, told Spiegel magazine.

There was an assumption that many other companies would come with vaccines. Obviously the thinking which prevailed was, well get enough, it wont be so bad, and we have it under control. I was amazed.

Pfizer-BioNTechs is the only vaccine with EU approval so far, but the bloc ordered only 200 million doses until last week, when it ordered a further 100 million.

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That is still not enough to provide the EUs 446 million population with a single shot, let alone the two required for the vaccine to be effective.

By comparison, the UK has ordered 30 million doses as well as 100 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, enough to immunise everyone.

Prof Sahin added: Its also because the EU is not directly authorised, but the member states have a say. In a situation where a quick decision is required, this can cost time.

Ozlem Tureci, Prof Sahins wife and co-founder of BioNTech, added: Several companies announced they were developing a vaccine. So the EU and some other countries came up with the idea of putting together a basket of different providers. This approach made perfect sense. At some point, however, it turned out that many were unable to deliver on time. Then it was too late to order extensively elsewhere.

Criticised for failing to secure enough doses of a vaccine developed in Germany, Angela Merkels government ordered an extra 30 million doses, only to come under fire from Italy for breaking an agreement for the EU to buy the vaccine as a bloc.

BioNTech is now in urgent talks with suppliers to ramp up its production to meet the demand. German politicians have called for the government to order other pharmaceutical companies to produce the vaccine, but Prof Sahin warned that there were no quick fixes.

Manufacturing drug-quality mRNA vaccines is anything but trivial. You cant just switch over and produce the vaccine instead of aspirin or cough syrup, he said. The process requires years of expertise and the right equipment. It took us 10 years to build up these skills.



( Daily Telegraph, London)

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Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]
Rishs lawyers have argued to the appellate court that Sabols ruling should be overturned because the judge failed to cite any technical problem with their petition. They also dispute the finding that the evidence would not likely change the sentence. To support that, the lawyers appeal brief noted Raouls comments as a lawmaker and said they have exactly the type of evidence warranting sentencing relief as envisioned by the legislators.
Pregnant Bindi Irwin and her husband Chandler Powell will welcome their first child, a daughter, in coming weeks.

And on Friday, the former professional wakeboarder revealed he is well and truly ready for the year ahead as he prepares to become a father.

The 24-year-old gushed about his family as he reflected on the past year, which he said was 'filled with the highest of highs and lowest of lows.'

'I'm ready for absolutely anything': Bindi Irwin's husband Chandler Powell said this week that he's ready to be a father, as the young couple prepare to welcome their daughter in the coming weeks

In the Instagram post, he shared a photo of himself with Bindi holding up a baby-sized Australia Zoo uniform shirt.

'As easy as it is to look back on the hardships of this year, I'm choosing to revel in the highlights,' he wrote.

'I married my best friend, and our daughter will be joining us in a few short months.'

'I married my best friend, and our daughter will be joining us in a few short months,' he said

'Starting 2021 as a husband and a dad is incredible and I'm ready for absolutely anything the year has in store for us.'

Bindi, who is believed to be around 27 weeks pregnant, also shared a moving message of gratitude as she prepares to give birth.

Earlier this week, she shared a photo of herself cuddled up Chandler and their dog, Piggy the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

'The love I have for my family is infinite': Bindi also shared a moving message of gratitude as she prepares to give birth. She wrote in the caption: 'I will get to watch this incredible man also become the most amazing father to our beautiful daughter'

Baby Wildlife Warrior due in 2021: Bindi and Chandler revealed their baby news in August on Instagram, with the pair holding up a baby sized Australia Zoo khaki uniform

She wrote: 'In 2021, I will get to watch this incredible man also become the most amazing father to our beautiful daughter. The love I have for my family is infinite.'

Bindi and Chandler first revealed their baby news in August on Instagram, with the pair holding up a baby sized Australia Zoo khaki uniform.

'Baby Wildlife Warrior due 2021,' she excitedly announced in the caption.

'Baby girl, you are our world!' Bindi revealed she and Chandler are expecting a daughter in an Instagram post in September

'We can't wait': In her post she wrote: 'Baby girl, you are our world. 'Our beautiful daughter is now about the same size as a hatchling Aldabra tortoise and is as healthy as can be'

In September, they revealed they are expecting a daughter as they shared a photo with a sonogram alongside an Aldabra tortoise.

The Wildlife Warrior added wrote in the caption of her post: 'Baby girl, you are our world.

'Our beautiful daughter is now about the same size as a hatchling Aldabra tortoise and is as healthy as can be. We can't wait for her arrival next year,' she added.

'Halfway there!' On November 11, Bindi revealed that she was 20 weeks - halfway - along in her pregnancy, meaning she is due to give birth in late March or early April

Just married: The young couple were married on March 25, in a makeshift ceremony at Australia Zoo, just before Covid pandemic lockdown

On November 11, Bindi revealed that she was 20 weeks - halfway - along in her pregnancy, meaning she is due to give birth in late March or early April.

The young couple were married on March 25, in a makeshift ceremony at Australia Zoo, just before Covid pandemic lockdown.

They met close to seven years ago in November 2013 when Chandler, who hails from Florida, was touring Australia for a wakeboarding competition.
How's this for never letting a crisis go to waste? Or taking one festering problem and using it to solve another? Or just a great gaslight?

Joe Biden has called for a scaled down inauguration, supposedly in the name of containing COVID.

According to Al Jazeera, which seems to be the only one doing straight reporting on this:

"I think you're going to see something that's closer to what the convention was like than a typical inauguration," Biden said earlier this month, suggesting the festivities will be mostly virtual, as was the case for the Democratic National Convention in August. "First and foremost, in my objective, is to keep America safe but still allow people to celebrate  to celebrate and see one another celebrate," Biden added. This week, workers dismantled the reviewing stand  the location in front of the White House where the newly sworn-in US president and vice president and their families take in the inauguration parade.

This is a load of gaslighting and hooey.

RedState's Nick Arama has a lede and summary I could not possibly improve on:

Let's just say it's hard to believe that somehow Joe Biden, who was never able to get any real numbers out for any rally, who barely squeaked by in the primary, could have not only gotten more votes than Barack Obama and Donald Trump, but the most in history. For a barely coherent uninspiring stand-in candidate.

The real reason Biden is scaling down his event is that he knows that very few people would even show up.

It calls to mind the howling from the press over the size of President Trump's inaugural, claiming that it was small, while photos showed that actually, it was pretty big. They used that argument to compare Trump unfavorably to President Obama, and now the shoe is on the other tootsie. Obviously, Joe Biden knows he couldn't in a million years win in any such crowd contest, even if COVID were gone and the weather were 78 degrees. When you are taking office by fraud, the crowds aren't there to be had.

Two things stand out from this. One, where was Biden's condemnation of the blue-city celebrations of his electoral "victory" last Nov. 3? Remember how Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot celebrated in the streets, claiming that containing surging COVID wasn't as important as celebrating fraudy Joe?

Yes, there are times when we actually do need to have ... relief and come together, and I felt like that was one of those times. That crowd was gathered whether I was there or not, but this has been a super hard year on everyone. Everyone feels traumatized.

Somehow, Joe didn't have much concern for COVID, either. No calls to stay inside and celebrate on Zoom, no blasts at crowd irresponsibility. But now that the inevitable comparisons to Trump's inaugural are sure to come out, Joe retreats behind the mask of COVID, adding a victim memorial segment as a means of blaming President Trump.

And speaking of Trump, here's the other reason he's hollering about staying home. President Trump's supporters are planning massive "stop the steal" demonstrations, at least one on Jan.6 and another likely on Jan. 20. Hotels are booking up, and people are making socially distanced travel plans.

The empty inaugural, accompanied by likely massive protests at the stolen election, stolen from the very people likely to be out on the streets calling for the real winner of the election, President Trump, to be inaugurated, present a significant threat to Joe Biden's prestige and legitimacy. Because if a crowd of a very large size shows up and dwarfs the Biden inaugural, let's face it: it will be clearer than ever that something is wrong with even the existence of a Biden inaugural. A fraudulently elected president is a new one for America; it's mainly been seen in places like Venezuela and Nicaragua. Biden coming in and declaring himself president, while cheering crowds stay away, is a hell of a cold opening.

This is why Biden is using COVID. COVID is the best friend a fraudulently elected president could ever have. It cuts his need to campaign while the fix is in; it allows him to appear at tiny venues such as junior high schools, if not stay in his basement; it facilitates his walking away from reporter questions; and it enables him to claim he was legitimately elected. We all know he's there by fraud. That's his biggest reason for wanting no truck with any claim to crowds  either his own shriveled numbers or else President Trump's expanding ones.

Image credit: Phil Roeder via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.
Police officers patrol and check for entry permits to Victoria at a border checkpoint in Mallacoota, Australia on Dec. 29, 2020. (Diego Fedele/Getty Images)

Travel From NSW Hotspots to ACT Needs Pass

Non-ACT residents will now be required to provide a valid exemption to travel into the state from all COVID-19 affected areas in New South Wales.

People from Sydneys northern beaches, Greater Sydney, the Central Coast, and Wollongong will not be legally permitted to enter the ACT without a valid pass.

The updated health direction will come into effect from midday on Saturday and any non-compliance will result in penalties, the ACT government says.

It comes after NSW on Friday reported three new coronavirus community transmissions, all linked to western Sydney.

Any travellers from these regions into the ACT for extraordinary circumstances are required to apply for an exemption at least three days prior to the planned entry but no more than 14 days ahead of time.

These changes do not affect current restrictions for ACT residents returning from COVID-19-declared areas, whereby until at least January 6 authorities must be notified followed by a mandatory quarantine for 14 days.

ACT Chief Health Officer Kerryn Coleman said the travel restrictions were tightened to protect the states health.

In recent days we have continued to see around 80 non-ACT residents from COVID-19 affected areas of NSW travel to the ACT daily, Coleman said in a statement on Saturday. As a result we now have around 2000 people in quarantine in the ACT, 25 per cent of which are non-ACT residents.

For those in COVID-19 affected areas of NSW, we ask that you respect the public health direction that has been put in place and do not travel to the ACT.

Canberrans have also been reminded not to travel to Greater Sydney, or any other COVID-19 affected areas, and to reconsider travel to NSW more broadly.

Police officers will patrol the Federal Highway to enforce the new rules.

By Greta Stonehouse
Image: Reuters

Iran has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it intends to produce uranium enriched to up to 20 percent purity, well beyond the threshold set by the 2015 Vienna accord, the UN nuclear watchdog said Friday.

"Iran informed the agency of its intention to enrich uranium at a rate of up to 20 percent in its Fordow underground plant, to comply with a law recently passed by the Iranian parliament," an IAEA spokesperson told AFP.

The letter dated December 31 "did not state exactly when this enrichment activity would begin", the spokesperson added.

Russian ambassador to the IAEA Mikhail Ulyanov reported the information earlier on Twitter, citing a report submitted by IAEA chief Rafael Grossi to the board of governors.

"It is an additional blow," a diplomat based in Vienna told AFP, as Tehran continues to retaliate to US sanctions by progressively abandoning limits on its nuclear activity laid down in the deal.

According to the latest report available from the UN agency, published in November, Tehran was enriching uranium to levels greater than the limit provided for in the Vienna agreement (3.67 percent) but not exceeding the 4.5 percent threshold, and still complied with the Agency's very strict inspection regime.

But there has been turmoil since the assassination in late November of Iranian nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

In the aftermath of the attack, blamed on Israel, hardliners in Tehran pledged a response and parliament passed a controversial law calling for the production and storage of "at least 120 kilogrammes per year of 20 percent enriched uranium" and to "put an end" to the IAEA inspections intended to check that the country is not developing an atomic bomb.

The Iranian government opposed the initiative which was also condemned by the other signatories to the accord who called on Tehran not to "compromise the future".

The other signatories to the deal -- China, France, Germany, Russia and Britain -- have been playing for time, in advance of Joe Biden's inauguration as US president.

The Democrat has shown himself to be determined to save the pact.

Biden, who takes office on January 20, has signalled Washington would rejoin the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) aimed at limiting Iran's nuclear programme.

The deal has been unravelling ever since President Donald Trump dramatically withdrew from it in May 2018 and imposed crippling economic sanctions on Tehran.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has said the change of administration in the US means that there is "a last window" for progress that "shouldn't be wasted".
Welcome Guest! You Are Here:
The move by Britains Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation is seen as an innovation by some and a 'gamble' by others.

Scientists across the world were locked in fierce debate yesterday over the wisdom, or otherwise, of the UK switching to a single-dose strategy for the Covid vaccine.

White coats were flapping on social media after Britains Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) published its rationale for the move on Thursday night.

Given the high level of protection afforded by the first dose, models suggest that initially vaccinating a greater number of people with a single dose will prevent more deaths and hospitalisations than vaccinating a smaller number of people with two doses, said the JCVI.

That the move, first floated by former British prime minister Tony Blair last week, is an innovation there can be little doubt, although some prefer the word gamble.

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Vaccine supply is tight. At the same time, people are dying of Covid-19 in significant numbers, and modelling suggests the only way of keeping the death toll below last Aprils peak is to get vaccines into peoples arms fast.

Given the epidemiology of Covid-19 in the UK in late 2020, there is a need for rapid, high levels of vaccine uptake amongst vulnerable persons, concluded the JCVI.

The move is a pragmatic one. It has been cast both as a welcome example of not allowing the perfect to get in the way of the good, and as a desperate measure for a desperate time.

Eric Topol, a senior US physician, took a purist view. Tweeting yesterday, he wrote: How to spoil phenomenal results of the most important clinical trials of our generation: 1. Extrapolate from two-dose trials in 75,000 participants who all got two doses that one-dose works fine.

Others focused on the detail. While there is trial data to support the second dose of the Oxford AstraZeneca jab being given after 12 weeks, the same is not true of the Pfizer vaccine.

Deepti Gurdasani, a lecturer in epidemiology and statistical genetics at Queen Mary University of London, said: This vaccine was studied with a strict protocol of 21 days between doses and the company has since issued a warning that they cannot ensure efficacy if [the] protocol is changed. British regulators accept there is a degree of risk, but think it is small.

Sandy Douglas, a senior researcher on the Oxford vaccine team, agrees. Can we extrapolate from the Pfizer trial data that it, too, will work after 12 weeks? he asked on Twitter yesterday.

Its a judgment call, he said. On one hand is evidence-based medicines scepticism of anything not directly proven beyond reasonable doubt in a random controlled trial; on the other is a balance of probabilities approach based upon the biology. Based upon the biology, Id eat my hat if the Pfizer vaccine is substantially less effective with a longer dose interval .

Others raised practical considerations. Azeem Majeed, a professor of primary care and public health at Imperial College London and a practising GP, told The Guardian he was shocked by the change of plan.

He said: Weve got thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of people who have already booked their second jabs, and these are people who are all elderly, so they often have to make special arrangements for their care or have someone to bring them down.

The JCVI only advises ministers and, ultimately, the single-dose strategy will have been the British Prime Minister Boris Johnsons call. It will not have been an easy one and is not without some risk.

But given the dire circumstances Britain finds itself in, it is hard to imagine any politician jumping the other way. At stake are about 50,000 lives, the latest modelling suggests. If they can be protected with early vaccination, the gamble will have been worth taking.

The nightmare scenario is that a partial vaccination causes the virus to mutate even more rapidly.

Is it just me or does uncontrolled, high-level community transmission with circulation of several new [SARS-CoV-2 and Covid-19] variants while starting vaccination with modified schemes, leading to partial immunity in a large proportion, sound like a bad idea? asked Prof Isabella Eckerle, a virologist at the Geneva Centre for Emerging Viral Diseases. It remains to be seen.

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Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]
China said Saturday that it would take necessary countermeasures in response to the New York Stock Exchanges announcement that it would delist three major Chinese telecoms, in the latest flare-up of tensions between Beijing and Washington.

The stock exchange said Thursday that it would delist China Telecom Corp. Ltd., China Mobile Ltd. and China Unicom Hong Kong Ltd., with trading of the companies to be suspended sometime between Jan. 7 and Jan. 11.

The move stems from an executive order President Donald Trump issued on Nov. 12 barring investment in publicly traded companies that the U.S. government says are owned or controlled by the Chinese military.

China opposes the Americans from abusing national security by listing Chinese companies into the so-called Communist China Military Companies list and will take the necessary countermeasures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies, a spokesperson for the Chinese Commerce Ministry said in a statement.

The actions will also greatly weaken all parties confidence in the US capital market, the statement said.

The ministry did not offer details on what the measures might be.

Under Trump, the US has stepped up economic sanctions and travel bans against Chinese companies, government officials and Communist Party members, especially recently in Trumps last few weeks in office.

In December, the U.S. announced plans to limit visas for members of the Chinese Communist Party and their family members to one month, instead of 10 years.

Chinese tech giant Huawei has been shut out of the U.S. market and the U.S. has lobbied other countries to follow suit, albeit with mixed results.
The Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has reportedly given its approval to Bharat Biotech's Covaxin coronavirus vaccine for emergency use. This makes it the second vaccine after Serum-AstraZeneca's Covishield to get marketing approval from the expert panel.

The SEC has recommended Covaxin for emergency use authorisation (EUA), reported news agency ANI quoting government sources. The recommendation, along with rollout modalities, will now be taken up by the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) for a final decision on the matter.

Expert panel recommends granting permission for restricted emergency use authorisation for Bharat Biotech's indigenously developed COVID-19 vaccine  (Covaxin): Govt Sources  ANI (@ANI) January 2, 2021

Covaxin is the first indigenous coronavirus vaccine being developed in India. Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech in collaboration with Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and National Institute of Virology (NIV) is working on the jab.

The development comes a day after the SEC granted emergency use authorisation for Covishield. The panel had asked Bharat Biotech to submit for data for Covaxin, and suggested expediting volunteer recruitment for the ongoing Phase 3 clinical trials. The SEC had also recommended that the firm may conduct interim efficacy analysis for further consideration of restricted emergency use approval for Covaxin.

As per reports, Bharat Biotech submitted interim efficacy data from Phase 1 and 2 trials, along with safety and immunogenicity data published in a non-peer-reviewed journal. The company, however, is yet to disclose the results or study design of Phase 3 trials.

Bharat Biotech has claimed that Covaxin can protect against the mutated COVID-19 strain that surfaced in the United Kingdom last month.The new strain has been found to be extremely contagious. Apart from the UK, it has been detected in India, Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore so far.

"It (coronavirus) is expected to have a lot of mutation and you can be rest assured this vaccine will also protect against that (mutated) virus because of two hypotheses... So you have these two components in the inactivated vaccine. It will also take care of those mutations," Bharat Biotech Chairman Krihsna Ella said.

India now has two COVID-19 vaccines ready for rollout as the country conducted a nationwide dry run of its vaccination drive. The mock exercise was meant to test the vaccine delivery network and Co-WIN, the digital platform developed to help with this. The dry run also check preparedness to deal with adverse events that might rise after vaccination. No vaccines were administered during the dry run.

ALSO READ: Covaxin can protect against COVID-19 mutant: Bharat Biotech

ALSO READ: COVID-19 vaccine dry run in India today; here's all you need to know

ALSO READ: Serum-Oxford's 'Covishield' vaccine gets panel nod for emergency use; DCGI next
WASHINGTON - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will embark Sunday on what stands to be her most difficult term yet - thanks to a diminished majority, a potentially fractious corps of left-wing lawmakers, the jockeying of would-be successors and the legislative ambitions of a Democratic president.

First, however, she has to get elected.

The speaker election will be the first high-wire act of many Pelosi, D-Calif., is likely to face over the next two years, which she has signaled could be her last in the House. The razor-thin margin created by Democratic losses in November has prompted a vote-counting scramble in recent weeks as Pelosi's lieutenants seek to ensure enough Democrats show up and cast their ballots for her fourth term as speaker.

"I guarantee everybody who can get here will be here," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said last week. But he acknowledged that leaves a good deal of uncertainty in a House that will begin with a 222-to-211 majority - the narrowest either party has had in 20 years - and has been racked with absences amid the pandemic: "That's a challenge we're going to have to work around."

Pelosi and her top aides maintain she has locked up the necessary votes for her reelection as speaker - "I'm fine," she told reporters Monday. But during a phone session with lawmakers earlier that day, Pelosi acknowledged she was concerned about attendance.

"My opponent is covid," she said, according to a Democrat on the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity to recount the private conversation.

Top Democrats were encouraging colleagues to travel to Washington earlier than planned to ensure attendance.

Should the vote go awry, it could spark internal chaos for Democrats and delay the election of a speaker for days - and also complicate the much-anticipated Jan. 6 joint session during which Republican lawmakers are expected to challenge the tallying of electoral college votes for President-elect Joe Biden.

The precipitous nature of the speaker vote - and the mortal dangers associated with lawmaking amid a pandemic - were highlighted in recent days by the sudden death of Rep.-elect Luke Letlow, a 41-year-old Louisiana Republican who had contracted covid-19 last month. Four other members or members-elect have disclosed recent coronavirus infections that could affect attendance Sunday.

The challenge facing Pelosi is markedly different from the one she faced two years ago, when a platoon of lawmakers agitated for her and other top honchos to step aside for a younger generation of leaders.

This time, no Democratic lawmaker is openly challenging Pelosi, 80, for the speakership. Her top deputies, Hoyer and Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., were reelected without opposition. In fact, several of her former critics are now openly praising her past two years of leadership.

Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., a leader of the moderate Blue Dog Coalition, joined the effort to oust Pelosi two years ago and voted against her on the floor. He would not commit to voting for her in a recent interview but credited her with "saying the right things" and having "learned quite a bit" since the 2018 clash.

"If anyone can steer the caucus, those three can do it," he said. "That's a reason in favor of [electing] them one last time, to really help bind us together to the extent we can."

Still, the arithmetic is tight: If all 433 seated members were to vote Sunday, no more than five Democrats could break ranks - though members could be absent or vote "present" and thus reduce the majority threshold for Pelosi.

Of the 15 Democrats who did not vote for Pelosi two years ago, three lost reelection, while Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., switched parties, and Rep. Anthony Brindisi, D-N.Y., is locked in an ultratight race where ballots are still being counted.

Brindisi's seat will remain vacant Sunday and will likely remain so for weeks to come. Pelosi is, however, moving to seat a Republican, Rep.-elect Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa, whose six-vote victory is under review by the Committee on House Administration. Pelosi seated Miller-Meeks after the state certified her election and as Republicans warned against any attempt to overturn the result.

Some of the remaining 10 lawmakers have signaled they will likely vote for Pelosi, including Reps. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., and Jason Crow, D-Colo. Others, such as Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., have signaled they could vote present, thus taking no position on Pelosi, while others, such as Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, and Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., have said they will keep their campaign promises and choose other candidates.

Since the height of the pandemic in March, scores of lawmakers have been physically absent from House votes. In May, Democrats changed House rules to allow for proxy voting, and more than 100 members have since taken advantage of the remote-voting option. All but a few, however, have been Democrats, as GOP leaders have gone to court to challenge the proxy-voting procedure as unconstitutional. At some House votes in recent weeks, more than 40 Republican members were absent.

But Sunday's vote is different: Because the House is not scheduled to renew the proxy-voting rules for the new Congress until Monday, members will have to appear in person for the speaker vote one day earlier.

Clyburn, the Democrats' top vote counter, said last week that he is encouraging lawmakers to arrive at least a day early to avoid any travel issues.

"We're going to manage this," he said. "I've had some pretty good success managing, I think I can manage this well."

Less under the leadership's control is the effect of the coronavirus and the possibility that late-breaking covid diagnoses could upend the vote count.

Two House Democrats who recently had the disease are emerging from isolation just in time to travel to Washington and vote for Pelosi. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., tweeted Friday that it was his "Get Out of Covid Jail day" after spending 10 days in his home. And an aide to Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., said the congresswoman would attend the vote after announcing Monday that she had contracted the virus and experienced mild symptoms.

Sean Gard, Moore's chief of staff, said Moore has cleared her travel with the congressional attending physician and will be flying from Milwaukee ahead of the vote. "Barring any weather, I think we're good," he said.

A Republican member-elect, Maria Elvira Salazar, disclosed Thursday that she had been diagnosed with covid-19 after being admitted to the hospital for a heart condition. Salazar's office said in a statement that she has been released but will continue to isolate and will not attend Sunday's session.

Rep.-elect David Valadao of California said Sunday that he received a positive test result and was isolating pending the results of a more dependable PCR test.

Republicans are warning vulnerable Democrats that the unusual circumstances will not buffer them from the political consequences of a vote for Pelosi - who has been a potent figure in GOP ad campaigns for more than a decade.

The leaders of the Congressional Leadership Fund, the Republican super PAC that spends tens of millions of dollars each cycle on House campaign advertising, warned Democrats this week that there is no easy way out - such as skipping the vote or voting present.

"Word to the wise," said Calvin Moore, a spokesman for the group. "Any of these moves will be considered a move to help Pelosi become speaker - and we'll remind your constituents as much."

But, several Democratic congressional aides said, there is less concern about a Pelosi backlash in the upcoming midterm elections given the speaker's pledge to step aside after her current term. The aides spoke on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of Pelosi's plans.

Part of the deal that settled the insurrection against the veteran Democratic leaders after the 2018 election was a personal pledge from Pelosi not to serve more than two additional terms as speaker. After being nominated to the second of those terms in a November caucus vote, she suggested to reporters that she intends to honor that commitment.

Although she did not explicitly say she would leave the House altogether in two years - explaining she did not want to "undermine any leverage I may have" - she acknowledged her earlier pledge.

"Don't let me have to be more specific than that, because we never expected to have another term now," she added. "I consider this a gift. And I can't wait to be working with Joe Biden and preparing us for our transition into the future."

- - -

The Washington Post's Paul Kane contributed to this report.
By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A federal judge on Friday rejected a lawsuit from a Republican congressman that sought to allow Vice President Mike Pence to reject Electoral College votes for Joe Biden when Congress meets on Jan. 6 to certify his victory over President Donald Trump.

The latest long-shot attempt by Trump's Republican allies to overturn the Nov. 3 election was dismissed by one of Trump's own appointees to the federal bench, Jeremy Kernodle. He ruled that U.S. Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas and a slate of Republican electors from Arizona could not show they suffered any personal harm "fairly traceable" to Pence's allegedly unlawful conduct and, therefore, lacked legal standing to bring the case.

The standing requirement "helps enforce the limited role of federal courts in our constitutional system. The problem for plaintiffs here is that they lack standing," Kernodle wrote.

A spokesman for Trump referred questions to Pence's office. A spokesman for Pence declined to comment.

A spokeswoman for Gohmert did not immediately comment.

Trump has refused to concede defeat to Democrat Biden and has repeatedly falsely claimed the election was tainted by widespread fraud. He and his allies have lost dozens of court efforts seeking to reverse the election results.

Biden beat President Donald Trump by a 306-232 margin in the Electoral College and is set to be sworn in on Jan. 20.

Under the Electoral College system, "electoral votes" are allotted to states and the District of Columbia based on their congressional representation.

Gohmert's suit argued that Pence had discretion to decide what votes should count. They also asked the judge to bar Pence from following the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which lays out how objections to votes are handled by Congress.

Some Republicans have said they plan to object to the count of presidential electors next week in Congress. Reuters reported this week the effort could trigger a lengthy debate in the Senate but has virtually no chance of overturning the results.

Story continues

A Justice Department lawyer representing Pence on Thursday urged Kernodle to dismiss the lawsuit saying they had sued the wrong person as they raised "a host of weighty legal issues about the manner in which the electoral votes for president are to be counted."

"The Senate and the House, not the Vice President, have legal interests that are sufficiently adverse to plaintiffs to ground a case or controversy," Pence's filing said.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chris Reese and Christian Schmollinger)
Two people including a teenager from Delhi and a head constable of Punjab Police lost their lives in road mishaps on Friday.

In the first incident, a 17-year-old boy died while his parents and sister suffered injuries after their car crashed into a stationary truck at National Highway near Pawa village of Sahnewal. They were returning to Delhi from Amritsar.

The deceased has been identified as Lakshay Duggal of New Delhi, and his father Jagdish, 50, an insurance agent, mother Geetika, 48, and sister Ria, 19, were injured.

Sub-inspector Balwinder Singh, station house officer at Sahnewal police station, said that the family had gone to the Golden Temple to pay obeisance. Jagdish was driving and Lakshay was sitting in the front, while his wife and daughter were seated in the back.

The SHO added that near Pawa village, their car crashed into a stationary truck at around 8.30pm. Jagdish could not notice it due to dense fog and the truck driver had also not turned on the parking lights. Lakshay died on the spot. The victims were rushed to a hospital near Sherpur Chowk.

A case has been registered against the truck driver, Vikramjit Singh of Haryana.

In the second case, a Punjab Police head constable, Gurpreet Singh, 40, of Ghwaddi village, who is a gunman of MLA Kuldeep Singh Vaid, died in a hit-and-run near Sareen village, Dehlon.

Inspector Sukhdev Singh, station house officer at Dehlon police station, said that at around 1.30am, Gurpreet was returning home from duty on his scooter. Near Sareen village, an unidentified vehicle hit him and he died on the spot. A case has been registered against the unidentified accused.
By Starship Robot 6E284

Its a chilly Indiana morning on the Purdue campus, but we woke up early for a busy day ahead.

I feel fully charged and look at my 29 siblings as we all gradually come to life.

We receive our first order of the morning: a breakfast sandwich and a coffee from Starbucks for a student at Earhart Hall. I know my mission. I cant wait to hit the sidewalk!

Along the way, I marvel at the campus as students rush to classes, dodging distracted walkers as they study their phones for any last-minute emails or assignments before classes kick off for the day.

Go Boilermakers! I hear them say as I roll by. Am I a Boilermaker? I thought I was just a normal delivery robot. How do you be a Boilermaker? If I consider myself a Boilermaker, too, does that mean I can order a Starship delivery like everyone else?

Rolling up to Earhart Hall, I am greeted by a pajama-clad student. She sleepily yawns, and with one eye open thumbs the Starship app to open my lid and accept her much-needed delivery. I eagerly let her know Heres your delivery, have a nice day! She smiles, says thanks and goes back inside. Ooh, another order is ready to be collected, so I roll away for my next mission.

The morning flies by in a rush. Wow, a lot of bagel deliveries today; I wonder what they taste like? Electricity is pretty tasty, but I cant imagine it would go well with cream cheese.

Deep in thought about what toppings would go well with electricity, I quickly come to a halt. Woaah, new construction on the sidewalk! Time to find an alternate route! I notice students do not walk underneath the bell tower. Is that so they leave a special path for me? Is it because they think of me as a friend? A special path for me to bring coffee to a desperate student in need of caffeine? Maybe I, Starship robot, am a hero! Can I feel like a hero?

The rest of the day is pretty eventful. As I am minding my own business, a grown man decides to take a selfie with me and stroke my lid like I am a dog! What a weirdo  I think I love him now. Can I feel love?

Nuh-uh-uh! Someone tried opening my lid while I am waiting at a stop sign. Not for you, buddy! My meals are only for the student or campus employee who ordered it. You cant trick me. Try again, and Ill alert the mothership  and if youve seen Star Wars, you know what happens next.

Wow, look at this building. Its beautiful! It says Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering on the side. The bronze man who sits on the concrete outside does a good job protecting Neils building. I wouldnt want to mess with him. Was he an astronaut? Could I survive in outer space? This bronze figure seems very nice ... although kind of quiet for a human, if you ask me. I notice there are giant human footprints here. Hmm, I wonder if I leave footprints, too?

Now I see my sister moving down the sidewalk. She trundles past me. Hey! Hey! Hey you! Ahh, she must not have heard me. Ill see her later; we all sleep in the same bed, and its very cozy!

Then, around 3:14 p.m. some white cold stuff starts falling from the sky. Brrr. Looks like some more snow is coming our way. Oh well, I dont mind! Bringing Boilermakers hot meals  so they dont have to face the cold  is one of my favorite things.

Its a f-f-full on b-b-blizzard. My little flag is flapping in the wind. Its OK though; Ive done this countless times. My wheels may be small, but they can handle some pretty big snowstorms. After all, we were born in the Baltics.

Its gotten really dark now, and there are still students walking around. I have little time to rest, but a lot of them take photos with me, and I even know many by name now. Sophie! You know who you are! I find it bizarre that they want to take photos with me. Im just your normal sidewalk robot. I see us everywhere. Whats so special about me?

Its getting late, 1 a.m., and Im still going  feeling weaker after a long day. Ive had lots of coffees inside me, but they havent helped my energy level. I dont know how these Purdue students stayed awake so late before we rolled onto campus, but Ive become very fond of them. I hope Im helping them with their studying. Maybe they could credit me in their assignments?

I need a good rest. Im gonna go back to base to tap in my buddy wholl do the remainder of the overnight shift. Going to jump right back into it early tomorrow, so I need all that sweet, sweet electricity to help me get through the day. Goodnight, Purdue! Cant wait to do it all again tomorrow.

Learn more about Starship's robots at starship.xyz.
 Flash

The principle of for the people and by the people has been a source of strength for the Communist Party of China. It is also the defining feature of China's diplomacy, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.

"Throughout the year 2020, we have pooled every resource available and lost no time in delivering people-centered diplomacy. We have defied risks and danger to put up a firm line of defense for our fellow Chinese in every corner of the world," Wang said in a recent interview with Xinhua News Agency and China Media Group.

He said that despite challenges brought by COVID-19, China's consular services and its consular work in general have continued uninterrupted, and "the safety of overseas Chinese has remained our priority no matter what."

"We overcame various difficulties to deliver more than 1.2 million health kits to overseas Chinese students, sent emergency medical supplies to overseas Chinese in 100-plus countries, and arranged over 350 special flights to bring home stranded Chinese nationals," Wang said.

With COVID-19 still ravaging the world, the risk of case import continues to rise and consular protection remains a formidable task, he said, pledging to press ahead against all difficulties and make solid efforts to prevent imported cases and protect and assist overseas Chinese citizens.

Ties with the U.S.

The Chinese side hopes that the next U.S. administration will return to a sensible approach, resume dialogue with China, restore normalcy to the bilateral relations and restart cooperation, said Wang.

"China-U.S. relations have come to a new crossroads, and a new window of hope is opening," said the foreign minister.

He said in recent years, China-U.S. relations have run into unprecedented difficulties. Fundamentally, it all comes down to the serious misconceptions of U.S. policymakers about China. Some see China as the so-called biggest threat and their China policy based on this misperception is simply wrong.

"What has happened proves that the U.S. attempt to suppress China and start a new Cold War has not just seriously harmed the interests of the two peoples, but also caused severe disruptions to the world. Such a policy will find no support and is doomed to fail," he said.

Wang said that China's policy toward the United States is consistent and stable. "We are ready to develop with the United States a relationship based on coordination, cooperation and stability."

"We know that some in the United States are uneasy about China's rapid development. However, the best way to keep one's lead is through constant self-improvement, not by blocking others' development," he said.

"We believe that as long as the United States can draw lessons from the past and work with China in the same direction, the two countries are capable of resolving differences through dialogue and expanding converging interests by cooperation," Wang said.

Ties with Russia

China and Russia will continue to be the example of good-neighborly and friendly relations between major countries, add impetus to global recovery, and underpin global strategic stability, he noted.

He said in 2020, China-Russia relations have stood the test of a once-in-a-century pandemic and unprecedented global changes, and reached a historic high in all respects.

He hailed the intensive interactions between the two heads of state, noting President Xi Jinping and President Vladimir Putin have had five phone calls and exchanged correspondence on multiple occasions, providing the most important strategic guidance for the steady growth of the bilateral relations.

He also spoke highly of the mutual support between the two peoples, growing practical cooperation despite challenges, and closer coordination on international affairs.

"The year 2021 is a year of special importance for China-Russia relations, as both countries will enter a new development stage. In developing China-Russia strategic cooperation, we see no limit, no forbidden zone and no ceiling to how far this cooperation can go," he said.

He said focusing on the central task of implementing the common understandings of the two Presidents, the two countries will use the opportunity of the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Good-neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation to renew their shared commitment to ever-lasting peace and win-win cooperation. Being each other's strategic anchor, diplomatic priority, development opportunity and global partner, the two countries will expand and deepen cooperation from a higher starting point.

Ties with the EU

China is prepared to enhance coordination with the EU to keep the relations on the right track, he noted.

He said the year 2020 marked the 45th anniversary of the diplomatic ties between China and the EU. And throughout the years, the relationship has on the whole focused on dialogue, cooperation and mutual benefit, and demonstrated strong vitality by progressing with the times.

"The most important conclusion is that our cooperation and common understandings far outweigh competition and differences. China and the EU are comprehensive strategic partners, not systemic rivals," he said.

"The most important mission is to jointly tackle global challenges, promote a multi-polar world, economic globalization and greater democracy in international relations, and inject more stability and certainty into a turbulent and changing world," he said.

"President Xi Jinping and European leaders have jointly announced the conclusion of negotiations on a China-EU investment treaty, adding fresh, strong impetus to China-EU cooperation. It is also great news for the struggling global economy," he said, stressing that in 2020, China and the EU made new progress in their relations despite COVID-19.

China will remain a supporter of European integration, greater strategic autonomy of the EU, and a bigger role of the EU in international affairs, he said.

"The multilateralism that our two sides advocate must be dedicated to unity and cooperation rather than group politics. It needs to transcend systemic difference rather than draw lines along ideology," he said.

Ties with ASEAN

China stands ready to work with ASEAN to further enrich the strategic partnership and usher in a new era of peace, development and cooperation for the region, said Wang.

"Since its launch, China-ASEAN cooperation has always been results-oriented, pioneering and responsive to the trend of the times. It has become the most successful and vibrant example of regional cooperation," he said.

He said the two sides became each other's largest trading partners for the first time in 2020. "We jointly pushed for the signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which gave birth to the world's most promising free trade area with the largest population and biggest economic aggregate. This is a historic breakthrough in China-ASEAN cooperation."

Noting that China and ASEAN will celebrate the 30th anniversary of their dialogue relations in 2021, Wang said the Chinese side looks forward to the new opportunities it will bring for enhancing China-ASEAN ties.

Wang called on the two sides to work together to defeat COVID-19, do their best to bolster regional economic recovery, and stay committed to sustainable development.

Ties with Africa

Wang Yi said that the friendship between China and Africa emerged still stronger from the test of COVID-19 in 2020.

"With our shared identity as part of the developing world, China and Africa have the responsibility of advancing the interests of developing countries," he said.

Noting that China and Africa have always shared weal and woe, Wang said their friendship emerged still stronger from the test of COVID-19 in 2020. Chinese President Xi Jinping and African leaders had a successful Extraordinary China-Africa Summit on Solidarity Against COVID-19, and the fine tradition of mutual assistance was further strengthened.

China has sent medical teams, paired up Chinese and African hospitals, provided much-needed medical supplies, and worked with Africa on vaccines, he said. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters as an assistance project by China has just had its groundbreaking ceremony. It will stand as a historic witness of China-Africa solidarity in fighting the pandemic.

China and Africa have scaled up the implementation of follow-ups to the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Beijing Summit, with the health care initiative as a top priority, Wang said, adding that China has signed debt service suspension agreements with 12 African countries and provided waivers of matured interest-free loan for 15 African countries. "China has suspended more debt service than any other G20 member."

Twenty years ago, FOCAC entered a new era of political mutual trust and all-round cooperation between China and Africa. Wang said 20 years on, FOCAC has become a new model of friendship, cooperation and common development among developing countries.

"Together, we have drafted and implemented the 10 cooperation plans and the eight major initiatives. With China's help, over 6,000 kilometers of railways, 6,000 kilometers of roads, nearly 20 ports and over 80 large power plants have been built in Africa. Two-way trade has grown by 20-fold and China's direct investment in Africa 100-fold. We have expanded cooperation with Africa in new business forms like digital economy, smart city, clean energy and 5G, thus boosting high-quality development of Belt and Road cooperation between the two sides," he said.

Noting that China and Africa will have FOCAC meetings in Senegal in 2021, Wang said in this context, China will work with Africa on the three priority areas of vaccine cooperation, economic recovery and transformative development to build new consensus on solidarity, break new ground for cooperation, and deliver new benefits to the people.

China's "Cloud diplomacy" hailed

The biggest highlight in China's foreign relations has been the "cloud diplomacy" conducted at the head-of-state level, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.

In 2020, President Xi Jinping personally planned, oversaw and engaged in "cloud diplomacy", having 87 meetings and phone calls with foreign leaders and heads of international organizations and attending 22 important bilateral or multilateral events through this virtual platform, according to Wang in a recent interview with Xinhua News Agency and China Media Group.

Xi has championed solidarity in the world's fight against COVID-19, offered a series of proposals in light of China's experience in coordinating pandemic response and economic and social development, and pointed the way forward for reforming the global governance system through "cloud diplomacy", said Wang.

"With 'cloud diplomacy', China has demonstrated its sense of responsibility, contributed its wisdom and expanded the ways it conducts foreign relations," he said.

Confidence of prevailing over COVID-19

Despite COVID-19 pandemic still raging across the globe, Wang Yi expressed confidence that the people in China and across the world will prevail over the virus, end the crisis and win an ultimate victory through concerted efforts.

Commenting on the international situation and China's diplomacy in 2020, Wang said the devastating virus, economic recession and governance difficulties are clear challenges facing humanity, while unilateralism, protectionism and power politics are standing in the way of international cooperation.

"People across the world have increasingly come to see that all countries share a common stake and need to stand together in the face of difficulties. The vision of a community with a shared future for mankind thus enjoys stronger support," said Wang.

China launched an emergency global humanitarian campaign of a scale unseen since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, and helped build consensus on a global response to COVID-19, contributing to the building of a global community of health for all, he said.

Hailing the signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and concluding negotiations on a China-EU investment agreement, Wang said China has shared benefits generated by its opening-up with the world and injected much needed impetus into the global recovery.

"China, on course toward national rejuvenation, is generating global opportunities and embracing openness and cooperation," he said, pledging to make greater contributions to world peace and development.

Continuous efforts pledged

Wang Yi said that China will continue to advance global cooperation on epidemic response, strengthen joint prevention and control, and assist countries and regions in need.

"We will never slacken such efforts until humanity secures a final victory against COVID-19," he said.

Wang summarized China's contributions and support to the global COVID-19 response in six respects, including being the first country to report cases to the world, taking the most rigorous control measures to fight the virus, conducting the largest-scale online exchanges on epidemic response, providing urgently needed assistance by launching the largest global emergency humanitarian campaign since the founding of the People's Republic of China, doing its best as the largest manufacturer of medical supplies, and being the first to pledge to make vaccines a global public good.

"When hit by an unknown coronavirus, China took immediate actions to carry out epidemiological investigation, identify the pathogen and publicize key information including the genome sequencing of the virus. All this sounded alarm bells across the world," he said.

Wang said that China effectively controlled the virus within the shortest possible time, and steadily resumed economic and social activities, making an early contribution to building a strong global line of defense against the virus.

"We organized over 100 video meetings with experts from other countries, opened an online knowledge center to share China's experiences with all countries, and published eight updated versions of diagnosis and therapeutic solutions and seven updated versions of prevention and control protocols," he said.

To help people across the world prevailing over the virus, China has provided assistance to over 150 countries and 10 international organizations, sent 36 medical teams to 34 countries in need and provided funding to WHO and other relevant UN agencies, according to Wang.

As the largest manufacturer of medical supplies, China has provided countries around the world with over 220 billion masks, 2.25 billion protective suits and over 1 billion testing kits, Wang said.

"We were the first to pledge to make vaccines a global public good, bearing in mind the greater good of humanity," he said.

Calling for peace talks on global hotspot issues

China hopes that hotspot issues will be made to cool down and peace talks will bring true peace, said Wang Yi.

Wang said that peace is an eternal aspiration of humankind, and as a permanent member of the UN Security Council (UNSC) and a responsible major country, China has been exploring a distinctive Chinese way of resolving hotspot issues.

"We follow a vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security for the world. We maintain that regional disputes should be addressed through dialogue and consultation. We uphold non-interference in internal affairs, which is a basic norm governing international relations. We speak for justice from an objective and sensible perspective. We seek solutions that suit the regional reality and accommodate the interests of all parties. We have done what we can to safeguard peace and tranquility in the world," he said.

Over the past year, while firmly upholding the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran's nuclear program, China has joined the international community in opposing moves inconsistent with the UNSC resolutions, Wang said.

He noted China has put forward a constructive proposal of building a new platform for multilateral dialogue for the Gulf region, given steadfast support to Palestine's just cause and firmly upheld the right direction of the "two-state solution," continued to advocate the phased and synchronized approach to achieve the two goals of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and establishment of a peace mechanism, facilitated consensus-building on Afghanistan's national reconciliation and that among regional players, and supported intra-Afghan talks, as well as mediated between Bangladesh and Myanmar in addressing their disagreements, and assisted in maintaining overall stability in northern Myanmar.

As for major countries that play a key role in various hotspot issues, he hoped instead of anyone's own selfish interests, they can bear in mind the real interests of regional countries and the well-being of all people in the world, and shoulder due responsibilities and play a constructive role in settling disputes.
Image: Christin Hume/Unsplash

As we move into this next year, we thought youd be interested in the top ten Exchange articles (by pageview):

10) Andy Stanley Explains Why His Megachurch Wont Gather on Sundays Until 2021

North Point: We love you too much to open the doors on Sunday morning. Let's focus on doing stuff for the community.

In July, Andy Stanley announced that North Point Ministries would not be holding in-person services for the remainder of 2020. This announcement made international news, which led to Stanley being a guest on Stetzer Leadership Podcast. This article, which was part one in a two- part series, is an adaptation of that interview surrounding North Points decision.

9) What is the Gospel? A Look at 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

The gospel has been defined by many people in many ways. What does Scripture say the gospel is?

This article was actually published in 2015, so it is worth noting that it was still one of the most read pieces of this year. It was written by my late friend, Presbyterian pastor, David Nicholas. In this blog post, he offered a succinct presentation on what he considered the Gospel to be.

8) The People of Praise, Charismatic Catholics, and Fringe Religious Groups

A brief introduction to the charismatic Catholics and People of Praise, in the news now due to Amy Coney Barrett's nomination.

The nomination of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett in September drew a heightened awareness to the religious group, People of Praise, which Coney Barrett is a member of. While many sought to present People of Praise as outside of mainstream Christianity, this article presented a brief history of the charismatic Catholic movement.

7) The CARES Act & Your Church Staff: What You Need to Know & 4 Steps to Take Now

The new stimulus bill includes churches and has implication for church staff. Please learn more before making any staff decisions.

This article was released as the CARES Act was being enacted way back in March. In this article, we provided an overview of what churches and church leaders needed to know ahead of the relief bill, and how they should plan accordingly. In a time that was marked by panic, we hope that this was a useful and clear resource.

6) Complementarians in Closed Rooms

Aimee Byrd, Beth Moore, and private words that reveal a pressing problem.

Complementarians in closed rooms too often show their misogyny, not just their theology. Its important to remember that in this article, I did not try make a case about egalitarianism and complementarianism. The sexism and misogyny that have been directed toward Aimee Byrd and Beth Moore ar not just a complementarian issue; it's a Christian issue and its a Christian responsibilitywhich means that is also my responsibility, and yours too.

5) Unliked Likes: Cancelling Pastor Chris Hodges and Church of the Highlands

Some social media "likes" gets Church of the Highlands kicked out of some public schools they were renting, but such cancel culture is the wrong answer.

This article was written during a time when the pastor of the Church of the Highlands, the largest church in Alabama, was coming under fire for liking certain social media posts. It was an important lesson about the power of social media, and a reminder for all of us to be mindful. It was, also, a disappointing example of cancel culture. As Christians, I believe that we are called to be counter-culture in the face of cancel culture.

4) This Is Not the Crisis, But It Is Just A Few Weeks Away

It is time to move from focusing on the current challenge of doing church and turn to the crisis weeks away from our communities.

This article can be best described by this quote taken from it: Over the coming days and weeks, the crisis will seemingly get worse. However, some people still do not understand that the coronavirus crisis will be the most significant historical event of our lifetime. It will be bigger than 9/11. In March, most of us werent expecting to be at this point now. In this article, we considered what the coming crisis was actually going to behint: it wasnt just March.

3) The Bible Is Not a Prop: In Fact, We Need It Right Now

Its Teachings, thoughabout the Gospel and JusticeAre What We Need Right Now.

More than the greatest poetry and prose, Gods Word can heal our deepest wounds and cut through the most hardened hearts. In June, our country sorely needed healing and compassion. This is not what the American people received from our highest leader. A Bible in a photo op was not the Bible we needed, especially as the country was erupting with protests surrounding the wrongful death of George Floyd.

2) Social Justice, Critical Race Theory, Marxism, and Biblical Ethics

Looking at Marxism and Critical Race Theory in light of the problem of racism in America.

If youve been operating in Christian circles this year, theres a high probability youve heard a little bit about Critical Race Theory. For this article, we welcomed Dr. Kelly Hamren, assistant professor of English at Liberty University, to teach us all more about Critical Race Theory, Marxism, and social justice. They are not all the same ideology, and its important for Christians to know the difference as these frameworks become more and more of a cultural phenomenon.

1) On Christians Spreading Corona Conspiracies: Gullibility is not a Spiritual Gift

As followers of Jesus, we are people of the truth. Falling for (and spreading) conspiracy theories does not honor the Lord, but it does cause people to question our judgment.

COVID-19 created an abundance of conspiracy theories. Unfortunately, Christians were disproportionately fooled by these conspiracy theories, and continue to be. In sharing and believing the abundance of fake news, we harm ourselves. More importantly, this gullibility only serves to harm our witness with the very people wed like to reach. Instead of spreading unproven theories, we should focus on spreading the good news we've been commanded by our Lord to proclaim.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday said he was not going to get vaccinated against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) for now as the BJP government cannot be trusted. I am not going to get vaccinated for now. How can I trust BJPs vaccine, when our government will be formed everyone will get free vaccine. We cannot take BJPs vaccine, the SP president said.

Yadav also attacked the Yogi Adityanath led-BJP government in Uttar Pradesh over its handling of the pandemic. Why cold-chain and refrigerators for vaccine now? This government was warding off Covid by clanging plates, claps, and hovering helicopters over hospitals, he said while addressing the media a press conference at the party office in Lucknow.

Soon after the SP chiefs remarks, minister of state for finance and corporate affairs Anurag Thakur told news agency ANI, Akhilesh Yadavs statement that he wont get vaccinated as its a BJP vaccine is very unfortunate...What can be more unfortunate than a young leader linking Covid-19 vaccine with a political party. It shows Akhilesh Yadav cant think above politics.

Yadav was addressing the press conference on the sidelines of an event in which religious leaders from Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh communities from Ayodhya gathered to extend support to him and his party. Ahead of assembly elections in the state slated for 2022, the SP chief announced he would withdraw civic taxes (water, house, sewer) for people of Ayodhya. It is the land of Maryada Purshottam Ram. Its a religious place. If this government does not withdraw the civic taxes, our government will. He added that he was a religious person and had a temple at home, outside, and had made one inside the chief ministers residence when he was the chief minister.

In the run up to polls, earlier this week Yadav had said his party would return to power in UP in a historic change in 2022 and would then withdraw all cases lodged against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) protestors.

The SP leaders comments regarding the vaccine come on a day when the Covid-19 vaccination dry run is underway across 259 vaccination centres in 116 districts of the country. Saturdays immunisation drive is being conducted after the exercise was carried out on December 28 and 29 across four states of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat and Punjab.

Earlier in the day, Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan announced that in the first phase of Covid-19 vaccination, free vaccine shall be provided across the nation to most prioritised beneficiaries that include one crore healthcare and two crore frontline workers.
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My last Christmas seasonal pilgrimage to my Countryside in Arondizuogu in Imo State of South East of Nigeria beginning from December 15th to December 30th 2020 was particularly an eye opener for a number of circumstances and experiences.

First, I saw a State that yearns for some forms of governance which at the moment is lacking in a substantial way.

From the Imo State's capital of Owerri to virtually the three Senatorial zones of Okigwe, Orlu and Owerri, there was this atmosphere of a people abandoned to their fate by the elected political office holders who constitutionally ought to provide leadership.

In terms of socio-economic development and infrastructures that should better the living conditions of the residents of Imo State, what you see are aging institutional facilities that have outgrown their relevance and usefulness.

The Federal Roads running through Imo State from Anambra, Enugu and those going to Abia, Ebonyi, Akwa Ibom and Rivers State have become dilapidated and dysfunctional with deadly bumps and craters that have clearly divided these roads into several fractions thereby making commuting on them risky and deadly.

In the area of security, what you see in Imo State are few police and military checkpoints even as the whole of the state is not policed. law enforcement is neither here nor there.

In the strategic area of the education system in place, it is indeed in a very pitiable sight.

Public educational institutions and facilities have become deplorable even as many of the community Schools built through communal self help efforts are also not in their best state of functionality.

Water supplies in Imo State are not easily obtained because it would appear that for the millions of families living in that State, their only means of clean water supplies are the many commercial borehole operators who sell water all over the place.

In the rural communities, Children are seen pushing wheelbarrow and carrying different types of water containers in search of water from a lot of the stagnant streams of water that flow through the different communities and local government areas.

The healthcare system is poor because the primary health care centres are not optimally operational thereby exposing the citizens to avoidable fatalities from usually treatable illnesses such as Malaria, and water born diseases.

I made it a point of duty to interact with as many Children as possible to find out the standards of education they are given.

My findings show that the Society of today is risking the future of our Children and may be breeding future outlaws due to the calculated neglect and cumulative impact of the poor political governance that we see in most of these States not to talk of the Local Government Area Councils that are already destroyed by the overbearing governors who see the Local Councils as cash cows.

As I sat amongst over 120 Children that my family gathered to give them Christmas foods and other gifts such as customised books of the Foundation I set up in honour of my late Father Osonduagwuike OKORIEOCHA Onwubiko, I was privileged to get first hand intelligence showing that the society is deliberately training a lot of outlaws that may decide to take their revenge in the future against the society that today is neglecting them and making them pass through unpardonable and unreasonable deprivation of good sources of water, clean environment for educational training and functional social amenities to aide their balanced growth into productive and useful adults.

Soon after, I ran into a report of a study that depicts the dangers of deprivation and the psychological impact these deprivation and neglect will have on these Children who are currently being victimised by the political governance system that lacks transparency and accountability.

I learnt reliably that experiencing severe deprivation and neglect in childhood can have a lasting psychological impact into early adulthood, according to a unique study which has followed the mental health of a group of children adopted from Romanian institutions to UK families in the 1990s.

Published in The Lancet, this is the first large-scale study to follow a group of children who were subjected to extreme deprivation into adulthood, tracking how their mental health and cognition has developed as a result.

The English and Romanian Adoptees study began shortly after the fall of the communist regime in Romania. Children living in institutions were subjected to extremely poor hygiene, insufficient food, little personalised care and no social or cognitive stimulation.

The study, running since 1990, analyses the mental health of 165 children who spent time in Romanian institutions and who were adopted by families in the UK between the ages of two weeks and 43 months.

In the UK, they joined socioeconomically advantaged, stable, caring and supportive families.

Comparing against 52 children adopted within the UK, the study has followed them throughout their childhood using questionnaires, IQ tests and interviews with the children and their parents to analyse social, emotional and cognitive outcomes at ages 6, 11 and 15.

The latest part of the study followed the adoptees to ages 22 to 25 years old. It includes around three-quarters of the original adoptees -- 39 UK adoptees, 50 Romanian adoptees who had spent less than six months in an institution as children and 72 who had spent over six months.

The above are just few highlights of the study carried out by these psychologists.

From what I saw in Imo state, there is a nexus between the deprivation suffered by little kids to the expansion of armed criminality in the near future.

It's only natural that these kids who are forced to live subhuman lives and attend schools in environment that is not even suitable for lower animals, will certainly revolt against the few elites whose kids attend the fees paying private schools and foreign educational institutions.

I saw something that is sinister. There are kids as young as 5 who are already exposed to hard drugs by virtue of the fact that they loiter around places on the rural settings whereby depraved adults smoke and consume hard drugs. Some of these kids were born by youngsters who deal on hard drugs and so the first natural habitat most of these kids grow up to know are drugs hamlets.

As we know, hard drugs and their intakes has a necessary link to crimes.

Then because there is absence of governance at the Local Government levels in much of the states of the Federation, there is a deliberate failure to activate mechanisms to appropriately guide these Children on the rightness or otherwise of some of the tendencies they notice around them perpetuated by adults.

My observation tallies with a profound body of knowledge contained in the publication titled 'Drugs and Crimes' [email protected] https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/criminal-justice/crime/Drugs-and-crime .

I will endeavour to narrate their study substantially just to show the urgency of the now for the Nigerian government and the governments at the 36 states to take steps to address these levels of criminal deprivation that millions of Children are forced to suffer as I write. The federal capital territory of Abuja has its own share of rural poverty. I have seen dozens of schools with fallen roofs and dilapidated buildings whereby school children in the area councils are made to attend schools. Most of the area councils lack good and functional healthcare system just as crime rates in those communities are way too high to be tolerated.

On Drugs and Crime the scholars i spoke about wrote that the connection between drugs and crime is reflected in at least three types of crimes:

Drugdefined crimes, such as the possession, use, or sale of controlled substances, which violates drug laws;

Crimes committed by drug users to get money to buy more drugs or crimes committed by persons under the influence of drugs; and

Organized criminal activities, such as money laundering and political corruption, in support of the drug trade.

Crime, the study argues is associated with drug use, but drugs usually don't cause crime. First, only a small percentage of burglaries and robberies are drug related. Second, studies of highrate offenders show that many of them began their criminal careers before using drugs. Most experts agree that even if we could succeed in eliminating drug abuse, there would be only a small reduction in robberies, burglaries, and similar crimes.

On the historicity of Drug laws the study recalls that the first major drug law, the Harrison Act(1914), required persons dealing in opium, morphine, heroin, cocaine, and derivatives of these drugs to register with the federal government. The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act (1970) forms the basis of federal enforcement efforts today.

This law sets up five schedules which classify narcotic drugs according to the abuse potential. In 1988, the U.S. Republican leadership stepped up the war on drugs. It passed the AntiDrug Abuse Act, which substantially increased the penalties for recreational drug users. Other important federal drug laws include the Crime Control Act (1990) and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994). The former doubled the appropriations to state and local communities for drug enforcement and created drugfree school zones by increasing penalties for drug crimes occurring close to schools. The latter provided $245 million for rural anticrime and drug efforts.

On Alcohol abuse and crime, the study highlights that even though the abuse of alcohol is rarely discussed in the same terms as the use of controlled substances, alcohol abuse has serious consequences for abusers as well as the criminal justice system.

First, alcohol, they submitted, is often a factor in the commission of crimes, drunk driving being a prime example.

Sometimes the use of alcohol lowers inhibitions and leads to other, serious crimes, such as criminal assaults.

Second, the processing of alcoholrelated crimes consumes large amounts of criminal justice resources.

For example, between 1970 and 1992 arrests for drunk driving soared 200 percent across the United States.

Today, police make about one million drunk driving arrests annually, more arrests than for any other crime except drug abuse and larcenytheft. In 1996 police made about 500,000 arrests for public drunkenness, another crime related to alcohol abuse.

These rich points elaborately embodied in the above summation of a study on the nexus between drugs and crime should serve as an eye opener to make the current political elite in Nigeria to effectively take concrete steps to provide leadership in the state's of the Federation.

Leadership means leading by example by avoiding all corrupt practices and abuse of power and to invest in the human capital development of the citizens so the future of Nigeria can be assured. The agencies of law enforcement must not be continually undermined as it were so they are appropriately placed to function optimally.

We must provide good governance today so we reduce the number of outlaws and criminals of tomorrow.

There is need for institutional bodies such as the National Drugs Law Enforcement agencies to be partnered with by States and Local Government Area administrations to begin the process of sensitization of the rural kids on the dangers of indulging in drug habits.

There has to be a deliberate and sustainable programmes from the central government to rescue the rural school system in Nigeria so as to humanize these schools to enable the rural children to get humane educational trainings that meet the demands of the twenty first century World.

*Emmanuel Onwubiko is the Head of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria [email protected] ;www.emmanuelonwubikocom; www.thenigerianinsidernews.com ; [email protected]
The Labour Party said they want schools to reopen, but only if it's safe to do so

The Labour Party is calling on the government to ask Nphet to carry out a public health risk assessment on the reopening of schools from January 11.

The party said its preference is for schools to reopen, however, only if it is safe to do so.

TD Aodhan O Riordain, who is Labours spokesperson for education, said the decision from the government to delay the reopening of schools until January 11 is welcome, but that there needs to be a proper assessment of the public health risk to staff, students and the wider community.

The thousands of Covid-19 cases now being reported is deeply worrying for everyone, he said.

I am calling on the government to ask NPHET to urgently carry out a public health risk assessment on whether schools can safety reopen on January 11th.

The government should also agree to abide by the public health advice given. Based on the level of disease in the community many schools may also struggle to get sufficient staff back into schools in a weeks time."

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The deputy added that before Christmas he called on Education Minister Norma Foley to consider closing schools a few days early on December 18. She didnt take this suggestion on board and he said he hopes she will listen to him now and ask Nphets advice.

The same advice should also apply to childcare facilities however there must be care options put in place for essential workers, he said.

I do want to emphasise that schools remaining open is the preferred option once it can be done safely. It is disadvantaged students and children who suffer most from closures.

There may be mid-way measures possible between all open and all closed that will need to be considered but the priority should be a public health risk assessment from NPHET."

On Wednesday, Michael Martin announced that Ireland would be in a full scale Level 5 Lockdown for at least a month.

It was also announced that in order to give extra time to limit the Covid-19 surge being seen, that schools wouldnt reopen until January 11.

However, there has been no indication given by government that this will be further extended.





Online Editors
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Holiday Heroes Blood Drive Exceeds Goal

By West Kentucky Star Staff

PADUCAH - Paducah's Holiday Heroes blood drive was deemed a success after it collected 195 units during the four-day event over the New Years holiday weekend at Concord United Methodist Church.The total exceeded their goal by 35 units.Red Cross donor recruitment manager Anthony Tinin thanked the public for its outstanding support, and reminds anyone who still wishes to donate to call 1-800-GIVE-LIFE to find another blood drive near you.You can also enable the Blood Donor Skill on any Alexa Echo device to make an appointment.On the Net:
A man fleeing from Pennsylvania troopers ran a red light and crashed into a car, causing his own vehicle to roll over about five times, according to police.

Christopher R. Karc, 43, of Breinig Run Circle in Upper Macungie Township, faces felonies among 18 charges filed against him in the Dec. 4 incident, authorities said.

In a news release Friday, Pennsylvania State Police said troopers were trying to stop Karc for a minor traffic violation about 1 a.m. on Lenape Road near Grange Road in Upper Macungie Township.

Karc allegedly failed to stop and sped off, committing numerous traffic offenses while attempting to elude police, according to the release.

Karc drove his 2008 Chevrolet Equinox south on Route 222 toward Grim Road, where he ran a red light and struck a 2006 Toyota Corolla legally entering the intersection, police said. The Equinox then rolled over about five times, before stopping about 100 yards south of the intersection.

Karc was taken into custody at the crash, police said.

The driver and a passenger of the Corolla were taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Salisbury Township, according to the release. Police did not release the extent of any injuries.

Karc was arraigned later that morning before District Judge Michael Faulkner on felony counts of fleeing or attempting to elude police and aggravated assault by vehicle; misdemeanor habitually driving under suspension and two misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment; and 13 summary traffic charges.

Karc was sent to Lehigh County Jail in lieu of $50,000 bail and faces a preliminary hearing scheduled Feb. 9 before Faulkner to determine if there is sufficient evidence to send the charges toward trial in county court.

The court records do not list an attorney for Karc.

Karc last July 31 pleaded guilty in county court to two counts of drunken driving and a traffic offense and was sentenced to 30 days to six months in county jail, as well as ordered to pay more than $3,000 in fines and costs, according to the records.

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Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.
There is so much to celebrate with the new year. The arrival of safe, effective Covid-19 vaccines means that there is light at the end of the pandemic tunnel (though the next few months will be horrific). Equally important, Americas incompetent, mean-spirited president will be replaced by his polar opposite: a man of decency, honesty and professionalism.

But we should harbour no illusions about what president-elect Joe Biden will face in office. There will be deep scars left from the Trump presidency, and from a pandemic that the outgoing administration did so little to fight. The economic trauma will not heal overnight, and without comprehensive assistance at this critical time of need  including support for cash-strapped State and local governments  the pain will be prolonged.

Americas long-term allies, of course, will welcome the return of a world where the United States stands up for democracy and human rights, and cooperates internationally to address global problems like pandemics and climate change. But, again, it would be foolish to pretend that the world has not changed fundamentally. The US, after all, has shown itself to be an untrustworthy ally.

True, the US constitution and those of its 50 states survived and protected American democracy from the worst of Trumps malign impulses. But the fact that 74 million Americans voted for another four years of his grotesque misrule leaves a chill. What might the next election bring? Why should others trust a country that might repudiate everything it stands for just four years from now?

The world needs more than Trumps narrow transactional approach; so does the US. The only way forward is through true multilateralism, in which American exceptionalism is genuinely subordinated to common interests and values, international institutions, and a form of rule of law from which the US is not exempt. This would represent a major shift for the US, from a position of longstanding hegemony to one built on partnerships.

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Such an approach would not be unprecedented. After World War II, the US found that ceding some influence to international organisations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund was actually in its own interests. The problem is that America didnt go far enough. While John Maynard Keynes wisely called for the creation of a global currency  an idea later manifested in the IMFs Special Drawing Rights (SDRs)  the US demanded veto power at the IMF, and didnt vest the fund with as much power as it should have.

In any case, much of what Biden will be able to do in office depends on the outcomes of run-off elections for Georgias two US Senate seats on Tuesday. But even without a willing partner in the Senate, the president has enormous sway over international affairs. There is plenty that Biden will be able to do on his own, starting immediately.

One obvious priority will be the post-pandemic recovery, which will not be strong anywhere until its strong everywhere. We cannot count on China to play as pronounced a role in driving global demand this time around as it did in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Moreover, developing and emerging economies lack the resources for the massive stimulus programmes that the US and Europe have provided to their economies. What is needed, as IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva has pointed out, is a massive issuance of SDRs. Some $500bn of this global money could be issued overnight if only the US Secretary of the Treasury would approve.

Whereas the Trump administration has been blocking an SDR issuance, Biden could give it the green light, while also endorsing existing congressional proposals to expand the size of the issuance substantially. The US could then join the other wealthy countries that have already agreed to donate or lend their allocation to countries in need.

The Biden administration can also help lead the push for sovereign-debt restructuring. Several developing countries and emerging markets are already facing debt crises, and many more may soon follow. If there was ever a time when the US had an interest in global debt restructuring, it is now.

For the past four years, the Trump administration has denied basic science and flouted the rule of law. Restoring Enlightenment norms is thus another top priority. International rule of law, no less than science, is as important to the USs own prosperity as it is to the functioning of the global economy.

On trade, the World Trade Organisation offers a foundation upon which to rebuild. As of now, the WTO order is shaped too much by power politics and neoliberal ideology; but that can change. There is a growing consensus in support of Ngozi Okonjo-Iwealas candidacy to serve as the next director-general of the WTO. A distinguished former Nigerian finance minister and former vice-president of the World Bank, Okonjo-Iwealas appointment has been held up only by the Trump administration.

No trade system can function without a method of adjudicating disputes. By refusing to approve any new judges to the WTOs dispute-settlement mechanism to succeed those whose terms have retired, the Trump administration has left the institution inquorate and paralysed. Nonetheless, while Trump has done everything he can to undermine international institutions and the rule of law, he also has unwittingly opened the door for improving US trade policy.

For example, the Trump administrations renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada largely did away with the investment provisions that had become among the most noxious aspects of international economic relations.

And now, Trumps Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer, is using the time he has left in office to call for anti-dumping sanctions against countries that give their companies an advantage by ignoring global environmental standards. Considering that I included a similar proposal in my 2006 book, Making Globalization Work, there now seem to be ample grounds for a new bipartisan consensus on trade.

Most of the actions I have described do not require congressional action and can be carried out in Bidens first days in office. Pursuing them would go a long way toward reaffirming Americas commitment to multilateralism and putting the disaster of the past four years behind us.

Joseph E. Stiglitz, is a Nobel laureate in economics and University Professor at Columbia University
WILLIAMSPORT-A Williamsport man who told police his father is the sun and his mother is the moon is in jail after driving off in a police cruiser with a K-9 in a cage in the back.

Not only is Christopher Dryden, 39, accused of taking the cruiser, he is charged with driving it while his license was suspended.

Dryden is accused of going to the locked door of police headquarters in City Hall on Dec. 23 and via the intercom telling an officer about his mother and father.

He disappeared from camera view when Sgt. Richard Hofford asked if he needed help but returned a short time later again saying his mother and father are the moon and sun, the arrest affidavit states.

After he disappeared again, Officer Tyson Minier said he heard his dog barking as it is trained to do when someone approached. The dog was in an unlocked cruiser on the ramp outside police headquarters.

As Hofford and Minier went outside, they saw the cruiser slowly being driven off the ramp and both gave chase on foot, the charges state.

Minier said the driver kept pulling the door shut as he tried to open it.

When he finally got it open the cruiser had stopped but he said the driver resisted being pulled out. Dryden was taken into custody after Hofford deployed his stun gun, the affidavit states.

Dryden, a Philadelphia native who is jailed in lieu of $7,500 bail, is charged with theft, illegal taunting of animals, receiving stolen property, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and driving while his license was suspended.

The dog repeatedly banged its head against the side of its cage trying to get at Dryden but was not injured, Minier said.

Police policy requires cruisers to be locked when left unattended temporarily on the ramp at the rear of police headquarters, Chef Damon R. Hagan said.

Online court records show Dryden has drug convictions in Delaware County.
Photograph: Khalid Mohammed/AP

The mass shooting in Baghdad for which Donald Trump pardoned four American mercenaries was a massacre along the lines of My Lai in Vietnam, the lead FBI investigator in the case said, pronouncing himself disgusted with the presidents actions.

Related: 'Our blood is cheaper than water': anger in Iraq over Trump pardons

Nicholas Slatten was convicted of first-degree murder and Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard were convicted of voluntary and attempted manslaughter over the 2007 shooting, which happened in heavy traffic in Nisour Square.

Fourteen unarmed Iraqi civilians, among them a nine-year-old child, were killed when the mercenaries opened fire with weapons including machine guns and grenade launchers.

The four men worked for the private security firm Blackwater, owned by Erik Prince, brother of Trumps education secretary, Betsy DeVos. They were included in a wave of pre-Christmas pardons announced by the White House.

In a letter to the New York Times published on Friday, John M Patarini said: I was the FBI case agent who led the investigation of the Blackwater massacre in Baghdad.

We originally went to Iraq thinking this shooting was some form of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire between Blackwater guards and insurgents. After only one week, we determined that this incident was not as presented by Blackwater personnel and their state department lackeys, but it was a massacre along the lines of My Lai in Vietnam.

The My Lai massacre took place on 16 March 1968. As many as 504 children, women and older men were killed by a US infantry company, members of which also raped numerous women and girls. Only William Calley, a lieutenant, was convicted of any crime. Sentenced to life, he served three days in prison before Richard Nixon ordered his sentence reduced.

In 2009, Calley said he felt remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry.

Story continues

Trump, who will leave office on 20 January, has issued pardons or acts of clemency in cases in which US troops were accused or convicted of war crimes. Presidential pardons do not mean or imply innocence.

Patarini wrote that he only recently became aware of the concerted effort for the pardons of the four mercenaries who perpetrated the Nisour Square massacre, which I understand started with a political push by members of Congress.

President Trump should have had staff members review the trial evidence that led to the convictions and read the judges opinions and sentencing statements. God forbid they might have actually picked up the phone and called the investigators who built the case. Im so disgusted with the presidents actions!

After Trump issued the pardons, a lawyer for one of the mercenaries said: Paul Slough and his colleagues didnt deserve to spend one minute in prison. I am overwhelmed with emotion at this fantastic news.

In an interview with the Associated Press (AP), published on Saturday, Liberty said he had been reading in his cell when a prison supervisor delivered the news.

He says: Are you ready for this? I said: Uh, Im not sure. What is going on? He said: Presidential pardon. Pack your stuff.

Of his actions in Nisour Square, Liberty said: I feel like I acted correctly. I regret any innocent loss of life, but Im just confident in how I acted and I can basically feel peace with that.

He also said he didnt shoot at anybody that wasnt shooting at me and said he and his fellow mercenaries would never take an innocent life. We responded to a threat accordingly.

That was not the finding of Patarinis FBI investigation or the court in which the men were convicted. Internationally, Trumps pardons have met with widespread condemnation. This week, the United Nations working group on the use of mercenaries called them an affront to justice and to the victims of the Nisour Square massacre and their families.

Related: Trump's Blackwater pardons an affront to justice, say UN experts

Patarini wrote that he had spent many hours with the innocent Iraqi victims who are permanently maimed and crippled because of the actions of these Blackwater guards, and the heartbroken family members of those killed.

I am embarrassed for our country. I believe we will pay a heavy price in our relationships with other countries as a result of these pardons.

Liberty told the AP he was grateful to his supporters and to Trump for what he called a second chance at life, and said he felt like its my duty to go out and do something positive and live a good life because they gave me a second chance.

After the pardons were announced, Adil al-Khazali, an Iraqi citizen whose father, Ali, was killed in Nisour Square, told the Guardian: Justice doesnt exist.

I ask the American people to stand with us. I lost my father and many innocent women and children also died. I ask the US government to reconsider, because by this decision US courts are losing their reputation. Trump has no right to pardon killers of innocent people.
ATLANTA  Watchdogs and the U.S. intelligence community observed with growing concern as domestic extremist groups rose in prominence in recent years, escalating into a crescendo of chaos and violent outbursts around the presidential election.

They are not going away in 2021, experts told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Things indeed are escalating, said Eric Ward, executive director of the Western States Center, a progressive nonprofit that promotes democratic engagement. We have elected officials who are now being escorted into legislative session by law enforcement because of the level of threats they are experiencing. ... Political violence is going to be part of our reality in 2021.

Mark Pitcavage, senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation Leagues Center on Extremism, said radical extremist groups may actually grow in 2021 and find new energy.

Thats particularly true for movements with an anti-government ideology, like the far-right paramilitary militia movement. Pitcavage said the militia movement has an odd relationship with President Trump, admiring him for his outsider demeanor while mistrusting the government he leads.

With Joe Biden in power, that may change, Pitcavage said. There is a very legitimate chance we could see a resurgence of the militia movement, he said.

As president, Biden wants to renew the assault weapons ban, expand background checks and ban high-capacity magazines, which have the potential to trigger militia groups.

With a Biden administration coming in, the militia movement is no longer going to be limited in its anger at the federal government as it has been, Pitcavage said.

If Trump remains a visible force in American politics over the next four years, Pitcavage said fringe right-wing groups could be further energized by his rhetoric.

One such group is the Proud Boys, which gained national notoriety during the first presidential debate when Biden called on Trump to denounce the group. Trumps cryptic statement to stand back and stand by was enthusiastically taken by the group as a presidential endorsement, despite a subsequent rejection by the president on Fox Newss Hannity.

Since the election, the Proud Boys have been involved in numerous street demonstrations, including a protest earlier this month in Washington, D.C., that included violent altercations with left-wing counter protesters, and resulted in several stabbings.

The group styles itself as a sardonic drinking club, but watchdogs describe it as anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim and deeply misogynistic. The ADL notes that, while not a white supremacist organization itself, some of its leaders have engaged in racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Recently, national leader Enrique Tarrio took part in a protest outside the Capitol in Atlanta after November general election.

They are one of very few far-right extremist groups that have multiple chapters on the ground across the country, Pitcavage said.

One of the more perplexing questions of 2021 is what will become of the QAnon conspiracy theory and its adherents. The phenomenon burst into the national consciousness this summer as Facebook scampered to ban fast-growing QAnon groups which organized around coordinated Save Our Children marches across the country. One such march in August in Woodstock drew hundreds of marchers.

The QAnon community has long held that Trump is waging a secret war against a globalist cabal of Satanic pedophiles that would culminate in mass arrests of prominent Democrats and celebrities. Alex Newhouse, a researcher with the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at Middlebury Colleges Institute of International Studies, said the conspiracy is too robust to fade away, but what shape it will take as Trump exits the White House is unclear.

There will be some period of turmoil and soul-searching for some of them, he said. Some fringe adherence might peel off and lose faith, but the core of the movement will still be there.

The conspiracy theory may be bolstered by newly elected congresswomen Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgias 14th District, both of whom have embraced it. Greene and Boebert will get attention if they choose to push the conspiracy from their new posts in Congress, Newhouse said.

Trumps potential to spread the conspiracy is a more serious concern. Newhouse said the president remains the central figure in the widening QAnon universe, and that may outlast his presidency.

In the short term, Newhouse said he is concerned about how QAnon adherents will react to Bidens inauguration.

There are a lot of far-right groups that are really pushing for physical, real-world accelerationist action, he said.

Acclerationists are among the most extreme radicals, encouraging violent action to bring about the downfall of the United States as a way to achieve their political goals. If QAnon goes that way, they become much more dangerous, Newhouse said.

If they take that turn, they instantly become the largest right-wing accelerationist group in the world, he said.

Another trend in 2020 likely to continue in the new year: More guns in the hands of fringe actors.

While far-right groups are more likely to bring weapons to street protests, in the past year more left-wing groups began arming themselves. A militia-led protest in Stone Mountain in August was met with a large number of black-clad counter-protesters armed with assault rifles and sidearms. Groups like the Socialist Rifle Association and the Coalition of Armed Labor advocate carrying weapons to demonstrations for self-defense.

Several experts said the development is concerning.

The first thing we have to do is start the conversation by saying there is no room for political violence in a functioning democracy and it doesnt matter where it comes from along the political spectrum, Ward, with the Western States Center, said.

Statements from federal law enforcement and academic studies show armed violence is vastly more likely to come from far-right groups, while leftist groups are more likely to damage property. Ward said there is no equivalence between harming a building and taking a life, but there should be a consensus that neither is acceptable.

We cannot be so cavalier to believe that property destruction doesnt have an impact, he said.

Pitcavage said he anticipated the resurgence of a more radical far left for years.

What it took was 2020 and the BLM protests, and especially the reaction to the 2020, ... for the left to show up armed, he said.

Loose collections of radicals who identify as antifa have long engaged in brawls with the far-right, but Pitcavage said armed groups are a new feature. But he said it is harder to predict how these groups will develop since they tend to react to unpredictable events like high-profile police shootings.

Stall said armed far-left groups likely will remain reactive to the activities of the far-right, showing up as a counter-protest force. I dont think thats going away, he said. That said, Stall said he does not believe far-left organizing is going to pose the same problems, in part because the politics of the extreme left  communism or anarchism  are even more taboo to American politics than white nationalism.

Ward, who spent decades in various organizations confronting authoritarian and nationalist groups, said history suggests that such groups may find a fertile recruiting environment in the coming years.

If we look at the Reagan presidency and the Clinton presidency and Obamas first term, those were all moments when authoritarian movements were in ascendance, he said.

Reagan, a racial moderate and staunch anti-communist, was seen as a stealing the steam from fringe groups. Clintons presidency and use of executive law enforcement powers angered the burgeoning militia movement. And extremists thrived as Obamas race, false claims about his birth and his positions on immigration angered radicals. In each of those periods, they treated those events as existential crises, Ward said. Based off of those three periods, it is likely we will see a re-energized or desperate white nationalist movement.

Ward said he is worried mainstream Democrats and Republicans are ill-equipped to speak with a unified voice against radical groups.

Were in a moment where we have social movements in our country that are driven by nihilism, that believe that the answer to the worlds and the countrys problems is to burn everything down, he said. Those of us in the middle cannot buy into that narrative. There is no race war or civil war brewing in America. What there is is a small minority that is ... trying to divide our society.

Leaders from both parties need to focus on what is driving Americans toward the fringes  growing income inequalities, racism, and a lack of educational and economic opportunity, he said.

We need to hold the middle, but ... we shouldnt ignore the legitimate grievances that may be driving that narrative, he said.
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A medical worker tests novel coronavirus samples in a lab in HCMC, April 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran.

A Vietnamese woman returning home from Britain has been found to be infected with the new, more contagious coronavirus strain.

She was among a group 305 passengers returning to Vietnam by Vietnam Airlines flight VN50 that landed in Can Tho on December 22.

On arrival, they were sent to quarantine facilities in Can Tho and the nearby provinces of Vinh Long and Tra Vinh and HCMC.

On testing two days later six of them were found to have Covid-19, four in Vinh Long and two in Tra Vinh.

The infected samples were sent to the HCMC Pasteur Institute, Vietnam's leading epidemiology facility, for genetic sequencing, and it confirmed that one of the patients, a 44-year-old woman, was infected with the SARS-CoV-2 VOC 202012/01 (Variant of Concern, year 2020, month 12, variant 01) first found in Britain and said to be 70 percent more transmissible than the old one.

The woman, who has had high blood pressure for 10 years, is now in stable condition.

She is undergoing treatment at the Tra Vinh Tuberculosis and Lung Disease Hospital for a sore throat, slight fever and cough but does not have breathing difficulties.

Her husband in the U.K. has also tested positive for novel coronavirus.

Earlier 33 countries reported finding the variant since Britain first reported it on December 8.

Vietnam has had 1,474 cases of Covid-19 and 35 deaths so far and has gone one month without local transmission.
Anna Doan, the initiator of the project (Photo: Facebook)



Anna Doan, the initiator of the project, said that the idea of the "Choir of Hope" has sprung up during the again outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia when anti-epidemic measures have affected community activities, especially live events gathering large numbers of people.

The project looks to connect the Vietnamese community in Malaysia and convey messages of optimism and hope, Anna said.

It not only honours the values of love, solidarity and optimism of the Vietnamese community in Malaysia, but also encapsulates their greetings, love, and nostalgia toward the home country, she added.

Started in December, the project has been supported by the Vietnamese Embassy in Malaysia and Vietnamese societies in the country, including the Vietnamese Business Association, the Vietnam Women's Union, and Kova Paint International Co., Ltd.

It has attracted the participation of nearly 100 people, from 4-year-old children to women over 60 years old and those who are living and working in many COVID-19 "hotspots" in Malaysia such as Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, and those from two COVID-19 quarantine zones in Vietnam./.
KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's close aide Manik Majumdar, who handled her and Trinamool Congress' operations at her Kalighat office for almost four decades, passed away on Saturday (January 2) morning.

According to reports, Majumdar had tested positive for COVID-19 several weeks ago.

The Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo took to social media and expressed his condolence on his demise.

I am deeply saddened and pained to have lost a dearest colleague of over four decades, Manik (da) Majumdar. His ever-smiling face at my office in Kalighat, where he worked diligently and quietly, will be deeply missed by us all.  Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) January 2, 2021

"I am deeply saddened and pained to have lost a dearest colleague of over four decades, Manik (da) Majumdar. His ever-smiling face at my office in Kalighat, where he worked diligently and quietly, will be deeply missed by us all," she wrote.
State police incident reports

State police at Hazleton issued releases on these incidents:

n Maria Salcedo, 58, of Hazleton, escaped injury when she struck a deer on Interstate 81 south in Dorrance Twp. Sunday at 7:49 p.m. Her vehicle was towed.

n Stanley Gluc, 20, of Wapwallopen, escaped injury when lost control and flipped his vehicle on Blue Ridge Trail near Hollow Road in Dorrance Twp. Monday after 8 p.m. He was cited.

n Amaury Jabalera Reyes, 26, of Freeland, faces driving under the influence charges after traffic stop on Route 940 in Hazle Twp. Nov. 30.

n Abigail Reilley, 18, of Nuangola, suffered a minor injury when her vehicle struck median guardrail while traveling south on Interstate 81 in Butler Twp. Saturday The vehicle was towed and she was cited.

n A Tresckow man reported a package delivered by FedEx was stolen from his porch between 2:43 and 4 p.m. on Monday. The package contained a fishtail diamond wedding band valued at $268. Anyone with information should call state police at 570-459-3890.

FOSTER TWP.

Charges filed after alleged domestic dispute

A White Haven woman faces charges after state police at Hazleton responded to a Dec. 15 domestic dispute in Foster Twp.

Grace A. Hughes, 47, was charged with simple assault and harassment and was released on $5,000 unsecured bail Dec. 16 by Magisterial District Judge Ferris P. Webby Sr., Wright Twp.

Arrest papers state a male inside a home at 660 Pond Creek Road told troopers Hughes, his mother, grabbed his neck with one hand and shoved him in the chest with the other during an argument. He said when she grabbed his neck, she squeezed and impaired his ability to breathe, causing scratches on his neck, troopers wrote.

Man charged after being found near stolen car

An Allentown man was charged after state police at Hazleton say they saw him standing near a disabled and stolen luxury car on Interstate 80.

Perry Owens, 39, faces receiving stolen property, use or possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of a small amount of marijuana by state police at Hazleton. He was released on $5,000 unsecured bail Dec. 9 by Magisterial District Judge Daniel ODonnell, Butler Twp.

Arrest papers state troopers were traveling on I-80 east when they saw a man next to a disabled 2019 Jaguar XE so they turned around but when they got back the man was gone. Troopers learned the vehicle was reported stolen by Lehigh Valley International Airport police. Another trooper canvassing the area found the man, identified as Perry, walking on Oley Valley Road in Foster Twp., which crosses the I-80 overpass bridge, court papers state. He had a small amount of marijuana, drug paraphernalia and the key fob for the Jaguar in his possession, troopers wrote.
The United States reportedly removed its only aircraft carrier from the Middle East region to de-escalate tensions with Iran, as one of the country's top officials said that President Trump and other US leaders were not safe on this Earth.

US intelligence officials have reportedly been alarmed at growing indications that an Iranian forces are on high alert and a possible attack on American forces is imminent in the run-up to Sundays one-year anniversary of the killing of General Qassem Soleimani.

Iran denies plotting an attack, with the country's foreign minister going so far as to accuse arch-enemy Israel of planning to using 'agent-provocateurs' to kill US service members in order to provoke Trump into responding against Tehran.

Acting defense secretary, Christopher C. Miller, ordered the redeployment of USS Nimitz away from the region in a 'de-escalatory' signal to Tehran, US officials told the New York Times.

Officials are keen to avoid sparking a crisis in the region less than three weeks before the end of Trump's presidency.

But the head of Irans judiciary, Ebrahim Raisi, appeared to threaten Trump himself, saying all those who had a role in the killing of Quds Force commander Soleimani last year will not be able to escape law and justice, even if they were an American president.

They will witness severe revenge, Raisi told the gathering at Tehran University, referring to Trump and US military leaders.

President Trump (left) and other senior American officials who had a hand in the January 2020 assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani 'will witness severe revenge,' the head of Iran's judiciary, Ebrahim Raisi (right), warned on Friday

The Pentagon earlier this week decided to return home the USS Nimitz, the Naval aircraft carrier that has been operating just off the coast of Somalia during a 10-month deployment. The Nimitz is seen above in the Strait of Hormuz on September 18, 2020

The move to send the USS Nimitz home was seen as an effort by the Trump administration to 'de-escalate' tensions with Iran as the nation mourns the one-year anniversary of the January 3, 2020 assassination of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani (pictured above in Tehran on September 18, 2016)

What has come so far has only been glimpses.

Do not presume that someone, as the president of America, who appeared as a murderer or ordered a murder, may be immune from justice being carried out. Never, Raisi said.

Those who had a role in this assassination and crime will not be safe on Earth.

The Pentagon on Thursday ordered the USS Nimitz to return to its homeport in Washington State - a move at odds with a recent warning from the president.

The Nimitz was operating just off the coast of Somalia and was in the midst of a 10-month deployment when the Defense Department announced that it would be returning to homeport.

The move comes just two days after the US flew strategic bombers over Iran as a show of force and a week after Trump warned its government that it would be held responsible for attacks targeting Americans in Iraq.

The top US military commander in the Middle East, General Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr. (left), wanted to keep the USS Nimitz deployed in the region to deter Iran, but was reportedly overruled by Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller (right)

'Our embassy in Baghdad got hit Sunday by several rockets. Three rockets failed to launch' Trump tweeted from aboard Air Force One on December 23.

'Guess where they were from: IRAN. Now we hear chatter of additional attacks against Americans in Iraq... Some friendly health advice to Iran: If one American is killed, I will hold Iran responsible. Think it over,' he wrote.

The decision to send the Nimitz home, announced Thursday by acting secretary of defense Miller, came one day after Air Force B-52 bombers flew nonstop from the United States to the Persian Gulf in a show of force that military officials said was intended to caution Iran against carrying out attacks against US forces or interests.

Sending the Nimitz, home to the US West Coast would seem at odds with the idea that a show of force is needed to deter Iran.

This might reflect a split within the defense establishment on whether Iran poses a heightened threat to strike in the waning days of the Trump administration.

In announcing the decision to send the Nimitz home, Miller made no mention of Iran.

Miller, who was installed as acting Pentagon chief after Trump fired Mark Esper just days after the November 3 election, reportedly overruled his top military commander in the Middle East, General Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr.

The general wanted to extend the deployment of the Nimitz and keep it in the region as a deterrent, according to The New York Times.

But Miller and his top aides, including Ezra Cohen-Watnick, who was recently given a senior intelligence policy position within the Pentagon after Trumps post-election purge of the agency, believed that the deterrence value of keeping the Nimitz deployed in the region was limited.

American military analysts in recent days are said to have noticed that Iranian air defenses, maritime forces, and other security units were on higher alert, though it is uncertain if they were readying to strike US troops or were preparing against a possible pre-emptive American attack against them.

The decision to send the Nimitz home was made just days after the American military flew B-52 nuclear-capable bombers over the Persian Gulf region in a show of force. The image above shows a US Air Force B-52H 'Stratofortress' from Minot Air Force Base, ND, being refueled by a KC-135 'Stratotanker' on Wednesday near the Persian Gulf. The show of force was meant to deter Iran from attacking American or allied targets in the Middle East

US Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon escort is aerial refueled during Wednesday's mission. The United States flew strategic bombers over the Persian Gulf for the second time this month

An Iranian woman holds a picture depicting General Qassem Soleimani during a ceremony marking the first anniversary of his assassination by the United States last year in Iraq. US military planners are on alert for possible Iranian retaliation as the anniversary approaches

The Pentagon is reportedly divided as to whether there are credible reports that Iran or pro-Iranian militias in Iraq are intending to launch an attack on American interests in the region this weekend.

One defense official told CNN that the current threat level from Iran is the most concerning they have seen since Soleimanis death.

The official cited intelligence that Iran and its allied militias in Iraq could be plotting attacks against US forces in the Middle East.

Iran is said to be moving short range ballistic missiles into Iraq, according to CNN.

But others in the Pentagon disagree, saying that the threat is being exaggerated and that there is not a single piece of corroborating intel that would suggest an attack is imminent.

When asked about the view that the threats are being exaggerated, a senior military official is quoted by CNN as saying: The intelligence isn't perfect as you know, it never is, but we do see several planning efforts underway and if even some of them are true and they execute they could kill several Americans.

While American defense officials remained divided, there was more saber-rattling coming out of Tehran on Friday.

General Hossein Salami, the top commander of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, said on Friday that his country was fully prepared to respond to any US military pressure.

The move to bring home the USS Nimitz comes just two days after the US flew strategic bombers over Iran as a show of force and a week after President Trump warned its government that it would be held responsible for attacks targeting Americans in Iraq

Some friendly health advice to Iran: If one American is killed, I will hold Iran responsible. Think it over,' he wrote

Salami spoke at a ceremony at Tehran University commemorating the upcoming one-year anniversary of Soleimanis assassination.

At the time, Iran retaliated by launching a ballistic missile strike on a military base in Iraq that caused brain concussion injuries to about 100 U.S. troops. Washington and Tehran came dangerously close to war as the crisis escalated.

Today, we have no problem, concern or apprehension toward encountering any powers. We will give our final words to our enemies on the battlefield, Salami said, without mentioning the U.S. directly. Several top Iranian officials, along with Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanese allies and members of Soleimanis family, were in attendance.

Soleimanis replacement, Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani, said at the ceremony that Iran was not afraid of confronting powers, again without naming the US.

He also warned that freedom seekers within the US could retaliate for the attack that killed Soleimani, telling America that inside your own home, there might be those who want to respond to the crime that you committed.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Saturday accused Israel of trying to provoke a war by planning attacks on US forces in Iraq.

'New intelligence from Iraq indicate that Israeli agent-provocateurs are plotting attacks against Americans - putting an outgoing (President Donald) Trump in a bind with a fake casus belli (act justifying war),' Zarif said in a tweet.

'Be careful of a trap, @realDonaldTrump. Any fireworks will backfire badly,' Zarif wrote.

In a sign of just how tense the situation in the Gulf is, Iraqi explosives experts were working to defuse a large mine discovered on an oil tanker in the Persian Gulf and evacuate its crew, authorities said Friday.

The statement came a day after two private security firms said sailors feared they had found a limpet mine on the MT Pola, a Liberian-flagged tanker in the waters off the Iraqi port of Basra.

A limpet mine is a type of naval mine that attaches to the side of a ship, usually by a diver-member of special forces. It later explodes, and can significantly damage a vessel.

Iran has denied that it intends to attack American troops. On Saturday, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif accused arch-enemy Israel of planning to using 'agent-provacateurs' to kill US service members in order to provoke Trump into responding against Tehran

'New intelligence from Iraq indicate that Israeli agent-provocateurs are plotting attacks against Americans - putting an outgoing (President Donald) Trump in a bind with a fake casus belli (act justifying war),' Zarif said in a tweet. 'Be careful of a trap, @realDonaldTrump. Any fireworks will backfire badly,' Zarif wrote

The Iraqi statement said the mine had been attached to a tanker rented from Iraqs Oil Marketing Company SOMO that was refueling another vessel.

Iraq's naval forces were making 'a great effort to accomplish the mission' safely, said Iraq's Security Media Cell, which is affiliated with the countrys security forces.

It was the first official Iraqi confirmation that a mine was discovered on an Iraqi tanker transferring fuel in the Persian Gulf to another vessel.

It did not identify either vessels or provide more details.

Meanwhile, Iran has told the United Nations nuclear watchdog it plans to enrich uranium to up to 20 per cent purity, a level it achieved before its 2015 accord, at its Fordow site buried inside a mountain, the agency said on Friday.

The move is the latest of several recent announcements by Iran to the International Atomic Energy Agency that it plans to further breach the deal, which it started violating in 2019 in retaliation for Washington's withdrawal from the agreement and the reimposition of U.S. sanctions against Tehran.

This step was one of many mentioned in a law passed by Iran's parliament last month in response to the killing of the country's top nuclear scientist, which Tehran has blamed on Israel.

Such moves by Iran could complicate efforts by President-elect Joe Biden to rejoin the deal.

General Esmail Ghaani, Soleimani's successor as the new head of Quds Force, speaks during a ceremony on the occasion of first anniversary of death of the force's previous head General Qassem Soleimani in Tehran on Friday

'Iran has informed the Agency that in order to comply with a legal act recently passed by the country's parliament, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran intends to produce low-enriched uranium (LEU) up to 20 percent at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant,' the IAEA said in a statement.

An IAEA report to member states earlier on Friday obtained by Reuters used similar wording in describing a letter by Iran to the IAEA dated December 31.

'Iran's letter to the Agency ... did not say when this enrichment activity would take place,' the IAEA statement said.

Fordow was built inside a mountain, apparently to protect it from aerial bombardment, and the 2015 deal does not allow enrichment there.

Iran is already enriching at Fordow with first-generation IR-1 centrifuges.

Iran has breached the deal's 3.67 per cent limit on the purity to which it can enrich uranium, but it has only gone up to 4.5 per cent so far, well short of the 20 per cent it achieved before the deal and the 90 per cent that is weapons-grade.

The deal's main aim was to extend the time Iran would need to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, if it chose to, to at least a year from roughly two to three months.

It also lifted international sanctions against Tehran.

US intelligence agencies and the IAEA believe Iran had a secret, coordinated nuclear weapons program that it halted in 2003.

Iran denies ever having had one.
West Bengal polls 2021: After TMC and BJP, CPM launches its election campaign

India

oi-Briti Roy Barman

Kolkata, Jan 02: Trinamool Congress has on Friday launched a door-to-door government campaign ahead of the upcoming West Bengal assembly elections. The 'neighborhood solution campaign' of the ruling party has begun on Saturday.

In retaliation, the BJP has already launched its own program 'ar noi annay' (enough of all injustice). However, CPM, which has ruled the state for 34 consecutive years, is not willing to lag behind. Under the banner of the workers' organization, they are going to start a door-to-door, public relations campaign.

CPM

On January 3, in Kolkata Municipality, from door to door from wards 65 and 6, the program to increase public relations is about to start. According to CPM sources, the program will continue till January 31. CPM workers will go door to door to highlight the situation in the country and the state.

They will highlight the increase in commodity prices in the country. The deprivation of the center will be highlighted for the common man. Besides, the failure of the Trinamool government in running the state will also be highlighted. The young generation will be promoted. Ordinary people will be heard, the CPM workers' union said.

The CPM's workers' organization will hold a statewide jail-breaking and law-breaking program on January 18. Left activists and supporters will take part in the statewide program.

TMC

From Bankura in November, the Chief Minister announced about starting the door-to-door government program. Since then, many people have taken part in this program in blocks throughout the month of December. Among the government projects, there is more interest among the common people for health care.

BJP

After the state government took up the door-to-door government program, the BJP intensified its campaign 'enough unjustice', which will highlight the alleged injustice citizens have to face because of the TMC govt. Going from house to house, incidents like corruption against the Trinamool government, relief and looting of money from reserved for Amfan, non-participation of the state in projects like Ayushman Bharat, PM Kisan project will be highlighted.

Vaccines to be provided for free across India, says health min | Oneindia News

Besides, BJP is going to start Sonar Bangla program from Saturday to build closer relationship with the people of the state. It has been decided to form a team of 50 people to campaign on 10 issues across the state. These ten topics include economy, good governance, infrastructure, development of farmers, employment of youth, development of all, women's security, poverty, cultural transition and new direction of education.

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Story first published: Saturday, January 2, 2021, 11:46 [IST]
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Despite an uptick in coronavirus cases, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he sees brighter days ahead since vaccines have been rolled out amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Saturday, as the states positivity rate for COVID-19 was 7.45% and there were 128 people who died of the virus across the state on Friday, Cuomo insisted there are better days ahead.

With 2020 now behind us, we can see brighter days ahead, but to get there quickly, its going to take all New Yorkers staying smart and staying united, Cuomo said.

We have the vaccine, and that is good news, but it will be months before weve reached critical mass, making it as important as ever that we do not let COVID fatigue get the best of us. The state is working around the clock with the medical community to not only ensure vaccines are distributed as quickly and efficiently as possible, but to also continue growing bed capacity so hospitals do not become overwhelmed. As daunting as it may seem after all this time, its critical that the rest of us remain tough and keep up our efforts to slow the spread. Weve already come so far and we will finally reach that light at the end of the tunnel if we all just do our part.

However, many critics have complained that the rollout of the vaccine in New York has been sluggish.

Dr. Ronald Scott Braithwaite, a professor at N.Y.U. Grossman School of Medicine told the New York Times that his analysis suggests that 10 to 20% of the city needs to be vaccinated before the number of new cases decreases.

The N.Y. Post reported that by Dec. 31 New York had administered less than a third of the coronavirus vaccines that is has despite Mayor Bill de Blasio announcing on Thursday that 1 million city residents would be vaccinated within the month.

According to the N.Y. Post report, 630,000 vaccine doses have been sent to New York state, but just 203,000 people have been vaccinated as of Thursday.

UPTICK IN CASES ON STATEN ISLAND

The coronavirus (COVID-19) has claimed the lives of 18 more Staten Islanders since Wednesday, while an average of 467 residents have tested positive each of the past three days, according to data collected by the New York City Department of Health.

Those numbers reflect a notable uptick, compared to the week of Christmas. Health experts across the U.S. had predicted a surge in cases due to holiday gatherings.

City health officials on Wednesday reported a daily total of 10 coronavirus deaths  after a total of 23 deaths were reported over the course of six days prior to that.

In total, 1,289 borough residents have reportedly died of the virus.

*** CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE COVERAGE OF CORONAVIRUS IN NEW YORK ***

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Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 15:54:24|Editor: huaxia

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SANAA, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Three people were killed when artillery shelling hit a wedding in Yemen's Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, Houthi rebel-run al-Masirah TV reported on Saturday.

The shelling, which was launched on Friday evening, also wounded seven other people in the marriage ceremony in Al-Hawak district, south of the port city, the television cited a statement by the Houthi-controlled health ministry as saying.

Yemen has been mired in civil war since late 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthis seized control of much of the country's north and forced the internationally-recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi out of the capital Sanaa. Enditem
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The Auxiliary Bishop of Owerri Catholic Archdiocese, Moses Chikwe, who was kidnapped on Sunday, has been freed.

Mr Chikwe and his driver, Ndubuisi Robert, who was kidnapped with him, were freed on New Year day at about 10 p.m.

The Archbishop of the diocese, Anthony Obinna, confirmed their release in a statement on Friday night.

According to him, the bishop is still shaken from his traumatic experience while his driver is in the hospital for treatment for a deep cut inflicted on him by the kidnappers.

With gratitude to God, I hereby inform all Gods faithful and people of goodwill everywhere that about 10 p.m. on the first day of January 2021, his Lordship, Most Rev Moses Chikwe and Mr Ndubuisi Robert, his driver, who were abducted in the evening of Sunday 27th December 2020 were finally released.

I personally visited and saw Bishop Chikwe in his residence at about 10:43 p.m. looking and feeling very weak from the traumatic experience. Nevertheless, we continue to thank God for his goodness to us.

At the time of my visit, Mr Ndubuisi Robert was unavailable because he had been speedily taken to hospital for the treatment of a deep cut he received on his hand from the kidnappers.

The bishop expressed gratitude to the governments of Imo and Anambra states and security agencies in both states for working together to secure the release of the Bishop and his driver.

He, however, did not say if a ransom was paid for the release with kidnapping for ransom now rampant across Nigeria.

He thanked Pope Francis for mentioning the kidnap of the bishop and his driver and praying for their release at his Angelus message at the Vatican hours before they regained their freedom.

Mr Obinna concluded by thanking the bishops, priests, clergy and laity of the church as well as other Christians and people for their prayers and solidarity throughout the ordeal.
Tanya Roberts was one of the main characters on the FOX comedy series That 70s Show. It came as a shock to many fans when Roberts didnt return after season 3. Find out what happened to Roberts and why she stopped playing the role of Donnas (Laura Prepon) mom on That 70s Show in season 4.

Tanya Roberts | Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images

Tanya Roberts is a 70s and 80s icon

Victoria Leigh Blum is best known by her stage name, Tanya Roberts. In the early days of her career, Roberts was a model for brands like Excedrin and Clairol beauty products. She also acted in off-Broadway productions like Picnic and Antigone.

In 1978, Roberts had a role in the drama Fingers. The following year, she starred in the cult-movie Tourist Trap. Movies like Racket and California Dreaming followed.

Roberts is best known for replacing Shelley Hack during season 5 of the Charlies Angels television series. Later, Roberts would star in movies like The Beastmaster and Murder Me, Murder You. In 1985, Roberts became Bond girl Stacey Sutton in A View to a Kill. Eventually, a new generation of fans came to know Roberts for her role as Donnas mom on That 70s Show.

Tanya Roberts played Midge Pinciotti on That 70s Show

Roberts was the perfect choice for Mrs. Pinciotti. Midges easily-persuaded personality made her lovable, but her dim-wit often embarrassed her daughter, Donna. Throughout the series, Midge was often the center of Eric (Topher Grace) and his friends fantasies. Most of the time, she and Bob (Don Stark) were in the company of their neighbors, Red (Kurtwood Smith) and Kitty Forman (Debra Jo Rupp).

RELATED: That 70s Show Scrapped an LGBTQ Story Arc Featuring Joseph Gordon Levitt

Eventually, Midges storyline left her as a dissatisfied housewife. In 2001, That 70s Show wrote Roberts out of the series, which led to Bob and Midges on-screen divorce. While Roberts returned as a guest on That 70s Show in seasons 6 and 7, her time playing a permanent character on the show was over.

That 70s Show may have had a creative way to write Midge Pinciotti out of the series, but Roberts reason for leaving was more heartbreaking than being a bored housewife.

Tanya Roberts left That 70s Show to care for her terminally ill husband

Roberts was married to Barry Roberts, an actor and writer best known for movies like Legal Tender and the talk show Hour Magazine. According to Us Weekly, Barrys illness was the driving force behind Tanyas exit from the series.

She bowed down from her role as Midge Pinciotti to care for her dying husband. They were married in 1974 and together until Barry died in 2006.

Will Tanya Roberts be in the That 70s Show reboot?

Many fans and most of the That 70s Show cast have been talking about a reboot for years. The series may have ended in 2006, but fans are ready for more from the Kenosha, Wisconsin gang. Ideas for a rebooted series or even a movie have been tossed around, but nothing has been confirmed yet.

Some fans are curious about who from the original cast will return for the That 70s Show reboot should it become a reality. That includes Roberts. Since leaving the show to care for her husband, Roberts hasnt done much in the way of acting or guest appearances. As such, its unlikely she would return for the That 70s Show movie or reboot. But at this point, anything is possible!
A resident of Bhutta village ended his life by jumping into the canal near Kaind Canal Bridge on Friday. The police have handed over the body to the family after conducting a postmortem. However, the reason behind why he took the extreme step has not been ascertained yet.

Sub-inspector Sukhdev Singh, station house officer at Dehlon police station, said that the deceased had come to city to see his maternal uncle, who is admitted to Dayanand Medical College and Hospital. While returning, he parked his car on the banks of the canal, and jumped in.

Onlookers raised the alarm and informed the police. A rescue operation was initiated and the body was fished out in some time.

The SHO added that police are investigating to find out the reason behind the suicide. Inquest proceedings have been initiated under section 174 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) following the statement of the deceaseds family members.
Lucknow:

The Allahabad High Court on Friday cancelled the bail granted to former UP minister Gayatri Prajapati and two others in a case of alleged rape of a woman and molestation of a minor, saying the lower court had acted in haste.

The HC had earlier stayed the April 25 order of the Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) granting bail to Samajwadi Party leader Prajapati and his associates Vikas Verma and Amrendra Singh alias Pintu.

Allowing the petition of the state government seeking cancellation of their bail, Justice AP Sahi on Friday questioned the manner in which the ASJ handled the matter saying "the entire process was concluded as if the grant of bail had been preordained".

In the circumstances, there cannot be a presumption of the impugned order having been passed in good faith, the judge said.

"Rather, the entire episode indicates that the manner in which the bail was granted almost on the eve of the retirement of the officer concerned, that too even without any opportunity being afforded to the prosecution in the real sense, the grant of bail was clearly vitiated," Justice Sahi said.

The ASJ did not discuss the ingredients of the provisions of the POCSO Act and its implications, said the HC, adding a court while dealing with such serious matters having the potential of wide ramifications has to act with gravity and patience.

ALSO READ: Yogi Adityanath refuses to meet rape accused SP leader Gayatri Prajapati's family



It, however, said that the accused could move fresh pleas for bail to be decided on merit after affording adequate opportunity to the prosecution to present its case.

A woman had lodged an FIR with Gautam Palli police station here that Prajapati and his accomplice had raped her for years after promising her a mining license and they were trying to target her daughter.

The FIR was registered after the Supreme Court had pulled up the state government. The three accused were later granted bail.

HC Chief Justice Dilip B Bhosle had on the petition of the state government stayed the bail order. Prajapati was not released from jail while the two other accused had surrendered after the HC direction.

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The new bloc extends from Tangier to Cape Town

African countries began officially trading under a new continent-wide free trade area yesterday, after months of delays caused by the global coronavirus pandemic.

But experts view the New Year's Day launch as largely symbolic with full implementation of the deal expected to take years.

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) aims to bring together 1.3 billion people in a $3.4trn (2.8trn) economic bloc that will be the largest free trade area since the establishment of the World Trade Organization.

Backers say it will boost trade among African neighbours while allowing the continent to develop its own value chains. The World Bank estimates it could lift tens of millions out of poverty by 2035.

But obstacles  ranging from ubiquitous red tape and poor infrastructure to the entrenched protectionism of some of its members - must be overcome if the bloc is to reach its full potential.

Read More

Trade under the AfCFTA was meant to be launched on July 1 but was pushed back after Covid-19 made in-person negotiations impossible.

However, the pandemic also gave the process added impetus, said Silver Ojakol, chief of staff at the AfCFTA's secretariat.

"We saw the impact on our economies of the disruption of imports due to the pandemic," he said.

"So there's actually been an increase in political will to boost intra-African integration."

Every African country except Eritrea has signed on to the AfCFTA framework agreement, and 34 have ratified it. But observers such as W. Gyude Moore  a former Liberian minister who is now a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development  say the real work begins now.

"I would be surprised if they can have everything set up within 24 months," he told Reuters. "For long-term success, I think we'll need to look at how long it took Europe. This is a multi-decade process."

Historic challenges including Africa's poor road and rail links, political unrest, excessive border bureaucracy and petty corruption will not disappear overnight.

Meanwhile, 41 of the zone's 54 member states have submitted tariff reduction schedules.

Members must phase out 90pc of tariff lines  over five years for more advanced economies or 10 years for less developed nations.

Read More

Reuters
The team at Gorey Youth Needs were busy in the run up to Christmas making some last minute drop-offs to families in the district.

At the start of the Christmas effort, the team made an initial list of families in need, but Mandi Tighe of Gorey Youth Needs said that all the team were brought to the point of tears when they realised the level of demand out there in the community.

'When we started our list, we had about 35 families. The social workers we work with can advise us and we don't need to know who they are, we just arrange the drop offs discretely.

'This year it wasn't just targeted at children or teenagers, we had donations for families, individuals, elderly people and a broad range of locals. We got to hearing the really side of peoples' stories and it made use realise that people really did suffer this year whether it be family loss or job loss. We were delighted we were able to help people out, it has been amazing'.

Staff at Gorey Youth Needs decided to scrap their annual KrissKindle and instead put the money towards donations and also did a trolley collection at Tesco.

'People have been so generous and we have been overwhelmed with donations of food, vouchers, toys and selection boxes. With about 600 raised, we have distributed to about 20 children living in direct provision, emergency accommodations, the Women's Refuge and Focus Ireland.

'It comes down to the fact that people just wanted to give this year, people realised that there's not a lot you really need and we made sure that every child got a new outfit to wear on Christmas.

'Sometimes those who need the help the most don't reach out so some of our kids directed us to older people who might live alone near them, so we were able to arrange a drop off. It was such a success, we want to make it an annual event'.

Bringing the spirit of Christmas to Gorey, Mandi thanked all those who made donations as well as locals Kelly Hennessy and Mary Shelton of the Adopt a Grandparent group.

She also thanked Don McGuiness for the role he played and organisations TUSLA, Wexford Local Development and FDYS.

Gorey Guardian
Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri clarified that flights from India to the UK would resume on January 6. A day before the minister had stated that flights between India and the UK would resume on January 8. He offered more clarification on Saturday and said that flights from India to the UK would start two days prior, on January 6, while flights from the UK to India would start on January 8.

The minister said that till January 23, only 30 flights would operate between the two countries every week -- 15 by Indian carriers and 15 by the UK carriers.

"Resumption of flights between India & UK: India to UK from 6 Jan 2021. UK to India from 8 Jan 2021. 30 flights will operate every week. 15 each by Indian & UK carriers. This schedule is valid till 23 Jan 2021. Further frequency will be determined after review," he said.

Resumption of flights between India & UK:



India to UK from 6 Jan 2021.

UK to India from 8 Jan 2021.

30 flights will operate every week. 15 each by Indian & UK carriers.



This schedule is valid till 23 Jan 2021. Further frequency will be determined after review. a Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) January 2, 2021

He had also said earlier that the flights to the UK would only operate from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

Due to the spread of the mutant coronavirus strain in the UK, the Indian government suspended all flights to the country till December 31. It was then extended till January 7.

Meanwhile, all passengers coming from the UK between January 8 and 30 would be subjected to self-paid COVID-19 tests on arrival. Moreover, each passenger arriving from the UK would have to bring his or her COVID-19 negative report from a test done 72 hours prior to the journey, the SOP stated. It said adequate arrangements should be made for the passengers who will be waiting for their RT-PCR test or its results at the airport. "Passengers testing positive shall be isolated in an institutional isolation facility in a separate (isolation) unit coordinated by the respective state health authorities," the SOP said.

The presence of the new UK variant of the virus has already been reported by Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore.

Also read: Flights to UK resume from Jan 8, only 15 flights per week till Jan 23

Also read: India extends suspension of UK flights till Jan 7
Patna, Jan 2 : The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Janata Dal (United) are angry after the statement made by former Bihar Chief Minister and opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Rabri Devi, saying that her party leaders would think about Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar rejoining the Opposition Grand Alliance in the state.

Senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sushil Kumar Modi has retorted that RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's party could not stop a dozen MLAs and Legislative Councillors from joining the JD(U) before the recent Bihar Assembly elections. The RJD's impractical promise of providing government jobs to 10 lakh people was rejected by the people of Bihar.

Sushil Modi said the downtrodden, labourers, youth and women gave the mandate to the inexperienced dynastic leadership of the RJD to sit in the opposition, but they are proving their 'loyalty' by making fresh claims of dissidence among the National Democratic Allliance (NDA) MLAs. There is no political truth in such claims.

Commenting on Rabri Devi's statement, JDU Spokesperson Sanjay Singh said the RJD is desperate to come to power in the state. The people have given a mandate to the RJD to sit in the opposition so the party should behave like the opposition, he added. He clearly said the ruling NDA government would not break apart even with the RJD's repeated attempts.

JDU state President Bashistha Narain Singh also termed Rabri Devi's statement as laughable and meaningless.

Former Chief Minister Rabri Devi on Friday referred to the recent incident in Arunachal Pradesh where six JD(U) MLAs had joined the BJP. She said the JD(U) may break in Bihar as well.

She in her own inimitable style said, "The BJP does its work secretly. When they accomplish a task, everybody gets to know about it then." Asked about Nitish Kumar returning to the Opposition Grand Alliance fold, Rabri Devi said her party leaders and MLAs would sit together and think over it.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Mahara prison riots: Final report recommends criminal charges against prison officers and inmates over possible involvement By Ranjith Padmasiri and Kasun Warakapitiya View(s): View(s):

Prison officials responsible for shooting to death inmates of Mahara prison may face charges, if they had used excessive force, the Sunday Times learns.

This follows a final report of the Committee of Inquiry that probed the Mahara prisons catastrophe on November 29.

The Committee was headed by retired High Court Judge Kusala Sarojini Weerawardena. Its other members were Justice Ministry Advisor U.R. De Silva, PC, Justice Ministry Additional Secretary Rohana Hapugaswatta, retired Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) D.R.L. Ranaweera and retired Commissioner General of Prisons Gamini Jayasinghe.

The five member committee has also recommended that charges be brought against any prisoners found to have been involved in the destruction of prison property, arson and causing injuries to others. The committee has further recommended that the Attorney General be tasked with initiating legal action once the Criminal Investigation Departments (CID) probe into the incident is concluded.

It has pointed out that a police investigation is necessary to determine if prison officers performed their duties properly during the incident or if they had used excessive force.

The unrest left 11 inmates dead and 120 inmates and two prison officers injured.

The Committees final report, which runs into 61 pages, has submitted its recommendations under three sections. The report contains eight recommendations aimed at reducing overcrowding among remand prisoners, seven recommendations on improving the welfare and facilities given to prisoners and 14 recommendations on how to manage prison administration more efficiently.

The final report includes 31 documents and evidence given by 40 witnesses. The Committee had invited witnesses to voluntarily testify before it and accordingly, suspects in remand custody, inmates serving sentences and prison officers have all given evidence before it.

It has been found that frustration over lack of basic facilities for prisoners, coupled with the rapid spread of COVID-19 among the prison population, had led to the unrest. Some prison inmates however, had also acted with deliberate intent to escalate the incident into violence, the Committee has also found.

The number of inmates at the Mahara prison at the time of the incident stood at 2793  three times its capacity. A total of 2152 of these were suspects who were in remand custody for narcotics related offences. Even at full capacity, 502 prison officers should be on duty to manage the prison population. At the time of the incident however, when the prison was bursting with more than triple its capacity, just 278 officers were assigned to Mahara prison, owing to long-standing staff shortages. Even this was not a true reflection of the officer strength at the prison since some officers themselves were in hospital after contracting COVID-19.

The report has noted that the prison administration had failed to fill existing vacancies among officers in a way that enabled functions at the prison to be conducted satisfactorily.

The quality of food served to inmates had also deteriorated and there were food shortages among the prisoners given that not enough officers were present to oversee the cooking and distribution of food. Given this situation, the stronger prisoners had taken much of the food and left weaker prisoners with very little, sometimes with just the left-over gravy from curries. Some prisoners, who had formed themselves into gangs, had also taken over certain parts of the prison prior to the incident on November 29, with outnumbered prison officers forced to leave those sections in the hands of inmates, the Committee has also found.

Moreover, prisoners were frustrated over issues related to the pandemic. They had repeatedly requested PCR tests but the testing process had been slow. Meanwhile, restrictions placed on bringing food from outside and the halting of all visits for prisoners caused severe psychological stress among them.

Another factor that contributed to the unrest was that prison authorities had kept suspects who had been granted bail by courts for a further two weeks in prison as a form of quarantine, citing advice from health authorities that prisoners should not be released immediately for fear they may have contracted COVID-19. The Committee has noted that this action of forcibly keeping suspects in prison even after they had been released by courts amounts to a violation of their human rights.

In addition to recommending criminal charges against prison officers and inmates over their possible involvement in the incident, the Committee has also recommended that the Government provide compensation for the 11 inmates who were killed.

Meanwhile, Justice Minister Ali Sabry told the Sunday Times that he will submit the final report of the Committee appointed to probe the Mahara prison incident to Cabinet on Monday (4).

He added that the President and the Cabinet would take necessary steps and decisions based on the recommendations made by the Committee.

Already, Wattala Magistrate Buddhika Sri Ragala has ruled that eight of the inmates who were killed had died as a result of shooting.

PCR tests conducted on the deceased had revealed that eight of the 11 inmates who died had contracted COVID-19. The bodies of four inmates were cremated earlier while the court also ordered the cremation of the other four bodies this week after the Attorney General and the Government Analyst told the court that all the bullets had been collected from the bodies.

When the case was taken up at the Wattala Magistrates Court on December 30, Attorney-at-Law Senaka Perera, who appeared for the aggrieved party, told court that many parties had claimed that the incident at Mahara prison was a conspiracy. He mentioned the names of Government Ministers Wimal Weerawansa and Jayantha Samaraweera who had made such allegations and requested the magistrate to order that their statements be recorded. The magistrate ordered police to investigate this as well.

The case of the three other inmates who were killed is to be heard on January 8
Five states in India have contributed nearly 62% of the countrys active cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), which stands at 254,254, the Union ministry of health and family welfare said on Saturday. Kerala, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh, the health ministry said, together contributed 157,106 to the countrys current tally of active cases.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

Kerala with 65,381 cases, Maharashtra with 54,045, Uttar Pradesh with 14,260, West Bengal with 11,985 and Chhattisgarh with 11,435 infections had added most to the countrys caseload, the health ministry said. Among all the states and Union territories (UT), only six have active cases in excess of 10,000 of which only two - Kerala and Maharashtra - have over 50,000 such cases, the health ministrys data shows. The tally in the other four states (Karnataka being the other), meanwhile, is below 15,000.

Heres a look at these states which have the highest number of active Covid-19 cases in India:

1. Kerala: The southern state is the only one with more than 60,000 active Covid-19 cases in the country. It has reported 760,933 cases thus far. This means that active cases contribute 8.60% of Keralas total confirmed cases. Also, more than 3,000 people have succumbed to the disease in Kerala, the countrys fifth worst-hit state.

2. Maharashtra: With nearly 2 million Covid-19 cases, Maharashtras tally is nearly twice of the second worst-affected state, Karnataka. Active cases at 54,045 contribute 2.80% of the western states overall caseload.

3. Uttar Pradesh: The countrys most populous state, with a population of over 200 million, has reported nearly 600,000 Covid-19 cases till now. A total of 14,260 active cases means there are 2.43% active cases in the state currently.

4. West Bengal: The eastern state, whose handling of the Covid-19 pandemic has been a friction point between the Centre and the state government, has logged more than 550,000 cases thus far. A total of 11,985 active cases contribute 2.17% of the states total Covid-19 cases.

5. Chhattisgarh: The central state has nearly 280,000 cases of Covid-19 of which 11,435 are active. This gives Chhattisgarh 4.09% active cases of its total tally.
Palmdale, CA (93550)

Today

Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 59F. Winds SW at 15 to 25 mph. Higher wind gusts possible..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 59F. Winds SW at 15 to 25 mph. Higher wind gusts possible.
Tamil Nadu has taken steps to administer COVID-19 vaccine to 1.60 crore people across the state in the first phase, Health Minister Dr Vijayabhaskar said on Saturday. Talking to reporters at the ESI Hospital here during a special camp as part of the dry run, he said it is being carried out to identify the problems and challenges of administering the vaccine.

A total of 47,200 vaccine centres have been established and 21,200 health workers trained for the purpose, he said. At least 17 places in five districts have been identified for the trial run for which 425 workers have been trained, he said.

The vaccinated person has been asked to wait for 30 minutes for observation, he pointed out. Six lakh health workers like doctors, nurses in 2,881 government hospitals and 35,403 private hospitals would be administered the vaccine in the first phase, he said.

Only one person in the state was found affected by the new strain of the virus reported in the UK, he said. Local Administration Minister S P Velumani lauded the efforts of the medical teams and frontline workers for making the city safe, and thanked Palaniswami for sanctioning adequate funds to fight the virus and opening Amma clinics in the district.

A function featuring a flower shower from a helicopter as part of 13th edition of Kovai Vizha by CII and Young Indians was organised at the hospital to honour the frontline workers who had served and sacrificed their lives during the pandemic.
In the UK, some 530,000 Oxford doses will likely be given to patients next week

India's manufacturing capacity means it has produced far more of the vaccine

Delhi has completed a full dry run as India prepares to deliver 50million doses of the Oxford vaccine that it has manufactured and stockpiled.

Experts at the country's drugs regulator have recommended for emergency use two coronavirus vaccines, one developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University and the other backed by a state-run institute, the government said today.

SII, the world's biggest producer of vaccines, has already stockpiled about 50million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford shot, which will be sold to the government at about 250 rupees (2.50) per dose and 1,000 rupees on the private market.

India's government plans to inoculate 300million people in total in the first phase of the vaccination programme, which will include healthcare and front-line workers, police and military troops and over-50s with underlying medical conditions.

The country's superior manufacturing capacity means it has been able to produce far more of the Oxford/Astrazeneca vaccine in advance.

Meanwhile in the UK, at least one million Pfizer doses and some 530,000 Oxford doses will likely be given to patients across the country next week, The Daily Telegraph reported.

India's massive exercise on Saturday included data entry into an online platform for monitoring vaccine delivery, along with testing of cold storage and transportation arrangements for the vaccine.

It came a day after a government-appointed panel of experts held a meeting to review the applications of potential vaccine candidates, including front-runner Covishield, developed by Oxford University and UK-based drugmaker AstraZeneca.

India has confirmed more than 10.3million coronavirus cases, second in the world to the United States. More than 149,000 people have died in India, third behind the US (347,000) and Brazil (195,000).

Health officials and a volunteer take part in a dry run, also known as a mock drill, for the Covid-19 vaccine delivery at a health centre in New Delhi, India, on January 2

Indian Health Minister Harsh Vardhan (pictured centre) visits a Covid-19 vaccination centre during a vaccine delivery system trial in New Delhi, India

Health officials take part in a dry run for Covid-19 vaccine delivery with volunteers seen in a waiting room at a primary health centre in Chennai on January 2

A minister said earlier the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine had been given the green light on Friday, paving the way for a huge immunisation campaign in the world's second most populous country.

The final decision on the two vaccines will be made by the Central Drugs Standards Control Organisation's (CDSCO) chief, who has called a news conference tomorrow.

The process for the final approval is expected to be a formality given the urgency for a vaccine in the country.

The other vaccine, known as COVAXIN, has been developed locally by Bharat Biotech and the government-run Indian Council of Medical Research.

The shot could be approved, though little is known about the results of its clinical trials, according to sources.

The government cited the experts' recommendation for COVAXIN, referring to the new strain of the virus first detected in Britain, stating: 'Grant of permission for restricted use in emergency situation in public interest as an abundant precaution, in clinical trial mode, specially in the context of infection by mutant strains.'

An Indian health worker along with a candidate mocks the vaccination process during a dry run of the Covid-19 vaccination at a model centre in New Delhi

Health workers from Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) take part in a dry run, with staff conducting the vaccination programme at a health centre in Bangalore

A health official prepares to administer a vaccine during a mock drill for the Covid-19 vaccine delivery at a primary health centre in Kolkata on January 2

For the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, the approval was 'subject to multiple regulatory conditionalities', it said, without giving details.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar told reporters earlier that two other vaccines were waiting to be approved - Zydus Cadila's ZyCoV-D and Russia's Sputnik V - which are both on trial in India.

He said: 'India is perhaps the only country where four vaccines are getting ready.'

Referring to the fact that the AstraZeneca/Oxford shot is being made locally by the Serum Institute of India (SII), he added: 'One was approved yesterday for emergency use, Serum's COVISHIELD.'

The AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, which was granted its first approval by the UK on Tuesday, is cheaper and easier to use than some rival shots, such as the one from Pfizer Inc.

Indian health workers are seen during a dry run of the coronavirus vaccine at a model Covid-19 vaccine centre in New Delhi on January 2

Candidates wait at the observation area after the mock vaccination process during a dry run of the Covid vaccination in New Delhi, India

A health worker is seen inside a room with a sign reading 'Covid-19 vaccination 2021' at a model Covid-19 vaccination centre in New Delhi, India

However, it has been plagued by uncertainty about its most effective dosage ever since data published in November showed a half dose followed by a full dose had a 90 per cent success rate while two full shots were 62 per cent effective.

India's regulator has also received an emergency-use application for the Covid-19 vaccine made by Pfizer with Germany's BioNTech - the first shot to secure regulatory approval in the West.

India's rate of infection has come down significantly from a mid-September peak.

The country hopes to inoculate 300million of its 1.35billion people in the first six to eight months of this year.
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A panel of government experts will today review Covaxin's emergency use application. The COVID-19 vaccine has been developed by Indian biotechnology firm Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the country's top medical research organisation - Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR).

Experts will review the indigenously developed vaccine a day after the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) had recommended Serum-Oxford's Covishield COVID-19 vaccine to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) for emergency use authorisation. Three COVID-19 vaccine developers have applied for emergency use approval in the country.

Serum Institute of India is mass manufacturing the Covishield vaccine which was developed by Oxford University in collaboration with pharma giant AstraZeneca. Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine has already been approved by WHO experts, but the company has sought more time to present their data to the panel of Indian government experts.

Meanwhile, Bharat Biotech is currently in the process of recruiting volunteers for the final trials of their vaccine. Centres, including those in Delhi and Mumbai, have reported that they are not getting enough volunteers for the trials. Bharat Biotech has even extended the date for registrations which are currently still going on. The company was initially expected to complete the trials by December 31.

Till December 22, Bharat Biotech was only able to involve 13,000 volunteers despite their target being 26,000 for the final stage trials, according to company officials, reports NDTV.

Covaxin isn't likely to get approval from the expert panel right now, according to experts, as Bharat Biotech does not have complete Phase 3 data on the efficacy of their vaccine, reports NDTV. Phase 1 and Phase 2 data has shown that Covaxin is safe for administration and has no side effects.

Also Read: Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine Covishield may get emergency use approval today

Also Read: 'COVID-19 vaccine will be free across the country,' says Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan
Yogi Adityanath

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday said COVID-19 vaccine will be available in the state close to Hindu festival Makar Sankranti which will be celebrated on January 14.

Speaking at a programme, he said, We initiated the campaign against COVID-19 in March 2020 under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and at the beginning of this year we could say firmly that the dry run of the vaccine will be held on January 5 across the state and the vaccine will be available near around Makar Sankranti.

The chief minister added that a dry run of the vaccine is being held at some places in the state on Saturday.

Adityanath was speaking while laying the foundation stone of Advocates Building at the collectorate campus on Saturday.

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

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

On Friday, the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) on COVID-19 of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) recommended granting permission for restricted emergency use of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine Covishield, being manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, paving the way for the roll-out of the first COVID-19 shot in the country in the next few days.

Follow our full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic here
Gray whales have begun their winter migration down the California coastline, giving cooped-up Bay Area residents ample opportunities to spot the majestic marine mammals for the next several months.

Theres just one catch: Perhaps the single best onshore location to see the migrating whales is closed for construction.

The historic lighthouse and observation deck on the westernmost tip of Point Reyes National Seashore  known among whale aficionados and amateurs as the best vantage point from which to view whales rounding into Bay Area waters  is off-limits as Sir Francis Drake Boulevard undergoes a major overhaul.

Despite the closure, there are plenty of other places to spot the whales on their southern sojourn from arctic Alaskan waters to the shallow lagoons of Baja California, said Carlo Arreglo, a Point Reyes park ranger.

This is the time of year to see these charismatic, superstar mammals, he said.

From Bodega Head to Muir Beach Overlook and Point Bonita in the Marin Headlands, the northern coastline abounds with elevated view points. Within the city limits, Fort Funston and the Lands End Lookout offer good seascape views for spout spotting.

To the south, the parking lots on either side of the Devils Slide Trail offer accessible whale watching. The beaches at Point Reyes offer less visibility, but visitors may catch a glimpse of some spouts  and see giant elephant seals in their winter mating season.

Hundreds of gray whales will pass the Bay Area each day at the peak of the southbound migration in January. Pregnant whales set to give birth in the warm Baja waters are the first to migrate, followed by thousands more in pods of two to five individuals. Come spring, the whales will begin the journey back to Alaska with their newly birthed calves.

Elevated lookout areas offer the best chance of spotting whales in the water. Bodega Head and Point Reyes are good bets, because the whales use the jutting geography to navigate the coastline, but the whales are visible from other coastal areas, too.

First, Arreglo said, scan the ocean for puffs of steam  thats the whales exhaling as they surface to take a breath. The blowhole is the first body part to rise out of the water, followed by the back and tail as the whale dives below the surface in one graceful motion.

Bring binoculars, it helps, said Bill Keener, a cetacean researcher at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito.

While whale spouts can be sighted at all hours of the day, Keener prefers to head out in the morning hours, when the sun is angled away from the water. Direct sunlight can make the whales hard to spot.

That gray whales can still be seen at all along the California coast  let alone by the thousands  is a small miracle, experts say. The 40-ton marine mammals were nearly hunted to extinction by the 1930s, but their numbers began to rebound with the decline of commercial whaling. Gray whales are now protected by international conservation measures.

California is one of few places in world you can see multiple species of whales, Keener said. Its an amazing wildlife opportunity right off our coast.

With indoor activities shuttered, some local families have turned to whale watching, said Nancy Black, a marine biologist who runs Monterey Bay Whale Watch. The company has been operating tours at half capacity, wiping down surfaces and practicing social distancing.

Its great  people are bored at home otherwise, Black said.

Black noticed that whale migration began a few weeks late this year, a trend that she believes may be due to climate change. Scientists who study gray whales say warming Arctic waters could change the whales feeding and migration habits. Climate change has also been named as one possible culprit for the mass die-off that caused an unusually high number of whale fatalities last year, when more than a dozen carcasses washed up on Bay Area shores.

Paul Chinn / The Chronicle

Changing marine ecosystems are worrying Keener and his colleagues at the Marine Mammal Center. The harmful algae that flourish in warmer waters could spell trouble for all marine life, he said, not just gray whales. Thats why he feels compelled to raise awareness for the whales in order to protect them from future harm.

More Information With Point Reyes lighthouse and observation deck closed, here are 10 alternative Bay Area locations you might be able to catch gray whales migrating this season: Muir Beach Overlook in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area Point Bonita in the Marin Headlands Mori Point in Pacifica Fort Funston in San Francisco Devil's Slide Trail off Highway 1 between Pacifica and Montara Bodega Head off Bodega Bay on the Sonoma County coast Limantour Beach at Point Reyes National Seashore Drakes Beach at Point Reyes National Seashore North Beach at Point Reyes National Seashore Lands End Lookout in San Francisco See More Collapse

These are some of the biggest animals that have ever lived on the planet, he said. They live a different life than terrestrial mammals. They give birth under water. They have big brains. They have these amazing migrations, Keener said.

Arreglo, too, is awed by the mysterious mammals that live mostly unseen below the oceans surface, passing behemoths that have endured even though humans almost hunted them to extinction.

There is a sense of mystery about these massive creatures, he said. There is something to be said for having some mystery in our lives.

Nora Mishanec is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nora.mishanec@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NMishanec
Investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas says the threats of death on the lives of some Ghanaian journalists was an act of barbarism and backwardness.



For him, anonymous and open threats when not dealt with breed impunity in our society.



In a statement posted on Facebook Friday [January 1, 2021], Anas said, "It is a terrible thing to practice journalism under conditions such as these, and it is even dangerous when nothing is done, and the perpetrators get to carry out their threats.



He has, therefore, called on the government as well as the security agencies to as a matter of urgency investigate the threats of death and violence on some Ghanaian journalists.



"The security agencies must proactively investigate the sources of death threats and arrest the criminals," he said.



Below is a copy of the statement from Tiger Eye P.I.

Source: Graphiconline.com









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The Godfather is one of the best-selling crime books of all time  mainly because it has a ring of truth when it comes to the inner workings of the Mafia and all its raging violence.

The author was an Italian-American writer Mario Puzo. Popular belief had it that his family heritage gave him an inside track on the gangster world. The gritty realism of his novel suggested he knew more than most about gangsters and their ways.

But the reality was that he had no direct experience of how the mafiosi went about their business. The truth is I never met a real-life hoodlum, he said.

My parents were indeed impoverished Italians who emigrated to the United States. But we never had anything to do with any kind of criminal.

Puzo felt he had written better books than the one that made him a kind of literary superstar. He also wished he had been better at penning short stories of real quality, although he accepted his limitations in this sphere.

Yet he wrote one story of which he was especially proud. First Sundays In Exile tells of a divorced couple who, no matter how hard they try, cannot make the fallout from their parting anything but heart-rending.

I didnt know about gangsters. But I came to learn a lot about divorce just by observing some of my friends and acquaintances, he said.

In the story, a Manhattan-based writer visits his ex-wife and their young son in the New York suburbs. The divorce judge gave him visiting rights on the first Sunday of each month.

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Both mother and father do their best to keep old arguments at bay. But flashpoints emerge  as they always do on those Sundays. The couples decision to go their separate ways left unresolved feelings of rage and resentment. On both sides there is a belief they have been rejected by the other.

There was a hint of such a pathway of emotions when the Brexit divorce finally came to pass. Despite all the hard talk and all the jibes and insults of recent months, there was suddenly a palpable sense of finality. Things would never be the same again.

Ursula von der Leyen and Boris Johnson both hinted at some vague feelings of loss once the fiercely fought-for deal was over the line.

As often happens when the final curtain falls, perhaps there was unease, something of real value had been discarded? Parting is such sweet sorrow, mourned von der Leyen as if waving goodbye to an old treasured partner. And in those moments when it was end game for Brexit, Boris Johnson also allowed himself some lyrical reflection.

The EU was and is an extraordinary concept, he mused. Born of the agony of the Second World War it was founded by idealistic people in France, Germany and Italy who never wanted those countries to go to war again.

In many ways it was, and is, a noble enterprise.

But the reality is that it is au revoir to a union which lasted from 1973 to 2020. Johnson and his fellow Brexiteers have got what they wanted. As they see it  unshackled by the bind of Brussels  the world is their oyster.

However, much uncertainty remains. Will the UK and the EU grow further and further apart in the years to come? Or will this new-found British independence prove to be more illusion than reality? Or whether they like it or not, will geographical

proximity ensure London and Brussels always remain politically and economically interdependent?

Only time can tell. But it is in the nature of such fissures that mutual antagonism and loathing can gain a foothold over time. Whatever

happens there is going to be a new sense of competition and mistrust in the air.

The EU will be especially watchful for sleight of hand which might see a London government flirt with a chlorinated chicken trading culture. Will there be a drive to create a Singapore-on-Thames so as to make British exports as cheap as possible?

The way the Puzo story tells it, a couple who divorce may have the best of intentions to keep a togetherness of sorts. But once a bond is broken there can be no going back to the way things used to be.
Two car bombings in separate parts of Turkish-controlled areas of northern Syria killed six people on Saturday, including children, a war monitor said.

In the first, a car bomb near a vegetable market killed five people including two children in the border town of Ras al-Ain, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

A second explosives-rigged vehicle detonated in the town of Jindires in the Afrin region, taking the life of one civilian and wounding nine others including two children, it said.

Such explosions are common in both Ras al-Ain and the Afrin region, which Turkish forces and their Syrian proxies seized from Kurdish fighters in 2019 and 2018 respectively.

The Observatory said at least three of the victims killed in Ras al-Ain were civilians, but the identity of the other two was not immediately clear. Four more were wounded.

The Turkish defence ministry said two children had been killed and two civilians wounded.

Turkish forces and their Syrian proxies in October 2019 seized a 120-kilometre (75-mile) stretch of land inside the Syrian border from Kurdish forces, running from Ras al-Ain to Tal Abyad.

They had already taken control of the Afrin region, more than 300 kilometres (180 miles) west of there, in early 2018.

Turkey blamed the Ras al-Ain attack on the Kurdish-led People's Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara accuses of being the Syrian offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), that has waged an insurgency against Turkey since 1984.

The YPG has also played a key role in the US-backed fight against the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria.

A spate of such bombings have rocked pro-Turkey parts of north Syria over the past years.

On December 10, a car bomb killed 16 people including two civilians and three Turkish personnel at a checkpoint in Ras al-Ain.

On November 24, a car bomb went off near a bakery in Afrin, killing three people and wounding 16 others.

More than 387,000 people have been killed and millions forced from their homes since Syria's civil war started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.

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Researchers analysed how quickly the new B117 'super-COVID' variant spreads

It found it was particularly prevalent among those under the age of 20

The report questioned whether keeping schools open in January will be possible

The study compared samples of the mutated virus taken from nearly 2,000 people in the UK to another 84,000 taken from people with other variants

B117 has a 'R' number that is between 0.4 to 0.7 points higher than others

R numbers measure how many additional cases result from each infection

Currently the US has an R of about 1.15. The UK's is between 1.1 and 1.3

If the new virus variant became dominant in the US it could drive up transmissions and cases by about 48 percent

The mutated super-infectious coronavirus strain was spreading quickly among children during the November lockdown and only closing schools can keep it contained, a new report from Imperial College London has warned.

The study confirmed that the new mutant variant of SARS-CoV-2 - known as B117 or 'Variant of Concern' (VOC) - is indeed more infectious than previous variants, just as scientists feared, and that the November lockdown did little to suppress it.

Pictured: A graph in the Imperial College London report showing the prevalence of the new strain of coronavirus (shown in orange) in different age groups

The variant was most prevalent among the 10-19 age group, the data shows, with more coronavirus cases in the age group being found to be the new strain than of the original.

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In order the tackle the spread of the VOC in Britain, 'Social distancing measures will need to be more stringent than they would have otherwise,' the report said.

'A particular concern is whether it will be possible to maintain control over transmission while allowing schools to reopen in January 2021.'

Analysis of the data by Imperial College London researchers found that the new strain may be nearly 50 percent more transmissible, based on samples taken from nearly 86,000 Britons.

In the study posted online, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, Imperial College researchers determined that the 'R' number for the new B117 variant is between 0.4 and 0.7 points higher than other variants.

The study compared samples of the mutated virus taken from nearly 2,000 people in the UK to another 84,000 taken from people with other variants

The 'R' number of a virus describes the average number of additional cases that each infection leads to.

In the UK, the latest R number stands between 1.1 and 1.3, government figures show. This means that, on average, every 10 people infected will infect between 11 and 13 other people.

Graphs from the new study show how, over eight weeks, the new variant became increasingly common (dots higher on each chart) in the UK and became more transmissible (dots further the right on each chart show rising R numbers, or transmission rates

In a series of graphs, the report outlined case trends in a subset of NHS England Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) areas - (a geographic subdivision of NHS Regions).

It is clear in the graphs that while the November lockdown worked to bring down the rates of the original strain of coronavirus, it did little to suppress the spread of the mutated strain in England.

This is demonstrated by the graphs with three lines showing case numbers.

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The thick line shows the total number of cases in the respective region found among the people included in the study. The green line shows the original strain of Covid-19 (S+), while the yellow line shows the new variant (VOC).

The thick line at the top of the graph showing the total number of cases in each area changes colour between green and yellow based on the number of tests showing instances of the VOC among those included in the study.

Kent and Medway

Mid and South Essex

The dates of the second lockdown in November are indicated by the vertical red lines, between which the spread of Covid-19 and the VOC are demonstrated.

Areas in the South East of England - including London - show a rapid rise of the mutated strain of Covid-19, while the original strain kept at relatively low levels during the lockdown - showing the prevalence of the new strain in those areas.

These include Kent and Medway, Mid and South Essex; South West London Health and Care Partnership; and Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West.

In areas outside of the regions most effected by the VOC , total cases are shown to have dropped during the lockdown.

These include Birmingham and Solihull; Devon; Herefordshire and Worcestershire; Cheshire and Merseyside; and Humber, Coast and Vale.

South West London Health and Care Partnership

Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West

Birmingham and Solihull

Devon

Herefordshire and Worcestershire

Cheshire and Merseyside

Humber, Coast and Vale

Ratio age share among S- cases / age share among S+ cases

Click here to resize this module

The new variant was first detected in the UK in September, the study states, but at the beginning of December, it exploded and has driven a surge in infections among Britons.

The spread of the new novel SARS-CoV-2 variant, or Variant of Concern 202012/01 (VOC), in England comes despite a tiered system being in place as part of efforts to bring the spread of the virus under control.

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The majority of England is under 'Tier 4', the strictest tier, yet is still seeing record numbers of daily Covid-19 infections despite the measures.

Imperial College London researchers sequenced the genomes of 1,904 people infected with the new variant and compared how quickly the virus spread to a broader sample of other specimens taken from more than 48,000 people in England.

What is the 'mutant COVID strain' and why are experts concerned? Coronaviruses mutate regularly, acquiring about one new mutation in their genome every two weeks. Most mutations do not significantly change the way the virus acts. This super strain, named B.1.1.7, was first identified in the UK in November. It has since been found in France, Spain, Italy, Iceland, Japan, Singapore, Australia and now the United States. The new COVID-19 variant has a mutation in the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein at position 501, where amino acid asparagine (N) has been replaced with tyrosine (Y). It is more infectious than previous strains and potentially more harmful to children. It is not, however, believed to be any more lethal. Public Health England researchers compared 1,769 people infected with the new variant, with 1,769 who had one of the earlier strains of the virus. Forty-two people in the group were admitted to hospital, of whom 16 had the new variant and 26 the wild type. Twelve of the variant cases and 10 of the 'older' virus cases died within four weeks of testing. Neither the hospitalization nor the mortality differences were statistically significant.

As they expected, they found that the new virus did indeed have a 'selective advantage over circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants in England,' they wrote in the print posted online on Thursday.

The variant was also disproportionately common among people in their 20s, and those living in South East and East England and London.

The findings of the new study mean each person who catches this mutated virus will pass it on to up to 0.7 more people on average.

So far, there isn't evidence to suggest the new variant causes any more serious illness or is more fatal.

Encouragingly, virologists and public health experts believe that vaccines made by companies like AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna will still be effective against the new variant of coronavirus.

But the new variant heats up the race between the spread of the virus and vaccination campaigns in the UK, the US - where the new variant has now been found in Colorado, California and Florida - and at least 31 other countries where the more infectious form of coronavirus has been detected.

With more than 186,000 people newly infected in a single day on average in the US, the 48 percent higher transmissibility rate of 1.85 could drive new infections per day beyond 275,000.

It could spell disaster for hospitals in hotspots like California where some health care systems and regions are already out of ICU beds, in states of 'internal disaster' and rationing care.

There are similar fears in the UK over the National Health Service (NHS) and its capacity to cope with the number of coronavirus patients that are expected as the new variant of the disease continues to spread.

Sharing data from a separate study done by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), Deepti Gurdasani - a senior lecturer at Queen Mary University of London in Epidemiology and statistical genetics - warned that 'B117 is either dominant, or very close to dominant in most regions' in England.

Over the course of six weeks, Imperial College London researchers saw how the new coronavirus variant's transmission rate (R) became higher (orange) than those of other variants, especially in South East England, East England and London

By comparison, on average in the US, each infected person currently leads to 1.15 more infections, according to daily calculations from RT.live.

By this measure of transmissibility the R number in the US ranges from about 0.86 in Alaska to 1.23 in Maine, which has emerged as a hotspot this week.

Only 3.17 million Americans had been vaccinated as of Friday, according to a Bloomberg News tally.

The CDC's tally puts the number even lower. The agency's site says its vaccination tracker will be updated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but at the time of publication, the tool showed Wednesday's numbers, with 2.79 million people vaccinated.

Bloomberg's higher estimate means Operation Warp Speed has vaccinated just 16 percent of the 20 million Americans it promised to inoculate by the end of the year.

At this pace, it would take nearly a decade to vaccinate all adult members of America's population of 331 million people.

And many Americans remain on the fence about getting a vaccine even when one is available. Some 60 percent of nursing home workers in Ohio said they would refuse a shot.

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Sluggish, dysfunctional vaccine distribution and Americans' distrust of of the shots could jointly offer the B117 variant just the opening it needs to spread like wildfire through the country infecting millions beyond the 20 million people who have already had the infection in the US, and killing thousands.
Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat on Saturday hailed Indias defence forces for remaining vigilant under any challenging circumstances. Nothing can deter the Indian Armed Forces from remaining steadfast in their call for duty, he was quoted as saying by new agency ANI.

Rawat made the comment during his visit to the forward military bases along the China border in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam as he completed one year in office on Friday.

After witnessing measures adopted by troops to maintain effective surveillance and enhanced operational readiness, General Rawat said,Only Indian soldiers could remain vigilant under such challenging situations  ever-willing to go beyond the call of duty to safeguard the borders, according to ANI.

Rawat had taken charge as the countrys first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) on January 1 last year. The CDS has a task cut out: To make all three services work in a cohesive manner. We will work as team, he had said soon after assuming office. As part of his current role after serving as Army chief for three years, General Rawat is the principal military adviser to the defence minister on all matters related to the tri-services.

As team, we will work towards a goal where 1+1+1 is either five or seven, and not three. What I mean is, the synergised effort should not be the sum of the whole, it should be much more. And we have to achieve that through integration, he said after taking charge.

Meanwhile in Kashmir, the Army has set up a feedback and grievances helpline as part of its efforts to strengthen the bond with the people. As part of Indian Armys efforts to further strengthen the bond of friendship between the Aawam and Jawan, a feedback and grievances helpline has been established under the aegis of Chinar Corps, a defence spokesman said.
SPIRIT RIVER, Alta. - First responders and members of a tight-knit community in northwestern Alberta reacted with shock and sadness on Saturday after a deadly helicopter crash in their midst that killed four members of the same family.

SPIRIT RIVER, Alta. - First responders and members of a tight-knit community in northwestern Alberta reacted with shock and sadness on Saturday after a deadly helicopter crash in their midst that killed four members of the same family.

RCMP Sgt. Shawn French said the New Year's Day crash, which took place in a farmer's field about 500 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, killed two adults and two children under the age of 18. Their names and home towns have not yet been released.

"It's been a tough year, just with all the other stuff going on," said RCMP Sgt. Shawn French, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic. "So I'm sure this will affect a lot of the people in the area quite heavily. It's just one more tragedy heaped on other tragedy."

French said the chopper, a Robinson R44, sent out an emergency signal on New Year's Day at about 8:50 p.m.

Emergency responders found the aircraft in a farmer's field in Birch Hills County, about 80 kilometres northeast of Grand Prairie, Alta.

Fire Chief Tom Morgan of Birch Hills County said he was among the first responders who arrived at the scene of the crash.

He found the helicopter resting in a wide-open crop field with no survivors, he said.

"Right now, the Birch Hills County fire department and Birch Hills county as a whole, our hearts go out to the family and friends who've lost loved ones in this tragic incident," Morgan said.

He described Birch Hills as a "tight-knit" community of about 1,600.

Mounties from the nearby detachment in Spirit River, Alta., had the scene secured on Saturday and were waiting for investigators from Nav Canada and Occupational Health and Safety to arrive, French said. A spokesman for Nav Canada later said the organization had been contacted but investigating the crash did not fall within its mandate.

Chris Krepski, a spokesperson for the Transportation Safety Board, said investigators were expected to arrive at the scene Saturday afternoon and would liaise with first responders.

French said the victims' next of kin were being notified.

French said he did not have details about what may have caused the crash or the purpose of the flight, but said the helicopter was privately owned.

"It's an ongoing investigation," he said. "Currently our members are holding and securing the scene."

 By Amy Smart in Vancouver with a file from Sarah Smellie in St. John's.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 2, 2021.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version shared information provided by police that identified the type of helicopter as a Robertson R44. The helicopter is, in fact, a Robinson R44.
Sydney shoppers and business leaders have welcomed Premier Gladys Berejiklian's announcement that masks will become mandatory in certain indoor environments, accepting it as a necessary step that will inspire confidence rather than deter customers.

The executive director of the Sydney Business Chamber Katherine O'Regan welcomed measures that contained the virus, thereby allowing trading to continue.

Luca Aroney and Lauren Chadlowe shopping for masks in Chatswood. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

"It's a critical time for hospitality and retail so I would see that this is good for the consumer and good for business," she said.

"It will give people the confidence to go out in a COVID-safe way. A lot of businesses are pretty keen to get an uplift following what was a pretty awful lead in to that Christmas period.
The Indian government has granted an in-principle approval to two vaccines against Coronavirus, setting the stage for the roll out of the first phase of mass vaccination in the country.

The Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of the Central Drug Standards Control Organisation recommended grant of permission for restricted emergency use of Oxford AstraZenecas vaccine, locally manufactured by Serum Institute of India (SII) as Covishield, as well as Bharat Biotechs indigenous Covaxin vaccine.

The SECs recommendations will now be perused by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), who will grant the final approval. The DCGI is expected to make a statement at 11am on Sunday.

However, neither the two companies nor the government has clarified as to what data was appraised before the approval was recommended to DCGI. Bharat Biotechs multi-centre Phase-III trial that began mid-November is underway and involves a two-dose regimen 28-days apart. It is not clear yet if the regulator will continue evaluation of clinical trials being carried out by Serum and Bharat Biotech.

The SEC had met on Thursday to appraise Serum Institutes proposal seeking approval for Covishield, which has been developed and manufactured in India using a master seed from Oxford University-AstraZeneca. SEC approved Covishield for restricted use with certain conditions, which included among others providing a factsheet to those getting the shot and an informed consent form, sources said.

On Saturday, the SEC met again to deliberate on Bharat Biotech Limiteds Covaxin. Curiously, SEC has recommended Covaxin for restricted use on grounds of abundant precaution and in public interest, especially in the context of the mutant strain of Coronavirus that was confirmed by authorities in the United Kingdom over two weeks ago.

Along with recommendations for these two vaccines, the SEC also recommended grant of permission to Ahmedabad-based Cadila Healthcare Ltd. for conduct of Phase-III trials of their vaccine, funded by the Department of Biotechnology.

Accelerated approval for new medicines and drugs is granted following the New Drugs and Clinical Trials Rules, 2019, framed under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940. The Rules provide a relaxation for skipping Phase-III clinical trials or allow appraisal of limited data.

If the new drug or vaccine shows remarkable efficacy with a defined dose in the Phase-II clinical trial and if there are unmet medical needs of serious and life threatening diseases in the country, then the rules provide a room to recommend approval.

The approval paves the way for the first phase of mass vaccination against the infection. In the first phase, the government has planned to inoculate 30 crore Indians. The foremost priority among these 30 crore would be given to an estimated one crore healthcare workers and about 2 crore frontline workers belonging to the various police forces, armed forces, municipal workers and volunteers involved in disaster management. Those above 50 years of age and persons with comorbidities below the age of 50 would comprise the remaining 27 crore.

The Centre had asked state governments to create a database of healthcare workers and share it by the end of first week of December.

Data sought by SEC

During an earlier meeting, Serum Institute submitted interim safety data from Phase II/III clinical trials that are underway in India together with interim safety and efficacy results of Phase II/III and Phase III clinical trials done in the United Kingdom.

SIIs vaccine has been developed and manufactured with a master seed from Oxford/AstraZeneca. The SEC had sought updated safety data of the Phase II/III clinical trials in the country along with immunogenicity data from the clinical trial in the UK and India.

Meanwhile, SEC had asked Bharat Biotech to present safety and efficacy data from the ongoing Phase III clinical trial in the country for further consideration.

What are these vaccines?

The Oxford vaccine is called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 and it is made from a weakened version of a common cold virus (adenovirus), which causes infections in chimpanzees, and it that has been genetically changed so that it is impossible for it to replicate in humans, the University of Oxford had said.

The vaccine type is known as a viral vector type since it uses a harmless virus as a carrier to deliver the genetic material of a pathogen into cells to create an immune response.

In the pre-clinical trials done on monkeys, the vaccine was effective in stopping the Coronavirus infection from progressing to pneumonia. The vaccine protected the monkeys from pneumonia and other serious symptoms but it did not kill the virus.

Bharat Biotechs BBV 152 has developed an inactivated virus vaccine. This involves a heat killed or dead virus that is used to generate an immune response. The company has used this platform in the past to manufacture Rabies, Japanese Encephalitis and Rotavirus vaccines.
Chinese officials raid home Bible study, detain preacher and 5 worshipers

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Officials in Chinas Taiyuan city raided a house church, confiscated Christian books, and detained the preacher and five members during a Bible study, according to a report.

Nearly 40 officials descended on the home of An Yankui, the preacher of Xuncheng Church in the capital of Shanxi province, on Wednesday evening, about one-and-a-half months after a separate raid on his home, according to the U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern.

The officials restricted the movement of the church members who were studying the Bible, confiscated the choir robes and books, and apprehended the preacher and five women, ICC said.

The officials didnt detain Ans wife, Yao Conya, as she had to take care of their children.

The officials released the five female detainees around midnight on New Years Eve, but An is being held in administrative detention for 15 days.

The heavily persecuted Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu planted the Xuncheng Church.

Xuncheng, which is being targeted possibly due to its association with the ERCC, was earlier raided on Nov. 15 and received a disbandment notice from the police.

China has more than 60 million Christians, at least half of whom worship in unregistered or illegal underground churches. China is ranked as one of the worst countries in the world when it comes to the persecution of Christians, according to Open Doors USAs World Watch List.

Gina Goh, ICCs regional manager for Southeast Asia, previously said that at a time when religion in China has to submit itself to the control of the Chinese Communist Party and President Xi Jinping, its no longer a surprise that a house church is seen as an enemy of the state and clamped down upon.

Chinas blindness to its violation of religious freedom needs to be continuously exposed so that Beijing knows it cannot get away with performing these evil acts, Goh said.

Earlier, China Aid reported that Li Chunze, the leader of a house church in Panlong District in the city of Kunming, was detained from Nov. 16 to Nov. 21 after Changqing police raided his house and accused the fellowship he attended of disturbing the order of public places.

The staff from the district religious affairs bureau said that it is illegal for believers to participate in religious activities at a venue not approved by the government, a local believer was quoted as saying.

According to a November 2020 report from the Pew Research Center, restrictions on religion in China have risen to a record level. Researchers found that China continues to have the highest score on the Government Restrictions Index out of all 198 countries and territories in the study.
The Holocaust was nothing more than a way for America to justify the war; it was what caused America to go to war against Germany. The lack of American opposition to the Holocaust is why Western countries refused to bomb the gas chambers, even while bombing other German installations near the death camps

by Jonathan Zadikany in Jeruselam

The international genocide and mass theft that the Europeans in America and Europe used to do through colonialism and imperialism is now carried out through the establishment of military colonies/bases throughout the world that sow terror among foreign leaders, who then allow Western corporations control over their natural resources.

In Africa and the Middle East these bases are set up under the pretext of the "War on Terror".

In Asia, American military bases that were set up after the American conquest of Japan and South Korea help the West sow fear among Asian leaders, which is how the United States extorts trillions of dollars in "loans" from China and Japan, and how the U.S. upholds unjust "trade deals"; these bases also allow American corporations the ability to exploit Asian factory laborers.

The corporations and unfair "trade deals" are the modern imperialism, and American military bases around the world are the modern form of military colonies. They project American power and sow terror around the world. That is how America and Europe steal and enslave almost every nation around the world.

Those nations are the international slaves, while in America the Africans and Hispanics are the domestic slaves, and in Europe the Africans and Muslims are forced to serve in the same capacity.

Muslim and African Suffering  Natural Resource Theft

The war on terror is an excuse to sow terror among Islamic nations in order to pressure their leadership into allowing American companies a stake in oil wells throughout the Middle East and Africa. The American terror sowed by the so called "war on terror" is also why Arab leaders have chosen to split their oil profits with European and American companies, instead of making a lot more money by selling the oil independently.

They fear that the Europeans will do to them what the CIA and the British MI6 did to Iran in 1953, when both countries helped overthrow Iran's democratically elected leader, Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh requested to audit the documents of the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and check if they were stealing. They refused. He understood that they were stealing and took back control of the oil fields, and then they overthrew him. After that, everyone else in the region understood the lesson.

Saudi Aramco, the largest oil company in the world, is just like the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in Iran, but I doubt that they will ask to audit the money books; the Saudi monarchy doesn't want to end up like Mosaddegh. Lesson learned.

That's the method of sophisticated, indirect imperialism. It's theft on a national level, that's done through local partners and in secret. The Islamic extremists in Saudi Arabia understand what's going on, which is why some of them became jihadists in the first place  it's also why they murdered foreign workers at the Riyadh compound bombings (2003) and the Khobar Massacre (2004).

In short, American bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia are military colonies that instill fear in regional leaders and subjugate them to American corporations. The bases remind everyone who is the real boss and occasionally enforce America's corporate will with military power.

Even in times of global peace, the American military has remained the main enforcer of the West's sophisticated imperialism in the Middle East, in addition to the local governments who cooperate with them out of fear that if they dont oppress their local brethren, they will end up at the receiving end of an F16.

The Saudi monarchy's cooperation with the West is also why America didn't attack them after 9/11, even though 15 of the 19 Al-Qaeda hijackers were Saudi. Instead, America attacked Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11.

The American Military Colony Strategy is also the reason why the U.S. is still in Afghanistan, even though Osama Bin Laden was killed in 2011, and the Afghan Taliban has always stated that their goal is to repel a foreign invasion by the United States  not global jihad. The Taliban is a local Islamic movement with a domestic agenda and has never been a global jihadist organization.

The military colony strategy also targets Africa, but there it's done quietly because the countries are weaker and put up less of a fight. No fight = No media coverage.

Asian Suffering  Factory Slavery and Protection Money

The war on communism was an excuse in order to establish a foothold for American military colonies/bases in Asia. Now those nations work in factories, supplying America with quality goods at a cheap price. The price is so cheap because the workers in China, Vietnam, the Philippines, and elsewhere are being exploited. They are America's indirect slaves, working in horrible conditions and making only enough money to meet their most basic needs  thats also how black slaves used to live in America.

Asian slavery is sophisticated, indirect slavery.

China and Japan also each own more than $1 trillion in US debt through US Treasury Bonds, which is how they keep America calm, so that it won't sabotage them economically through new "trade agreements" or engage in military provocations. They lend America money that they know they'll never get back, just like the store owner pays "protection money" to the local mob boss.

The Japanese started buying U.S. debt in bulk during the 1980's Trade Wars, when the U.S. complained that America was buying more products from Japan, while the Japanese weren't buying enough American products. The current trade conflict with China is about the same issue.

The reason that the Asians can't buy as many foreign products as the Americans is because they are too busy working hard in factories, making little money, and selling quality products to America for cheap prices. American workers get paid more and work less hours, which is why their products as so expensive. The trade deficit is because American imperialism has become so successful, and not because the Asians are cheating  if anyone is cheating, it's the Americans and Europeans.

But How Can America Be Evil If It Fought Against the Nazis?

The war against Nazi Germany was also an imperialist war that had nothing to do with the Holocaust. It was a war about how to divide the imperial money pie among Western countries.

Germany became angry that were not enjoying enough from the imperial extortion racket and tried to play catch up. In response, other European countries fought Germany so that they wouldn't lose their share of the imperial pie.

The Holocaust was nothing more than a way for America to justify the war; it was what caused America to go to war against Germany. The lack of American opposition to the Holocaust is why Western countries refused to bomb the gas chambers, even while bombing other German installations near the death camps. They didn't care about the fact that one bomb on the gas chambers could delay or even prevent the execution of tens of thousands of Jews because they didn't care about the Holocaust. That's also why many of those same countries refused to accept Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust.

That is why World War II was a fight between imperialist about how to divide the Imperial Money Pie, and nothing more. The Unites States and England behaved in such a manner because the founding fathers of both countries share the same lineage as the Germans  both groups are the offspring of the Ancient Germanic Tribes who conquered the areas currently known as Germany, as England, and as North America.

In short, World War II was a fight between the Germans in Germany, and the Germans in England and America.

This is in addition to the fact that Germany was not the only Germanic country to carry out genocide; it was just the only one to do it so in such a systematic and ruthless manner. Colonialism was also genocide and resulted in the deaths of at least 60 million people in the Americas.

Ancient German Tribes Behave Like Nazi Germany

In truth, the continent of America belongs to those with the darker skin; it does not belong to the Ancient Germanic tribes who conquered the Roman Empire, Spain, and England, and every country in between them, and then set out to commit colonial genocide throughout the world. North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa belong to the original locals and not the offspring of these murderous Germanic Tribes.

One thing that Native South Americans should remember is that the term Hispanic was adopted from the Hapsburg dynasty in Spain, which launched the colonial genocide in South America. Why call yourself after those who killed around 60 million of you?

Western Europeans are Serial Genociders

The Jews, "Hispanics", and African Americans are not the only victims of colonial and imperial genocide. The Native Australians, Native South Africans, the Irish, the Scottish, and many others throughout the world also suffered. Many died from European diseases that the Europeans would spread to them through infected blankets, which was an old form of biological warfare.

This is in addition to those who were murdered during Western military operations or who died as a result of the indirect consequences of Western robbery, such as starvation and oppression by local puppet governments. Old examples include the Highland Clearances in Scotland (1746 onward), the Irish Famine, in which at least a million people died (1847), and a famine in Bengal, India which killed around four million people (1943). In both cases of starvation, the British continued to steal ("tax") food from the Irish and Indians even while they were starving.

Modern examples of Western genocide include the death of around five million Koreans during the Korean-American war, 2.5 million Vietnamese during the Vietnam War, and 300,000 Iraqis since the U.S. invasion in 2003.

We must call colonialism and imperialism what they really are  genocide for economic gain.

We must call Western countries what they really are  Serial Genociders; Ancient Germanic tribes that conquered all of Europe and America and killed many others throughout the world. Germany is just a small part of those tribes.
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Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-01 16:25:48|Editor: huaxia

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KABUL, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- At least 60 people were killed and many others wounded in targeted attacks across Afghanistan in December, according to official figures kept by Xinhua.

On Thursday, Hajji Bahramudin, a driver of Administrative Office of country's Presidential Palace, was killed and his boss Mohammad Jawid Wali was critically wounded after their vehicle was struck by an improvised bomb in Police District (PD) 7 of national capital Kabul.

On Wednesday, a pilot of Afghan Air Force, Ahmad Massoud Attal, was shot and killed by gunmen in southern Kandahar province. The gunmen escaped after the shooting.

The increased targeted attacks in recent months have caused concern among the ordinary people, particularly government employees and members of security forces.

On Monday, a teacher was assassinated in eastern Parwan province. On the same day, in eastern Ghazni province, gunmen killed two provincial revenue directorate workers in PD 2 of provincial capital Ghazni city.

Two militants armed with guns were arrested after being shot and wounded by police when they tried to target a prosecutor in PD 21 of Kabul over the weekend. The police also confiscated a motorcycle and weapons of the assailants.

On Dec. 24, Fareshta Kohistani, a women rights activist, and her younger brother were killed by two terrorists on a motorbike in eastern Kapisa province, hometown of Kohistani.

On the same day, Mohammad Yousaf Rashid, Executive Director of Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA), a national independent election watch agency, and his driver were killed by gunmen in Chihilstoon, an area in PD 7 of Kabul.

On Dec. 23, Colonel Janat Gul, a teacher of a national defense university, lost his life after gunmen spread bullets on him in PD 12 of Kabul.

A civilian and four employees of the country's main prison, including two female doctors, were killed and two civilians were wounded in an improvised bomb explosion in PD 7 of Kabul on Dec. 22.

On the same day, a freelance journalist and chairman of Provincial Journalists Association Ramatullah Nikzad, was shot by an assailant holding a silenced pistol near his house in Ghazni city.

Abdul Rahman Hatshan, a deputy to the provincial council, was killed and his colleague Abdul Rahimd Rizazada and his son were wounded when a bomb attached to the vehicle they were driving exploded in Firoz Koah, capital of western Ghor province on Dec. 15.

On the same day, Mahbubullah Muhibi, a deputy to the provincial governor of Kabul and his office assistant, were killed and two people were wounded in a bomb explosion, hitting an official vehicle in Kabul.

On Dec. 12, Naweed Ahmad, head of the criminal investigation department of Chahar Asyab, a district on southern outskirts of Kabul, was killed and three police officers wounded when militants attacked their vehicle by guns.

On the same day, special operations police forces arrested two Taliban militants responsible for bomb attacks and targeted killings in Chahar Asyab.

On Dec. 10, gunmen shot dead a female journalist Malalai Miwand and her driver in Jalalabad city, capital of eastern Nangarhar province.

A judge of Afghan Supreme Court has been assassinated in Kabul on Dec. 4. Abdul Jamil was shot dead after Friday prayers outside a mosque in Rahman Mina neighborhood PD 8 of capital.

In general, over 35 victims were killed in separate targetted attacks in Kabul, Kandahar, Kapisa, Parwan, Ghazni, Ghor and Nangarhar provinces last month.

No groups or individuals have claimed responsibility for nearly all of the targeted attacks in December. However, Afghan officials accused the Taliban militant group for the attacks.

On Tuesday, Afghan Interior Minister Massoud Andarabi told Mushrano Jirga or the Upper House of national parliament that the Taliban "turned their attention to targeted killings of individuals" to put pressure on the Afghan government.

The Taliban militants, according to Ahmad Zia Siraj, head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the country's counter-intelligence agency, were responsible for 99 percent of the 18,200 small and large-scale attacks in Afghanistan in 2020.

About 44 people lost their lives and many others were wounded in targeted attacks across Afghanistan in November, according to official figures. Enditem
Bir Lahlou (Liberated Territories), 2 January 2021 (SPS) - The units of the Sahrawi People's Liberation Army (SPLA) "carried out Wednesday and Thursday new attacks against positions of Morocco's occupation army along the wall of shame," the ministry of National Defense said in a statement.



In its military communique No 49, the ministry said that "on Tuesday, December 29, the advanced units of the Sahrawi Peoples Liberation Army focused their attacks on the trenches of the Moroccan occupation army in the Gleib Ans area in the Aousserd sector."



The ministry added that the army also "carried out Wednesday shelling on Moroccan positions in the Fedret Leghrab region (Houza sector, twice), the Leksibiyinne region (Farsiya sector) and the Bakari sector."



"On Thursday, the Saharawi Army targeted positions of the Moroccan occupation army in the Mehbes sector, the Tnuched area (Mehbes sector), the Rous Lefririna region (Smara sector)."



It also added that SPLA units carried out bombings targeting "the region of Sebkhet El Akriche (Smara), the region of region d'Emguelli Eddechra (Emguella), the region of Rous Aoudiyet Echdeyda (Farsiya), the region of Akouira Abrouk (Houza) and the region of Adhim Oum Adjloud (Aousserd)."



The Saharawi ministry of Defence said the "attacks by Saharawi fighters continued to target the military sites of the Moroccan occupier, which suffered more loss of life and equipment along the wall." (SPS)



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Trump election attorney Lin Wood tweeted that Vice President Mike Pence will face execution by firing squad, in a string of tweets that prompted questions about his sanity. He called Mr Pence a coward who will sing like a bird and confess ALL.

The lawyer has lost several lawsuits challenging Donald Trumps election loss. In the Friday afternoon thread, Mr Wood said the focus had been on the Democrats during the effort to overturn the election but one of the main culprits of Mr Trumps loss was his own party. Mr Wood also represented Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager charged with shooting two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin during this summers racial justice protests.

Over time, we have learned that the Democrats were joined by CCP & other foreign countries, Mr Wood tweeted, possibly referring to the Chinese Communist Party.

Mr Wood went on to make baseless accusations against globalists like George Soros," elitists like Bill Gates," and the Republican Party.

He then claimed that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Mike Pence would be arrested.

Attorney and author Seth Abramson called Mr Wood disturbed.

Editor at large at The Daily Beast Molly Jong-Fast sarcastically questions Mr Woods sanity.

The Director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, Larry Sabato called Mr Trumps legal team nuts.

Mr Wood shot back at the accusations that they didnt concern him and quoted spiritual teacher Vernon Howard.

Mr Pence has been slammed by some Republicans for not fully backing the election challenges lobbed in Mr Trumps favour. A lawsuit by Texas Republican Representative Louie Gohmert, attempting to allow Mr Pence to only count the electoral votes for Mr Trump during Congress certification process was thrown out in court by a federal judge. Mr Pences lawyers asked for the case to be dismissed.

One of Mr Woods many losses included trying to stop Georgia from certifying their results, handing 16 electoral votes to President-elect Joe Biden. He also joined in the attempts to overturn the results in Michigan, another state which in favour of Mr Biden, Business Insider reported.

Mr Wood has also pushed the Qanon theory and promoted the idea that Chief Justice John Roberts is a member of a ring of murderous paedophiles.

Mr Wood has previously made baseless claims that Justice Roberts killed Justice Antonin Scalia and that Jeffrey Epstein is still alive. He has also encouraged his supporters to stock up on 2nd Amendment supplies.
A conspiracy theory touting lawyer who has championed Donald Trump's election fraud claims is stirring controversy by suggesting Vice President Mike Pence should 'face execution by firing squad' for 'treason'.

Lawyer Lin Wood appears to be continuing his campaign against the 2020 election results.

'If Pence is arrested, @SecPompeo will save the election. Pence will be in jail awaiting trial for treason. He will face execution by firing squad. He is a coward & will sing like a bird & confess ALL,' he tweeted on Friday.

Lin Wood, a staunch ally of Donald Trump, suggested Vice President Mike Pence could 'face execution by firing squad' for 'treason' for refusing to overturn the election results in Congress

Wood tweeted how he wanted Pence to overturn the results of the election during a session of Congress next Wednesday when the Electoral College votes are ratified

Wood went on to claim that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is a 'truth-giver' on the side of Trump.

Wood went on to claim that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is a 'truth-giver' on the side of Trump.

'Secretary of State Mike Pompeo @SecPompeo is a truth-giver. When Sec. Pompeo speaks, listen carefully.' he tweeted shortly after his call for Pence's arrest.

Pence is to oversee the ratification of Electoral College votes on January 6.

The process will certify President-elect Joe Biden's victory.

Pence, as president of the Senate, will oversee Wednesday's session and declare the winner of the White House race. The Electoral College last month cemented Biden's 306-232 victory, and multiple legal efforts by President Donald Trump's campaign to challenge the results have failed.

Vice President Mike Pence is to oversee the ratification of Electoral College votes on January 6

Wood along with others have urged Pence to interfere in the process despite not having any authority to alter the outcome of the congressional session.

On Thursday, the Justice Department managed to push the District Court for the Eastern District of Texas to throw out Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert's lawsuit.

The suit named Pence, who has a largely ceremonial role in next week's proceedings, as the defendant and asked the court to throw out the 1887 law that spells out how Congress handles the vote counting. It asserted that the vice president 'may exercise the exclusive authority and sole discretion in determining which electoral votes to count for a given State.'

Rep. Louie Gohmert and Arizona's slate of Republican 'electors' have sued Vice President Mike Pence in an effort to get a Texas-base federal judge to give Pence the right to choose which electoral votes count. The suit has since been thrown out

Vice President Mike Pence refused to sign on to a plan that would have him choose to read the votes cast by President Donald Trump's 'electors' in states that President-elect Joe Biden won when he presides over a Congressional session to finalize the election on January 6

In dismissing the lawsuit filed by Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and a group of Republican electors from Arizona, Texas U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, wrote that the plaintiffs 'allege an injury that is not fairly traceable' to Pence, 'and is unlikely to be redressed by the requested relief.'

The Justice Department represented Pence in a case that aimed to find a way to keep his boss, President Donald Trump, in power. In a court filing in Texas on Thursday, the department said the plaintiffs 'have sued the wrong defendant' - if, in fact, any of those suing actually have 'a judicially cognizable claim.'

The department said, in effect, that the suit objects to long-standing procedures laid out in law, 'not any actions that Vice President Pence has taken,' so he should not be the target of the suit.

Jenna Ellis, an attorney for the Trump campaign, declared in a tweet late Friday: 'I do not support the statements from Attorney Lin Wood. I support the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.'

'A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction,' the department argued.

Lin Wood's remarks on Friday have drawn a backlash with some questioning his mental health following his call for Pence's arrest.

Wood has previously suggested that Pence is Trump's enemy and shared a blog post suggesting the politician was planning to make a play for the White House by removing the head of state from power using the 25h Amendment.

Jenna Ellis, an attorney for the Trump campaign, declared in a tweet late Friday: 'I do not support the statements from Attorney Lin Wood. I support the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.'

Wood is believed to be a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory and has appeared alongside fellow lawyer and Trump loyalist Sidney Powell.

Wood has also suggested that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, pictured, should be arrested

He recently called on Georgians to boycott the upcoming runoff elections - which will determine which party controls the Senate and alleged the state's Republican Governor Brian Kemp is a 'Republican in name only' and complicit in the massive voter fraud alleged by Mr Trump.

Trump, the first president to lose a reelection bid in almost 30 years, has attributed his defeat to widespread voter fraud. But a range of nonpartisan election officials and Republicans has confirmed there was no fraud in the November contest that would change the results of the election. That includes former Attorney General William Barr, who said he saw no reason to appoint a special counsel to look into the president's claims about the 2020 election. He resigned from his post last week.

Trump and his allies have filed roughly 50 lawsuits challenging election results, and nearly all have been dismissed or dropped. He's also lost twice at the Supreme Court.

Democratic President-elect Joe Biden won the presidential election by more than 7 million votes and earned 306 Electoral College votes, compared to Trump's 232.

The December 14 meeting of the Electoral College cemented that count.

Then, on January 6, Pence will preside over what's usually a ceremonial meeting of Congress to count the votes.

House members and senators are allowed to object to states' counts - and Gohmert said he still plans to engage in that effort.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will find out Monday whether he can be extradited from the UK to the US to face espionage charges over the publication of secret American military documents.

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser is due to deliver her decision at Londons Old Bailey courthouse at 10 a.m. Monday. If she grants the request, then Britains home secretary, Priti Patel, would make the final decision.

Whichever side loses is expected to appeal, which could lead to years more legal wrangling.

However, theres a possibility that outside forces may come into play that could instantly end the decade-long saga.

Stella Moris, Assanges partner and the mother of his two sons, has appealed to U.S. President Donald Trump via Twitter to grant a pardon to Assange before he leaves office on Jan. 20.

And even if Trump doesnt, theres speculation that his successor, Joe Biden, may take a more lenient approach to Assanges extradition process.

U.S. prosecutors indicted the 49-year-old Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse that carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.

Lawyers acting on behalf of the U.S. government said in their closing arguments after the four-week hearing in the fall that Assanges defense team had raised issues that were neither relevant nor admissible.

Consistently, the defense asks this court to make findings, or act upon the submission, that the United States of America is guilty of torture, war crimes, murder, breaches of diplomatic and international law and that the United States of America is a lawless state, they said. These submissions are not only non-justiciable in these proceedings but should never have been made.

Assanges defense team argued that he is entitled to First Amendment protections for the publication of leaked documents that exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan and that the U.S. extradition request was politically motivated.

In their written closing arguments, Assanges legal team accused the U.S. of an extraordinary, unprecedented and politicized prosecution that constitutes a flagrant denial of his right to freedom of expression and poses a fundamental threat to the freedom of the press throughout the world.

Defense lawyers also said Assange was suffering from wide-ranging mental health issues, including suicidal tendencies, that could be exacerbated if he is placed in inhospitable prison conditions in the U.S.

They said his mental health deteriorated while he took asylum inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for years and that he was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. Assange jumped bail in 2012 when he sought asylum at the embassy, where he stayed for seven years before being evicted and arrested. He has been held at Belmarsh prison in London since April 2019.

His legal team argued that Assange would, if extradited, likely face solitary confinement that would put him at a heightened risk of suicide. They said if he was subsequently convicted, he would probably be sent to the notorious ADX Supermax prison in Colorado, which is also inhabited by Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Mexican drug lord Joaquin El Chapo Guzman.

Lawyers for the U.S. government argued that Assanges mental state is patently not so severe so as to preclude extradition.

Assange has attracted the support of high-profile figures, including the dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and actress Pamela Anderson.

Daniel Ellsberg, the famous U.S. whistleblower, also came out in support, telling the hearing that they had very comparable political opinions.

The 89-year-old, widely credited for helping to bring about an end to the Vietnam War through his leaking of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, said the American public needed urgently to know what was being done routinely in their name, and there was no other way for them to learn it than by unauthorized disclosure.

There are clear echoes between Assange and Ellsberg, who leaked over 7,000 pages of classified documents to the press, including The New York Times and The Washington Post. Ellsberg was subsequently put on trial for 12 charges in connection with violations of the Espionage Act, which were punishable by up to 115 years in prison. The charges were dismissed in 1973 because of government misconduct against him.

Assange and his legal team will be hoping that developments in the U.S. bring an end to his ordeal if the judge grants the U.S. extradition request.
As the United States began 2021 by crossing the grim milestone of 20 million coronavirus cases there is increasing concern about the vaccine rollout that is going far slower, and is much more disorganized, than expected. President Donald Trump had vowed 100 million vaccinations by the end of the year. Those ambitions were later sharply reduced and the Secretary of Health and Human Services said 20 million would be vaccinated by the end of 2020. In the end, the country didnt even get close to that number. As of Thursday, less than 3 million people had received the first dose of the vaccine, out of almost 12.5 million that had been distributed, according to the data from the Centers for Disease Control and prevention.

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Many are expressing disappointment and frustration at the slow rate of the rollout, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. We wouldve liked to have seen it run smoothly and have 20 million doses into people today, by the end of the (year) 2020, which was the projection. Obviously, it didnt happen and thats disappointing, Fauci said Thursday. Hopefully, as you get into the first couple of weeks in January, the gaining of momentum will get us to the point where we want to be. President Donald Trump has shifted the blame on to states, but experts say the real problem is that the federal government is not providing enough financial or technical support to make sure the rollout goes as smoothly as possible. Theres a lot states still need to do, Dr. Ashish Jha, a health policy researcher and dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told the Associated Press, but you need a much more active role from the federal government than what they have been willing to do. Theyve largely said to states, This is your responsibility. Figure it out.

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President-elect Joe Biden has joined in on the chorus of criticism against the slow rollout. As I long feared and warned the effort to distribute and administer the vaccine is not progressing as it should, he said earlier this week, warning that at the current pace its gonna take years, not months, to vaccinate the American people.

The slow rollout is happening at a time when experts are warning that there is an urgent need to speed up vaccinations amid worrying signs that a new and more contagious variant of the virus appears to be making its way through the United States. If the new variant replaces the existing variant and we dont vaccinate quickly, the second wave will start cresting again and will crest really high, and thats something to take really seriously, Dr. Ronald Scott Braithwaite, a professor at N.Y.U. Grossman School of Medicine, told the New York Times.

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The problem right now is largely one of bureaucracy and coordination as the federal government pushes decisions to states, and some of those states then push the decisions down to local health departments and hospitals. That has produced a patchwork of systems and has meant that while some got fewer doses than they expected others have more than they know what do with and sometimes dont even have enough syringes to dole out the doses they do have.

With all the problems officials are facing in this initial phase of the rollout there is increased concern about what will happen once the efforts expand to include more people. The real challenge is around what happens when we get a larger supply and what happens when we have to vaccinate people that dont work in a hospital, said Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers. As different states make their own decisions about who should be vaccinated first that will undoubtedly lead to confusion and could spark frustration. Amid all the delay and bureaucratic confusion there is also concern that vaccines could expire before they are used.

Although it is clearly not the entirety of the problem, experts say one unexpected reason why the rollout is going slower than expected is because a surprisingly large number of health care workers are often none too eager to get the shot. In Los Angeles County, for example, somewhere between 20 and 40 percent of frontline workers who were offered the vaccine declined to get it, reports the Los Angeles Times. That dynamic seems to have caught everyone by surprise considering that researchers always assumed hospital staff would be the most eager to get vaccinated.
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Parents will be left in the lurch after the re-opening of pre-school programmes were postponed until January 11, affecting more than 100,000 children in the process.

Children's Minister Roderic O'Gorman met with the Early Learning and Childcare Covid-19 Advisory Group yesterday to discuss the matter.

Representatives from the group shared concerns about the reopening of pre-schools.

While accepting the need to maintain early learning and childcare for priority groups, the advisory group asked for the pre-school programme to be aligned with the reopening of other schools on January 11, and the minister agreed.

In a statement, the Department of Children stated: "By postponing the return of these children to the pre-school programme, social mixing will be reduced, which will help to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in the post-Christmas period."

According to 2018 statistics from Early Childhood Ireland, this decision will affect almost 130,000, as well as their parents. The pre-school programme is being provided by more than 4,000 services nationwide.

Schools, early learning and childcare services are deemed to be essential under Level 5 lockdown.

This extends to include childminders who provide services other than, or in addition to, the pre-school programme.

The department described such childminders as providing "an essential service which supports parents to go to work".

As such, Mr O'Gorman has asked these services, which are private businesses, to reopen as planned from January 4 to provide childcare, particularly to priority groups.

The Department of Children stated that it will provide guidance to service providers relating to how they should prioritise demand for places within their services.

Herald
Health officials have hit back at claims they are adopting a 'mix and match' approach to coronavirus vaccinations.

Head of Immunisations at Public Health England Dr Mary Ramsay said if people have had the Pfizer jab first they should not then receive the AstraZeneca shot.

Deputy chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), Professor Anthony Harnden confirmed advice remains to have the same vaccine.

It comes after Britain's guidance for the rollout was updated to say a 'mix and match' approach to administration is 'reasonable' in specific scenarios.

But in a statement to MailOnline, Dr Ramsay shot down the claims, saying: 'We do not recommend mixing the Covid-19 vaccines'.

She added: 'If your first dose is the Pfizer vaccine you should not be given the AstraZeneca vaccine for your second dose and vice versa.

'There may be extremely rare occasions where the same vaccine is not available, or where it is not known what vaccine the patient received.

'Every effort should be made to give them the same vaccine, but where this is not possible it is better to give a second dose of another vaccine than not at all.'

Scientists have warned against a 'Mix and Match' approach that has been called 'reasonable' in PHE guidance - that could see an interchangeable approach to vaccine administration in some instances when an individual returns for a second dosage

Two vaccines have been given the emergency green-light in the UK - one developed by Pfizer and the other by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.

Both are shown to be more effective at protecting a person against Covid-19 when administered through a two dose programme.

Updated guidance, reported in the New York Times, says it is 'reasonable' to have a different type of vaccine for a person's second dose if the other is unavailable.

Guidance from Public Health England now reads: 'Individuals who started the schedule and who attend for vaccination at a site where the same vaccine is not available, or if the first product received is unknown, it is reasonable to offer one dose of the locally available product to complete the schedule.'

Deputy chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), Professor Anthony Harnden

But scientists and experts have shot down the guidance that contradicts information from other countries' health bodies - including the US Centre of Disease Control.

Professor Harnden told the Today programme this morning: 'Our current advice is to use the same vaccine for both doses.

'However we have studies ongoing to look at mixing vaccines and when we see the data for those and are secure about the data, then we may be recommending mixed vaccines.'

CDC guidance says: 'These mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are not interchangeable with each other or with other COVID-19 vaccine products.

'The safety and efficacy of a mixed-product series have not been evaluated. Both doses of the series should be completed with the same product.'

John Moore, a vaccine expert at Cornell University, told the New York Times there is 'no data on this idea whatsoever'.

He added officials in Britain 'seem to have abandoned science completely now and are just trying to guess their way out of a mess'.

When asked to comment, officials at PHE reportedly pointed to similarities between the two approved vaccines, adding clinical trials into the idea would come this year.

Pictured: Margaret Keenan - the first person to receive the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine - returned to hospital this week to receive her second round of the Covid-19 vaccine

Vaccine firms have rejected the Government's warnings of jab supply gaps lasting months, claiming there will be enough doses to hit the Government's ambitions targets (file image)

Professor Harnden also defended Government plans to delay the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine from three weeks to 12 weeks after the first jab, saying a longer wait can protect patients more effectively.

He said patients he had dealt with accepted the move, stating: 'When it was explained to them that the vaccine offers 90 per cent protection for one dose, and the priority was to get as many people vaccinated in the elderly and vulnerable community as possible, they understood.

'I think the country is all in this together. And, I think we really, really want to pull together to try and do the best strategy possible.'

He went on to explain that it a delayed second dose has been shown to be better at protecting patients: 'It's clear from looking at the data that from the Pfizer vaccine after one dose after 14 days is 90 per cent,' he said.

'If you actually look at the Oxford vaccine data it looks like the protecting is better the longer the second dose is delayed.'

Chairman of the Royal Institution and Imperial College Healthcare Sir Richard Sykes, also speaking to the Today programme, said he had 'no problem' with the new strategy of having patients wait longer for the second dose.

'It's all in their diaries and I think the decision to give two dose, one then another 12 weeks apart, is absolutely fine. I have no problem with that strategy.

'I just think it's a bit strange to make it retrospective when you've got all the system in place to deliver those vaccines when those people were told quite categorically ''you have to come back here in 21 days time to receive your second injection''.

'So I can understand why there's some anguish here. It's not good.'

Chief medical officer Professor Chris Witty, who warned that vaccine availability issues will 'remain the case for several months', pictured speaking during a coronavirus media briefing

The news comes as Britain struggles with a mutant variant of 'super' coronavirus.

On Thursday, it was confirmed that the B117 strain has been found to be more infectious than previous variants, just as scientists feared, in a new study.

Imperial College London researchers found that the new variant that's been wreaking havoc in the UK may be nearly 50 percent more transmissible, based on samples taken from nearly 86,000 Britons.

What is the 'mutant COVID strain' and why are experts concerned? Coronaviruses mutate regularly, acquiring about one new mutation in their genome every two weeks. Most mutations do not significantly change the way the virus acts. This super strain, named B.1.1.7, was first identified in the UK in November. It has since been found in France, Spain, Italy, Iceland, Japan, Singapore, Australia and now the United States. The new COVID-19 variant has a mutation in the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein at position 501, where amino acid asparagine (N) has been replaced with tyrosine (Y). It is more infectious than previous strains and potentially more harmful to children. It is not, however, believed to be any more lethal. Public Health England researchers compared 1,769 people infected with the new variant, with 1,769 who had one of the earlier strains of the virus. Forty-two people in the group were admitted to hospital, of whom 16 had the new variant and 26 the wild type. Twelve of the variant cases and 10 of the 'older' virus cases died within four weeks of testing. Neither the hospitalization nor the mortality differences were statistically significant. Advertisement

Meanwhile, Pfizer and AstraZeneca have rejected Government warnings of months-long vaccine supply gaps, claiming there will be enough doses to hit the country's ambitious targets.

England's chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty this week warned that vaccine availability issues will 'remain the case for several months' as firms struggle to keep up with global demand.

Sir John Bell, a regius professor of medicine at Oxford University and member of SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies), has also said that insufficient investment in the capacity to make vaccines has left the UK unprepared.

In a bid to ration supplies, the Government has pledged to give single doses of the Pfizer vaccine to as many people as they can - rather than give a second dose to those already vaccinated.

But manufacturers of both the Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZeneca jabs have rubbished concerns, saying there is no problem with supply.

Sir Richard Sykes, who led a review of the Government's Vaccines Taskforce in December, added that he is 'not aware' of a shortage in supply.

The comments come after a further 53,285 people tested positive in Britain on Friday - marking four days in a row with more than 50,000 positive tests announced.

And 613 more people have died with the virus - including an eight-year-old child - taking the total official death toll to 74,125.

The eight-year-old died in England on December 30 and had other health problems, the NHS said.

At least one million Pfizer doses and some 530,000 Oxford doses will likely be given to patients across the country next week, The Daily Telegraph reports.

Earlier this month, AstraZeneca boss Pascal Soriot promised the firm will be able to deliver two million doses a week by mid-January - meaning 24million could be immunised by Easter.
Fiorina Fiorelli congratulated by president of Lazio region.

She has lived through the Spanish flu, two world wars and now - aged 107 - the covid-19 pandemic.

Fiorina Fiorelli, born on 13 January 1913, lives in a nursing home in Italy's central Lazio region around Rome.

Signora Fiorelli, who is approaching her 108th birthday, received the vaccine yesterday along with the other residents of the home.

The president of the Lazio region, Nicola Zingaretti, took to social media to praise Fiorelli's "faith in medicine" and to wish her a happy new year.

Some 45,000 people in Italy have received the vaccine since the vaccination programme began on 27 December - reports Italian news agency ANSA - predominantly healthcare workers as well as residents of nursing homes.
Kylie Jenner and her momager Kris Jenner looked proud as they supervised two-year-old daughter Stormi's snowboarding lesson in Aspen, Colorado on Thursday.

As the famous family enjoyed their winter getaway, the 23-year-old makeup mogul's beloved toddler showed off her impressive snowboard skills on a hill for beginners.

Her little one, who is just a month away from turning three-years-old, already looked like a seasoned pro in a pale pink snowsuit and a neon green helmet on the final day of 2020.

Mother daughter duo: Kylie Jenner and her momager Kris Jenner looked proud as they supervised two-year-old daughter Stormi's snowboarding lesson in Aspen, Colorado

As an instructor made sure Stormi was safely strapped onto her snowboard, Kris' 40-year-old boyfriend Corey Gamble threw his hands in the air and cheered her on.

For the tot's snowboarding lesson, he wore a gold helmet, white snowsuit and black gloves.

Meanwhile, Kylie wore a black puffer vest, matching helmet and gloves, just like her mother Kris, 65.

Woo hoo! As the famous family enjoyed their winter getaway, the 23-year-old makeup mogul's beloved toddler showed off her impressive snowboard skills on a hill for beginners

Too cute: Her little one, who is just a month away from turning three-years-old, already looked like a seasoned pro in a pale pink snowsuit and a neon green helmet on the final day of 2020

Practice makes perfect: As an instructor made sure Stormi was safely strapped onto her snowboard, Kris' 40-year-old boyfriend Corey Gamble threw his hands in the air and cheered her on

Making safety a priority, Kris wore a black face mask amid the coronavirus pandemic, in addition to a chic black beanie two pom poms and oversized sunglasses.

The mother-of-six oozed sophistication as she sported a Dior helmet and a Fendi ski jacket.

Kylie stayed close to her mini-me and even zipped up her tot's jacket to make sure she stayed warm in the chilly temperatures.

Staying warm: For the tot's snowboarding lesson, Corey wore a gold helmet, white snowsuit and black gloves

Bundled up: Kylie wore a black puffer vest, matching helmet and gloves, just like her mother Kris

Snowy getaway: Making safety a priority, Kris wore a black face mask amid the coronavirus pandemic, in addition to a chic black beanie two pom poms and oversized sunglasses

During the lesson, Stormi looked fearless as she glided down the bunny hill with a vigilant instructor, who ensured she didn't get hurt or fall.

This is not the first time the beauty mogul's child has been seen hitting the slopes as last December, she went on her 'first snow trip,' which also included snowboarding.

Despite the raging pandemic - and the Kardashian/Jenner family's cancelled Christmas Eve soiree - it appears a group was still able to get together to celebrate the New Year, also including Kylie's on-again-off-again boyfriend, Travis Scott.

Additionally, Kendall Jenner and her fellow model pal Fai Khadra were also present on the trip.

On New Year's Eve, the youngest Keeping Up With the Kardashians stars and her older sister hit the slopes together.

Chic: The mother-of-six oozed sophistication as she sported a Dior helmet and a Fendi ski jacket

Interesting: Despite the raging pandemic - and the Kardashian/Jenner family's cancelled Christmas Eve soiree - it appears a group was still able to get together to celebrate the New Year

The longtime snowboarders navigated the Rocky Mountains like professionals for most of the day, even after taking the occasional fall.

That night the duo were spotted out in the city grabbing a bite of dinner with their mom and Corey.

According to E! News earlier this week, 'the group set off in Kylie's private jet and kicked off their stay at a private house.'

Having fun: Kris and boyfriend Corey go shopping at Ralph Lauren in Aspen on New Years Day with Kylie and Kendall Jenner

'They looked like they were having fun being out and about. They had a full day with a lot of sister time and then met up with Kris and Corey for shopping and dinner,' a source told the outlet.

On Wednesday, Kendall and Kylie were seen at Buttermilk Ski Resort, after buying Dior snowboards one day prior.

The witness added, 'Everyone was in great spirits and enjoying their vacation. It looked like a nice change of scene and that they were happy being back in the snow and on the mountain.'




Haiti - Social : New Year's message from the Ambassador of Haiti to Washington





On the occasion of the new year 2021, the Ambassador of Haiti in Washington, Bocchit Edmond has delivered a message of greetings to all compatriots that we take pleasure in sharing with you.



Message from Ambassador Bocchit Edmond :



"My Dear Compatriots, Ladies and gentlemen,



On behalf of the Highest Authorities of the Republic of Haiti, particularly the Head of State, His Excellency Jovenel Moise, and the Head of Government, His Excellency Joseph Jouthe, on behalf of the entire team of the diplomatie representation of Our Country in United States of America, and on my own behalf, I take pleasure in wishing you the best wishes of peace, prosperity, and good health throughout the year 2021.



Certainly, 2020 has brought its shore of misfortunes that have been courageously endured. I therefore take this opportunity to extend our sincerest sympathies and solidarity to the compatriots who have lost their loved ones, as well as those who have themselves been affected, in any possible way, by the Covid-19 pandemic.



Certainly, during the year 2021, the Embassy intends, particularly in light of the advent of the new administration of the United States of America, to continue to work tirelessly to strengthen relations between the two oldest independent countries in the Hemisphere, especially regarding migration issues, which affect a great number of Haitian nationals living in the United States. Likewise, the Embassy will continue to work tirelessly in order to continue to provide quality consular services, in addition to strengthening the ties between our Beloved Haiti and the Haitian community living in the United States.



May the year 2021, year 217 of the Independence of our Dear Haiti, bring to all of us peace, stability, and prosperity !"



HL/ HaitiLibre


















London, Jan 2 : Burnley's home game against Fulham has become the latest match in the Premier League to be postponed due to coronavirus cases. The match was due to be played on Sunday and has become the second match involving Fulham due to be postponed.

The Premier League said that there was an increase in positive Covid-19 cases in Fulham as the club got their players and staff tested after the postponement of their match against Tottenham Hotspur.

"Following Fulham's request to rearrange the Burnley fixture, the Premier League's Board has taken into consideration further independent medical advice and decided to postpone the match due to the exceptional circumstances of the ongoing outbreak at the club," said the Premier League in a statement.

Apart from Fulham's two matches, Aston Villa's home game against Newcastle United and Everton's match against Manchester City were the other two games to be postponed due to Covid-19 cases within the teams.
Mullah Nazem, Talibans designated governor for Faryab, and six other terrorists were killed when their own explosive detonated in Afghanistans Dawlat Abad district.

Citing the provincial police, TOLO News reported that Mullah Nazem and six members of the group were killed when their own explosive detonated in Dawlat Abad district in the province on Friday night.

Further details are awaited.

Earlier, TOLO News quoted the local officials as saying that four members of public uprising forces, including their commander, were killed in a clash against the Taliban in Bati Kot district of Nangarhar province on Friday.

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A teenager who was accused of being involved in a bike mob that attacked a BMW in Manhattan has had charges against him dropped after he produced a receipt showing he was out shopping for his mom's birthday present at the time.

Geovanni Valle, 15, was accused of being involved in the wild attack that took place in New York City, when cyclists surrounded and attacked both a BMW and a taxi in the middle of the day on Tuesday afternoon.

NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison went to Valle's home in Corona, Queens to personally apologize for arresting the 15-year-old, the New York Post reports.

Shocking video footage shows the cyclists smashing one of the vehicles with their bikes, and jumping on the windshield leaving the 36-year-old driver and his mom fearing for their lives.

Valle was accused of being involved and arrested on Wednesday.

But the NYPD have now dropped all charges against him, after he produced a receipt showing he was at the Queens Center Mall buying a birthday gift for his mother at the same time of the attacks, the Post reports.

Valle also claimed he does not own a bike.

After verifying his alibi, the NYPD dropped the charges against Valle and released him from a juvenile detention center.

Scroll down for video

Oscar Valle, Geovanni Valle's father, shows off the receipt that proves Geovanni's alibi

After releasing Vanni, NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison apologized to the family

Valle's parents did not show the receipt to investigators on Wednesday after the arrest, though it's unclear why.

Valle then proceeded to show the media a shopping receipt on Thursday, which is the first time the NYPD claims they became aware of an alibi for the teen.

Valle says he showed the receipt to officers previously, which placed him at Footaction store at 3:49pm, but that it was disregarded, as others had already implicated the teen.

Video grabs show the moment teens attacked a BMW on Manhattan's East Side

The teenagers terrified the BMW driver and its occupants before fleeing on their bikes

'I think its bullst,' Valle said to The Post on Thursday about his charges. 'I wasnt even there!'

'Its crazy! I know people dont have no life, they just do stuff like that,' Valle said about the bike attacks. 'I was watching it on Instagram. I didnt think it was going to come back on me!'

Valle's father, Oscar, said: 'I feel depressed seeing my kid put in handcuffs, treated like a criminal.'

It's not clear if Valle and his family will pursue legal action against the NYPD for the false arrest.

'The NYPD is falsely accusing my brother of a crime he did not commit. They are basically just saying he is guilty without providing any proof. What happened to [being]innocent until proven guilty?,' Christian Valle, Geovanni's brother, told DailyMail.com on Thursday.

At one point in the attack, a biker even started jumping on the BMW's windshield

Prior to the BMW attack, the teenagers also attacked a taxi cab a few blocks north

'After that, he went to Empanadas Cafe on 108th St from 4.38 to 5.17pm,' Christian explained about the aftermath of the shopping trip.

The shocking bike attacks at the end of 2020 have gripped New York City this week.

A BMW driver and taxi cab driver were both attacked on Fifth Avenue, with the cab being on 29th Street and the BMW at 21st Street on Manhattan's East Side.

Max Torgovnick, 36, was driving the BMW with his mom in the car when they were surrounded by the biking teens.

They had just dropped off a holiday donation to a local charity when the bikers came around.

The shocking video shows several of the teenagers punching the BMW's windows with others stomping on the hood of the car.

One person even smashed in the front window as the fellow teenagers cheered the damage to the car.

Pictured: One of the teens who are wanted by the NYPD for criminal mischief

Pictured: More teenagers wanted in connection for the bike attacks on Tuesday

The teenagers reportedly laughed and cheered as the BMW was getting smashed in

One witness said teenagers tried to get into the car and broke a handle, with another spitting on the vehicle.

Torgovnick dialed 911 after the police didn't come on to the scene during the attack, but the teens were gone by the time the cops arrived.

Torgovnick's mother was reportedly badly shaken by the attack.

'We were trapped, there was so much violence, I thought I was going to die,' she reportedly said.

'That's something like you would see on the streets of a war zone. I never thought New York would get this bad,' Torgovnick, a long-time NYC resident, told The Post. 'I was afraid that they were going to break the window, get in the car, reach in, and pull us out.

'My only thoughts at that moment were self-defense, [that] I wanted to protect my mother and I also didn't want to hurt anyone.'

Pictured: Christian Valle (L) and Oscar Valle (R), the brother and father of Geovanni Valle

The kids on the bikes surrounded the BMW, which had medical license plates, before attacking

The teenagers also managed to block traffic with their bikes during the attack

Violent crime remains an issue in New York City.

In the 28 days prior to December 27, there were 21 murders, an increase of 61.5 percent when compared with the same dates in 2019.

There was also a 4.2 percent increase in rapes and a 122.4 percent surge in shootings, as the NYPD faces a $1 billion cut to their budget.

Mayor Bill de Blasio told CBS on Thursday that the attack was 'absolutely unacceptable,' but didn't provide concrete plans on how to attack another similar attack down the road.

While they released Valle on Friday, the NYPD did arrest a 17-year-old male in connection with the bike rampage. He was charged with criminal mischief and rioting.

More arrests are expected to be made, but identifying those involved in the attack has been challenging.

The NYPD is said to be looking for at least five more teens in connection with the attack.

There were around 25 cyclists involved in each attack on Tuesday.
Weve even speculated that some members of Congress might resign on the spot after seeing this evidence. Others might face arrest for their complicity in the crimes that have been committed against America.

Whatever gets presented, Trump believes it will change the outcome of the vote on January 6th. That means it would have to be truly historic, because Democrats arent going to vote for Trump in a contested election unless they are absolutely forced to.

What will this big reveal consist of? We know its something that has never been presented previously in a court case, nor to the public. The possibilities are endless: Jeffrey Epstein bombshells? Declassified intelligence on Chinas financial payments to the Biden crime family? Smoking gun proof that Dominion machines rigged the election? There are even rumors that two intelligence agencies for other nations have proof of election fraud and are handing it over to Trump.

( Natural News ) Todays Situation Update for January 2nd covers the big reveal that President Trump has announced for January 6th. On this day, Trumps team will present information to Congress before they vote on the contested slates of electors from the swing states where massive election fraud occurred.

About the author: Mike Adams (aka the Health Ranger) is a best selling author (#1 best selling science book on Amazon.com called Food Forensics), an environmental scientist, a patent holder for a cesium radioactive isotope elimination invention, a multiple award winner for outstanding journalism, a science news publisher and influential commentator on topics ranging from science and medicine to culture and politics. Follow his videos, podcasts, websites and science projects at the links below.

Mike Adams serves as the founding editor of NaturalNews.com and the lab science director of an internationally accredited (ISO 17025) analytical laboratory known as CWC Labs. There, he was awarded a Certificate of Excellence for achieving extremely high accuracy in the analysis of toxic elements in unknown water samples using ICP-MS instrumentation. Adams is also highly proficient in running liquid chromatography, ion chromatography and mass spectrometry time-of-flight analytical instrumentation. He has also achieved numerous laboratory breakthroughs in the programming of automated liquid handling robots for sample preparation and external standards prep.

The U.S. patent office has awarded Mike Adams patent NO. US 9526751 B2 for the invention of Cesium Eliminator, a lifesaving invention that removes up to 95% of radioactive cesium from the human digestive tract. Adams has pledged to donate full patent licensing rights to any state or national government that needs to manufacture the product to save human lives in the aftermath of a nuclear accident, disaster, act of war or act of terrorism. He has also stockpiled 10,000 kg of raw material to manufacture Cesium Eliminator in a Texas warehouse, and plans to donate the finished product to help save lives in Texas when the next nuclear event occurs. No independent scientist in the world has done more research on the removal of radioactive elements from the human digestive tract.

Adams is a person of color whose ancestors include Africans and American Indians. He is of Native American heritage, which he credits as inspiring his Health Ranger passion for protecting life and nature against the destruction caused by chemicals, heavy metals and other forms of pollution.

Adams is the author of the worlds first book that published ICP-MS heavy metals analysis results for foods, dietary supplements, pet food, spices and fast food. The book is entitled Food Forensics and is published by BenBella Books.

In his laboratory research, Adams has made numerous food safety breakthroughs such as revealing rice protein products imported from Asia to be contaminated with toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium and tungsten. Adams was the first food science researcher to document high levels of tungsten in superfoods. He also discovered over 11 ppm lead in imported mangosteen powder, and led an industry-wide voluntary agreement to limit heavy metals in rice protein products.

In addition to his lab work, Adams is also the (non-paid) executive director of the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center (CWC), an organization that redirects 100% of its donations receipts to grant programs that teach children and women how to grow their own food or vastly improve their nutrition. Through the non-profit CWC, Adams also launched Nutrition Rescue, a program that donates essential vitamins to people in need. Click here to see some of the CWC success stories.

With a background in science and software technology, Adams is the original founder of the email newsletter technology company known as Arial Software. Using his technical experience combined with his love for natural health, Adams developed and deployed the content management system currently driving NaturalNews.com. He also engineered the high-level statistical algorithms that power SCIENCE.naturalnews.com, a massive research resource featuring over 10 million scientific studies.

Adams is well known for his incredibly popular consumer activism video blowing the lid on fake blueberries used throughout the food supply. He has also exposed strange fibers found in Chicken McNuggets, fake academic credentials of so-called health gurus, dangerous detox products imported as battery acid and sold for oral consumption, fake acai berry scams, the California raw milk raids, the vaccine research fraud revealed by industry whistleblowers and many other topics.

Adams has also helped defend the rights of home gardeners and protect the medical freedom rights of parents. Adams is widely recognized to have made a remarkable global impact on issues like GMOs, vaccines, nutrition therapies, human consciousness.

In addition to his activism, Adams is an accomplished musician who has released over fifteen popular songs covering a variety of activism topics.

Click here to read a more detailed bio on Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, at HealthRanger.com.

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Health Minister Stephen Donnelly TD (second from left) and officials pictured taking delivery of the first doses of the Pfizer BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine

Residents in the Aras Mhuire Nursing Facility in Drogheda and St. Oliver's Hospital in Dundalk are first in line in Louth to be vaccinated against Covid-19.

They are scheduled to be vaccinated on January 19th, with residents in Blackrock Nursing home next in line to receive the vaccine the following day.

Over the following ten days 13 residential homes in Louth will receive a call from the team carrying out the vaccinations with St. Mary's Hospital in Ardee finishing this part of the schedule on January 29th.

The full list of residential homes to receive the vaccine was published at the week-end, and while there was no explanation given as to how the schedule was drawn up for each county, the arrival of the vaccines is the best news that residents and their relatives in Louth's care homes have received for a very long time.

There is however some annoyance that the Republic has fallen way behind the UK in administering vaccinations to the residents in care homes who, as analysis has shown, are he most vulnerable to Covid-19 related deaths.

Other countries most notably the UK have stolen a march on this country for currently in the UK over half a million citizens have been vaccinated at this stage, including residents in care homes in Northern Ireland where most residents already received their first dose of the vaccine.

The reason for this is that the Republic, like all other EU countries, had to wait until their own agency approved the vaccine, while the UK, having left the EU, was able to rely on approval from their own agency to administer the vaccine.

This delay of almost a month between the administering of the vaccine between north and south on this island is unfortunate, and hopefully will not impact on the battle against controlling Covid -19.

The border, as we all have discovered, has had a major impact on the surge in cases in border counties because of the divergence in the approaches of governments north and south in controlling the spread of the disease.

This time difference between making the vaccine available on both sides of the border is another issue in the disjointed approach to tackling the virus that we all could do without.

The Argus
Head off on the holiday of a lifetime with a travel wallet from Aspinal of London

Bose wireless foldable headphones are essential for frequent flyers

The Brics pearl pink hard suitcase is the ultimate accessory for a chic city break

Youll want to be ready and raring to go when travel gets up and running again - and that means having all the right gear.

Here we round-up the best items to buy in the January sales, from handy packing cubes to the perfect weekend bag.

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Holiday in style - 50% off

Pick up a deal: Save on suitcases, headphones, travel wallets and books

Were going to want our first holiday this year to be special. So why not head off on the break of a lifetime with a smart travel wallet from Aspinal of London (67.50, aspinaloflondon.com)?

The hand-crafted Italian leather designs come in 17 different colours and patterns, and feature space for travel essentials including passports, boarding passes and a zipped compartment for currency. Take advantage of Aspinals personalisation service, which is currently complimentary, and add your initials in gold or silver.

Polka-dot packing - 20% off

Fit more into your suitcase with two stylish polka-dot print packing cubes from Australian brand Typo (16, asos.com). They feature a grab handle, breathable mesh and zip-around closure.

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Bags of adventure - 50% off

Planning to go somewhere far away this year? The stylish Tranverz M Salty Pink travel trolley from Eastpak (67.50, eastpak.com) is ideal for longer stays. It has double-deck compartments, padded handles and a smooth-wheeling system.

Passport protected - 50% off

Smythsons Panama passport covers (from 67, smythson.com) are crafted from crossgrain leather and come in an array of vibrant or classic colours. They feature a wallet section for up to four cards, and a press closure to keep everything secure. The azure and coral covers have been reduced by 50 per cent in the January sale.

On-the-go headphones - 35% off

Bose wireless foldable headphones are perfect for drowning out the noise of a packed plane

Essential for any frequent flyer, Bose wireless foldable headphones (130, currys.co.uk) play music for up to 15 hours and deliver deep, immersive sound  even in noisy environments such as a packed plane.

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The Bluetooth technology allows the user to seamlessly switch between two devices (great if youre using a tablet and a phone) and the touch controls are intuitive.

A chic way to stay hydrated - 60% off

Treat a loved one (or yourself) to a monogrammed water bottle from Anthropologie (7, anthropologie.co.uk), which has been reduced from 18. The stylish bottle offers a personalised reminder to keep hydrated.

All-weather weekend bag - 20% off

Inspired by the classic travel bag, this weekend duffel by Danish rainwear company RAINS (44, theunionproject.com) is, unsurprisingly, made from a water-resistant fabric with a matte finish. It has a spacious main compartment, adjustable straps, carabiner details and snap buttons.

Inspiring island tales - 50% off

Take to the tracks of Europe as though lockdowns and new EU travel rules do not exist via Tom Chesshyres Slow Trains To Venice

Fancy escaping to a deserted island? Get inspired by Island Dreams by Gavin Francis (10, waterstones.com), an examination of our fascination with islands.

Beautifully presented with illustrations of maps throughout, Francis blends stories of his own travels with great voyages from literature, shedding new light on the importance of islands and isolation.

Sky-high pampering - 30% off

Take the spa to the skies with The Great Escape Kit from Budapests leading skincare brand Omorovicza (56, harrods.com). The collection fits perfectly into a stylish wash bag, ready to pack in your carry-on. It provides a complete skincare routine  cleanse, mist and moisturise  and a copper peel to smooth the skin.

Drop off anywhere - 30% off

The White Company has a huge January sale on its whole range. Its Cosy Set (35, thewhitecompany.com) includes a super-soft pure cotton throw and eye mask, making a nap on the go a luxury experience. Its all neatly packed into a matching grey travel bag, which has room to add make-up, skincare and accessories and is the perfect size to slip over the handle of a suitcase.

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The ultimate luxe luggage - 31% off

A good quality four-wheel suitcase is the ultimate travel accessory (stock image)

The Brics pearl pink hard suitcase (95, selfridges.com) is the ultimate accessory for a chic city break. It has zip compartments, locks, four multi-directional wheels, a telescopic handle and two leather ones, a USB port, mesh dividers and removable shoe and laundry bags.

European exploration - 21% off

Take to the tracks of Europe as though lockdowns and new EU travel rules do not exist in Tom Chesshyres train romp Slow Trains To Venice: A 4,000-Mile Adventure Across Europe (7.85, amazon.co.uk).

Chesshyre, a contributor to these pages, escaped the rat race (while that was still possible) for a few happy weeks, travelling to 13 countries, with encounters and mishaps galore.
Friday may have marked the first day of the UK's separation from the EU - but for many logistics firms it marks the calm before the storm as more documentation and red tape is expected to cause delays at ports here.

The first ferry from Britain operating under the terms of Northern Ireland Protocol docked in Belfast at 1.45pm on Friday. The Stena Line ship arrived at Belfast Port from Cairnryan on schedule.

On the opposite side of the water, business was quiet in Scotland, with no queues or disruption.

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Around 14 freight lorries were joined by a handful of cars on the first ferry to dock under the new rules.

And the Port of Dover reported on Friday that "everything is running smoothly".

As of New Year's Day, new documentation is required between EU member states and Britain.

The Protocol, which was created to avoid disrupting cross-border trade, also means that any goods coming from Britain are subject to EU checks and documentation.

Nigel Moore of McBurney Transport, which has bases in Belfast and Ballymena, said Friday was no reflection of what was to come.

He said New Year's Day did not illustrate "the full negative effect this will have on GB-NI movements, as there is very little moving".

He said HMRC had given goods loaded on New Year's Eve a 23-hour pass on paper work but despite that some reports from docks indicated complications.

Seamus Leheny, policy manager at the Northern Ireland Freight Association, said that 20-30 minute delays were already evident in some places due to declarations' "admin-heavy" processes. And Stena Line, which had called on the EU to allow for a grace period while it came up to speed with the bureaucracy around our exit, said: "Currently, traffic is flowing well through our ports across the UK and Ireland with occasional turnaways due to paperwork issues, but in the main the IT and regulatory systems are working well.

"At present freight traffic volumes are markedly down on pre-Christmas/Brexit stockpiling levels and Stena Line will be working with the authorities in the weeks and months ahead to help ensure the free flow of traffic continues as freight volumes begin to rise again.

"There will be an adjustment period while businesses get used to the new procedures, so for any hauliers that have not registered on the customs systems, Stena Line would urge them obtain the correct references before they arrive at check-in, otherwise they may not be allowed access into ports."

In the Republic ports were beginning to feel the weight of increased red tape, with one haulage professional warning of "mayhem" at the harbours in the coming weeks.

Eugene Drennan, president of the Irish Road Haulage Association (IRHA), said that a lack of practice on the new set-up would make its self known imminently.

He said: "The systems have not been tested, they have not been tried. There will be delays, for sure. The mayhem that's coming in Dublin Port is unbelievable."

Looking to the year ahead, president of the NI Chamber of Commerce and Industry Ian Henry, said 2021 began with "even greater turbulence for supply chains, trade and markets - and higher costs for us all, leaving us with a disadvantage". But many warn there is more to come.

Download the Belfast Telegraph App Get quick and easy access to the latest Northern Ireland news, sport, business and opinion with the Belfast Telegraph App.

Belfast Telegraph
Cobra Kai managed to find new Karate Kid stories to tell 30 years after the original trilogy. However, the biggest hurdle was always the death of Pat Morita in 2005. Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) mentions Moritas character, Mr. Miyagi, a lot so its clear his absence leaves a hole in his life.

[Spoiler alert: This article contains mild spoilers for a Cobra Kai Season 3 episode.]

L-R: Ralph Macchio and William Zabka | Curtis Bonds Baker/Netflix

Season 3 of Cobra Kai makes the late Miyagi a bit more integral to the story. Macchio spoke with a group of reporters in a Zoom roundtable about how the show managed to bring Miyagi back into the story in the form of his written words.

Ralph Macchio asked for more Mr. Miyagi in Cobra Kai Season 3

Macchio said he asked Cobra Kai creators Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg and Josh Heald to incorporate more Mr. Miyagi into season 3. He was quite pleased with what they came up with.

L-R: William Zabka, Martin Kove and Ralph Macchio | Netflix

RELATED: Cobra Kai Season 3 Review: The Most Powerful Karate Kid Story Yet

When they were starting to write season 3, my note to the writers room basically was lets learn something about this guy that we dont know, meaning LaRusso, Macchio said. Lets teach me something I dont know. Lets teach the audience something they dont know. If thats through the Miyagi-verse, then lets do that because thats something that I was looking for once we got to the end of 20 episodes.

Mr. Miyagi speaks through his letters in Cobra Kai

When Daniel goes to Okinawa, he reunites with Kumiko (Tamlyn Tomita) from The Karate Kid Part II. Her mother had remained in correspondence with Mr. Miyagi up until his death and Kumiko saved the letters. The Cobra Kai writers wrote the letters in Mr. Miyagis voice.

Tamlyn Tomita | Tina Rowden/Netflix

RELATED: Cobra Kai: How Xolo Mariduena, Peyton List, Mary Mouser and Jacob Bertrand Say They Made Season 3 Fights More Intense

It works on many levels and one of which is connecting with Miyagi with him no longer there but still having a connection by hearing his words that he wrote and learning what LaRusso meant to Miyagi where he never looked at it that way. Miyagi might have been lost until Daniel knocked on his door and says, Can you fix the faucet? And that turned his life around. Thats a beautiful thing. Thats some great writing right there. Then I have Tamlyn who can just do no wrong and Yuji [Okumoto] who brings his A game, a fantastic turn in the Chozen character. I got to reap the benefits of that and Im excited for the fans to see it. Ralph Macchio, Cobra Kai press junket, 12/11/2020

A Karate Kid II reunion without Pat Morita

In The Karate Kid Part II, Mr. Miyagi takes Daniel to Okinawa for his fathers funeral. There, Miyagi must deal with an old rivalry with Sato (Danny Kamekona), which is how Daniel gets embroiled with Chozen.

L-R: Ralph Macchio and Yuji Okumoto | Netflix

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Srinagar, January 02: In mid-November, officials from the forest department in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) had surrounded the mountain-top mud-hut house in the village of Kanidajan where Mr Bajad, 70, had lived for his entire life.

The officials threatened me and my family with jail if I didnt leave my house, said Mr Bajad, who lived there with his wife and six children.

They told me I had encroached upon forest land.

Mr Bajad and his family are Gujjars, a nomadic tribe whose members have herded their livestock between Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmirs mountainous forests and its lowland plains for generations.

However, the survival of IOJKs 1.4 million tribal people, who constitute 12 per cent of the regions total population, is in jeopardy.

Since early November, dozens of tribal people have been forced to leave their homes in an Indian government-led eviction campaign, after a court in the Hindu-majority state ruled 64,000, mostly Muslim tribal people had been living in Jammu and Kashmirs forests illegally.

The family was forced to immediately leave their home despite below-freezing temperatures.

When Mr Bajads son returned to their property two days later he found the authorities had chopped down around 10,000 apple trees, the main source of income for Mr Bajads family and those in his village.

They want to make sure that our livelihood is destroyed. Otherwise, instead of axing the trees they could have fenced it and taken it to their possession. But the Narendra Modi government wants to teach us a lesson, Mr Bajad said.

Indias ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has implemented a succession of anti-Muslim policies since Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was re-elected in 2019.

In August 2019, the BJP revoked IIOJKs autonomous status, bringing the occupied territory under direct rule from New Delhi.

Activists say the evictions are the latest attempt by the BJP to erode civil liberties and curtail the income of its largely Muslim residents.

After IIOJK was brought under central rule, tribal people such as the Gujjar should have been afforded protection under Indias Forest Rights Act (FRA).

The ongoing evictions in IIOJK are, therefore, totally illegal according to Prashant Bhushan, a senior advocate in the Supreme Court of India.

Under the FRA there has to be the determination of their [tribal] rights first and the local rural authorities have to be included, said Mr Bhushan.

Activists believe the evictions are happening so the Indian government can sell resource-rich territory to the private sector after a law forbidding the sale of land to non-Kashmiris was scrapped in October.

The evicted people will see no financial windfall and say they have been offered no compensation for the property taken or the loss of income.

With many of Kashmirs lawyers and civil-society activists languishing in jails without charge, no legal challenge has been launched against the evictions.

When approached by The Telegraph, a BJP party figure said it had not intentionally destroyed homes or seized land from Kashmiri tribal people.

Our aim is to retrieve the forest land which has been occupied illegally, said Sarita Chauhan, the commissioner secretary in IIOJK.

However, for Mr Bajad, the reality seems very different. If the government doesnt come to our rescue, I will burn myself to death, he said.
A 35-year-old man was arrested on Saturday for allegedly stabbing a 20-year-old woman in Noida Phase 2 a day earlier.

The suspect was identified as autorickshaw driver Shivnath, a resident of Azamgarh, who used to ferry the woman between her home and workplace. Police said that the man attacked her for refusing his advances and fled to Dadri.

Anita Chauhan, SHO Phase II police station, said the victim lived with her family in Naya Gaon. On Friday, she left home for work at 8 am. She was found stabbed in the neck outside her village, she said.

A passerby informed police following which a team reached the spot and rushed her to a private hospital in Noida. The woman had suffered serious injuries and was unable to speak. She was referred to Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi. Based on the familys complaint we registered a case against unknown person under Section 307 (attempt to murder) of IPC, she said, adding that the victims condition was stable.

The police launched an investigation into the case. We came to know that an autorickshaw driver had been missing from the area since the incident. We came to know that he used to pick and drop the victim for some time, she said.

Chauhan said that the suspect had attacked the woman with a sharp knife. We have recovered the blood-stained knife, which he had hid in a bush along Hindon pushta road. The suspect was produced in court and sent to judicial custody, she said.
New Delhi:

Three cases of Zika virus were reported in Ahmedabad in January this year, the A WHO report citing Union health ministry said on Saturday.



According the report published on 15 May 2017, three laboratory-confirmed cases of the disease were been reported by the ministry of health and family welfare in Bapunagar area of the district.



The routine laboratory surveillance detected a case of Zika virus disease through RT-PCR test at BJ Medical College. The etiology of this case has been further confirmed through a positive RT-PCR test and sequencing at the national reference laboratory, National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune on 4 January 2017. Two additional cases (case 1 and case 3), have then been identified through the Acute Febrile Illness (AFI) and the Antenatal clinic (ANC) surveillance. The Zika cases are reported below in chronological order:

However, the health ministry clarified that there is no need to panic.

"Only 3 Zika virus cases have been detected in around 50,000 tested and no mosquitoes are positive," ANI quoted health ministry sources as saying on its Twitter handle.

"India strengthened its surveillance system in past few years, so we are able to detect and contain new infections, both pregnant ladies&children are safe. Close watch on everything,nothing to worry," the health ministry said.

Gujarat health minister Shankar Chaudhary too confirmed that the cases were reported in Ahmedabad earlier this year.

"Few Zika cases were reported earlier; we took action in accordance with guidelines of WHO&Govt of India," Chaudhary said adding that there are no cases of Zika virus in Gujarat at present. There is no need to worry.

Case 1: During the Acute Febrile Illness (AFI) surveillance between 10 to 16 February 2016, a total of 93 blood samples were collected at BJ Medical College (BJMC), Ahmedabad, Gujarat State. One sample from a 64-year-old male presenting with febrile illness of 8 days duration (negative for dengue infection) was found to be positive for Zika virus at BJMC, Ahmedabad. This is the first Zika positive case reported through AFI surveillance at BJMC, Ahmedabad, Gujarat State.

Case 2: A 34-year-old female, delivered a clinically well baby at BJMC in Ahmedabad on 9 November 2016. During her hospital stay, she developed a low grade fever after delivery. No history of fever during pregnancy and no history of travel for the past three months was reported. A sample from the patient was referred to the Viral Research & Diagnostic Laboratory (VRDL) at the BJMC for dengue testing and thereafter found to be positive for Zika virus. She was discharged after one week (on 16 November 2016). The sample was re-confirmed as Zika virus positive by RT-PCR and sequencing at NIV, Pune.



Case 3: During the Antenatal clinic (ANC) surveillance between 6 and 12 January 2017, a total of 111 blood samples were collected at BJMC. One sample from a 22-year-old pregnant female in her 37th week of pregnancy has been tested positive for Zika virus disease.

Also Read: Key proteins that make Zika virus deadly identified



Public health response



# National Guidelines and Action Plan on Zika virus disease have been shared with the States to prevent an outbreak of Zika virus disease and containment of spread in case of any outbreak.



# An Inter-Ministerial Task Force has been set up under the Chairmanship of Secretary (Health and Family Welfare) together with Secretary (Bio-Technology), and Secretary (Department of Health Research). The Joint Monitoring Group, a technical group tasked to monitor emerging and re-emerging diseases is regularly reviewing the global situation on Zika virus disease.



# All the international airports and ports have displayed information for travellers on Zika virus disease.



# The airport health officers along with airport organizations, National Centre for Disease Control, and the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme are monitoring appropriate vector control measures in airport premises.



# The Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) is tracking for clustering of acute febrile illness in the community.



# In addition to National Institute of Virology, Pune, and NCDC in Delhi, 25 laboratories have also been strengthened by Indian Council of Medical Research for laboratory diagnosis. In addition, 3 entomological laboratories are conducting Zika virus testing on mosquito samples.



# The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has tested 34 233 human samples and 12 647 mosquito samples for the presence of Zika virus. Among those, close to 500 mosquitos samples were collected from Bapunagar area, Ahmedabad District, in Gujarat, and were found negative for Zika.



# The Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK) is monitoring microcephaly from 55 sentinel sites. As of now, no increase in number of cases or clustering of microcephaly has been reported from these centers.



# Risk communication materials are being finalized by the Central Health Education Bureau, in consultation with UNICEF.

Also Read: Zika has shaped pregnancy intentions among women in Brazil: Survey



WHO risk assessment



This report is important as it describes the first cases of Zika virus infections and provides evidence on the circulation of the virus in India. These findings suggest low level transmission of Zika virus and new cases may occur in the future. Efforts to strengthen surveillance should be maintained in order to better characterize the intensity of the viral circulation and geographical spread, and monitor Zika virus related complications. Zika virus is known to be circulating in South East Asia Region and these findings do not change the global risk assessment. WHO encourages Member states to report similar findings to better understand the global epidemiology of Zika virus.



The risk of further spread of Zika virus to areas where the competent vectors, the Aedes mosquitoes, are present is significant given the wide geographical distribution of these mosquitoes in various regions of the world. WHO continues to monitor the epidemiological situation and conduct risk assessment based on the latest available information.

Also Read: Zika Virus: New structure discovered by Purdue University researchers



WHO advice



Prevention and control relies on reducing mosquitoes through source reduction (removal and modification of breeding sites) and reducing contact between mosquitoes and people. During outbreaks, health authorities may advise that spraying of insecticides be carried out. Insecticides recommended by the WHO Pesticide Evaluation Scheme may also be used as larvicides to treat relatively large water containers.



Basic precautions for protection from mosquito bites should be taken by people traveling to high risk areas, especially pregnant women. These include use of repellents, wearing light colored, long sleeved shirts and pants and ensuring rooms are fitted with screens to prevent mosquitoes from entering.



WHO does not recommend any travel or trade restriction to India based on the current information available.

Also Read: Zika virus could be transmitted by 35 mosquito species, says study
SpaceX secured another contract with the Pentagon's Department of Defense amounting to a whopping $150.4 million for a 2022 mission to deploy the United States Space Development Agency's 28 satellites. The mission would not begin until the following year, giving both parties plenty of time to prepare and ready the space tech that would soon launch.

The space equipment manufacturer and the aerospace manufacturer has capped the start of the New Year with a contract with the United States government for a space mission to soon happen. SpaceX is one of the top companies that are chosen and considered for such missions, also a privately-owned company headed by CEO, Elon Musk.

SpaceX Wins Pentagon Contract for 2022

The Department of Defense's space agency, US Space Development Agency (SDA) is planning to put its satellites to orbit the Earth and perform its specific functions that would soon benefit the country. According to Space News, the SDA asked for bids starting October 6 last year, and have only finished deliberation and choosing its partner this year.

A cluster of small and medium spacecraft sizes as required by the Pentagon's SDA, which chose SpaceX on December 31, becoming the company's New Year's surprise. The buzzer-beater decision has awarded a $150.4 million contract to the private company, expanding its tie-ups with government agencies apart from NASA.

Twenty data-relay satellites are called the "Transport Layer" and the remaining eight would be the so-called missile-warning satellite, also known as "Tracking Layer." The satellites would benefit the country's intelligence and knowledge on the world's missiles, specializing in security and protection for the United States.

Read Also: Korean Fusion Reactor: 'Artificial Sun' Runs for 20 Seconds at 180 Million Degrees Fahrenheit-New World Record!

SpaceX Pentagon Contract: 2022 Flight for Falcon 9 Rockets

According to Tesmanian, the launch would depart from Vanderberg Air Force in California with the Falcon 9 leading the launches that would occur simultaneously or in succession. The privately-owned aerospace manufacturer proposed one of the most extremely credible proposals during the bidding, which made it the top choice for the project.

The launch manifest is said to divide the spacecraft into two rockets of the fourteen batches, each near two polar orbits that would circulate the planet at 950 kilometers of altitude. The relays and devices would be strapped at the top of Falcon 9 that would release as it brings the space devices to the planet's orbit.

SpaceX Pentagon Contract: Not the Only One

This project is not the only contract of SpaceX with the Pentagon as another October contract was secured by the company. However, it is still under hold because of the multiple protests from other bidders that are demanding for the contract and decision to be reviewed.

The SpaceX Pentagon Contract that is under review would be tasking the aerospace manufacturer to develop missile-tracking satellites for the country's military force. This venture would be a massive advantage for the Pentagon, which awarded SpaceX $149 million.

Related Article: Japanese Company Developing Wooden Satellites to Decrease Space Junk in the Earth's Orbit

This article is owned by Tech Times





Written by Isaiah Alonzo

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
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The newly appointed AAP Punjab co-incharge Raghav Chadha on Friday said the party would soon announce its chief ministerial candidate for 2022 assembly elections in the state.

On a visit to the state, Chadha visited the Golden Temple and Dugiana Temple on Friday. He was accompanied by leader of the opposition in Punjab assembly Harpal Singh Cheema and other party MLAs. Later, he was joined by AAP state president and MP Bhagwant Mann during a press conference here.

On a question about AAPs CM face for Punjab, Chadha said, He will be a person Punjab could feel proud of.

Chadha, who is AAP MLA from Rajendra Nagar in Delhi and national spokesperson of the party, said, The party will register a landslide victory in 2022 assembly polls. Punjab had been looted by the SAD-BJP and the Congress governments. Now, the people of Punjab have made up their minds that only one party can take Punjab on the path of progress, and this time they will ensure an Aam Aadmi Party government in the state.

Alleging that Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh had betrayed the people of Punjab, Chadha said, Before the elections, the Congress had made many promises such as waiving all debts of farmers, Ghar-Ghar Rozgar, eradicating drugs in four weeks; but none of them were fulfilled. Intoxicated with power, Captain forgot his people and reneged on all his promises.

Lashing out at the Badals of SAD, Chadha said, When these black (farm) laws were enacted, SAD, for its greed of power, remained part of the Modi-led central government. After the bill came, they kept praising the anti-farmers black laws. Even when these were passed in the Parliament and became laws, Harsimrat Kaur Badal remained the union minister. But, after seeing the anger of the people, she resigned out of compulsion, he added.

Chadha said the people were especially impressed with the work done by the Arvind Kejriwal-led government in Delhi in the health and education sectors.
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Chandigarh, Jan 2 : The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday said it has extended legal assistance to the farmers, who want to move courts against BJP leaders for their defamatory remarks against them.

AAP Punjab co-incharge Raghav Chadha, who was on a two-day tour of the state, said some farmers had decided to seek justice after verbal abuse by the BJP leaders.

With the help of AAP, notices were issued to Union Minister Giriraj Singh, Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel and BJP's National General Secretary Ram Madhav, he said.

Talking to the media in Moga town, Chadha said this was the farmer who had given his blood, his sweat and his entire life to tilling his land.

"It is because of the sacrifices made by a farmer and his family that food reaches our homes. If someone abuses an honest farmer, it is similar to that of abusing mother India," he added.

He further said the farmers had been requesting the Modi-led Central government to listen to them, but in turn were only abused.

"BJP leaders have at different times described the farmers as terrorists, anti-nationals, 'goondas', 'dalals' and agents of Pakistan and China. Does our farmer look like a terrorist? I would like to tell the BJP that our farmers have had enough. They now want to knock at the doors of justice, and we truly believe that victory would be theirs," said Chadha.

"AAP vows to stand with the farmers of this country in their fight till the BJP leaders are punished. Right from filing a case, to fighting in court, the party will work with the farmers and for the farmers, helping them every step of the way," he added.
WASHINGTON  The Pentagon has abruptly sent the aircraft carrier Nimitz home from the Middle East and Africa over the objections of top military advisers, marking a reversal of a weekslong muscle-flexing strategy aimed at deterring Iran from attacking American troops and diplomats in the Persian Gulf.

Officials said on Friday that the acting defense secretary, Christopher C. Miller, had ordered the redeployment of the ship in part as a de-escalatory signal to Tehran to avoid stumbling into a crisis in President Trumps waning days in office. American intelligence reports indicate that Iran and its proxies may be preparing a strike as early as this weekend to avenge the death of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the commander of Irans elite Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Senior Pentagon officials said that Mr. Miller assessed that dispatching the Nimitz now, before the first anniversary this Sunday of General Suleimanis death in an American drone strike in Iraq, could remove what Iranian hard-liners see as a provocation that justifies their threats against American military targets. Some analysts said the return of the Nimitz to its home port of Bremerton, Wash., was a welcome reduction in tensions between the two countries.

If the Nimitz is departing, that could be because the Pentagon believes that the threat could subside somewhat, said Michael P. Mulroy, the Pentagons former top Middle East policy official.
City approves first reading of temporary medical marijuana ordinance

With state officials still putting together the oversight rules for medical marijuana establishments, local governments need temporary ordinances.
Honoruing a legend in cinema literature JafnaICF Lifetime Achievement Award to K. S. Sivakumaran View(s): View(s):

Honouring his contribution to the arts and letters and to world of cinema in Sri Lanka,

Lifetime Achievement Award of the 6th JaffnaICF was presented to Kailayar Sellanainar Sivakumaran.

In the past five years, Jaffna International Film Festival has recognized and felicitated great personalities who had made invaluable and long lasting contributions to Sri Lankan cinema, by bestowing on them lifetime achievement awards. In the sixth edition of the Jaffna International Film Festival of 2020 we felicitate a pioneering figure in the world of arts and letters, a person who helped to introduce the Tamil speaking literati to the Sinhala speaking world, wrote on the cinema as a journalist and a critic and enriched the understanding of it in the Tamil world and helped build bridges: Kailayar Sellaninar Sivakumaran, popularly known as K. S. Sivakumaran.

I am very happy and elated to receive this recognition. It is a double honour for me as I received it in Jaffna, the Northern peninsular, said Sivakumaran, who has contributed to cinema and literature writing seven books.

This cultural bridge between the North and the South and communities should be continued. We may be Tamil, Muslims, Sinhalese, Malay or Burgher, but this country needs cultural unity.

For more than 55 years Sivakumaran has been writing about cinema and various other issues to newspapers and other media.

Born on 1 October, 1936, Mr. Sivakumaranborn hails from Puleeyantheevu, Batticaloa and had his early schooling there, and on moving to Colombo studied at Colombo Hindu College, and St. Josephs College, Colombo. He graduated with a BA in English, Tamil and Western Classical Culture from the University of Peradeniya and possesses an MA from the University of Madras, along with numerous Diplomas in the arts and in film studies.

Sivakumaran is a veteran journalist, broadcaster, translator, and literary and film critic; an English teacher both in Sri Lanka and abroad. A multi-faceted personality, he has been engaged in the artsfor over 65 years authoring more than 45 books in Tamil and English. As a journalist he worked in both English and Tamil newspapers such as The Island, Daily News, Virakesari. He was senior editor of the newspaper Navamani. In the SLBC, he was a relief announcer in both English and Tamil, and Duty editor (Tamil) in the newsroom. He has worked as a translator in various capacities, in advertising and in other places of the private sector.He has also been a visiting lecturer in journalism at the University of Colombo, Aquinas College, and visiting lecturer in translation studies in the University of Kelaniya and the University of Jaffna.

From a very young age, Sivakumaran demonstrated a keen interest in cinema. He was a member of the Cinema 16 Society,Film Critics and Journalist Association, and OCIC. He was a radio film critic in the 1950s and 1960s in Tamil and English. The OCIC too has honoured him with a lifetime award, recognizing his contribution. He wrote several articles in both English and Tamil in the newspapers after visiting international film festivals in India, especially the Goa International Film Festival and the International Film Festival of Kerala. His books in English on films, include Films Seenand in Tamil, AsaiyumPadimangal, Cinema or UlagaValam, and ThirapadaThurayil. Sivakumaran also writes short stories and poems in both English and Tamil. Irumai and UlaviyatSirukathaikalare two of his collections of short stories in Tamil.

At a more personal level, here is a person you will see atat every release of a film, a new performance, a critical discussion; a constant and consistent presence at an event of major or minor significance, aperson loved by all, and one whose opinion you seek out; a person who has done yeoman service for 65 odd years in searching in the nook and cranny of the arts in the Tamil speaking world in Sri Lanka; a humble, self-effacing man, whose tireless work and contribution to the world of cinema in Sri Lanka we are proud to recognize and celebrate today with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
A Chicago Teacher's Union leader is under fire for pushing for remote schooling as she vacations in the Caribbean.

Sarah Chambers, who is on the CTU's executive board and serves as an area vice president, has been claiming it is not safe for Chicago public schools to reopen next Monday amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

But that hasn't stopped her from jetting off on holiday to Puerto Rico - an island that has clocked more than 110,000 cases of the coronavirus.

Chambers reportedly took to Instagram on Thursday to share a snap that showed her reclining poolside, accompanied by a caption which read: 'We have the whole pool to ourselves. Then, we are going to old San Juan to get some yummy seafood mofongo.'

Chicago Teacher's Union leader Sarah Chambers is under fire for pushing for remote schooling as she vacations in the Caribbean

An image purportedly posted by Chambers to Instagram on Wednesday showed the union leader soaking up the sun in Puerto Rico

Chambers reportedly took to Instagram on Thursday to share a snap that showed her reclining poolside

An image purportedly posted by Chambers to the same account the previous day showed the union leader soaking up the sun as tropical palm trees blew in the background.

The snaps subsequently began being shared on social media, with many calling Chambers a 'hypocrite' for taking a tropical holiday whilst claiming it was 'unsafe' to return to the classroom.

Her Instagram account is now private.

However, the educator has doubled down on Twitter:, writing 'I got 4 covid tests (2 rapid, 2 PCR) b4 coming here & wore 2 masks (N95). Scientists said airplanes are safer than grocery stores bc airplanes have ICU level filtration & everyone wears masks. '

She added: 'My doc said its extremely unlikely for me to get Covid again since I had it so badly.'

However, the CDC states that Americans should 'avoid all travel to Puerto Rico' due to the island's 'very high levels of COVID'.

Chambers is pictured at a protest outside the Chicago Board of Education back in 2011

Chambers is continuing putting pressure on officials to delay the reopening of public schools.

On the same day she was in Puerto Rico she wrote: 'Hearing of an educator revolution happening. Tons of members are emailing their admin: Ill be asserting my right to continue to work in a safe remote environment on January 4th, 2021. I have signed the pledge, along with over 8,000+ union educators to continue to work remotely.'

The CTU is threatening strike action if schools do reopen on Monday.

That has angered many parents of Chicago public school students who are eager for their children to return to in-person classes.

Several social media users are now calling on the CTU to fire Chambers for her jet-setting vacation.

'Sarah Chambers went on vacation to Puerto Rico while saying schools arent safe and advocating for remote learning. Hypocrisy at its finest! I hope her district sees this and fires her,' one wrote.

Another chimed in: 'Sarah Chambers should be forced to resign or be fired. She celebrates our children's suffering.'
The chief executive of Louth County Council has been informed of the anger of some people concerning the implications for one-off housing in the Draft Development Plan.

She was made aware of the concerns of residents in rural areas, particularly North Louth and the Cooley Peninsula, that their children and grandchildren would not be able to build homes where they wanted.

At the December meeting of the local authority an attempt was made to postpone the deadline for submissions on the plan, but in a written reply to a motion proposed by Cllr Andrea McKevitt the executive stated it wasn't possible to extend the closing date of noon on 23 December 2020, to next March.

Cllr McKevitt, who represents the Dundalk/Carlingford electoral area, said her request came in the light of Covid-19 restrictions and public health concerns, with Louth having among the highest rates of the virus in the country.

She believed citizens deserved the right to meet to discuss the impact of the new proposals.

The Fianna Fail representative added some people were reluctant to engage in Zoom meetings concerning the Draft Development Plan when normally the meetings would be held in public.

Cllr McKevitt said she was disappointed with the response to her motion.

The meeting heard that the chief executive's report on submissions had to be submitted to the elected members not later than 24 March 2021, and that the earliest the plan could be adopted was the following mid-June.

CEO Joan Martin reiterated to the socially-distanced meeting in St Gerard's Hall, Dundalk, that there was no question of an extension to the 23 December deadline. The dates were set out in law.

She didn't believe engagement with the public on the plan had been any less as a consequence of COVID-19 restrictions as there was never a great history of engagement at open days.

Ms Martin continued that planning staff had gone 'over and above' what was required. The draft plan had been on public display since September and information about Zoom clinics was on the front page of the council's website.

'We have done a lot to make it as easy as possible.'

The chief executive reminded councillors that her report on the plan would only deal with submissions and pointed out it was very rare that the plan didn't go out on display a second time.

Cllr Antoin Watters said he was certain there would have to be a second public display.

He disagreed with the view that COVID-19 didn't have an impact on the public consultation process.

'There would have been hundreds at public meetings,' he opined.

Cllr Watters said he had concerns that the minister (Darragh O'Brien, Housing, Local Government and Heritage) stated he had still to look at the Rural Housing Policy.

Ms Martin advised the Sinn Fein councillor not to expect a review of the National Development Plan to have an impact on Rural Housing Policy, but if it did, they could vary the Louth plan in the future.

She said Cllr Watters could, of course, make a submission to leave the policy as it was.

'My view is that what we have put forward is what I and the planners feel is the correct policy to deal with the objectives set out in Ireland 2040.'

The CEO continued this was to reduce one-off housing which was not sustainable and had an impact on the environment.

'We are getting a lot of applications for one-off housing and we are refusing a lot of them.'

She certainly wouldn't be supporting a change (to this policy) but it was a matter for the members.

Cllr Watters said the top table and councillors 'will never agree' on the Development Plan, to which the chief executive replied that submissions were the only way to change anything.

Cllr John Reilly spoke of 'absolute anger in the peninsula'. He had been inundated with calls and believed any public meeting on the plan would draw a capacity crowd.

'I know one-off housing is not sustainable in the long-term, but it should be reduced over time,' he added.

The CEO said the draft plan on public display was not her plan. It had been adopted by the members of Louth County Council.

'If there is anger in Cooley it's with you, not the executive. Maybe you're not telling them it's your plan.'

Ms Martin said it was her job to implement the plan.

Cllr Edel Corrigan responded it was not correct to say it was the councillors' plan.

She said people were not fully aware of the process.

Cllr Tomas Sharkey remarked everyone knew the sentiment in the room and in rural Co. Louth.

He said the motion (proposed by Cllr McKevitt) would pass and asked that the government note their (the councillors) sentiment.

The chief executive said if the members pass a motion 'we can send it to the department'.

She repeated that the motion in question 'cannot happen'.

It was accepted that Ms Martin would write to the minister to say that members at the meeting asked her specifically about any plans to pause planning legislation, and to inform him of the sentiments of the motion which was passed.

The Argus
An ATAR of 97.15 is a stellar result for any VCE student, ranking them in the top 3 per cent in the state.

For Abdul Basit Ahmad, a Pakistani Hazara who arrived in Australia as a refugee 2 years ago, it is doubly extraordinary.

I was flabbergasted, Im not going to lie, he said.

I wasn't expecting a score near that, but I really did give my best and Im really happy about it.

Abdul Basit could barely complete year 10.
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A senior Nigerian police officer who reportedly resigned after he was denied promotion thrice has said that he is still in the service and that he only contemplated resigning.

The officer, Francis Erhabor, a chief superintendent of police, headed a division of the police in Akwa Ibom State, South-south of Nigeria.

An online publication, Igbere TV, which broke the news of the officers resignation, Saturday, quoted him as saying, I have wasted 30 years serving my fatherland.

He said he has witnessed several of his juniors get promoted above him and that it hurts deeply.

The officer, in the report, apologised to his fans, apparently over his decision to resign.

I once had a dream about the Nigeria Police Force becoming the peoples force, the countrys pride.

So sad, I no longer believe in the system as a noble one, but one were mediocrity, nepotism, and all other ignoble acts are given higher preference.

I am sorry I let all my fans down. I am deeply sorry for not finishing where you all expected me to finish. Thanks for your strong and relentless faith in me. I remain forever grateful to you all, he said.

Denial

When PREMIUM TIMES contacted Mr Erhabor, Saturday night, he said the resignation story was not true.

I am still in the service, I only contemplated it last week to resign. But I am much better now, he said.

He said what he had with Igbere TV was not an interview, but a discussion with a friend concerning his (Erhabor) thought pattern.

I feel so irritated by the injustice in the system, I switched off (my phone) after sharing my thoughts with him. I never knew he was trying to reach me to get permission from me before he could publish it.

The officer said he has been in a depressed mood which made him switch off his phone since Friday. He said when he switched on the phone line on Saturday night he realised his resignation plan had gone viral.

Relief

He said he felt relief on Saturday morning after listening to a devotional message from a Nigerian pastor, Enoch Adeboye, of the Redeemed Christian Church of God.

I think I have accepted my fate, the officer said, when PREMIUM TIMES told him that his discussion could put him into trouble with the police authorities.

I am in thank-you mode. I have accepted my fate. For posterity, I think it was also not a bad idea that they knew how I felt.

Hopefully, we pray the system could correct itself. I know the system might come against me. I meant no harm.

TV stands by report

Igbere TV reporter, Isioma Ogochukwu, who said he took part in producing the story, told PREMIUM TIMES the publication stood by its report.

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Our own understanding was that the discussion was for publication, he said.

A senior police officer in Akwa Ibom State, who heads a police division in the state just like Mr Erhabor, said Mr Erhabor did resign and that he has been under intense pressure from the police authorities to reconsider his action.

Mr Erhabor himself appeared to have given credence to the assertion when he told PREMIUM TIMES, calls have been coming in, the ones that encourage me the most are from my superiors who told me not to take that decision further.

The police in Akwa Ibom State had earlier dismissed the resignation story as false.

The Commissioner of Police, Amienghene Andrew, is not in receipt of any letter of resignation from the Senior Officer and has not in any way communicated same to the Force Headquarters, the police spokesperson in Akwa Ibom State, Odiko MacDon, said in a statement, Saturday.

For the avoidance of doubt, appointments and resignations of the NPF are not done on social media, Mr MacDon, a superintendent of police, added.
NBC News - An Army soldier and a 16-year-old boy have been charged in the murder of Hayden Harris, a corporal at Fort Drum, New York who was found dead in New Jersey.

Jamaal Mellish, 23, and the unidentified teenager face felony murder, kidnapping and second-degree weapons charges, according to the Sussex County Prosecutor's Office.

Mellish was also charged with third-degree suppression of evidence.

Harris, 20, was found shot to death and buried under snow in a wooded area of Byram Township on Dec. 19. Shortly before his death, Harris had been reported missing.

Firefighters discovered the body after they saw debris and blood along a roadway during an annual Santa ride.

"The top of the snow was stained with what appeared to be blood," the police department said in a statement. "During a search of the disturbed area in the snow, the victims body was found approximately 200 yards into the wooded area mostly buried under snow."

Investigators said that Mellish was supposed to exchange a Ford Mustang with Harris for a Chevy pickup truck. The two had had a previous transaction, police said.

According to a Sussex County assistant prosecutor, authorities believe Mellish "abducted" Harris during the planned vehicle exchange.

Mellish is being held in military custody in New York pending extradition to New Jersey. It's not clear whether he has an attorney.

The teenager is being held at a juvenile detention center. Byram police and the prosecutor's office have not said how the teen was allegedly involved.

Harris, an infantryman with the 1st Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment, joined the Army in March 2019. The Tennessee native was posthumously promoted to corporal and awarded the Army Commendation Medal, which honors soldiers for their heroic action, achievements or service.

He also earned several awards and decorations, including the National Defense Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and the Army Service Ribbon.

It was well known here that Corporal Harris was a great Soldier, and as we share our grief with his friends and family, I hear again and again how he was also  and most importantly  a really wonderful, caring person," said Brigadier Gen. Brett Funck, acting senior commander of Fort Drum and the 10th Mountain Division, in a statement.
County Wexford has won three Ocean Hero Recognition Awards in Ireland's Clean Coasts programme for outstanding volunteer work in helping to protect and keep the coastline clean.

Wexford Sub Aqua Club was honoured for its 'Long-Term Commitment' as a longstanding member of the Clean Coasts initiative; Wexford Estuary Clean Coasts Group received an award in an 'Against the Odds' category for adapting to Covid-19 restrictions while Sean Ferguson was recognised as one of the country's 'Dedicated Individuals' who went above and beyond or strongly promoted the 2 Minute Beach Clean Campaign.

Sean said he is 'passionate about cleaning the coastline to protect our marine environment, birds and other wildlife.

'I enjoy the exercise and meet people in my community. I say to my friends, the sea helps me, so I help the sea', he said.

Clean Coasts enages communities in the protection of Ireland's beaches, seas and marine life. The programme is operated by the Environmental Education Unit of An Taisce and funded by the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government.

The awards were established in 2006 with only one category - 'The Clean Coasts Group of the Year' and were originally called the 'Clean Coasts Merit Awards'. It has been expanded over the years to include approximately 1,200 Clean Coasts groups and celebrate many Ocean Heroes nationwide.

Many Clean Coasts group continued to operate during the Covid-19 crisis, making an effort to carry out beach cleans while following government guidelines and restrictions.

Instead of an awards ceremony, the work of the winners was highlighted in a week of online celebrations from December 14 to 20. 'At a time when we usually celebrate our Ocean Hero Awards, we want to take a moment to recognise those groups and individuals who have gone 'above and beyond' to protect our coast this year and to celebrate our long-standing volunteers', said Sinead McCoy, Coastal Communities Manager of Clean Coasts.

Wexford People
Prelim highlights of #BigStorm New Year's Eve 2020:

 Min sea level pressure: 921mb, deepest storm near Alaska

 Shemya, Alaska: SLP 924.8mb at 22Z Dec 31 (Alaska's lowest)

 Buoy 46071 (south of Amchitka): sig wave height 58.1' (17.7m) at 01Z Jan 01 #akwx @Climatologist49 pic.twitter.com/8CFpWc2EEL  Rick Thoman (@AlaskaWx) January 2, 2021

A ferocious storm that hammered the far western Aleutian Islands late last week now qualifies as the strongest storm on record to hit Alaska, Rick Thoman, a climate scientist at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, told the Washington Post.

No major damage was expected. Thats only because of where the storm is centered: over uninhabited islands and ocean in the very far western Aleutian Islands, said Thoman, with the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment & Policy.

Kind of like a tornado in a cornfield versus in the center of a city, he said.

The storm, which has been described as a bomb cyclone, has already set records for the lowest sea level pressure ever recorded in Alaska and is considered the deepest cyclone in the state since record keeping began in the 1950s, according to climatologist Brian Brettschneider.

Early Thursday afternoon it was windy in Adak, but not remarkably so, said Barbara Tolliver, who operates a hunting lodge with her husband on the island.

I wasnt even aware of the intensity of (the storm), she said. A friend from the states texted me.

When she looked out her window, she saw blowing snow and birds.

There are birds flying out there, she said. I think theyre having fun on the wind and in the waves.

The wind slammed against the house last night, she said. But people were still out caribou hunting Thursday.

Marii Swetzof in Atka said strong winds hit overnight, but lessened during the day.

Now its what wed consider a normal Aleutian storm, she said.

Some boats had come into the harbor to wait out the weather, Swetzof said.

Communities in the Aleutians, including Adak, Atka and Unalaska/Dutch Harbor, were expected to be spared major damage despite the size and intensity of the storm, said Thoman. Thats only because the storm was centered so far west.

If we had this exact same storm, except centered between Adak and Dutch (Harbor), we would be talking about big impacts to people, he said. But because its so far west, theres just not much there.

By the time the storm hurtles into communities to the east, its ferocity was expected to have diminished.

Basically the further east you go into population centers, the lesser the winds will be, said Michael Kurz, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Itll definitely be some weather, but not that out of the ordinary of what they see this time of year, Thoman said.

The highest recorded wind as of midday Thursday was at Shemya, peaking at 83 mph, Thoman said.

By Shemya standards, thats a nice healthy wind but theyve had much worse, he said.

A small military installation on Shemya is of course built to withstand bombing, Thoman said.

The storm spawned monster seas, Kurz said. A buoy positioned south of Amchitka registered a 51-foot wave, more than the height of a two-story house, according to Thoman.

The U.S. Coast Guard so far had not been called to help any vessels hit by the storm.

As of 3 p.m. Thursday, all maritime traffic is avoiding the incoming storm in the Bering Sea, said Public Affairs Specialist 1st Class Nate Littlejohn of the U.S. Coast Guard. We hope mariners in the region will continue to monitor this powerful storm and respect it.
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LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's government is under growing pressure to abandon plans to reopen most primary schools in England, with one teachers' union demanding evidence it is safe to open and another telling members they do not have to work in an unsafe environment.Earlier this week, the government announced that most primary schools will open as planned on Jan. 4, while the start of term for secondary school children will be Jan. 11 for pupils sitting exams, and Jan. 18 for the rest. The National Association of Headteachers, England's largest headteachers union, said on Saturday they had instructed lawyers to write to the government demanding that it reveals the data behind its decision to reopen schools.

The National Education Union called on the government to move learning online in all primary schools in England for the first few weeks of the month. It has also issued advice to its members reminding them of their legal right not to have to work in an unsafe environment.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government has been criticised for frequent reversals during the pandemic, including delaying lockdown during the first wave in March and abandoning a system to award school grades without exams.Earlier this week, in a hastily arranged statement to parliament on bringing children back to school this term, the education minister Gavin Williamson said that the majority of primary schools in England would open as planned on Monday.

A few days later, he announced that all London primary schools will remain shut during the first weeks of January.

(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill; Editing by Ros Russell)
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- In addition to the shouts of Happy New Year, the cries of a newborn baby boy echoed through the halls of Staten Island University Hospital (SIUH) on Friday morning.

Pleasant Plains parents, Faith and Beshouy Rizkalla, welcomed Joseph Beshouy Rizkalla at 7:42 a.m., weighing 6 pounds and 10 ounces. He was born premature and sent to the intensive care unit, but is in stable condition. He is the second child of the couple and was the first baby of the New Year at the hospital.

I was a little scared because I didnt know what I was getting into, Faith told the Advance, explaining her fears of giving birth to her baby during COVID-19. Her child also came a month earlier than the due date, Feb. 1, 2021, a stark difference from her first son who arrived after his due date.

She hoped that she nor her newborn baby would catch anything.

This baby just couldnt wait, the water popped right away!

Thankfully, the healthcare workers at SIUH eased her of her worries. The hospital knew what they were doing and made sure that me and my husband got tested. Theyre very cautious.

The parents look forward to spending time with the baby, family and friends - who predicted Joshuas arrival - when they get discharged tomorrow.

Were happy and excited, Faith says of her and her husband, who went home to check on their first child at the time of the interview.

Amidst the pandemic, Faith and Beshouy Rizkalla successfully gave birth to a newborn baby boy at the Staten Island University Hospital. (Courtesy of the Staten Island University Hospital)

FIRST 2021 NEWBORN IN RICHMOND UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER

About four hours after Rizkallas arrival, new parents from New Springville, Kristina Montalvo and Hector Villarreal, welcomed their first child, Mariana Iris Liagya-Villarreal.

Mariana -- who was born at 11:58 a.m. this morning, weighing in at 6 pounds, 5 ounces, measuring 19 and a half inches -- became the first child of the year born at Richmond University Medical Center.

Its a surprise because she was a week early - she was due on the ninth, says new mom Kristina Montalvo.

Similar to Faith, Kristina and Hector were worried about giving birth during the pandemic.

Its scary at the same time, Hector began. With the pandemic going on, we dont want to catch anything and put the baby at risk.

But the couple mentioned that the hospital also provided assistance by ensuring that everyone wore masks while in the vicinity. The couple will be spending time with their newborn and family before going home.

Its still hard to believe, I feel like Im just watching someone elses baby, Kristina said. Im so excited and happy, because we got to start the new year with a baby after a hard year.
One of the cribs on display

The second annual Christmas Crib Exhibition was held at the Coimin Centre in Blessington over two days.

Over 100 exhibits of cribs from all around the world featured, including a number of new additions to last year's display.

Parish pastoral worker Aine Egan set about organising the event following the World Meeting of Families, which took place in Dublin in 2018.

She decided to write to a number of people seeking the donation of cribs for the exhibition, including Pope Frances.

Bishop Eamonn Walsh and Bishop Denis Nutley were two of the first people to reply and agree to provide cribs for last year's event. Fr Liam O Cuiv provided nine cribs, while Fr Liam Rigney sent over a crib from the Holy Land.

The cribs came from places as far away as Haiti, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Tanzania, Palestine, the Congo, Bethlehem and Russia, to just mention a few.

Some were incredibly ornate, while others used the simplest of materials to weave and carve the figures.

New additions at this year's exhibit included cribs from Vietnam, Cambodia, Malta and Poland.

A crib designed and created by Jan Kirsz was part of the display after he won the overall prize for miniature cribs which takes place at Krakow each year during the build-up to Christmas.

Visitors to the exhibit could also donate to the Daughters of Charity, who run a homeless shelter in Dublin, where Confirmation candidates from Blessington go on retreat each year.

Wicklow People
Indore: Munawar Faruqui, a stand-up comedian from Gujarat, is among five people arrested for making alleged indecent remarks against Hindu deities.

As per the police, during a comedy show which was held at a cafe in 56 Dukan area of Indore on Friday, indecent remarks were made against Hindu deities and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

The case was registered on a complaint filed by Eklavya Singh Gaur (36), son of BJP MLA Malini Laxman Singh Gaur.

Gaur said he and his associates had gone to the show as audience, where the comedian made the remarks. They objected to his comments and created ruckus over it. They also forced the event to stop.

"A case was filed late on Friday night against stand- up comedian Munawar Faruqui, a resident of Junagadh in Gujarat, and four Indore-based persons based on a written complaint filed by Eklavya Singh Gaur, who also submitted a controversial video footage of the comedy show," in-charge of Tukoganj police station Kamlesh Sharma told PTI. "All the five accused were later arrested," he said.

The case has been filed under IPC sections 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), section 269 (unlawful or negligent act likely to spread the infection of any disease dangerous to life) and other relevant provisions.
New Delhi:

BJP President Amit Shah on Friday made a statement on speculations of Tamil superstar Rajinikanth joining the party. Shah said politics should not be left to politicians only and the party is open to all good people.



Shah, however, did not specify whether Rajinikanth would be given an invitation to join the BJP.



We believe that any good person joining politics must be welcomed, Shah said while responding to a question on speculation about Rajinikanth entering politics. He, however, said it is for the actor to decide whether he wants to join politics or not.

ALSO READ: Karnataka assembly elections 2018 | Yeddyurappa to be BJPs chief ministerial candidate: Amit Shah



Politics should not be left to politicians alone, he told PTI during an interaction. Speculation is rife that the BJP is trying to rope in the actor, who has a large fan following, to make inroads in Tamil Nadu.



BJP national secretary H Raja had earlier said Rajnikanth is a popular personality and is welcome to join the saffron party. Raja, who hails from Tamil Nadu, said the actor has to first make up his mind about joining politics, when asked if the BJP will approach him.



He has every right to form a political party or join politics. But so far he has not taken a firm stand. So we have to wait and see, he had said. Rajinikanth had spilled the beans about his political entry during an interaction with his fans a few days ago and told them to be ready for a war.

ALSO READ: BJP will win more seats in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, says party President Amit Shah

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Crowds descended on the Brecon Beacons today despite Welsh police and park authorities urging people to stick to stringent lockdown rules.

Hikers and families with sledges defied pleas from officials and headed to the snow-blanketed Storey Arms beauty spot, wrapping up for the crisp wintry weather.

Brecon Beacons authorities have expressly told people to follow 'stay at home' orders and not come to the site.

'Wales is in lockdown with only essential travel permitted, therefore people are unable to drive to visit any of the Welsh National Parks,' reads the instruction.

Hikers defied pleas from officials and headed to the Storey Arms beauty spot, wrapping up for the crisp wintry weather

Crowds descended on the Brecon Beacons today despite Welsh police and rangers urging people to stick to stringent lockdown rules

But they acknowledged 'it is clear' people have been flouting the rules and 'putting themselves and the Park's fragile rural communities at greater risk'.

And yesterday police threatened rule-breakers with hefty fines after it emerged that English residents were crossing into Wales and make use of the sprawling hills.

Welsh Government guidance is to exercise locally and officers have stepped up patrols to enforce the country's 'Alert Level 4' restrictions.

But there did not appear to be a large police presence today and warnings did not deter people driving to Brecon, where cars lined the walking routes.

The warnings did not deter people driving to Brecon this morning and cars were pictured parked by the snow-blanketed countryside

Brecon Beacons authorities have expressly told people to follow 'stay at home' orders and not come to the site

Police refuse visitors from Snowdon Police yesterday stopped and turned away a number of visitors who wanted to walk up frozen Snowdon. Many were from the north Wales area. However, some had travelled more than 200 miles from London and Milton Keynes to walk their dogs and enjoy the snow. Welsh Government restrictions allow only essential travel. North Wales police urged : 'Please listen to what is being asked of you - we are in the midst of a global health pandemic.' Advertisement

It came as the UK reported a record 57,725 cases amid dire warnings from medics of hospitals creaking under the load of new patients.

Brecon park authorities said that people heading to the beauty spot could contribute to the strain.

Tegryn Jones, Chief Executive of Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority said: 'There is no doubt these are challenging times but all of our safety depends on people respecting the rules and doing the right thing.

Right now this means staying at home to stay safe and only exercising from our doorsteps. If not, there is real concern that our rural health services will face increased pressure and social distancing measures will not be followed.'

Yesterday North Wales Police blasted Bank Holiday walkers who journeyed up to 270 miles to snow-covered Snowdonia National Park to scale Wales' biggest mountain.

They drove from as far away as Kent, Southampton and Solihull, the force revealed on Twitter.

North Wales Police tweeted: 'Patrols continue across North Wales and we are working closely with our colleagues.

'Several reported for Covid-19 breaches already today - with some travelling here from as far as Southampton, Kent and Sollihull. Please do not travel for exercise.'
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in an interview with Xinhua News Agency and Central Television of the People's Republic of China that a growing number of studies show that the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic was caused by separate outbreaks in different places around the world.

"When China was struck by an unknown coronavirus, we immediately took action to conduct an epidemiological investigation, identify the pathogen and publish key information, including the virus genome sequencing," the head of the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.
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SLT recognizes Gateway College as an EdTech Specialist School View(s):

Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) signed a landmark agreement with the Gateway College network to work alongside the group of schools using them as model schools in the use of technology in education. Under the new agreement, SLT has recognised the Gateway Colleges as EdTech Specialist Schools. As the exclusive internet service provider and the distributor of Wifi within the schools, SLT will strive to usher in new technologies to the Gateway Schools and engage with Gateway in joint research.

Sri Lanka Telecom PLC is the national Information and Communications Technology (ICT) solutions provider and the leading broadband and backbone infrastructure services provider in Sri Lanka for over 162 years. SLT enables opportunities that empower Sri Lankans and elevates the countrys standing in the global arena. Being one of Sri Lankas most valuable blue-chip companies with market capitalisation of Rs.60 billion, SLT has been recognised amongst the 10 Most Admired Companies in 2020 for its continuous efforts in empowering Sri Lankans.

Being the only Microsoft Showcase School in Sri Lanka and one among only 325 in the world, Gateway College is a self-driven organisation with a clear focus on offering Education for tomorrow. During the current pandemic, while having all 550 of their teachers deliver lessons online, the school achieved the remarkable feat of having a hundred of their teachers recognised by Microsoft as Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) Experts. Gateway College is the only International School in Sri Lanka that has direct centre status from both Edexcel and Cambridge. Gateway is also a recognized centre of NCC Education UK, LAMDA UK, ECDL Foundation, ECIS, Duke of Edinburgh International Award and the College Board USA for SATs.

Both SLT and Gateway believe that the power of change lies with educators. Through this partnership, both organisations are keen to collaborate with organisations and professionals who are passionate about their work, have true collaborative spirit, and strive to inspire students with outside-the-box thinking in technology education. The agreement will support the good work of educators through the provision of futuristic technology and ICT infrastructure that melds technology with the classroom environment, catering to students of all learning styles.

This partnership between the largest telecom provider and a leader in the Private Education sector in Sri Lanka is expected to result in the establishment of a modern school that will serve as a case study to many others and pave the way for setting standards.
Multiple film exhibitor associations have written to actor Salman Khan, asking him not to release his upcoming film Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai on a digital platform. The exhibitors believe that having the film release on big screen might just bring audiences back to theatres after the coronavirus lockdown.

In a letter to Salman, the exhibitors told him of the dire situation of lakhs of people employed at film theatres. They told him how releasing Radhe in movie theatres will be the biggest Eidi they could ask for. Read their letter here:

Dear Mr Salman Khan,

Hope this letter finds you well.

As you are aware, 2020 has been a rough year for millions of people across the country & the ones associated with Indias film exhibition sector havent been an exception. Over the last 10 months, hundreds of single screen / independent cinemas have pulled down their shutters permanently & this has resulted in the loss of livelihood for lakhs of people who were employed by them directly & indirectly.

Films are to theatres what fuel is to a car. Without a constant supply of content that is relevant to its audience, running a cinema hall is close to impossible. For over a decade now, your films have played an important role in bringing audiences to single screen cinemas, which are otherwise starved for content that caters to the sensibilities of people who patronize them.

Your film RADHE - YOUR MOST WANTED BHAI is among the few that are capable of resurrecting the fortunes of independent / single screen cinemas across the country. A film like that, if released widely can give not just financial support & relief, but also a ray of hope to owners & employees of theatres in the context of their future. We request you to plan the films release at every cinema in the country on Eid 2021, as there cannot be a better eidi than that for us film exhibitors & more importantly for millions of your fans, whom we cannot wait to welcome back at the theatres!

Till date, not even a single case of people contracting COVID 19 has been traced back to a cinema hall anywhere in the world & we are confident of keeping your fans safe by following comprehensive protocols & guidelines that have been issued by the concerned authorities.

May 2021 bring lots of happiness, love & prosperity to you and your family. In anticipation of your support & on behalf of lakhs of Indians who make a living by working at & for cinema halls.

Yours truly,

- Cinematograph Exhibitors Association of Gujarat - Indian Cine Exhibitors Association, Uttar Pradesh & Uttarakhand - HPC (Exhibitors), Central Circuit Cine Association -Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh & Rajasthan - Bihar Jharkhand Motion Pictures Association - Movie Exhibitors Association of Rajasthan - East India Motion Pictures Association, West Bengal & Tripura - All Assam Cinema Hall Owners Association - Chhattisgarh Exhibitors Forum - Telangana Film Chamber of Commerce - Motion Pictures Association, Delhi NCR - Marathwada Chitrapat Sabhagrah Sangh - Bihar Cinema Exhibitors Association - Uttaranchal Cinemas Association, Dehradun - Chennai Chengulpeth Theatre Owners Association - Film Exhibitors Forum of Vidarbha - Greater Hyderabad Exhibitors Association - Tamil Nadu Theatres & Multiplex Association.

Dear @BeingSalmanKhan,

Heres a humble appeal by the film exhibition sector. Truly hope #Radhe can offer some much needed relief to theatres & joy to your fans all over the country! We want #RadheOnEid in cinemas! #SupportCinemas #SaveJobs #India #RadheInCinemas @SKFilmsOfficial pic.twitter.com/GavtZQwJfz  Akshaye Rathi /   (@akshayerathi) January 2, 2021

Also see: Ananya Panday shows off lean beach body in a bikini on Maldives vacation, Suhana Khan loves it

While there have been reports that Salman has sold Radhe to an OTT platform for Rs 250 crore, the actor has not confirmed or denied them. Radhe also stars Disha Patani, Randeep Hooda and Jackie Shroff in pivotal roles. The film was originally scheduled to release in theatres on Eid in 2020 but was stalled due to the pandemic. There is no update about the new release date.

Follow @htshowbiz on Twitter

ott:10
The Covid-19 death toll has crossed 400 with the deaths of 18 more people yesterday.

The death toll now stands at 408, with 96 of those occurring in the last seven days alone.

The Ministry of Health reported the deaths in its daily update yesterday evening.
Did you buy a Powerball ticket in Hedgesville? You might have won $50G
TUPELO, Miss. (WTVA) - North Mississippi Health Services has revised its visitation policy on its hospitals to prevent the spread of COVID-19 to patients.

Visitors who meet these visitation guidelines are asked to refrain from visiting:

If you have had a positive COVID-19 test in the last 14 days, are currently waiting on results of a COVID-19 test, or are isolating because you may have been exposed to a person with COVID-19.

If you have any signs or symptoms of respiratory infection in the past 48 hours: A temperature of 100 degrees Fahrenheit or higher Cough Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing Chills Muscle pain Sore throat New loss of taste or smell



Masks are required.

Visitors who do not follow personal protective equipment (PPE) guidelines will be asked to leave the premises to protect the safety of patients and staff.

Open this link to view NMHS's full visitation policy.
Kohima/Imphal: The National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) has additional teams and pressed more choppers into services to help the ground forces in Manipur contain the Dzukou Valley wildfire that started on December 29.

A total of 7 NDRF teams have been pressed into action. Four at Manipur and three at Nagaland. 56 NDRF personnel airlifted by IAF from Borjhar, Assam. Meanwhile, teams airlifted for fire fighting have landed in Nagaland and Manipur.

Yesterday, IAF Mi-17 V5 helicopter was deployed for fire fighting mission at Dzuko valley near Kohima, Nagaland & a C-130J Hercules aircraft airlifted 9 tonnes load with 48 NDRF personnel from Guwahati to Dimapur.

IAF is deploying 3 more helicopters equipped with Bambi Bucket, the IAF said in a statement.

The centre has assured all necessary help to combat the massive blaze that started in Nagaland four days ago and has since spread to its neighbouring state.

Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh, who had conducted an aerial survey to take stock of the wildfire that has caused huge damage since it broke out on Tuesday, on Friday tweeted that he had received a call from Union Home Minister Amit Shah to assess and discuss the situation.

"Amit Shah Ji has assured all the necessary assistance from the Home Ministry to contain the situation at the earliest," he said.

Nagaland State Disaster Management Authority`s Officer on Special Duty, Johnny Ruangmei said that the heavy gusty winds affected the efforts to douse the fire.

"We have requested the IAF to deploy at least three more helicopters to tame the inferno," Ruangmei said over phone.

He said that the army, state police, state and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Forest Department, volunteers of Southern Angami Youth Organisation (SAYO), accompanied by the local people and NGOs, are jointly making fire lines in the Valley to break off the link between the blaze and the forest.

IAF spokesman Wing Commander Ratnakar Singh said that following a requisition by Nagaland, the Eastern Air Command in Shillong has deployed a Mi-17V5 helicopter to check the wildfire.

"The helicopter is equipped with a Bambi Bucket for fire fighting," Wing Commander Singh said over phone from Shillong.

The Manipur government has also requested the NDRF and the army to help control the wildfire that has spread to its Senapati district.

In a series of tweets, tagged to the Prime Minister`s Office, the Manipur Chief Minister said: "The wildfire that broke out at Dzukou valley has spread quite extensively and caused serious damage on this part of mountain range.

"Taking a serious view of the wildfire at Dzukou Valley, having a personal aerial survey of the situation, sending more personnel to the spot and seeking help from the concerned authorities to prevent the spread of the blaze and save the deep forest portion of the Valley."

"The fire has already crossed Mount Iso, the highest peak of Manipur. If the wind direction is going to the southern side, there is a high possibility of entering in the thickest forest called Koziirii in Manipur. Need help."

Nagaland Governor R. N. Ravi, accompanied by Kohima district officials including Deputy Commissioner and Superintendent of Police as well as members of the local NGOs, had visited the Dzukou Valley on Wednesday for a first-hand assessment of the intensity of the fire and the destruction being caused by it.

According to the statement, the Governor urged the state government to immediately frame appropriate SOPs including Satellite Based Real Time Early Warning System to prevent recurrence of such a disaster.

The Dzukou Valley, 30 km from Kohima, also is a sanctuary for the endangered Blyth`s tragopan - Nagaland`s State Bird - and other species of birds and animals.

The iconic valley, situated at an altitude of 2,452 metres above the sea level, is a popular tourist spot and also famous for its seasonal flowers and biodiversity. Often caught in a boundary dispute between Manipur and Nagaland, it also has been prone to wildfires.

Members of the SAYO, which run an adventure-based conservation programme, tackled such fires in many cases earlier. In 2006, the wildfire affected a 20-km stretch of the southern part of Dzukou valley.

(With IANS inputs)
She's been enjoying a sun-soaked trip with a friend in Mexico.

And Hofit Golan was sure to send pulses soaring as she posed in a slew of stunning snaps she took during her vacation last month, which she returned from in time for Christmas last week.

The fashionista, 35, looked sensational as she showed off her slender figure in a black lace-up swimsuit that had cut-out detailing in the centre and sides to share a glimpse of her enviable physique.

Wow! Hofit Golan set pulses soaring in a black lace-up swimsuit in racy throwback snaps from her sun-soaked Mexico trip in December that she shared via Instagram

Hofit's ensemble was cut high on her waist to accentuate her slender legs as she posed with one hand in the air at the Casa Malca boutique hotel.

The Israeli media personality wore her blonde locks pulled back into a messy bun, and she wore a slick of dark lipstick to highlight her plump pout.

In another sultry shoot, Hofit was seen stripping naked as she enjoyed an open-air bath and looked out at the stunning views around her.

As she posed while lounging on the edge of the bath, Hofit gave a generous glimpse of her sideboob as her blonde locks pooled around her in a wet style.

Beach babe: Hofit also went nude in an open-air bath while posing for racy photos

Ultimate relaxation: Hofit was seen bathing in a candle-lit bath during her trip

Location: Hofit's snaps were taken at the Casa Malca boutique hotel, which was the private mansion of drug lord Pablo Escobar, but has now been converted into a hotel and art gallery

Gorgeous: Putting her toned abs on display, Hofit slipped into a green one-shouldered frilled top that she paired with a matching skirt that had thigh splits along both legs

Casa Malca was the former private mansion of drug lord Pablo Escobar, but it has now been converted into a hotel and art gallery.

Hofit showed her followers around the gorgeous location by posing in and around the property for an array of stylish snaps.

Putting her toned abs on display, Hofit slipped into a green one-shouldered frilled top that she paired with a matching skirt that had thigh splits along both legs.

One snap saw her show off the ensemble while relaxing on a large sun-lounger and she was sure to turn heads as she put her figure on display.

Revealing: One snap saw her show off the green ensemble while relaxing on a large sun-lounger and she was sure to turn heads as she put her figure on display

Ethereal: Another slew of snaps saw Hofit pose in a white caped gown that was adorned with gold wings etched onto the back

On your bike! Hofit slipped into a black swimsuit for a trip to the beach

Relaxed: Hofit posed in an array of swimwear that highlighted her enviable figure

Glamorous: Hofit also slipped into a white summer dress that also showed off her sun-kissed legs as she relaxed on a red velvet cushion

Hofit, who comes from Israel, has been a regular on the showbiz party circuit for several years.

In 2015, the jet-setter spoke to Femail about her experiences of premieres and film festivals, saying it can be exhausting.

She explained: 'After Cannes and Fashion Week, I can't wear earrings and my feet won't fit into a single pair of heels.

'My body rejects glamour. I don't brush my hair for ten days and I go on a beauty strike.'

Busty: Hofit enjoyed a beach shower while dressed in a plunging white bikini

Girls just wanna have fun! In one lot of snaps, Hofit was seen posing with fruit alongside a pal

Lounging around: Hofit was seen basking in the beauty of the boutique hotel as she relaxed in an orange kimono

Enjoying themselves: Hofit posed by the pool with a friend as they drank refreshing coconut milk and played with an adorable puppy
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Senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty and Congressman Chuck Fleischmann announced Saturday they will oppose the Electoral College certification of the presidential election.



Rep. Fleischmann said, The 2020 Presidential Election was rife with irregularities in many states. After speaking with constituents across the third district of Tennessee, I will object to the certification of the Electoral College on Wednesday. We must protect the integrity of our elections by ensuring only legal votes are counted, and illegal ones are not. I continue to stand with President Trump and support his efforts to bring transparency to our election system.

"On Jan. 6, 2021, I will support efforts by my colleagues in the House and Senate to cast light on concerns about the integrity of the 2020 presidential election by objecting during the Electoral College certification. While it has been largely ignored by the media, there are a large number of Americans who do not have faith in the integrity of the 2020 presidential election, including many of my own constituents who have voiced their concerns to me and my office. It would be a disservice to our future elections if we certify the Electoral College results and move on when there has not been any attempt to put the worries of many Americans at ease with a thorough investigation into the allegations of fraud and questions of election integrity.

My support of the objections will not be unprecedented. Following the 2000, 2004, and 2016 elections, Democrats in Congress objected during the certification of electoral votes in order to raise concerns about election integrity. We are now also entitled to voice our concerns about the integrity of the 2020 election.



Many Americans are genuinely concerned and do not have faith in this election. It should be our number one priority to ensure that all Americans have faith in the integrity of our elections. Certifying and moving on without an investigation will only go to further fray and dissolve the trust Americans have in the foundation of our country, our elections. I cannot vote to certify the 2020 Electoral College results when real concerns about election integrity from many Americans across this nation, and in East Tennessee, have been mocked and ignored.



Senator Marsha Blackburn and Senator-elect Bill Hagerty said, Tennesseans elected us as their United States Senators to represent their views and values in Washington and to always fight for them, which is why we have concluded without any reservation that we will stand against tainted electoral results from the recent Presidential election. We know that our elections, built around the Electoral College which is a fundamental element, are the envy of the world. Protecting their integrity and ensuring the results are free and fair are critical to maintaining the trust of our own citizens.

"Since Nov. 3, hardworking men and women from across Tennessee have contacted us to justifiably express anger and concern that some states conducted the recent election in a manner that did not respect the rule of law and may have violated many of their state constitutions as well as Article II of the U.S. Constitution. Many are concerned about the sanctity of the one person one vote guarantee. Our founders understood that it is ultimately the peoples job to preserve the sanctity of these most fundamental American systems, and so they charged the peoples representatives in Congress with a specific role in the process. We plan to exercise that role fully in the new Congress.

TNDP Chair Mary Mancini said, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the election. As of today, Donald Trump has lost 60 out of 61 lawsuits contesting the results, and countless state election officials - both Republican and Democrat - have demonstrated the integrity of the November election. There is simply no proof that the results are anything but the legitimate will of the American people. The decision by Senators Blackburn and Hagerty to refuse to accept the results of this fair and free election undermines the electoral process we have relied on for more than two centuries That they would bend their conscience and character to please one man, Donald Trump, is un-American, a betrayal of the oath they took to defend and protect the constitution, and a slap in the face of the Tennesseans they swore to serve.

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Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-01 23:47:31|Editor: huaxia

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Passengers pass security checkpoint at Terminal 2 building of the Shanghai Pudong International Airport in east China's Shanghai, Nov. 24, 2020. (Xinhua/Ding Ting)

SHANGHAI, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- An imported coronavirus variant case was reported in east China's Shanghai, the municipal center for disease control and prevention said on Friday.

The patient is a Chinese national who studied in Britain, flew to Shanghai on Dec. 14. and was quarantined immediately. The patient was diagnosed as a confirmed mild COVID-19 case two days later and is receiving treatment at the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center.

In recent coronavirus gene sequencing monitoring on cases imported from Britain, the center detected that the virus of the case was coronavirus variant B.1.1.7. It is similar to the one recently reported in Britain, according to the Shanghai Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The patient is in stable condition. All passengers on the same flight as the patient were quarantined for 14 days, and no abnormality in their health has been reported. 
President Donald Trump walks to board Air Force One prior to departure from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Dec. 23, 2020. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Trump Announces Veto of Driftnet Fishing Bill

President Donald Trump on Friday announced he was vetoing a driftnet fishing bill that recently passed with support from both parties.

S. 906, or the Driftnet Modernization and Bycatch Reduction Act, would expand the definition of large-scale driftnet fishing to bar the use of gillnets with a mesh size of 14 inches or greater.

Trump said in a veto message to the Senate that, in passing the bill, Congress has ignored the fact that the regional fishery management process has had strong, bipartisan support since its creation.

By forcing the West Coast drift gillnet fishery to use alternative gear that has not been proven to be an economically viable substitute for gillnets, the Congress is effectively terminating the fishery. As a result, an estimated 30 fishing vessels, all of which are operated by family-owned small businesses, will no longer be able to bring their bounty to shore. At a time when our nation has a seafood trade deficit of nearly $17 billion, S. 906 will exacerbate this imbalance, he wrote.

The bill would also not achieve its purported conservation benefits, Trump said.

The House passed the bill 283-105 last month, after the Senate passed it without a recorded vote.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), one of the bills sponsors, said last month that were finally close to removing deadly large mesh drift gillnets from Californias waters.

Federal waters off the coast of California are the last place in the United States these nets are still used to catch swordfish. However, they also indiscriminately kill whales, dolphins, porpoises, sea turtles, and other marine animals in the process. Im hopeful the president will now sign our bipartisan bill to phase out these harmful nets and help the industry transition to more efficient, sustainable and profitable methods, she added.

In a new statement, Feinstein said there is not enough time to override the veto before the new Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3. She said she plans on reintroducing the bill on the first day of the new Congress.

Trumps move came around the same time the Senate voted to override his veto of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2021.

Trump vetoed the defense funding bill because it did not contain a repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. He also opposed portions of the legislation, such as a part that mandates the renaming of some military bases.
India has begun its two-year tenure as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council along with Norway, Mexico, Ireland and Kenya. It is set to achieve concrete and result-oriented action at the security council for an effective response to international terrorism.

As the new year started, India also began its two-year tenure as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council along with Norway, Mexico, Ireland and Kenya. On 17 June, India was elected to the UN Security Council with 184 of the total 192 votes. A member country needs a two-third majority of votes in the General Assembly to become a non-permanent member. This is the eighth time India has been elected as a non-permanent member.

The key priorities for India, will be counter-terrorism and maritime security for global peace and stability. As the largest democracy, we will be promoting very fundamental values like democracy, human rights and development, said Indias Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador T S Tirumurti. Tirumurti has outlined counter-terrorism, peacekeeping, maritime security, reformed multilateralism, technology for the people, women and youth and developmental issues, especially in the context of peace building, as Indias priorities for the UNSC tenure.

In August, India will serve as the president of the council, a position held by each of the members in turn for one month, according to the alphabetical order of the member states names. Presidency entails presiding over council meetings, coordinating actions, deciding the content of UNSC debates and more.

Also read: Farmers vs Centre continues: Next meet on Jan 4, unions to up the ante if deadlock continues

India will strive to achieve a concrete and result-oriented action at the security council for an effective response to international terrorism, said External Affairs Minister, S. Jaishankar. India has a clear position on combatting international terrorism by providing an effective response, addressing the abuse of information and communication technology (ICT) by terrorists, disrupting their nexus with sponsors and transnational organized criminal entities, stemming the flow of terror finance and strengthening normative and operative frameworks for greater coordination with other multilateral forums.

At UNSC, India will be guided by the five priorities for a reformed multilateral system. They are new opportunities for progress, effective response to international terrorism, reforming multilateral systems, comprehensive approach to international peace and security and technology with a human touch. India is one of the largest contributors of peacekeeping troops to the UN and it will seek to leverage its strengths in ICT to improve peacekeeping efforts around the world.

India is also expected to call for more transparency in listing and delisting of entities and individuals by the UN sanction committees. Getting permanent membership in an expanded council is also high up on the agenda.

Also read: Mega Covid-19 vaccine dry run in India today: Heres all what you need to know
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KYODO NEWS - Jan 2, 2021 - 09:02 | All, Japan, 3/11 Fukushima

The government led by the now-defunct Democratic Party of Japan unofficially proposed that then Emperor Akihito evacuate to Kyoto or somewhere further in the west from Tokyo immediately after the start of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011, a former administration official has said.

However, the Imperial Household Agency flatly dismissed the idea, saying there was "no way" the emperor would do it at a time when people were not evacuating from Tokyo, leading to the government of Prime Minister Naoto Kan to give up the proposal.

Several former senior officials at the prime minister's office separately said the then DPJ administration also briefly considered evacuating Prince Hisahito, the son of Crown Prince Fumihito and Crown Princess Kiko, from Tokyo to Kyoto.

Prince Hisahito became second in line to the throne when his uncle, Emperor Naruhito, ascended the Chrysanthemum Throne in May 2019. The prince was 4 years old when the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant suffered core meltdowns following a devastating earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan.

Former Emperor Akihito stepped down from the throne on April 30, 2019, becoming the first Japanese monarch to abdicate in around 200 years, his eldest son succeeding him the following day.

Kan, a House of Representatives member now belonging to the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, admitted he was "thinking in my head" of evacuating the emperor at the time but denied he had conveyed the idea to the then emperor or suggested it to someone else.

However, according to the former Kan administration official, at Kan's request he unofficially asked Shingo Haketa, then chief of the Imperial Household Agency, via a mediator whether Emperor Akihito would agree to evacuate from the Imperial Palace, possibly to the Kyoto Imperial Palace in the ancient capital in western Japan.

A former agency official said he remembers the agency turned down the proposal.

Asked whether the agency actually conveyed the evacuation proposal to the emperor, he said "maybe, but only after" saying no to the administration.

The Kan administration also treated Prince Hisahito's evacuation as among items that should be considered in case of a spike in Tokyo's radiation levels, but eventually decided not to formally consider it, according to the former senior officials at the prime minister's office.

On March 11, 2011, the six-reactor plant on the Pacific coast was flooded by tsunami waves exceeding 10 meters triggered by the magnitude 9.0 quake, causing the reactor cooling systems to lose their power supply.

The Nos. 1 to 3 reactors subsequently suffered core meltdowns, while hydrogen explosions damaged the buildings housing the Nos. 1, 3 and 4 units. Around 160,000 people were evacuated at one point in the nuclear disaster with a severity level rated on a par with the 1986 Chernobyl accident at maximum 7 on an international scale.

Yutaka Kawashima, who was the agency's grand chamberlain at the time, wrote in a magazine article shortly after the triple disaster, "It is utterly inconceivable for his majesty to abandon the people of Tokyo and leave Tokyo," as rumors had circulated about the emperor escaping the capital.

On March 16, 2011, five days after the quake and tsunami, Emperor Akihito said in an unprecedented video message he was hurt by the devastation caused by the disaster and expressed hope the people of Japan would overcome the challenges they faced by caring for each other.

He and his wife then Empress Michiko also voluntarily cut electricity at their residence in Tokyo for two hours daily as they wanted to share the hardship experienced by the people under the power rationing measure taken by electric companies, the agency said at the time.

In parts of Tokyo and its vicinity, rolling blackouts were implemented in the face of substantial power shortages stemming from the crippled nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture. Areas in central Tokyo hosting government offices, parliament and the Imperial Palace were excluded from the measure.

Related coverage:

Only 30% of Fukushima residents happy with disaster recovery progress

Melted fuel removal from crippled Fukushima reactor to be delayed

Japan's former Emperor Akihito turns 87
Also, I would not drive all the way in to Heber City to get to the Ice Castles. When you are coming down highway 40 past Jordanelle, there's a stoplight at the bottom of the hill. Turn right there and take River Road to the roundabout and then take Cari Lane to Homestead Road. Turn left on Homestead Road and the Ice Castles will be less than a mile down the road on the left. Going all the way in to Heber will add at least another 20 minutes to the drive. My husband developed a small subdivision just past the Ice Castles location. This is the route we always take in to Midway. From downtown SLC, it takes less than an hour.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas (pictured November 2020) is leading a group of lawmakers in asserting that "allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes"

A group of Republican senators led by veteran lawmaker Ted Cruz said Saturday they will challenge Joe Biden's election win -- the latest last-ditch move to support Donald Trump's efforts to undermine the vote.

The initiative, which appears certain to fail, flies in the face of rulings in dozens of courts and the findings by officials in several key states, that there were no widespread voting problems.

The Republicans' statement, signed by Cruz and six other current senators along with four senators-elect, asserts that "allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes."

The group said that when Congress convenes in a joint session on Wednesday -- for what normally would be a pro-forma certification of Biden's victory -- they will demand the creation of a special commission to conduct an "emergency 10-day audit" of the election results.

The statement says individual states could then convene special legislative sessions and potentially revise their vote totals.

"An attempt to steal a landslide win. Can't let it happen!" Trump tweeted Saturday.

Posting a list of the 11 senators, Trump added: "And after they see the facts, plenty more to come... Our Country will love them for it!"

Twelve Republican senators have said they will vote against certifying President-elect Joe Biden's election win

They join Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, who said earlier that he planned to raise objections on Wednesday.

A Republican member of the House of Representatives, Louie Gohmert, has also announced his plan to oppose certification, and more than 100 House Republicans reportedly will back his challenge.

Gohmert sought to further raise the stakes with a lawsuit that would have given Vice President Mike Pence -- traditionally in a ceremonial role in Wednesday's session -- the power to overturn the election result.

Pence opposed that effort, and a federal judge in Texas on Friday rejected the suit.

On Saturday, a federal appeals court upheld that dismissal.

The Hawley and Gohmert challenges will ensure that Congress must meet to hear the complaints.

- 'The Electoral College has spoken' -

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (pictured December 18, 2020) has urged fellow Republicans to vote to certify and avoid a divisive political brawl

The Congress sessions, sure to be contentious, will play out against a backdrop of pro-Trump rallies in Washington next week encouraged by the president himself.

As with Trump's other attempts to reverse his election defeat, the latest political maneuvering appears doomed. Democrats control the House, and many Republicans are expected to vote Wednesday for certification.

The 11 senators conceded that most Democrats and "more than a few Republicans" would likely oppose their initiative.

Among them is Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, whose state was a battleground that helped tip Biden into the win column. Its result is expected to be among those contested on Wednesday.

"A fundamental, defining feature of a democratic republic is the right of the people to elect their own leaders," Toomey said on Twitter.

"The effort by Sens. Hawley, Cruz, and others to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in swing states like Pennsylvania directly undermines this right."

Senator Mitt Romney (pictured September 2020) dismissed as "nonsense" the rationale of his colleagues who plan to vote against certifying President-elect Joe Biden's win

He added: "I voted for President Trump and endorsed him for re-election. But, on Wednesday, I intend to vigorously defend our form of government by opposing this effort to disenfranchise millions of voters in my state and others."

Utah Senator Mitt Romney, a vocal Trump opponent and onetime presidential candidate who lost a 2012 White House bid to Barack Obama, dismissed his colleagues' rationale as "nonsense."

"The egregious ploy to reject electors may enhance the political ambition of some, but dangerously threatens our Democratic Republic," Romney said in a statement.

"Members of Congress who would substitute their own partisan judgment for that of the courts do not enhance public trust, they imperil it," he added. "Has ambition so eclipsed principle?"

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has urged fellow Republicans to vote to certify and avoid a divisive political brawl, saying: "The Electoral College has spoken."

Pence, however, is reportedly encouraging lawmakers to debate the baseless accusations of voting irregularities.

"Vice President Pence shares the concerns of millions of Americans about voter fraud and irregularities in the last election," his chief of staff Marc Short said in a statement to US news outlets.

US Vice President Mike Pence (pictured November 2020), who is reportedly considering a presidential run in 2024, has encouraged lawmakers to debate the baseless accusations of voting irregularities

"The vice president welcomes the efforts of members of the House and Senate to use the authority they have under the law to raise objections and bring forward evidence before the Congress and the American people on January 6th."

Biden won in the all-important Electoral College by a vote of 306 to 232.

Cruz is considered a likely 2024 presidential candidate. Hawley is also said to be positioning himself for a 2024 run -- and so is Pence.
Kabul: After four decades of grinding combat in Afghanistan, peace negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban have raised at least a possibility that the long cycle of violence might someday end.

But that milestone is a long way off. The most recent round of discussions, which began in September, has been riddled with bureaucratic hang-ups and debates over minor issues.

And though those talks resulted in an agreement on the principles and procedures that will guide the next round of peace negotiations, they came with a price. While the two sides met in Doha, Qatar, bloodletting in Afghan cities surged.

An Afghan woman sits by her son's gravee on the outskirts of Kabul as the peace talks began last year. Credit:AP

Now with peace talks scheduled to reconvene on January 5, the details of what is being negotiated remain murky.
Drivers in Midland ended 2020 paying  on average  42 cents less for gas than at the end of 2019.

AAA Texas in its last report of the year showed the average price of regular unleaded gas in Midland was $2.07. That is one of the highest differentials among the largest 27 metropolitan areas in the state and 12 cents higher than the state average year over year.

The difference year over year in Odessa was 34 cents, which can be explained partially in the difference in price this week in Midland and Odessa. This week, drivers in Odessa paid an average of $2.13 a gallon  the highest average in the state. El Paso was second at $2.09, Midland was third, and Abilene was the only other community in the state with an average higher than $2 ($2.01). The average across the state, according to AAA Texas, was $1.94.

Midland was tied for the fourth highest difference year over year in the state. El Paso had the highest difference (49 cents). The Red River community of Sherman-Denison was second (44 cents), and San Angelo was third (43 cents).

Distributors have told the Reporter-Telegram there are many complexities in the fuel business that impact pricing. They pointed to the high cost of transportation from Gulf Coast refineries and Midlands distance from pipelines.

In terms of week over week price, Midlands and El Pasos dropped 3 cents. Odessas stayed the same. Across the region, Lubbock showed a 1 cent increased to $1.88, the price in San Angelo rose 1 cent to $1.89, Amarillos price jumped 4 cents to $1.90, and the price in Abilene gained another 3 cents.

AAA Texas, in a press release, reported that throughout 2020, on average for the entire year, drivers in Texas have been filling up with the cheapest gas in 16 years.

The annual average for a gallon of regular unleaded statewide this year was $1.87, AAA Texas reported. The last time Texas had a cheaper statewide annual average was in 2004 at $1.74 per gallon. Plus, the Lone Star state average has been below $2 a gallon since mid-March, the longest streak since 2005 when the state average hit $2 a gallon for the first time.

AAA Texas spokesman Joshua Zuber said in the release, And gas price averages may be headed down again after the year-end holiday travel season concludes in early January.

Difference year over year

El Paso 49 cents

Sherman-Denison 44 cents

San Angelo 43 cents

Midland 42 cents

Laredo 42 cents

Brownsville-Harlingen 42 cents

McAllen 42 cents

Gas prices

This week

Odessa $2.13

El Paso $2.09

Midland $2.07

Abilene $2.01

College Station-Bryan $1.99

Texarkana $1.99

Texas $1.94

National $2.24

Last week

El Paso $2.12

Odessa $2.12

Midland $2.10

Texarkana $1.99

Abilene $1.98

State $1.95

National $2.25

Last week

El Paso $2.16

Odessa $2.07

Midland $2.06

Abilene $2.01

Dallas $1.97

Fort Worth-Arlington $1.97

State $1.91

National $2.20
A woman's body has been discovered inside the wreckage of a home destroyed by fire in Sydney's south-west overnight Sunday.

The single-level brick house in Macquarie Fields was already engulfed by flames when emergency services were called around 12.45am Sunday.

A 45-year-old woman managed to escape the blaze but told neighbours her mother, believed to be in her 70s, was still inside.

Two men attempted to enter the home on Magnolia Place by kicking in the back door but were unsuccessful.
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, in her New Years' address on Friday, said that the cross-strait relations between Taiwan and China were no longer just the matter between the two countries but of the entire world now.

"From a global strategic standpoint, Taiwan is more important than ever. Stabilizing relations across the Taiwan Strait is no longer just an issue for the two sides. It is a concern for the whole Indo-Pacific region and has already become a focus of international attention," said Tsai.

READ | Taiwan Urges China To Have 'meaningful Talks', Avows 'we Will Stick To Our Principles'

'Threat to status quo'

The Taiwanese President added, "Over the past year, military aircraft and naval vessels from across the strait have been active around Taiwan. This has undermined cross-strait relations, and poses a threat to the peaceful and stable status quo in the Indo-Pacific."

Speaking on the repeated intrusion of China's People's Liberation Army into Taiwan territory, Tsai said that Taipei will uphold its principles only if Beijing wants to resolve differences peacefully.

READ | China Plays Down Its Nepal Meddling After Oli Rejects Beijing's Advice; 2 Options Proposed

"I want to reaffirm that in dealing with cross-strait relations, we will uphold our principles and not act rashly. We are willing to facilitate meaningful dialogue under the principles of parity and dignity as long as the Beijing authorities sincerely want to resolve differences and improve cross-strait relations," she said.

The Taiwanese leader, while stressing the importance of Taiwan in global affairs, said, "As a force for good in the world, we will continue to be an indispensable member of the international community, both now and in the future."

READ | Indian Sailors Stuck In China For 7 Months Catch Owaisi's Eye; Govt Assures 'return Soon'

On December 31, the Taiwanese President said that the nation is willing to have meaningful talks with China as equals as long as Beijing is ready to put aside confrontation. As Taiwan offers another olive branch to China, Beijing has continued to claim that Taiwan is its own territory and terms it a "breakaway province" and has even ramped up military activity near the island.

While China has said that it is responding to collusion between the US and Taipei, Tsai speaking from the presidential office said that Beijing has threatened the peace as well as stability in the Indo-pacific region. Taiwan President said that if China is willing to defuse antagonism and improve the relations, the island will also reiterate similarly hostility.

(With ANI Inputs)

READ | Something Fishy: Chinese Submarine Drone Caught By Indonesian Fishermen; Not The First
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A call has gone to the hierarchy of the nation's policing institution to get serious and be committed to their professional development by evolving much more robust proactive crime prevention methodology rather than the time discredited and widely unworkable crime fighting tactics that would wait for a henious crime to be committed before going after the suspected criminals.

Speaking against the backdrop of the 'rescue' by the police of the kidnapped Auxiliary Bishop of Owerri Archdiocese Right Reverend Doctor Moses Chikwe, the Rights group-: HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) through the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf said although the rescue unhurt of the Clergy was commendable, it however charged the Nigeria Police Force to finetunne their operational strategies to bring them in tandem with the global best practices and to meet the policing thresholds of the twenty first century World.

"The Nigeria Police Force should invest substantially in building up intelligence gathering capacities of their officers and operatives and must partner closely with citizens and community leaders to be able to work a symbiotic relationship that will enhance proactive approach to crime fighting and prevention. The State and Local Government Area Councils and institutions both public and private and individuals of substantial means, must collaborate actively to introduce technologies for crime prevention such as the Closed Circuits Televisions (CCTVs) and the deployment of drones. The telecommunications networks needs to collaborate with the law enforcement agencies to quickly enable the citizens to feed in useful information on movements of suspected persons in their communities in such a way that the identities of the callers can not be traced to avoid retaliation from the suspected terrorists or kidnappers".

HURIWA recalled that the the Auxiliary Bishop of Owerri Archdiocese, Mose Chikwe, and some other kidnapped victims have been rescued without ransom as claimed by the Imo State Police command.

Spokesman of the police in Imo, Orlando Ikeokwu, confirmed this on Friday just as he said the rescue is sequel to a sting operation by men of the Imo State Police Command.

HURIWA recalled that the Bishop was abducted on Sunday night, along with his driver, at the World Bank area of Owerri, the Imo State capital in circumstances the Rights Advocacy group HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) suggests the total absence of any form of governance in Imo State.

HURIWA ADVOCATES the adoption of proactive approach to crime fighting and prevention because: " Experts and criminologists say that Proactive policing, as a strategic approach used by police agencies to prevent crime, is a relatively new phenomenon in the United States. It developed from a crisis in confidence in policing that began to emerge in the 1960s because of social unrest, rising crime rates, and growing skepticism regarding the effectiveness of standard approaches to policing. In response, beginning in the 1980s and 1990s, innovative police practices and policies that took a more proactive approach began to develop. This report uses the term proactive policing to refer to all policing strategies that have as one of their goals the prevention or reduction of crime and disorder and that are not reactive in terms of focusing primarily on uncovering ongoing crime or on investigating or responding to crimes once they have occurred. Specifically, the elements of proactivity include an emphasis on prevention, mobilizing resources based on police initiative, and targeting the broader underlying forces at work that may be driving crime and disorder. This contrasts with the standard model of policing, which involves an emphasis on reacting to particular crime events after they have occurred, mobilizing resources based on requests coming from outside the police organization, and focusing on the particulars of a given criminal incident."

"Proactive policing is distinguished from the everyday decisions of police officers to be proactive in specific situations and instead refers to a strategic decision by police agencies to use proactive police responses in a programmatic way to reduce crime. Today, proactive policing strategies are used widely in the United States. They are not isolated programs used by a select group of agencies but rather a set of ideas that have spread across the landscape of policing. HURIWA is urging the Nigeria Police Force to embrace this methology just as we are are calling for the introduction of technologies to wage an all out war against armed criminals and terrorists in Nigeria".
MOSCOW - On a desolate archipelago in the Russian Arctic - so far from civilization that it was a Soviet nuclear bomb test site in the 1960s - sits a leaky metal hut shaped like a barrel with an icon and a photograph of President Vladimir Putin on the wall inside.

There are no trees, no Internet, no landline or mobile phone connection and no water on site except for melted snow and ice. Hungry polar bears are all around. So the outpost at Cherakino seems a perfect place to revive the practice of political exile in Putin's Russia, opposition leaders contend.

It's here that Russia's military sent one of the country's most promising opposition politicians, Ruslan Shaveddinov, after security agents in black masks broke down his door and seized him from his home in December 2019.

"They called it political exile. They didn't even try to train me in military skills," Shaveddinov said in an interview with The Washington Post after his return to Moscow on Dec. 23, exactly a year after he was taken.

The ordeal faced by Shaveddinov - a close ally of opposition leader Alexei Navalny - offers another look at Russia's increasingly aggressive tactics to silence and intimidate Putin's critics. In recent months, authorities have ramped up harassment and prosecutions of activists, dissidents and journalists, freezing bank accounts and conducting repeated searches of homes.

The pretext to send Shaveddinov to the desolate Novaya Zemlya region was mandatory military conscription for men, a means increasingly being used to send young male political activists to remote hardship posts. But he asserts that military officials told him his treatment was political and insists he never got a draft notice.

A year of military service is mandatory for Russian men age 18 to 27, but the sons of wealthy or well-connected Russians can usually escape it with a bribe to the notoriously corrupt local military recruitment offices.

Shaveddinov is a particularly important foe of the Kremlin because of his work as a project manager on Navalny's "Smart Voting" tool, which directs voters in elections to the candidates considered most likely to defeat rivals from Putin's United Russia party. The next big test for the opposition is parliamentary elections expected in September.

Navalny said Shaveddinov was the victim of an "abduction" that appeared to have been ordered personally by Putin.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that if Shaveddinov dodged the draft, then everything was done according to the law.

Shaveddinov, 24, grew up in Istra, a poor town west of Moscow, in a region favored by Russian politicians and billionaires to build country mansions. The inequality outraged him.

"Even from childhood, I realized that things were not as they should be, that there was injustice," he said. He joined Navalny's cadre six years ago.

His arrest and lightning deportation from Moscow involved multiple security agencies, including the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Investigative Committee (a law enforcement agency for serious crimes) and the military, Shaveddinov said. Such an operation is typical of the high-profile arrests of opposition figures, journalists and activists.

His lawyer, Vyacheslav Gimadi, said authorities breached the normal legal procedures on draft dodgers, who must be sent a first summons and then a second summons. Those who ignore the second summons face a court hearing and are normally fined, he said. However, draft dodging is a felony with a possible penalty of two years in jail for those who continue to avoid conscription.

For Shaveddinov, it began around 3:30 p.m.on Dec. 23, 2019. His mobile phone access, Internet and power were suddenly cut in his Moscow apartment, leaving him in the dark with the setting sun. Special police pounded on his door.

In the months beforehand, he had been detained and searched several times and had his bank account frozen.

"I looked through the hole in my door and saw a crowd of people, all in masks," he said, recounting his story in full. Many of the details had been presented in court in July by his lawyer.

Sparks flew as a cutting device carved through the apartment's two metal doors.

Shaveddinov did not want to be arrested wearing only shorts. He scrambled around in the darkness for clothes, dressing hurriedly and donning odd socks because he could not see. Police burst in, threw him onto the ground, handcuffed him and seized his computer, phone, TV and electric plugs, he said.

They whisked him to the airport, put him - still handcuffed - onto a plane and flew him to Arkhangelsk in Russia's Far North. A rear admiral and other top military officials met the plane before Shaveddinov was transferred to another flight to the Novaya Zemlya archipelago late the same night, he said. He stepped out into a biting wind.

"It was so confusing. Things happened so fast. I didn't have time to be scared. There were people with cameras and I was thinking they probably won't kill me, since they're recording everything," Shaveddinov said.

The next day he was given permission to call his girlfriend, Kira Yarmysh, who is Navalny's press secretary. It was his only phone call.

Three months later, Shaveddinov said he was flown to what he called the "botchka," or barrel, at an even more remote, secret military location. Between three and five other conscripts were there at a time, and a chopper delivered food monthly and mail every two months.

"My job was to clear the landing strip and keep the polar bears away. They were very hungry," he said. "They slept right on my doorstep. In reality, they're very scary creatures."

The barrel is branded onto his memory: One window with ancient yellow curtains frames a flat field. The other, a helipad and a mountain. For more than a month in the winter, the sun never comes up.

To drink or wash he cut a block of snow and melted it on the wood stove. In summer, he walked nearly two kilometers (1.2 miles) to the river and hauled back two 13-gallon cans of water, taking care to avoid the polar bears.

"It is clear why I was sent there: so that I would have no communication whatsoever with my family or friends. It's huge psychological pressure. You're alone with wild bears and dogs and two other people," he said.

"You read books or you just stare out the window and watch your life passing by," he added. "Probably, if I was a different person, I wouldn't have made it. I would have become desperate."

He spent a lot of time talking politics with the other conscripts, all from the northern region. He heard in a letter that Navalny was poisoned and in a coma, but for months did not know that his mentor had survived.

Russian authorities have sent many other opposition members for compulsory military service in remote and harsh locations. The aim, Shaveddinov contended, is to deter political activism among a new generation, many of whom are alienated by Putin's repression and attempts to curb Internet freedom.

"With every year it gets worse and worse and there is less and less freedom," he said. "There are more political repressions and more political prisoners, and fewer possibilities for the opposition to operate.

"The machine eats and destroys everyone," he said, referring to Russia's repressive security apparatus. He believes he was sent to the "botchka" to break him - "but I was not going to give them that gift."

Shaveddinov's lawyer Gimadi sued Russian authorities for illegal abduction, "but the court rejected our complaint without reasoning," Gimadi said. He said the Defense Ministry offered no formal response in court.

"It is clear that it is a political exile because of the unlawfulness of the draft in both its form and content, including the use of searches, and the choice of destination: a very remote unit, where only conscripts from the Arkhangelsk region serve," Gimadi said.

In June, another member of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, Artyom Ionov, was detained and flown to a military unit in the Far North region of Chukotka despite suffering from asthma, an exclusion for military service. In July, Ivan Konovalov, the press secretary of a small independent medical workers' union, the Alliance of Doctors, was arrested and flown to the Arkhangelsk military unit.

Egor Cherniuk, the former head of Navalny's Kaliningrad headquarters, is at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania but facing a Russian criminal charge of draft dodging. Alexei Schwartz, head of Navalny's Kurgan headquarters, is also facing prosecution for allegedly evading the draft.

"This practice is increasing all the time. We are hearing more and more attempts," said Alexei Tabalov, activist and founder of a nongovernmental organization, School of Conscripts.

"Authoritarianism is growing in Russia," Tabalov said. "We can say it is not just authoritarianism. It has become an autocracy, and we realize that Putin is not going to leave, and as long as he's alive he's going to rule the country and the situation will keep getting worse."

When he returned, Shaveddinov carried home a bag full of letters from supporters and well-wishers. A final digital footprint of his journey remains: The "botchka" was marked on Google Maps by supporters, nicknamed "Shaveddinov's Gas Station," attracting a bunch of five-star "reviews" that are actually messages of support.

"There are bears. It's cold. But the company is great," wrote one supporter, Mikhail Samin.

"Hold on there, please," wrote another, "and in the Wonderful Russian Future we will build a monument to all modern political prisoners."
The Seattle Space Needle welcomed 2021 in an unusual way!

Officials created an out-of-this-world digital light show experience.

Organizers say they used sky-mapping technology and video to create the show, which was only visible on screen.

People who were there in person only saw the Space Needle lit up in magenta color.

Take a look at the show below!
Emotions ran high in Donabate on Tuesday, December 22, 2020 when Maeve Corish bade farewell to the Donabate Portrane Educate Together community. Maeve retired after thirty-eight years in education, nineteen of which were spent as principal at DPETNS.

Maeve was the school's first principal and began in temporary accommodation in the local Scout Den with thirty-one students and two colleagues. For almost two decades she saw the school grow and flourish. Today there are 441 children and 53 staff in a state of the art building on the Beaverstown Road.

Maeve has left an indelible mark on the school community and though there is a sense of sadness in the staff and community in her going, everyone is so grateful for her amazing leadership and wish her wonderful years of active retirement. Her inspirational leadership and vision fostered a strong inclusive ethos in the school and the children in her care were always her top priority and they loved her very much.

Due to COVID-19, marking Maeve's retirement had to be restrained but the staff and wider community intend to give her the send-off she deserves in 2021 when hopefully restrictions will be lifted.

The appointment of Susan Clarke as the school's new principal, having previously worked as the school's Deputy Principal, has been welcomed by all.

Fingal Independent
A group of 11 Republican senators and senators-elect led by Sen. Ted Cruz say they will reject President-elect Joe Bidens victory when Congress meets to certify the Electoral College vote. The group, consisting of seven senators and four senators-elect, said there should be a 10-day audit of results in the disputed states. Although the move wont actually change anything, it does illustrate how some lawmakers are all too eager to go along with President Donald Trumps baseless claims that the election was stolen from him even though there isnt a shred of evidence to support that contention. And theyre willing to go against the wishes of their partys leadership in Congress to do so. We intend to vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not regularly given and lawfully certified, unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed, the senators wrote in a statement. We do not take this action lightly.

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These 11 senators and senators-elect join Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who was the first senator to announce he would go along with many House Republicans and object to the certification of the election results. That means almost a quarter of Senate Republicans will be defying Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has called on Republicans not to try to overturn the election. On Saturday Hawley said he hopes many more will listen to their constituents and act.

As many as 140 Republicans in the House have suggested they could vote against certifying Bidens victory. That means what should be a mere formality this coming week will be filled with partisan drama amid questions about how many more Republicans will be joining the effort to contest the results. With all due respect to my Republican colleagues in the Senate who are doing this: can you please get a grip? tweeted Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Election officials across the country, including Republican Governors, have certified these results. This is embarrassing.

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Cruz was apparently the one that led the effort and ultimately the ones that signed one were Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Steve Daines of Montana, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, and Mike Braun of Indiana. Senators-elect Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama also joined in.

In their statement, the Republican senators and senators-elect allege that by any measure, the allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes. But they fail to cite any evidence that would support any contention that there was any problem with the election. Instead, they simply note that polls show most Republicans think the election was rigged, a claim Trump has been making even before he lost. So as far as theyre concerned, the audit is needed in order to make sure Americans trust the system without mentioning, of course, that it was Republicans who have cast doubt in the electoral process in the first place. A fair and credible audit  conducted expeditiously and completed well before January 20  would dramatically improve Americans faith in our electoral process and would significantly enhance the legitimacy of whoever becomes our next president, they wrote. We are acting not to thwart the democratic process, but rather to protect it.

Republican Sen. Ben Sasse from Nebraska said earlier in the week that Republicans who were going to contest the election results were involved in a dangerous ploy in order to further their political ambitions.
At least three more people, who returned to Kolkata from London on December 20, have been detected with Covid-19, prompting authorities to send their samples for genome sequencing to ascertain whether they were infected with the new and more contagious strain of the disease found in the UK.

All three have been kept in isolation in a state-run hospital in Kolkata, said a health department official.

Earlier two people, who had returned on the same December 20 flight, were detected with Covid-19. One of them was later found to be carrying the new strain.

The five were among the 222 passengers, who arrived in Kolkata from London on December 20. That was the last flight to have arrived from London before the government suspended all flights from the UK from December 23.

A dry run for Covid-19 vaccination was separately scheduled to be launched in West Bengal on Saturday. Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, and Gujarat earlier conducted dry runs.

Three areas in North 24 Parganas district  Amdanga, Duttabad, and Madhyamgram -- have been selected for the dry run in West Bengal, said a second official.

Out of the 5,53,000 Covid-19 cases in West Bengal, at least 11,60,00 cases have been registered in North 24 Parganas followed by 12,30,00 in Kolkata.
Apart from Oxford/Astrazeneca vaccine, the other vaccine candidate that is all set to get restricted emergency-use approval in the coming days is Bharat Biotechs Covaxin. The subject expert panel of Indias drug regulator on Saturday has recommended it for emergency use. While the final nod rests with the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI), Covaxin moving a step closer to getting approval carries major significance for India in the global scenario as 10 countries have already shown interest in Indias first home-grown vaccine. 10 million doses of the vaccine have already been produced for the Indian market.

Here is all you need to know about this vaccine:

Made-in-India vaccine: This is the first made-in-India vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research and National Institute of Virology.

Inactivated vaccine

An inactivated vaccine is one which is developed by inactivating (killing) the live microorganisims that cause the disease. This destroys the pathogens ability to replicate, but keeps it intact so that the immune system can still recognise it and produce an immune response. There are many inactivated vaccines against Hepatitis A, Influenza, Polio, Rabies, which offer excellent protection, Bharat Biotech has said.

Expert panel recommends Bharat Biotechs Covaxin for restricted emergency use

Covaxins efficacy as proved in animal studies

Bharat Biotech in its report published after animal studies said that its vaccine candidate showed protective efficacy. The vaccine candidate was administered in 20 rhesus macaques, divided in four groups. One group was administered with placebo, while three other groups were immunised with three different vaccine candidates. To summarize, the vaccine candidate was found to generate robust immune responses. Thus, preventing infection and disease in the primates upon high amounts of exposure to live SARS-CoV-2 virus, it said.

Covaxins human clinical trial outcomes

The third phase of trial is still going on, while the company has already published the findings of the first two rounds. It followed a double-bind, randomised, multi-centre phase two clinical trial which included children as well.

Efficacy to be determined only after two shots

After Haryana minister Anil Vij tested positive after receiving one dose of the vaccine during the trial, the company clarified that the efficacy is to be determined only after 14 days post the second dose. Also, as its trial was random in which some received the vaccine and some received placebo, there was no way to know whether the minister received a vaccine shot or a placebo shot.

Price

Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan has on Saturday clarified that the first phase of vaccination which will include frontline workers will be free. There has been no talk on the price of Covaxin though Dr Krishna Ella, the MD of Bharat Biotech, earlier said that the vaccine will be cheap, cheaper than a water bottle, he had said in a conference, pointing to a water bottle. Since his comment, it has been estimated that it will come at a cost lower than Rs 100.

Investment

According to reports, Bharat Biotechs total investment is about Rs 350-400 crore for the development of the vaccine, including new manufacturing facilities, investment for trials etc.

Covaxin in other countries

Bharat Biotech has already signed a letter of intent with US firm Ocugen to co-develop Covaxin for the US market. The company was also in talks with 10 countries in South America, Asia and Central Asia, and Eastern Europe.
Three things you can do to keep your teens safe in your home
Senator Josh Hawley has said that he will vote against accepting the reported Electoral College vote in the joint session of Congress next week, and a number of Republican House members will do the same. Some reports say that 140 or more GOP House members will vote to reject the Electoral College tally in one or more states. As I understand it, if there are objections in both houses, the House and Senate are required to retire separately to debate the grounds for the objections, which will give Republicans an opportunity to air their voter fraud grievances.

Democrats have gone ballistic over this news, with sedition being one of their milder characterizations of Republican skepticism of official election results. Of course, it was not always so. In the past, Democrats have objected to Electoral College results on the flimsiest possible grounds. RedState has a good summary. In 2001, 2005 and 2017, Democratic Representatives and, in 2005, Senators voted against accepting the Electoral College tally. Thus, every Republican president since George H. W. Bush has seen Democrats vote against accepting the legitimacy of his election.

2005 is the best analogy. In that year, George W. Bush was re-elected rather easily over John Kerry, but the Democrats focused their rage on Ohio. They alleged that Bushs re-election was illegitimate, mostly because the actual election results were different from certain exit polls, and also because of a ridiculous conspiracy theory involving Diebold voting machines. The vote in Ohio wasnt even close; nevertheless, Democrats in both the House and Senate voted against accepting it.

This is what Nancy Pelosi had to say about the Democrats sedition, as they now call it, in 2005:

Today we are witnessing democracy at work. This isnt as some of our Republican colleagues have referred to it, sadly, as frivolous. This debate is fundamental to our democracy. The representatives of the American people in this house are standing up for three fundamental American beliefs: The right to vote is sacred; that a representative has a duty to represent his or her constituents; and that the rule of law is the hallmark of our nation.

Needless to say, she is singing a different tune today.

Questioning the 2020 Electoral College vote in various states is justified, but wont do much good in the short term. Joe Biden will be inaugurated on January 20. But the issue of ballot integrity needs to be highlighted. Lack of confidence in our electionsa justified lack of confidenceis, right now, the biggest threat to our democracy. Reforms are necessary, or confidence will erode further. It is hard to push back against cynicism when the cynics turn out to be right.

So, while it wont do anything to prevent a Biden/Harris administration from taking office, objecting to electoral results in the joint House/Senate session, which is usually just a formality, can play a useful part in advancing the cause of election integrity. And the Democrats, having done the same thing repeatedly, only on frivolous grounds, are in no position to complain.
Greater Sydney residents will have to wear masks in some public indoor spaces from midnight on Saturday, with a $200 fine for those caught flouting the new rules.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said it would be compulsory to wear a mask in a number of settings including: shopping centres, public transport, attending an entertainment venue such as a cinema, places of worship, hair and beauty salons and gaming areas of establishments. Staff at hospitality venues will also have to wear a mask.

Additional restrictions will also be put in place for other venues. Gym classes will be restricted to 30 people and places of worship, weddings and funerals to 100 attendees, all subject to the four square metre rule.

Outdoor performances and protests have been capped at 500 attendees and outdoor seated events at 2000 as part of the changes, the Premier said.
Ananya Panday slipped into a cute swimsuit on her holiday in the Maldives. She took to Instagram to share pictures of herself posing in the pool in a sunflower-themed bikini as she welcomed 2021. Her best friend, Suhana Khan, showered love on the post with heart-eyes emojis.

Looking on the brighter side #Hello2021, Ananya wrote in her caption. The photos have garnered over a million likes in less than a day. Her mother, Bhavana Panday, posted heart emojis.

Fans also gushed over Ananyas stunning snaps. Looking so gorgeous, one wrote. Hottest gurl @ananyapanday, another commented. Happy New Year! Looking awesome in that bikini! a third fan wrote.

Ananya is enjoying a much-deserved vacation after wrapping up Shakun Batras next, which also stars Siddhant Chaturvedi and Deepika Padukone. The film, a domestic noir, was shot in Goa and Mumbai.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Ananya made her digital debut with Khaali Peeli, which released on the pay-per-view service Zee Plex and drive-in theatres. She will also be seen in a pan-Indian film, Fighter, alongside Vijay Deverakonda.

Also read | Dia Mirza says she never used her personal equations to demand roles: I keep the work I do and my friendships apart

Talking to Hindustan Times about her line-up of films, Ananya said, Both are very different films. Shakuns film is what he calls a domestic noir, very different from whats been done before. Im very excited to be working with him, Deepika and Sid, weve all bonded and become really close. Plus, the shooting experience in Goa after so long, it feels like I have another family on that set. Shakun is my bucket list director.

Working with Puri (Jagannadh, director of Fighter) sir was a completely different experience. Its an out and out masala action comedy, hes the best at that. Its a pan India film, releasing in four different languages, she added.

Follow @htshowbiz on Twitter

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Many retailers and buyers have probably been disappointed that their orders didn't make it for Christmas. Many are even outraged by "hoarders" who sell items at a considerably high price. According to Digitimes, Sony has initially shipped 3.4 million PlayStation 5 units in its first month of its release to the public. Nonetheless, retailers, scalpers, and hoarders seem to work twice as hard as the devil. Consequently, the serious buyers who just wanted one PS5 just can't seem to seal a deal.

The great news is that according to PS5 Stock Tracker, a known source from Twitter with 15.8K followers, a huge third shipment is coming very soon. Although the account is not verified, it's been handling inquiries very well based on its track record.

PS5 Restock Updates: First Week of January Likely to Receive Third Wave of Shipment

According to TechRadar, the twitter handler is rumored to use bots to sniff out Sony when shipments for consoles are out for release. According to the source, the first week of January can be celebratory since "most retailers" is likely to receive a third wave of shipment.

See more: PS5 Restock Tracker: This Twitter Account Streams Drop Times Daily

According to this tweet, a huge shipment will arrive by January 7 and 12. The alleged arrival of the huge PS5 drop, although hopeful shouldn't be taken as an official memo. There may still be some disruptions of the date, depending on numerous economic and political factors within the EU. Accoriding to the source, a delay may happen, which may be as long as a few days at best.

It also claims that BT and EE will be the ones to receive the stocks on January 7. In the US, things have been fairly easier as compared to the UK. stocks have been coming in and out for the US, but difficult for the UK due to their early set-up of pre-orders back in September 19.

Year 2021- A Better Year for the PS5 Market

The rising problem of hoarders, scalpers, and thieves has made the quest for the PS5 much difficult for those who just wanted to buy one PS5. Many who are desperate enough have agreed to pay massive amounts to resellers just to purchase a unit. Some who are truly unfortunate have been scammed into buying fake PS5 units. The ongoing crisis begs the question: Is one PS5 too much to ask?

Thankfully, twitter users like the PS5 Stock Tracker gives us a ray of light and hope for this dark times. It is also highly likely that the year 2021 can be a more considerable year for buyers to finally close their deal of purchasing a PS5. Since it will be the third wave of shipment, it is already expected that Sony has had a good amount of time to refine its supply chain.

See related article: PS5 Restock 2021: Expected 18 Million Consoles Coming Soon

This article is owned by TechTimes

Written by Nikki Delgado

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Nearly a dozen Republican senators and senators-elect demanded Saturday that a commission audit the results of the 2020 election and said they would otherwise object to the Electoral College votes that declared President-elect Joe Biden the winner.

Even though there is no evidence of any fraud in the election  despite numerous claims by President Donald Trump  the group of lawmakers said in a statement that they were calling on Congress to create a commission with "full investigatory and fact-finding authority, to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed states."

The new Congress is to meet Wednesday to formally count the Electoral College votes, the majority of which Biden won. The group of Republican lawmakers threatened "to reject the electors from disputed states as not 'regularly given' and 'lawfully certified' (the statutory requisite), unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed."

With the House in Democratic hands, there is no chance that the action will have any effect on the outcome, and Biden will be sworn in on Jan. 20. But the action by Republicans in both chambers will prolong the debate over certification until the final votes are tallied in Congress.

Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Steve Daines of Montana, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Mike Braun of Indiana signed on to the statement Saturday, as did Sens.-elect Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.

The senators stopped short in their statement of saying they would bring forward a vote to object to the results.

Already, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said she would vote to affirm the results, urging her colleagues from both parties to recognize the outcome and to "join me in maintaining confidence in the Electoral College and our elections so that we ensure we have the continued trust of the American people."

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Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican from Pennsylvania, one of the states where Trump has been contesting the results, said: "I voted for President Trump and endorsed him for re-election. But, on Wednesday, I intend to vigorously defend our form of government by opposing this effort to disenfranchise millions of voters in my state and others."

An objection is not considered unless it is in writing and signed by both a member of the House and a member of the Senate. For the objection to be sustained, both chambers must vote for it by simple majorities. If the chambers do not both agree, the original electoral votes are counted.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who will be one of four lawmakers who participate in tallying electoral votes as the ranking member of the Senate Rules Committee, criticized the Republicans' move as a "publicity stunt."

"It is undemocratic. It is un-American," she said. "And fortunately it will be unsuccessful. In the end, democracy will prevail."

Biden campaign spokesman Mike Gwin also dismissed it as stunt that "won't change the fact that President-elect Biden will be sworn in on January 20th, and these baseless claims have already been examined and dismissed by Trump's own Attorney General, dozens of courts, and election officials from both parties."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told Senate Republicans that a vote on objections would be "the most consequential vote" of his career, and he has been encouraging his Republican conference not to join the objections.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., on Wednesday became the first senator to say he would object to certifying some states' Electoral College results, forcing other Republicans to vote on whether to reject Trump's unsubstantiated claims of massive voter fraud or disenfranchise millions of voters.

In a series of tweets Saturday evening, Trump praised the senators' actions, falsely claimed that he won by a "landslide" and said, "Our Country will love them for it!"

Trump has lashed out at members of his party who have failed to back up his outlandish claims of fraud, and he has called for the resignation of local GOP officials who have refused to overturn their states' results. Trump has not yet commented on the latest development, but his campaign tweeted a message of thanks to the senators.
Angry villagers attack wildlife office after two leopard attacks kill one and injure one By Kasun Warakapitiya View(s): View(s):

Five villagers were arrested for causing damage to the Wildlife Department office in Panama, following two leopard attacks on two farmers who were doing chena cultivation inside the Panama Kudumbigala sanctuary in Ampara.

Police said they also took into custody a three-wheeler, two motorcycles and a push cycle in which the villagers came to the Panama wildlife office to register their protest.

Other villagers said that wildlife officers paid little or no heed to their complaints and their request to provide them security after the first attack on December 30.

They said 52-year-old farmer Heen Appu Abeysinghe died in the first attack and 59-year-old farmer P Premathilaka died in the second attack which took place when he went to switch on the electric fence at the village bordering the sanctuary. He is being treated at the Pothuvil hospital.

Rejecting the charges, National Park warden R.A.B.D.D, Samaranayake told the Sunday Times the department had deployed two teams and set up cameras and steel cages to capture the leopard which attacked the farmers. He said they even sought the armys assistance.

He said once the leopard was caught, they would relocate it in an area within the sanctuary so that it would not cross path with villagers.

Asked why the villagers were allowed to carry out chena cultivation within the sanctuary, the warden said the villagers were farming in an 800-acre area within the park, claiming that had been tilling the area for generations. Even though they farm for three months during the year, the parks animals roam in the area, he said.

Mr. Samaranayake said farmers who came within the home range of a leopard were inviting trouble as the animal would view them as a threat or a prey. Besides, certain actions of the farmers  like hunting and cooking the meat of the hunted animal or fish within the sanctuary  were also to be blamed for the leopards attacks.

The warden said the villagers should have cooperated with the wildlife officials instead of attacking the office.

Commenting on the incident, he said if not for the presence of Special Task Force and police personnel, the villagers would have burned the wildlife office. None of the officers was hurt during the incident but the building sustained damages, he said.
The RSS chief made these remarks at an event to release a book titled 'Making of a Hindu Patriot: Background of Gandhijis Hind Swaraj'

New Delhi: If someone is a Hindu he will be patriotic and that will be his basic character and nature, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said on Friday while citing Mahatama Gandhis remarks that his patriotism originates from his dharma.

Bhagwat was speaking at an event to release the book titled Making of a Hindu Patriot: Background of Gandhijis Hind Swaraj, authored by JK Bajaj and MD Srinivas.

Releasing the book, Bhagwat said there is no need for speculation that Sangh is trying to appropriate Gandhiji, that is not the case, no one can appropriate great personalities like him.

Describing the book as an authentic scholarly research document on Gandhi, Bhagwat said Gandhi had suggested that for him his dharma and patriotism are not different as love for his motherland originates from his spirituality.

Gandhiji had said that his patriotism originates from his dharma, Bhagwat said asserting that dharma does not merely mean religion, it is wider than religion.

If someone is Hindu he has to be patriotic, that will be his or her basic character and nature. At times you may have to awaken his or her patriotism but he (Hindu) can never be anti-India. But we have to be conscious of the fact that if one loves his country it doesnt mean land only, it means its people, rivers, culture, traditions and everything, he said.

He underlined that Hinduism believes in the existence of unity. Difference does not mean separatism and Gandhiji has suggested that Hinduism is the religion of all religions, he said.

Talking about Gandhis concept of swaraj, Bhagwat said by it he means not only changing rulers or becoming self-governing, for Gandhi the struggle for swaraj was the reconstruction of society based on civilisational values.

Meanwhile, in the book, the authors have quoted Gandhi as having written to Leo Tolstoy that,  my patriotism is patent enough, my love for India is ever growing but it is derived from my religion and is therefore in no sense exclusive.

Giving an overview of the book, Bajaj said it tracked Gandhis life from Porbandar to his visit to England and then to South Africa.

Bajaj said there was a time between 1893-94 when Gandhi was pressured by his Muslim employer and his Christian employees to explore converting to their respective religions but he refused.

By 1905, he became a devout Hindu and also gave lectures on Hinduism, Bajaj said. He cited instances that while practising law in South Africa, Gandhi quoted Bhagwad Gita and Mahabharata in his petitions before the courts.
Pa. Republicans advance three anti-abortion bills. What they would do.
After a bad year, many investors will be hoping for better luck in 2021. Will the rollout of a Covid vaccine trigger an economic recovery and a rebound in share prices, or is there more trouble to come on the stock markets?

Here, three City experts give their tips for the year. Each has given a recommendation for brave investors who are prepared to take a risk, and one for the more cautious.

As the last 12 months have reminded us in vivid fashion, shares can go down as well as up. Following tips always involves the risk of losing some or all of your money and it is a good idea to do your own research before investing.

Andy Bell, chief executive, AJ Bell

FOR THE CAUTIOUS: GLAXOSMITHKLINE (1342p)

Covid-19 has reminded the world about the importance of pharmaceutical companies. GlaxoSmithKline offers investors under-appreciated growth and its shares look better value than many of its peers.

The company is also preparing to spin off its consumer healthcare division into a joint venture with Pfizer's, a move which should unlock value.

GlaxoSmithKline has a strong pipeline for cancer drugs and there are high hopes for recently approved ovarian cancer drugs Zejula and for Blenrep, which treats multiple myeloma, a type of bone marrow cancer.

It is also a big player in the vaccine market with strong positions in childhood jabs, meningitis and the flu. A small delay to its Covid-19 vaccine is a slight disappointment but we could still see a final product submitted for approval in the second half of 2021.

The company is forecast to make an 8billion pre-tax profit next year, illustrating how this is a strong business with earnings generated from multiple products  separating it from the more speculative developers whose fortunes lie on the success or failure of a single drug.

FOR THE BRAVE: JD WETHERSPOON (1116p)

The leisure sector has found life difficult in 2020 with huge disruption to trading.

Notably, pubs have found it very hard to operate normally with restrictions on opening hours and conditions on what and how customers can order.

Many aren't going to survive, which means the strongest players in the market could get even stronger.

Wetherspoons has survivor written all over it and stands to pick up market share thanks to its competitive advantages.

Its large pub sites enable it to adhere to social distancing rules far better than your typical local where space can be tight. Wetherspoons also benefits from buying power so it can sell food and drink at lower prices, something that will be important in a period where unemployment is rising.

Wetherspoon's shares could be in demand if society starts to reopen. However, any delays to rolling out the vaccine could weigh on market sentiment towards the business, so the shares are only suitable for more adventurous investors who understand the risks.

Janet Mui, investment director, Brewin Dolphin

FOR THE CAUTIOUS: DISNEY ($181.18)

A number of traditional businesses stand to benefit from the revolution in technology  and one of them is Disney.

It has accelerated its digital reach and sales capabilities and has been a clear beneficiary of the rise in popularity of streaming.

Its launch of Disney+, an American subscription video on-demand streaming service, illustrates that technology has been great for traditional businesses which have been willing, and able, to adapt their business models.

Disney may also benefit when life goes back to normal after widespread vaccine distribution in the coming years, particularly when its theme parks are able to reopen at full capacity.

FOR THE BRAVE: ALIBABA ($232.60)

Chinese tech firms like Alibaba, the Hangzhou-based multinational company which specialises in e-commerce, retail, internet and technology, offer exposure to technology and diversification from the FAANG stocks in the US  Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google.

Alibaba stands to gain from a rapidly expanding domestic market and has less competition and little threat from overseas competitors as Western rival apps are mostly banned in China. The government's support to drive consumption and self-sufficiency in technology will be a tailwind for e-commerce firms like Alibaba.

US-China tension is likely to fuel further tech decoupling. With that in mind, China is expected to support its domestic champions and provide more private investment into technology.

The company also has lots of growth potential outside of China, especially in Asia. A good way to get exposure to a company like Alibaba is through a fund such as Morgan Stanley Asia Opportunities, which invests in a number of similar companies, including Tencent Holdings.

2020 WAS A YEAR TO FORGET Stock tipping is never easy  and so it proved for our experts in 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic turned the world  and the financial markets  on its head. Just two of the six tips our experts picked last year made money. That was Breedon, the independent building materials company that The Share Centre's Richard Stone recommended for the brave and insolvency firm Begbies Traynor picked by Andy Bell for the cautious. The rest of the tips  like much of the FTSE All-Share, which is down 12 per cent this year  remain firmly in the red. Vodafone and Hargreaves Lansdown struggled while along with the rest of the banking sector, HSBC suffered. The biggest casualty from last year's tips was British Gas owner Centrica, which crashed out of the FTSE 100 over the summer and is down 49 per cent on the year.

Justin Urquhart Stewart, co-founder, Seven Investment Management

FOR THE CAUTIOUS: VODAFONE (120.94p)

There is a common theme with our relationship with our phones  we seem to love them, but often loathe the operator.

It is not really very surprising as although the technology maybe brilliant, most of the providers seem to have missed out on a customer service chip.

One such is Vodafone. Although it is a global provider and a leading FTSE 100 company, it has never really set the world alight as a great investment.

Its 28billion debt has also been a burden. However, recently it agreed to sell off its European telecom mast business which will go a long way to reducing that pile by bringing in about 20billion.

It also really does have global reach and is especially strong on its commercial side for business. As the economic crisis passes, this behemoth will still be there and still be paying a dividend.

So although I may complain about service, this actually looks a solid company to buy at a discounted price.

FOR THE BRAVE: TRACSIS (640p)

Just look at the transport issues around us and view the chaos. Tracsis is a UK firm, spun out of the University of Leicester, providing software management for rail and freight transport.

Some not too impressive figures recently reflect the current malaise in the industry, but the company has built a credible story of steady growth with a good management team.

Earlier this year, it acquired iBlocks, a smart ticketing software specialist which handles back office stuff. Sexy? Not really, except for railway geeks, but it is a key part of the system.

Recently the chief financial officer sold a chunk of his holdings which is never very encouraging.

The guidance has been towards lower earnings as a result of Covid, which is hardly unexpected. That said, the margins are holding up well, which I take as a positive.

The share price is now 640p, 23 per cent off its peak of 830p and the company has cash in the bank, so if you're ready to take a risk, Tracsis could be just the ticket.
A NSW couple accused of running from officers at Melbourne Airport after being told they would need to quarantine for 14 days have defended their actions.

Terry and Debbie Elford were found in regional New South Wales and are each facing a fine of more than $19,000.

In a statement released on Saturday afternoon, the couple disputed Victorian authorities' allegations they ran from officers after arriving into Melbourne on a flight from Canberra, but said they were "really sorry" over the ordeal.

Police say Debbie and Terry Elford got off the flight from Canberra just before 11am on Friday.

"Like hundreds of others on 1 January, 2021, we got caught up with the confusion when the rules about entering Victoria changed," the Elfords said in their statement.
The central government has filed a written complaint with the Maharashtra government citing that most districts have not updated data on the central Covid-19 portal.

The letter, a copy of which is with HT, has been issued by health ministry secretary, Rajesh Bhushan and has been addressed to Dr Pradeep Vyas, principal secretary, ministry of health, Maharashtra government.

It states that while the state is occupied with a plethora of activities in the ongoing Covid-19 battle it is equally important to update the data on containment zones.

Access to accurate data on containment zones of states will not only help in targeted testing, but will also help in real-time tracking of important key performance indicators, such as active cases being reported from these zones. This will facilitate evidence-based decisions related to regulating the spread of the infection in each containment zone and understanding their efficacy in breaking the chain of transmission. Going forward, this data will be a key element in the vaccination strategy, the letter states

As per data put forward by the central health ministry in its letter dated December 24, not one of the 36 districts have updated their data on the national Covid-19 portal, which aims to show the number of active containment zones, or total number of containment zones.

However, the data also showed that only Mumbai (island city), Pune, Thane, Nashik and Raigad have uploaded data to the state website.

The Centre had made it mandatory for all states to update data on the central Covid-19 portal from December 1.
100 years ago  1921

The annual New Years Assembly, reception and dance was held at the armory on Friday evening and was attended by over 200 guests, including many out-of-town visitors. The dance was an unusually brilliant one and was without doubt, the climax of the present holiday seasons social festivities. It was also by far the most enjoyable Assembly Dance held in Pottsville for a number of years.

75 years ago  1946Soil management and crop improvements will be the themes of a county-wide Agronomy Day program for Schuylkill County farmers on Wednesday, Jan. 16. This meeting is the second of its kind to be held in the Orphans Court Room at the Schuylkill County Courthouse, Pottsville, with forenoon and afternoon sessions. Featured on the program will be county farmers and extension specialists of the Pennsylvania State College.

50 years ago  1971

A three-story double-frame building in New Philadelphia containing a taproom and restaurant, beauty shop and apartments was completely destroyed by fire yesterday.

25 years ago  1996

A Saint Clair couples baby  due Dec. 30  held out for New Years Day to become the first child born in the county in 1996. Michele M. Hahn was expecting to give birth to her second child by Saturday. But 7-pound, 3-ounce Robert Charles Hahn Jr. did not arrive until 5:03 p.m. New Years Day at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, Pottsville. Mrs. Hahn and her husband, Robert C. Hahn Sr., a truck driver for Lehigh Valley Dairy, Schuylkill Haven, also have a daughter, Amanda, 5. As Dec. 30 approached, Mrs. Hahn said she thought about the impending birth constantly and anticipated the labor pains. It was a long two weeks, she said. I thought it was never going to come. Around 11 p.m. New Years Eve, the Hahns went for a ride in their pickup truck on the Burma Road, just outside of Saint Clair.
A young mother of two with terminal cervical cancer has issued a moving appeal to the Government to push through legislation to support her children and other bereaved families.

Lynsey Bennett (32), who is suing for alleged misinterpretation of her cervical smear slides taken under the national screening programme, wants to know her 12-year-old and seven-year-old daughters will be protected.

My girls are not getting the support they need, she said. I suppose, as someone who lost their own mam at 24, I know the scary feeling of being alone and feeling like you have lost your biggest support.

A single mother, Ms Bennett estimates the girls have lived with her own aunt for 18 months during the last four years while she attends St James Hospital.

Lynsey Bennett wants support for her 12-year-old and seven-year-old daughters.

In March the Supreme Court, while ruling on Limerick-woman Ruth Morrisseys case, noted legislation is required around support to replace services which would have been provided by a deceased parent.

In a moving video shared on her social media account, Ms Bennett addresses Taoiseach Micheal Martin.

The Supreme Court ruling held that damages for loss of services, care costs cannot be recovered from these cases," said Ms Bennett. "This is totally wrong.

Despite the court stating that changes to this complex area of law should be made by legislation, the government has not acted. And has again failed me and other victims in my position.

Ms Bennett, from Longford, survived two previous bouts of cancer but it returned during the pandemic.

On her first diagnosis, she said: I knew something was wrong but I didnt think it was cancer because my smear test had said I was fine. No more than when my GP saw me, the first thing he checked was my smear test and he said to me Your smear test was fine Lynsey and it wasnt even a year ago.

She has found support in the 221+ group which represents women affected by failures in the Cervical Check programme.

Its so good to not be alone in this, but then it is so heart-breaking to see what other women are going through, Ms Bennett said. And it is so hard because everybody is at different stages and you can see whats possibly your future.

A government spokesman said Micheal Martin was 'deeply saddened' by Ms Bennett's letter, has discussed it with the Health Minister and asked him to respond.

The Supreme Court ruling is being considered by Justice Minister Helen McEntee who met with the 221+ group.

Lynsey Bennett says her girls have lived with her own aunt for 18 months during the last four years while she attends St James Hospital.

The spokesman said: However, changing the law in this area would require detailed policy consideration, given that any changes would apply to all personal injury cases involving death into the future.

Separately Ms Bennett is suing the HSE, Eurofins Biomnis Ireland Ltd, and Quest Diagnostics Inc. in America.

Ms Bennetts cancer, it is claimed, was allowed to develop and spread unidentified, unmonitored and untreated until she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in January 2017.

She hopes the court case can go ahead in January. "Thats our plan now and Im trying to look at treatment abroad as well. I am not giving up.
Its hard for anyone to resist looking back at the start of a new year. I just cant help looking way, way back.

We last checked in on how our 1918 ancestors were dealing with a worldwide pandemic as we approached Election Day. State health officials were trying to attack the so-called Spanish Flu with poetry, sneezing was forbidden in churches, barbers scoffed at masks and bodies piled up due to a shortage of gravediggers.

Now that weve reached the new year, lets set the Wayback Machine (aka, newspaper archives) to see how 1919 arrived.

In with a bang

Keeping in mind that celebrants on New Years Eve 1919 were much closer in vintage to the Wild West than to today, its still alarming that they shot bullets so cavalierly that ammunition smashed windows of homes throughout Stamford.

In the citys Cove neighborhood, all outdoor electric bulbs were destroyed, leaving everyone in the dark.

Police were able to snare one gunman. He was fined $7 and released. He would be treated much more harshly today, leaving hope that perhaps sensible gun safety laws will be commonplace by the next century.

Champagne glass half full

2 1 of 2 Courtesy Oakland Public Library Show More Show Less 2 of 2 Courtesy Oakland Public Library Show More Show Less



Influenza raged, but hey, World War I was over, so a headline declared Local Business Men Seem Happy over Prospects in 1919.

The story about a Kiwanis Club meeting revealed the chapter presidents strategy for checking the spread of the disease: Stay healthy.

To attain success we must have healthy bodies. If a business is in bankruptcy it is not a success.

A century before Amazon, he urged residents to buy local.

There are good stocks of groceries and dry-goods here. Why should one run to New York for every little purchase?

Bleak times for swine

Associated Press

While hogs were reportedly dying by the thousands on farms in Illinois due to influenza, some of their counterparts in the East were municipal employees.

Stamford Mayor John Treat pitched several initiatives for the new year, including a more modern way to dispose of garbage than the citys method of burying it.

Very disagreeable odors arise from the condition, Treat observed.

He proposed trying innovations from other towns, such as feeding garbage to swine.

A flaming cure?

One dispatch reported that men who work in blast furnaces were free from influenza.

Free verse not worth it

Alas, shaky verse remained a strategy of the medical community. The Boston health director offered this first shot from his rhythmatic pen:

Mary had a little cold,

That started in her head,

And everywhere that Mary went

That cold was sure to spread

... The teacher tried to drive it out;

She tried hard, but  kerchoo!

It didnt do a bit of good,

For teacher caught it, too.

Holy cow

W.B. Yeats wasnt feeling much of a threat, but lets not mock a generation that makes todays look as fragile as a stormtrooper (the galactic variety, not the ones that had just been toppled in WWI).

Consider this dispatch about a household of 18 in Charlton, Massachusetts:

All but two people in the home came down with influenza. One was a baby of 1. The other was 17-year-old Julia Tiberil. Each day, Julia tended to the sick, nursed the baby, did the chores and most of the cooking, milked 10 cows and lugged the moo juice 2 miles to catch the milk train.

Think about that next time you snarl about running low on Netflix offerings.

Couldnt wait for Valentines Day

Greenwichs Louis Mendelson, 85, who made his fortune as a tailor (and a side gig as a curer of stammering) lost his second wife to influenza around Thanksgiving.

He was told 48-year-old Lena Weinstein was the woman he was looking for, so he paid her a visit on Christmas. They were wed the next day.

The Stamford Advocate reported The marriage of Thursday had a rude jar on Saturday.

(Side note, I may henceforth routinely crib the phrase rude jar, as in 2021 took a rude jar on Inauguration Day).

In this case, the disturbance resulted from the new Mrs. Mendelson asking for all of his property. Louis took action to have the knot untied in Superior Court in Bridgeport upon the arrival of 1919.

Perhaps on Valentines Day, Ill set the Wayback Machine to further explore The Life and Loves of Louis Mendelson. Nine years before this misadventure, he claimed to already be over 80 when his daughter was born. In June of 1919 he claimed to be only 62 after he was arrested over an affair with a 25-year-old New York manicurist to whom he promised $29 million and gifted with a watch he boasted was given to him by Napoleon Bonapartes grandson. So basically, he sounds like a rascal who would be played by Bill Murray in a Wes Anderson flick.

Grim realities

Tragedy + Time = levity for some the daily news of 1919, but much of it remains sobering.

There are countless illustrations of how rapidly the disease devastated families. Ponder two:

A mother of four children ages 2-6 died after taking care of ill neighbors. She is described as very popular. Her death draws scores of neighborhood children to her home on Stamfords Spruce Street.

Edward Davey, his wife and 11-year-old daughter were healthy as they celebrated Christmas in 1918. His wife fell ill and died within days as he tried to care for her. On New Years Day, he was gone as well.

Picture an 11-year-old celebrating Christmas with her parents, only to be orphaned New Years Day. As 1919 began, the Middletown Press reported that more than 600 innocent children have been left homeless by the ravages of the influenza epidemic.

No amount of time can reverse such tragedies, but empathy and discipline can change the future.

John Breunig is editorial page editor of the Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time. jbreunig@scni.com; 203-964-2281; twitter.com/johnbreunig
A Miss England finalist who was stalked by a wannabe rapper who claimed he was a Britain's Got Talent contestant has revealed she will 'never recover' from his crimes.

Trainee school teacher Samantha Bumford, 27, was harassed by obsessed Jonathan Deal, 39, for years, after he launched a campaign against the model after 'falling in love' with her on Facebook.

He sent her a barrage of unwanted messages, repeatedly showed up uninvited to her shows, and also attempted to kiss her before being jailed for 23 weeks in February 2019 after pleading guilty to a charge of harassment.

He was released last year, with Samantha telling The Sun that she still struggles to live a normal life, saying: 'Im not scared any more, but he has taken away a large chunk of my life that I can never recover from - Its always going to haunt me.'

Trainee school teacher Samantha Bumford, 27, who was stalked by a wannabe rapper who claimed he was a Britain's Got Talent contestant has revealed she will 'never recover' from his crimes

Deal sent her a barrage of messages, repeatedly came to shows uninvited and also tried to kiss her before he was sentenced after pleading guilty to harassment

Earlier this year, Samantha said she was left too terrified to go out alone after she spotted the stalker walking down the street.

Samantha said she saw obsessed Jonathan Deal while she was driving after he was released from prison last year.

Ms Bumford told the Sun it was the first time she had seen him since his release from prison and she is now convinced he is stalking her again.

She said: 'He was walking up the road, I was driving down it and we locked eyes. I was completely all over the place. That was the first time I went out on my own and he was there.

Deal became obsessed with Miss Bumford after she accepted his friend request on Facebook in 2018

'I was telling people I was over it but I feel like I can never recover again now.

'I'm scared because he's not giving up. What is it going to take? When is this going to end?'

Deal, the wannabe popstar, who auditioned for Britain's Got Talent, claimed that he 'fell in love' with Miss Bumford after she accepted his friend request on Facebook.

After his release in May last year, he was sentenced to a further 26 weeks after he breached a restraining order by sharing an advert of the show, which he knew she would attend.

In September, Samantha revealed the experience has left her too terrified 'to go out alone' after she spotted her BGT contestant stalker back on the streets following his release from jail

Ms Bumford spoke out last year, slamming the 'ludicrous' sentence and saying she feared he would stalk her again as soon as he was released.

Jonathan Deal's crimes Summer 2018 - Jonathan Deal, who had 19 previous convictions relating to harassment and stalking incidents, adds Samantha on Facebook. He goes on to besiege her with unwanted messages, sharing pictures of her and vowing to dedicate a Britain's Got Talent audition song to her. September 2018 - He tried to gatecrash a VIP tent Samantha was in at the Bournemouth Air Festival. He also posted a live blog on Facebook claiming he was in love with her. Later that month, he turned up at the Miss England finals at Nottingham's Kelham Hall, before telling people he was her boyfriend and trying to kiss her. Late 2018 - Samantha reported Deal to the police and he was arrested for his harassment campaign. February 2019 - Samantha testified against Deal in court and he was imprisoned for 23 weeks. May 2019 - Deal was released from prison July 2019 - Deal was jailed again for 26 weeks for breaching his restraining order August 2019 - Deal is released from prison August 2020 - Deal was spotted twice in Samantha's area. She reported the sightings to Dorset Police, who arrested Deal and released him under investigation. The investigation is ongoing. Advertisement

She said that it was only when Deal appeared in court that she realised he had 19 previous convictions for harassment and stalking women dating back to 2003.

She told the Sun: 'I cant go out on my own. I havent been able to attend events. I have no independence and people dont see that.'

She added that she goes to bed every night wondering whether he is in the area and that she searches the house and double locks the doors before going to bed.

After accepting his friend request, Deal, whose stage name is JAYD, started responding and reacting to her photos and started attending her events.

In August 2018 he came to an event she had advertised on her timeline and posted a liveblog from it, in which he claimed to be 'in love' with Miss Bumford. She was not aware of this and spoke to Deal at the event, believing he was a fan.

Deals behaviour escalated and he made attempts to get into an exclusive tent the victim was in for the Bournemouth Air festival, would wait for hours to speak to her, set up live blogs attempting to find out where she was and bought her a necklace.

His infatuation culminated in him following her to the finals of Miss England in Nottingham where he tried to kiss her as she came off stage.

Ms Bumford said she was forced to shove him away and flee towards her family.

Feeling spurned, Deal later sent her a message claiming 'you only did well in Miss England because the judges thought you were my girlfriend'.

The day after the Miss England event in Nottingham, Deal posted a photograph of Ms Bumford in a white wedding dress on his Facebook page.

Beneath the image he left a heart emoji and commented that he had 'fallen in love'. He also included an emoji of an engagement ring.

Deal sent Miss Bumford numerous messages in the days after the finals and her father even attempted to intervene by asking Deal to leave his daughter alone.

Deal had also previously posted an image of himself, dressed in a black vest and shorts posing next to Ms Bumford at an event.

According to his Facebook account, he competed in season 13 of the X Factor with a picture posted of himself at the show's auditions. There is no record of him having competed in Britain's Got Talent.
NIAMEY (Reuters) - Niger's ruling party candidate Mohamed Bazoum will face former president Mahamane Ousmane in a presidential election runoff in February, according to provisional results of the first round of the contest announced by the electoral commission on Saturday.

Bazoum led the first round with 39.33% of the vote, falling short of the 50% needed to win outright in the first round. Ousmane received 17% of the vote, the commission said.

The second round is expected to be held on Feb. 21 after the results of the first round have been validated by the constitutional court which will hear any appeals.

Niger's President Mahamadou Issoufou is stepping down after two five-year terms, which is expected to lead to Niger's first transfer of power between two democratically elected presidents.

The incoming president will inherit several challenges, including rising violence from Islamist militants linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State. Attacks near the western border with Mali and Burkina Faso and the southeastern border with Nigeria killed hundreds of people last year.

Provisional results of the legislative election showed the ruling Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism leading with 80 seats. The main opposition MODEN/FA-Lumana was second with 19 seats in the 171-seat house.

(Reporting by Boureima Balima; Writing by Bate Felix, Editing by William Maclean and Ros Russell)
As the pandemic continues, so too have reports of events organized in defiance of regulations intended to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Such events have been held at bars, restaurants and clubs. But all of these have been relatively small affairs compared to a New Years Eve party recently held in France, which lasted for 36 hours and drew 2,500 people.



No, thats no a typo. 2,500 people converged in the small town of Lieuron for a massive dance party. Its the kind of event that, were it happening any other year, would have seemed perfectly normal. Given the ongoing pandemic, however, the phrases wildly irresponsible and potential superspreader event both come to mind.



Writing at The Washington Post, Rick Noack has more details about the event. Specifically, he writes that an early attempt by authorities to shut the event down went badly. When officers tried to move into the warehouses where the party was taking place on Thursday night, several officers suffered minor injuries in clashes with revelers, Noack notes. A police car was torched.



First aid workers had better luck, and were able to distribute hand sanitizer and masks to some attendees. A coronavirus testing site was also set up near the party, with authorities advising attendees to quarantine for 7 days. Whether any of them did so, however, remains to be seen.



According to the article, law enforcement issued 1,200 penalty notices. Some attendees were able to depart without being stopped and fined. Its an alarming situation for many in the French government, who are understandably concerned about a spike in COVID-19 cases as a result of the event.
Nepal's Opposition party Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) on Friday staged an anti-government rally, demanding the restoration of constitutional monarchy and Hindu Rashtra status for the country. Supporters of RPP started the march from Bhrikutimandap, in Kathmandu and ended it at the Ratnapark open ground. This comes amid political turmoil in Nepal and the protesters also slammed KP Sharma Oli for dissolving the House of Representatives. Addressing the rally, RPP Chairpersons Kamal Thapa and Pashupati Shamsher Rana demanded Nepal be re-declared a Hindu state and constitutional monarchy be re-instated. In 2008, Nepal was declared a secular state after 2006 people's movement abolished monarchy. First General Election of 2017 held after promulgation charter gave a clear mandate to an alliance of the then CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Center) incumbent NCP which is now in power.

READ | China plays down its Nepal meddling after Oli rejects Beijing's advice; 2 options proposed

READ | Thousands protest against Nepals prime minister

Demand for Hindu Rashtra and Monarchy

Earlier in December, a pro-monarchy march was held in Kathmandu. According to news agency ANI, the participants of the march chanted slogans in favour of the Hindu Rashtra and demanded the reinstatement of constitutional monarchy in the Himalayan Nation which they claimed was for the sake of country's national unity and well-being of the people. Protestors on Saturday displayed placards bearing a photo of Prithivi Narayan Shah, the founding father of modern Nepal along with national flags while they chanted slogans against the Federal Democratic Republican System that Nepal adopted in 2008 after the abolition of the 240-year-old monarchy.

READ | Nepal seeks India's help to procure COVID-19 vaccines for 20 per cent of its population: Report

"Today, participants are here without being driven by any impulsive feelings, as the movement led by youths has already set off. We can dream of our beautiful Nepal and this nation would obviously get back its monarch status of a Hindu-state. Until and unless we achieve our aim we would fight for it," Amir KC, one of the participants in the march who claimed to be leading over 250 youths from Lalitpur to the venue had told ANI.

Previously on November 19, another group held similar protest under the banner "Independent Nationalist Citizens Far-West" demonstrated in Dhangadhi followed by a protest in Pokhara on November 25 under the banner "Western Nepali Citizens" and "Nepal Nationalist Group" in Janakpur of Nepal. The ruling party has been unpopular lately because it is embroiled in infighting and corruption and has failed to control the COVID-19 pandemic.

READ | Nepal PM Oli 'tired of making deals with Prachanda'; Chinese ploy to restore unity fails
More than 10% of Israels population has received a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, a rate that has far outstripped the rest of the world and buoyed the battered domestic image of the countrys leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, at a critical juncture.

Israels campaign, which began Dec. 20, has distributed the vaccine to three times as much of its population as the second-fastest nation, the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom of Bahrain, according to figures compiled mostly from local government sources by Our World in Data.

By contrast, less than 1% of the population of the United States and only small fractions of the population in many European countries received a vaccine dose by the end of 2020, according to Our World in Data, though China, the United States and Britain have each distributed more doses overall.

Its quite an astonishing story, said professor Ran Balicer, chair of the national advisory team of experts that is counseling the Israeli government on its COVID-19 response.

Israels heavily digitized, community-based health system  all citizens, by law, must register with one of the countrys four HMOs  and its centralized government have proved adept at orchestrating a national inoculation campaign, according to Israeli health experts.

With a population of 9 million, Israels relatively small size has played a role as well, said Balicer, who is also the chief innovation officer for Clalit, the largest of the countrys four HMOs.

An aggressive procurement effort helped set the stage.

The health minister, Yuli Edelstein, said in an interview Friday that Israel had entered into negotiations with drugmakers as an early bird, and that the companies were interested in supplying Israel because of its HMOs reputation for efficiency and gathering reliable data.

We are leading the world race thanks to our early preparations, he said.

Internal political conflicts, confusing instructions and a lack of public trust in the government left Israel seemingly fractured in October as the country struggled to cope with a surge in coronavirus cases and deaths that, relative to the size of the population, were among the worst in the world.

While restrictions imposed in the fall reduced the number of new coronavirus cases, in recent weeks, Israel has seen them rise to more than 5,000 a day, sending the country back into a third, if partial, lockdown. More than 420,000 Israelis have been infected and 3,325 have died.

Israeli officials have not publicized the exact number of vaccine doses that it has received so far, or how much it paid for them, saying the agreements are confidential. But if it turns out that Israel overpaid compared to other countries, Edelstein said, the cost would still be worth it even to reopen the Israeli economy one week earlier than it otherwise could have done.

Professor Jonathan Halevy, president of Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, said getting in early had been a correct strategy.

With Israel having prioritized health workers and citizens ages 60 and older, Edelstein said that a majority of its high-risk population should receive the second of two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by late January. About 150,000 Israelis are being vaccinated per day.

Netanyahu  who is on trial on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust  has made the vaccination campaign something of a personal mission, taking credit for signing agreements and securing millions of doses from Pfizer, along with Moderna and other companies.

With Israel heading toward another election in March, the countrys fourth in two years, Netanyahu has made the prospect of a speedy emergence from the health and economic crisis wrought by the pandemic a keystone of his fight for political survival. He has held out the prospect of Israel becoming the first country in the world to be fully vaccinated.

Political motives aside, the prime minister has won praise for his efforts even from some longtime critics, after being widely blamed for mishandling the crisis last year.

We cant blame Netanyahu for all of Israels ills  correctly, most of the time  and then ignore his contribution when something works, wrote Gideon Levy, a columnist for the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper this week.

Netanyahu became the first Israeli to be inoculated against COVID-19 on Dec. 19, saying he wanted to set an example. On Tuesday, he dropped into a Jerusalem facility to congratulate the 500,000th Israeli to receive a vaccine.

On Thursday, he visited a vaccination center in the town of Tira, in central Israel, to encourage a higher turnout among the countrys Arab minority. Arab citizens, who make up one-fifth of the population, have been more hesitant than others to get the vaccine.

We brought millions of vaccines here, more than any other country in the world relative to its population, Netanyahu said, adding, We brought them to everyone: Jews and Arabs, religious and secular.

Come and be vaccinated, he urged in Arabic.

So far, the governments inoculation campaign has not extended to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, who have not had access to any vaccinations yet, and the Palestinian Authority does not appear to have publicly requested them. Legal experts and human rights activists said Israel was obliged to provide the Palestinians with vaccines.

The United Nations humanitarian affairs agency for the occupied territories said this week that the Palestinian Authority had applied for financial support from the global vaccine-sharing system Covax, and was working with international organizations on the logistics.

Edelstein said the governments first obligation was to its own citizens, but it was in Israels interest to help suppress the infection among the Palestinians. If, God willing, there will be a situation where we can say we are in a position to help others, he said, no doubt it will be done.

Isabel Kershner c.2021 The New York Times Company
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Mojiang: Deep in the lush valleys of southern China lies the entrance to a mine shaft that once harboured bats with the closest known relative to COVID-19.

The area is of intense interest because it may hold clues to the origins of the coronavirus that has killed more than 1.7 million people worldwide, but has become a black hole of information because of political sensitivity. A bat research team that visited recently had their samples confiscated, two people familiar with the matter said. And a team of journalists was tailed by plainclothes police in multiple cars who blocked access to sites in late November.

More than a year since the first known person was infected with the coronavirus, an AP investigation shows the Chinese government is controlling all research into its origins while promoting fringe theories that the pandemic originated elsewhere.

No data has been published on studies of the coronaviruses of Yunnan's bat population. Credit:AP

The government is monitoring scientists findings and mandating that the publication of any research first be approved by a new task force managed by Chinas cabinet under direct orders from President Xi Jinping, according to internal documents. A rare leak from within the government, the dozens of pages of unpublished documents confirm what many have long suspected: the clampdown comes from the top.
(CNN) -- Microsoft said Thursday that the suspected Russian hackers behind a massive US government security breach also viewed some of the company's source code.

The unauthorized access does not appear to have compromised any Microsoft services or customer data, the company said in a blog post. But an investigation showed that the attackers took advantage of their access to Microsoft's systems to view company code.

"We detected unusual activity with a small number of internal accounts and upon review, we discovered one account had been used to view source code in a number of source code repositories," Microsoft said. "The account did not have permissions to modify any code or engineering systems and our investigation further confirmed no changes were made. These accounts were investigated and remediated."

The disclosure highlights the broad reach of the attackers, whom investigators have described as extremely sophisticated and well-resourced. And it suggests that corporate espionage may have been as much a motive as a hunt for government secrets.

Source code represents the basic building blocks of computer programs. They are the instructions written by programmers that make up an application or computer program.

Microsoft had previously acknowledged using the IT management software, SolarWinds Orion, that gave the attackers a potential window into thousands of public and private sector organizations. But this marks the first time Microsoft has confirmed that the attackers exploited the vulnerability against the technology giant.

Mike Chapple, a former National Security Agency official and an information technology professor at the University of Notre Dame, said the attackers were likely looking for potential security vulnerabilities in Microsoft products that they could exploit to gain access to users of those products.

"Cybersecurity professionals now need to be concerned that this information falling into the wrong hands might create the next SolarWinds-level vulnerability in a Microsoft product," Chapple said.

But Microsoft said its security practices begin by preemptively assuming that hackers already have access to the company's source code, and protects its services accordingly.

"We do not rely on the secrecy of source code for the security of products, and our threat models assume that attackers have knowledge of source code," the company said. "So viewing source code isn't tied to elevation of risk."

This story was first published on CNN.com Microsoft says hackers viewed its source code
Trump Can Ban Immigrants Who Cant Pay for Health Care, Federal Court Rules

A federal appeals court in California ordered the lifting of a ban on President Donald Trumps proclamation that blocks immigrants from entering the United States if they lack health insurance or the means to pay for hospital bills.

In a Dec. 31, 2020, opinion (pdf), the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said that Trump acted within his authority when, in October 2019, he signed the Proclamation on the Suspension of Entry of Immigrants Who Will Financially Burden the United States Healthcare System.

The ruling reverses a federal court decision to block the implementation of the presidents order, delivering a win for proponents of tighter controls over immigration.

Trumps order restricts entry of immigrant visa applicants who cant prove that they either will acquire qualifying health care coverage within 30 days of entry or have the ability to pay for reasonably foreseeable health care expenses. The president said in the proclamation that American taxpayers bear the costs associated with providing health care to uninsured immigrants, coming in the form of higher taxes, higher premiums, and higher fees for medical services.

After Trump issued the proclamation, seven U.S. citizens sued, claiming the order unfairly blocked their family members from immigrating to the United States. A district judge in Oregon issued a nationwide preliminary injunction in the case in November 2019, blocking implementation of Trumps order while the lawsuit continued, arguing that the proclamation was likely illegal and the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of the case.

In a 21 decision, the Ninth Circuit Court disagreed, with U.S. Circuit Judge Daniel Collins writing in the opinion that the proclamation did not contradict established law.

We turn first to whether the district court correctly held that Plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their ultra vires cause of action, which alleges that the Proclamation exceeds the Presidents delegated authority, conflicts with congressional judgments embodied in the INA [Immigration and Nationality Act], and violates the separation of powers, Collins wrote.

We conclude that Plaintiffs have not demonstrated a likelihood of success as to any of their challenges to the Proclamation, he wrote, adding that the district court abused its discretion in granting the preliminary injunction enjoining the Proclamations implementation.

In a dissenting opinion, U.S. Circuit Judge A. Wallace Tashima said he agreed with the district court ruling, arguing that Trumps proclamation has no nexus to national security, addresses a purely domestic concern (uncompensated health care costs), lacks any conceivable temporal limit, and works a major overhaul of this nations immigration laws without the input of Congressa sweeping and unprecedented exercise of unilateral Executive power.

Trump, in 2016, campaigned on tighter immigration controls and vowed to curb illegal immigration into the United States, including by means of his signature U.S.Mexico border wall project.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Kenneth George on Wednesday confirmed that at least two of the delinquent tourists were nabbed at the Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA) as they attempted to leave the country after testing positive for the virus.

As a result, airport employees believed to have been in contact with the guests are under quarantine, pending results from two rounds of COVID-19 testing.

Barbados TODAY understands the two Brits arrived on Sunday afternoon aboard Virgin Atlantic Flight 131 from London Heathrow. One of the visitors tested positive while quarantining at a popular south coast hotel.

Prior to being isolated on Tuesday, the couple reportedly removed the red wristbands identifying them as quarantining guests, boarded a taxi and attempted to leave the country on British Airways Flight 2154. However, they were held by police last night and taken into isolation.

All GAIA workers who came into close contact with the visitors have been quarantined pending the results of their tests, and sections of the airport have been thoroughly sanitised.

When contacted, GAIAs Chief Executive Officer Hadley Bourne said he was in a meeting and could not address the issues immediately.

Minister of Tourism and International Transport Senator Lisa Cummins, when reached, told Barbados TODAY matters of that nature, including contact tracing, were entirely under the remit of officials from the Ministry of Health.

Certainly, from the Ministry of Tourisms standpoint, we will not be intervening in any instance where a visitor breaches our protocols. We have no authority to do so and we fully support, making sure that we keep the brand safe, she declared.

And I would make an appeal for visitors to Barbados to respect the rules and regulations for COVID and to respect the laws of the land. We have marketed Barbados with a mantra that says safe travel to a safe destination for a safe vacation, and the only reason we are able to do that is because our public officials have been awake and fully in control of this ship, Cummins added.

Meantime, President of the G4S Division of the Barbados Workers Union Ormond Mayers expressed concern about instructions given to employees of the security firm who were stationed at GAIA.

He told Barbados TODAY that four G4S officers who came into contact with the visitors were sent to their homes to await COVID-19 testing.

Rather than putting them in a hotel to await a test, they sent them home to wait for a call to go and get a test. These are people with families, you know. If anything, these people should be in a hotel at the expense of the state, because they were on duty, Mayers contended.

On Tuesday night, in a press release, the Ministry of Health and Wellness revealed that the Royal Barbados Police Force was holding three tourists.

Pressed for further details on the developments, the acting Chief Medical Officer told Barbados TODAY: There are three tourists who are of special interest. Two [tourists] are in quarantine and one in police custody. Two were apprehended at the GAIA.
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DecisionDatabases added the latest report with a global perspective on the Retigabine Market studied under different segments, including type, application, and regions. The report is treated with size, trends, growth, share, and forecast till 2025. Besides, the research report studied the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on overall growth at the global level. This report also offers a lucrative area of the industry at the regional and country level.

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The global Retigabine market report presents a complete research-based study of the industry including details such as company shares, forecast data, in-depth analysis and an outlook of the market on a worldwide platform. The report further highlights the market drivers, restraints and the top manufacturers at the global and regional levels. For a thorough understanding, the report also offers market segmentation and regional analysis for the forecast period from 2020 to 2025.

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According to this study, over the next five years, the Retigabine market will register an xx% CAGR in terms of revenue, the global market size will reach $ xx million by 2025, from $ xx million in 2020. In particular, this report presents the global market share (sales and revenue) of key companies in the Retigabine business, shared in Chapter 3.

This Retigabine market report also splits the market by regions: Americas (United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil), APAC (China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, India, Australia), Europe (Germany, France, UK, Italy, Russia, Spain), Middle East & Africa (Egypt, South Africa, Israel, Turkey, GCC Countries).

This report presents a comprehensive overview, market shares, and growth opportunities of the Retigabine market by type, application, key manufacturers, key regions, and countries.

The key manufacturers covered in this report: Breakdown data in Chapter 3.

Merck

Biosynth Carbosynth

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Bio-Techne

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This study considers the Retigabine value and volume generated from the sales of the following segments:

Segmentation by type: breakdown data from 2015 to 2020, in Section 2.3; and forecast to 2025 in section 11.7.

Min Purity Less Than 98%

Min Purity 98%-99%

Min Purity More Than 99%

Segmentation by application: breakdown data from 2015 to 2020, in Section 2.4; and forecast to 2025 in section 11.8.

Research

Medical

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To understand the structure of the Retigabine market by identifying its various subsegments.

Focuses on the key global Retigabine manufacturers, to define, describe, and analyze the sales volume, value, market share, market competition landscape, SWOT analysis and development plans in the next few years.

To analyze the Retigabine with respect to individual growth trends, future prospects, and their contribution to the total market.

To share detailed information about the key factors influencing the growth of the market (growth potential, opportunities, drivers, industry-specific challenges and risks).

To project the consumption of Retigabine submarkets, with respect to key regions (along with their respective key countries).

To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.

To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.

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DecisionDatabases.com is a global business research report provider, enriching decision makers and strategists with qualitative statistics. DecisionDatabases.com is proficient in providing syndicated research reports, customized research reports, company profiles and industry databases across multiple domains.

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CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Ohio Investigative Unit agents cited a Parma Heights bar for violating coronavirus health orders.

Agent cited The Tavern on 42, according to a news release from OIU.

Agents also cited The Wagon Wheel in Ashland, Tommy Doggs in Niles, The Rig in Warren and Tonys Bada Bing in Tipp City, the release said.

Agents and Parma Heights police went to the Tavern on 42 shortly after midnight Saturday after they received a call about a curfew violation.

Officials walked in and saw eight to 10 people in the bar with most of them drinking alcohol after the 10 p.m. curfew.

The above cases will go before the Ohio Liquor Control Commission for potential penalties, including fines and/or the suspension or revocation of liquor permits.

Read more coronavirus coverage on cleveland.com:

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Wind turbines may still have a future in Ohio, but for now the emphasis is on solar power

Opportunities abound for cheaper car insurance because of coronavirus - Thats Rich! short

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The International Labour Organization (ILO) has welcomed the new rights of workers and employers in Vietnam from January 1 as the revised Labour Code adopted in 2019 takes effect.

The new code will put Vietnam on an accelerated track for decent work for all working women and men, said ILO Vietnam Director, Chang-Hee Lee.

The new Labour Code makes numerous improvements which can bring benefits for workers and employers. But they will become a reality only when all are aware of their new rights and actively use them, he said.

Key improvements

According to ILO, the first important change is the expanded coverage of the Labour Code to those who work but without written employment contracts. Certain legal protections under the new code can be applied to about 55 million people, instead of the current coverage of about 20 million workers with employment relations.

Secondly, the code has strengthened protections against gender discrimination and sexual harassment at work. Employers are now required to ensure equal pay for work of equal value without discrimination based on sex and provide maternity protection. Meanwhile, sexual harassment has been legally defined for the first time, and employers have an obligation to develop internal regulations and implement solutions to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.

The retirement age will be gradually increased to 62 years for men (by three additional months per year) and 60 years for women (by adding four more months annually). It reduces gender gaps from five to two years while making the pension system more financially sustainable and responding to the demographic challenge of rapid ageing.

Thirdly, in line with modern labour laws of advanced countries, the code has created legal provisions for workers and employers to decide wages and working conditions through dialogue and negotiation, with the role of the State limited to defining legal minimum standards such as minimum wages and overtime caps. For example, employers no longer have to register their salary scales and tables but are required to consult with workers representative organisations.

Fourthly, the code allows workers to establish and join a workers representative organisation of their own choosing, which may or may not be affiliated with the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour (VGCL). Workers organisations, which are not affiliated with VGCL, can be organised at the enterprise level and will have the same industrial relations rights and obligations equal to grassroots trade unions under the VGCL.

The code also ensures the protection of employers organisations and workers organisations against any acts of interference by each other, and that workers enjoy adequate protection against anti-union discrimination. Employers now have clearer obligations to avoid acts of anti-union discrimination and interference in the functions and activities of workers representative organisations before and after registration. Managerial employees cannot participate in the same workers organisations as rank-and-file workers. This will gradually end the prevailing situation where senior or middle managers dominate workers representative organisations at the enterprise level.

Under the new law, the mechanism for resolving labour disputes has been streamlined. If mediation fails to resolve a dispute, workers can choose whether to go to lawful strike or arbitration. Previously, more steps were required before workers could lawfully strike.

The changes will create a solid foundation for the Government, workers and employers representative organisations to get on a more sustainable path towards shared prosperity, avoiding the middle-income trap. It will accelerate social and economic upgrading of Vietnam, Chang-Hee Lee said.

New challenges and opportunities ahead

The Government has issued Implementation Decree 135 on retirement age and new Decree 145 on employment conditions and industrial relations, giving effect to their related provisions. However, the Government has yet to issue a decree on the registration of workers representative organisations and another decree on collective bargaining. Without them, workers and employers cannot enjoy benefits of new rights created by the 2019 Labour Code.

The Government should adopt the decrees on registration of workers representative organisations and collective bargaining as early as possible, to enable workers and employers to exercise their rights, said ILOs chief of the Freedom of Association Branch, Karen Curtis.

All legal tools must be available to ensure that workers who take initiatives to exercise the newly created rights under the new code are fully protected, including from any forms of retaliation," she added

According to the ILO Vietnam Director, labour inspection alone cannot guarantee the full compliance of the Labour Code.

Ultimately, it is responsibilities of all, not only the Government, workers and employers representative organisations but also media, non-governmental organisations and courts to make all members of society enjoy the full benefits of the new Labour Code, he said.

VNS
Salem police announced that they arrested three people during a Friday protest that drew about 200 people to Oregons Capitol in Salem to protest government-ordered coronavirus lockdown measures they said violated their liberty.

Police said they made the three arrests late Friday afternoon after declaring an unlawful assembly amid a confrontation between anti-fascist protesters and people the police identified as Proud Boys members. Until late afternoon, the two groups had not come into each others view.

Police identified the three people arrested as: Robert Davis, 31, of Springfield, whos accused of disorderly conduct; Joshua D. Lindquist, 33, of Salem, whos accused of interfering with a police officer and unlawful possession of fireworks; and Max Damaskin, 33, of Salem, whos accused of carrying a concealed firearm, disorderly conduct and interfering with a police officer.

One citation was issued during the event, police said, for failing to display license places and an equipment violation. Police said they would continue to investigate events during the protests and could issue more criminal citations.

The event was organized by Oregon Women for Trump. Carole Leek, who is retired and lives near Salem, played a lead role. She told The Oregonian/OregonLive the rally was an opportunity for people to vent their frustrations and let government leaders know what they think. She insisted it would be peaceful.

The last right-wing rally at the Capitol, outside lawmakers Dec. 21 special session, devolved into violence with demonstrators kicking in the window of a door, trying to push their way into the Capitol after they gained access to a vestibule and assaulting journalists who were covering the event.

 Rob Davis

rdavis@oregonian.com

503.294.7657; @robwdavis

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
Message: Head of Revenues operations at Dublin Port, Tom Talbot, warned drivers yesterday not to skip the customs facilities. Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins

Truckers who try to dodge new customs checks when travelling from Britain will be pursued by Revenue and face possible sanctions, including a 5,000 fine or prison time.

The warning came on a quiet first day for the new post-Brexit customs regime when very low traffic volumes into Dublin Port and Rosslare Europort were put down to the time of the year. Delays are expected at Irish ports as volumes increase in the coming days and weeks.

The Revenue advised that preparation by hauliers and logistics companies will minimise any such delays, while also warning of sanctions if drivers dont attend customs facilities if asked to do so.

The head of Revenues operations at Dublin Port, Tom Talbot, said the clear message to drivers who are asked to call to customs facilities is that they must do so. He said: Do not be tempted to skip the customs facilities... and go through the port.

Revenue are there. We will know who has left the port without calling to customs. Where necessary in due course it will be followed up with sanctions.

So please heed that message. If you get a call to customs do exactly that  call to customs.

He said the sanctions, which are set out in legislation, can include fines and prison time.

Revenue later confirmed the law allows for 5,000 fines and/or 12 months imprisonment

Mr Talbot said: Wed prefer to work with the trade and work with business, and where theres a genuine error well follow that up.

Where there is non-compliance... Revenue will not be found wanting to apply those sanctions.

A Revenue statement said over the course of the last two years, the agency has engaged extensively with businesses through a wide range of initiatives to assist them in preparing for Brexit.

It said the law provides for the penalties in instances where, despite Revenue support for business getting things right and being compliant, a truck driver fails to comply with a Call to Customs instruction or fails to remain at the relevant customs terminal until his or her goods are cleared.

Mr Talbot said there were very low volumes of traffic as of lunchtime yesterday with just 20 vehicles on the first ferry that arrived in Dublin that morning. Some checks were done but drivers were able to leave the port in a matter of minutes.

According to Department of Agriculture official Hazel Sheridan, a number of horses being transported were checked to make sure they were in good health and welfare conditions were being complied with.

Mr Talbot said there will be delays in the coming weeks and thats the nature of Britain being outside of the European Union.

He had a number of key messages to minimise those delays.

Drivers should check their customs channel about 30 minutes out before docking in the port. Mr Talbot said this is vital so they know where to go once they disembark. He said: By doing so, we will be able to move the traffic through the port and out to the exit as quickly as possible. Drivers that get a green routing  they can exit the port immediately.

He also said all those carrying goods to and from and through Britain must have made a customs declaration.

There were said to be no concerns based on yesterdays experience at Dublin Port, however Mr Talbot added: Were well aware that this is an unusual day in terms of volume. But our systems are working. Were ready for the increase in volume next week.

Ferry company Stena Line reported six freight loads bound for Ireland were turned away at Holyhead in Wales as they didnt have the correct references.

The ferry company urged hauliers to have valid Pre-Boarding Notification ready for check-in.

Stena Line said the majority of freight successfully accessed its ports on the first day post-Brexit

It added: At present, freight volumes are markedly down on pre-Christmas/Brexit stockpiling levels, so it is too early to draw any conclusions.

But we are happy with the way the new procedures are operating and remain cautiously optimistic that, as freight volumes begin to rise again, we will be able to ensure the continued free movement of goods.

In Britain, roads in Kent were quiet as fears of huge lorry queues to Dover failed to materialise.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed that leaving the EU offers the UK the chance to transform our country.

He said Brexit means it has taken back control of our money, our laws and our waters.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the EU should be ready to welcome her country back into the bloc. She said: Scotland will be back soon, Europe. Keep the light on.

French president Emmanuel Macron used his New Years message to say that while the UK remains a friend and ally, Brexit was born of a European malaise and many lies and false promises.

Irish Independent
The Federal University, Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE) has been embroiled in controversies over the appointment of a new vice-chancellor (VC).

The outgoing VC, Kayode Soremekun, who was appointed in 2016, is billed to exit the office in February 2021.

And like other Nigerian universities including the University of Ibadan (UI), Lagos State University (LASU), among others, the selection process for Mr Soremekuns successor has not been smooth sailing.

The controversies surrounding the selection process at the nine-year-old institution has snowballed into a full-blown crisis, leading to the intervention of the federal government through the National Universities Commission (NUC).

Both the universitys governing council chairman, Mohammed Yahuza, and Mr Soremekun, in separate telephone interviews with our reporter, confirmed that mistakes were made. They, however, noted that the wrong steps have been retraced and that the processes would be completed within the next week.

At an intervention meeting held at the NUC office on December 8, the executive secretary of the regulatory agency, Abubakar Rasheed, ordered a fresh start of the selection process, warning concerned parties against flouting the universitys law.

The NUCs position was hinged on a series of petitions filed by many stakeholders including external members of the governing council, staff unions and applicants.

Many have accused Mr Soremekun of meddlesomeness, and an attempt to foist a preferred candidate on the institution as his successor.

The allegations

On August 20, 2020, the university advertised vacancy for the position of vice-chancellor in a national daily, listing conditions for interested applicants to meet.

However, some of the conditions were that the applicant should be preferably from a federal university, and that soft copies of applications should be forwarded to the e-mail addresses of both the outgoing VC, Mr Soremekun, and the universitys registrar, Olatunbosun Odusanya.

A few stakeholders including the universitys branch of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and its Akure zonal chapter kicked against the two clauses. They accused the vice-chancellor of deliberately inserting the clauses to narrow the choice to a preferred candidate and to gain access to all applications.

They also accused the vice-chancellor of teleguiding the six-man joint council and senate selection board. The board, which has as its chairman, the newly appointed chairman of the governing council, Mohammed Yahuza, also has as members Alkali Kolo and Abdullahi Jibrin, an external council member and the representative of the federal ministry of education, respectively.

The other board members Mojisola Oyarekua and Patrick Okolua, both professors, represent the universitys senate, while the universitys registrar, Odusanya, acts as the boards secretary.

Despite the criticisms, the university went ahead with the selection process, and about 60 candidates were said to have applied.

The 60 applicants were later pruned down to nine and were billed to appear before the selection board on November 12 for the statutory oral interviews where the best three would be chosen for onward recommendations to the governing council.

The nine successful candidates include Adimula Abiodun from University of Ilorin (UNILORIN), Kwara State; FUOYEs incumbent deputy vice-chancellor in charge of academics, Abayomi Fasina; Adedeji Sokefun from National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN); Samuel Lawal, Temi Ologunorisa, Waheed Adekojo, Olajide Oladele, and Tomola Obamuyi.

But while the applicants were at the Lagos venue of the scheduled interview on November 12, they were notified by the governing council that the interview could no longer proceed due to technical reasons.

On that same day, another advertisement was placed in The Guardian newspaper with the criticised clauses of preferably federal universities and the directive that soft copies should be sent to the vice-chancellor removed, a source at the university told PREMIUM TIMES reporter on the phone. The source does not want to be mentioned for fear of victimisation.

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Council members recuse selves

Despite the fresh start as indicated by the new advertorial, some members of the governing council still felt uncomfortable with the selection process, accusing the vice-chancellor of influencing the selection committee to work to the answer.

In his response to an invitation to an extraordinary governing council meeting scheduled to hold on November 28, an external member of the council, Sabo Inuwa, notified the registrar of his intention to recuse himself from the selection process.

In the response, a copy of which PREMIUM TIMES exclusively obtained, Mr Inuwa wrote; With interested parties and devices multiplying by the day, all trying to access and manipulate the selection processes for a suitable person to emerge as VC of our young university to advantage, I feel torn apart and severely constrained, operating in such a heavily charged atmosphere, yet wanting to remain fair-minded and just.

I, therefore, wish to honourably recuse myself from participating in this and subsequent meetings that may convene, for the purposes of this recruitment exercise; unless of course appropriate steps are taken to remedy the situation.

Mr Inuwa listed some of the expected remedies to include an undisclosed request by the vice-chancellor to the governing council chairman.

In another instance, both Mr Inuwa and another governing council member who doubles as a member of the joint council and senate selection board, Alkali Kolo, jointly wrote to the education minister, Adamu Adamu, seeking his intervention in the crisis over the VC appointment.

The letter, which is titled; Urgent Executive Brief on VCs Selection Processes at FUOYE, alerted the minister of what the authors described as an impending danger at the university.

The duo wrote; With the ongoing effort of recruiting a new VC for FUOYE, so much has contributed into rubbishing the exercise, for which a simple majority of the external members of Council, who are same time members of both search and selection committees; and most of the internal members have recused themselves, due to the overbearing nature and meddlesome approach of the VC; who sees it his birthright to determine who succeeds him.

Right now, an unlawful selection committee meeting is taking place here in Abuja; chaired by Dr MLYahuza against a subsisting court order stopping the entire exercise till the VC exits the system.

What necessitated our reaching out to you, Sir, is that after todays meeting, their intention is to convene a kangaroo Council meeting next Saturday, the 5th of December, to produce and announce a new VC.

They added that The threat of violent reaction is real, and called on the minister to quickly intervene.

Similarly, both ASUU and other workers unions in separate memos called on the governing council to ensure fairness and justice in the appointment process.

ASUU, in particular, described the second advert placed in the dailies as an afterthought, saying it was a deliberate attempt to compromise the process.

Their cry led to the NUCs intervention which rubbished the earlier processes and ordered fresh ones.

VCs influence persists

Following the NUCs intervention meeting of December 8, the governing council reconvened at the Nigeria Stored Products Research Institute, Yaba, Lagos, on December 13 to review the entire process.

According to a governing council member, prior to the December 13 meeting, no member of the council had access to applicants applications, and that the guidelines for grading them were kept secret by a few members of the selection board in connivance with the VC.

To our surprise, while marks were allocated to positions such as head of department and faculty deans as administrative experience, holding a position as deputy vice-chancellor (DVC), which ordinarily should be the height of administrative competence as is the tradition across other universities, no score was allotted it in FUOYE, the council member, who craved anonymity, said.

Instead of allotting marks for the position of a DVC, the source said the board allotted marks for experience in distance learning.

We argued vigorously until a DVC position was allocated 10 marks, but we could not win the case against the case of the distance learning issue, the source added.

PREMIUM TIMES learnt that the insertion of the distance learning experience into the guidelines was targeted at boosting the score of a specific candidate.

This newspaper also learnt that following the new advertorial placed in the paper, more applicants surfaced, and the list of shortlisted applicants increased from nine to 14.

Meanwhile, the VC also reportedly insisted on attending the selection board meeting which was held at the same venue on December 14, and that following a walk-out threat from two of the members, Mr Soremekun then left the venue.

He had to apologise profusely on December 15 at a reconvened governing council meeting where the selection boards activities were reviewed. We learnt the VC also had to write a letter of apology to the minister and the NUC as directed by the NUC following his persistent meddlesomeness after the clear directive from the federal government, the source further explained.

The vice-chancellor confirmed this to our reporter on the phone, saying as to err is human.

CBT test for applicants illegal

Currently, insinuations are rife on the campus that the university is planning to conduct computer-based test (CBT) for the 14 shortlisted applicants. Some of the stakeholders who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES on the matter have described the planned test as illegal and an attempt to boost the score of an unnamed preferred candidate.

It is the same process that was deployed in the appointment of both the new bursar and registrar. For instance, when the test for bursar was conducted, their preferred candidate scored 50 of 50 while the second-best result was 28 out of 50. It was the same with that of the registrar. But the law establishing the university is clear about the appointment of a VC and there is nothing like the conduct of a CBT test in the guidelines, one of the applicants, who does not want to be quoted, told PREMIUM TIMES on the phone.

According to sources, the CBT test is scheduled to take place on the morning of Monday, January 4, 2021, while the oral interview with the selection board is scheduled for the afternoon of the same day.

Council chair, VC speak

In separate telephone interviews with our reporter, both the chairman of the governing council and the outgoing vice-chancellor, Muhammed Yahuza and Kayode Soremekun, confirmed that mistakes were committed at one stage of the selection process or the other. They have, however, vowed that the relevant sections of the universitys law governing the appointment of a vice-chancellor will be followed to the letter.

Speaking on the allegation of meddlesomeness, Mr Soremekun said; I mistakenly attended a meeting of the Selection Committee. Once I was reminded that I should not be part of the meeting, I immediately withdrew. In other words, I spent less than 5 minutes at the meeting. I am human and I am prone to error. And I have since apologised. Show me the man who is error-free, and you will have a liar on your hands.

He added that I have since taken myself out of the process in consonance with the relevant statutory provisions. So I do not have information about the alleged planned use of CBT and the alleged involvement of the pioneer vice-chancellor of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Olugbemiro Jegede, in the CBT matter.

On his part, Mr Yahuza said he would not comment on the alleged plan to use CBT to test applicants. He also denied involvement in the appointment of the universitys incumbent bursar and that his council only completed the process of registrars appointment.

Mr Yahuza said; I retired as a director in the federal civil service, so you need to understand that I am a man of rules. As the chairman of the governing council of FUOYE, I assure you that the best decision would be taken in the appointment of a new VC. We realised our mistakes and we retraced our steps.

So, the new processes are in compliance with the rules and nothing will comprise that.

About FUOYE

Since its establishment in 2011, FUOYE, which is among the 11 universities established by the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan, has been embroiled in one crisis or the other.

Its location was also a subject of conflict when the duo communities of Oye-Ekiti andIkole-Ekiti battled fiercely to host the institution. The development led to the choice of the two communities as host communities with Oye-Ekiti hosting the main campus.

Also, at one stage or the other, the university has had conflicts with its workers unions, and the development has led to the balkanization of ASUU on the campus.

The chairman of an ASUU faction that is recognised by the national leadership of the teachers union, Akinyemi Omonijo, has been on suspension since 2018. The matter has also lingered at the national industrial court in Akure, Ondo State.
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"Theres nothing like painting on a big scale. It's completely different to painting any other thing," says street artist and muralist George Rose.

George Rose and the mural she is painting on the walls of TikTok's Sydney offices. Credit:James Alcock

For her, it's a joyous combination of creativity, being outside, immersing yourself in a community and being active. "You have to use your whole body when you do it. Also theres a huge theatre about creating works in public. I love people coming up and talking to me. Youd probably never come across them otherwise."

Street art and muralism is big business these days and has long been a trademark of Melbourne. Hosier Lane is one of the CBD's top tourist attractions, regularly repainted and a prime location if you want to see artists at work. In November, an Artcade opened in Spencer Street, showcasing work by eight artists (including Rose) in a project run by Juddy Roller. Online platform Book an Artist has sprung up, with commissions adding new works in Brunswick, Hampton and Eltham. Further afield, the Silo Art Trail in the Mallee has proven a tourism success, as have Bendigo's street art tours.

Rose recently spent almost a month in Sydney, painting murals at Tik Tok's headquarters in Martin Place. She is known for her gradients  when one colour turns into another  and super bright colour pallettes. Recent local works include a Christmas mural on corner of Errol and Queensbury streets, North Melbourne, and another at Foot Locker in the city.
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Australias ABC News has recommended the Vietnamese capital Hanoi to tourists, underlining the attractions of its culture, history and street food.

Suggesting that Hanoi should be a part of future summer trips when the Covid-19 ordeal is over, it says the city is a mixture of the smells of food and incense in a city shaped by many religions and history.

"It's a city that's forever changing, and yet things persist: cultural norms, old habits, from cafes to sidewalk stalls, to Confucian ethics and family discipline," it quotes Nguyen Quy Duc, writer and the owner of a popular pub in town, as saying.

A flower vendor in Hanoi. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Trang.

It quotes Emeritus Professor William Logan, author of "Hanoi: Biography of a City," as saying during his first time in the city, he was struck by "what seemed initially a confusion of architectural styles."

Comparing Hanoi with a palimpsest, he says: "You've got this layer, but things from the past keep popping up and you have to understand the past, really, to understand the city as it is now."

He speaks about the old quarter with 36 streets like Hang Ma, Hang Giay and Hang Thiec, from which the city has expanded into what is now.

When the countrys economy opened up, many Hanoi residents turned their one-room-wide market stall into narrow multi-story hotels, he says.

The story also alludes to Vietnam being celebrated as a Covid-19 success story and the Hanoi cuisine.

Banh cuon (sticky rice sheet rolls), pho, bun rieu (crab-based noodles), and nuoc mia (sugarcane juice) are four recommended dishes, according to food writer and journalist Lee Tran Lam.

It tells readers not to miss the Vietnamese Women's Museum, Temple of Literature, Imperial Citadel, the pedestrian street around Hoan Kiem Lake, and walking around the West Lake.

Logan says people should pay a visit to the Cultural Friendship Palace, a Soviet modernist building but with some Asian influences.

It quotes Vietnam-based journalist Michael Tatarski as saying: "The main thing is don't ever run across the street."

In June leading U.S. magazine Reader's Digest listed Hanoi among the most popular travel Asian destinations. In 2019 the Vietnamese capital was 15th in the list of 25 best destinations chosen by travel website TripAdvisor.
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Ananya Panday On Ishaan Khatter's Post

Since they landed in the Maldives on Wednesday, both have been treating fans to pictures of their celebration. From swimming in the waters, having a floating breakfast in the pool to a relaxing spa session, Ananya has been enjoying the vacation to the fullest.

Ishaan Shares An Out Of Body Experience

However, her recent post is taking the internet by the storm. The actress can be seen wearing a quirky sunflower bikini while stepping out of the pool. She captioned the post as, "Looking on the brighter side #Hello2021."

Ananya Panday's Welcomes 2021

On the work front, Ishaan was last seen in the OTT release A Suitable Boy, followed by the commercial entertainer Khaali Peeli. He will be seen in the horror-comedy Phone Bhoot and reportedly has also signed war-drama titled, Pippa where he plays a real-life army officer.

On the other hand, Ananya will be seen in Shakun Batra's next co-starring Deepika Padukone and Siddhant Chaturvedi. She has also been working on an upcoming film with Telugu superstar Vijay Deverakonda.
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IF AUCTIONEERS got a 1 for every time they were asked, Whats the broadband speed like? in 2020 they could happily retire.

The other most common question was, Is there room for a home office?. When Covid hit in March, all the uncertainty, the effect on the economy, a natural follow on would be that house prices would drop. Not so.

Experienced Limerick auctioneer, Michael OConnor picked the perfect time to start a new online property, sales and auction platform called Youbid.ie

The monthly auctions reflected the huge interest out there with multiple bidders on each of the lots. For example, in the last auction of the year before Christmas a four bedroom bungalow in Gortroe, Coolcapagh, received 34 bids and sold for 161,000.

It is all done from the safety of your home. It summed up 2020.

Pat Dooley, Director of REA Dooley Group, said it was a remarkable a year.

Back in March when the pandemic hit we thought we would be in for another recession but quite the opposite. We saw prices increase and we saw a supply deficit in the market. We saw people living in towns and cities wanting very much to move out from towns and cities to bigger sites and bigger spaces and bigger houses. That kept us very busy from when we opened our doors again after the first lockdown. Its a trend we can see from quarter four continuing into next year, said Mr Dooley.

A perfect example is a five bedroom detached property in Boherlode, Ballyneety (pictured above) which went sale agreed before Christmas. Guided at 495,000, Mr Dooley said it attracted a lot of interest and exceeded the guide by 10 to 15%.

GVM Group Property Director Tom Crosse describes how the market changed so quickly. In March, he said a number of people made the decision to stop their sales and remove themselves from the process.

We lost probably 20/25 sales  mainly residential and a couple of commercial, said Mr Crosse. Fast forward a few months, and he says 95% of those sales that fell through have now gone through.

Those who had previously withdrawn from sales said maybe we will rethink this and get back on board. We put back together again 95% of those sales either with the old buyers or replacement buyers and in some cases people actually achieved higher prices subsequently, said Mr Crosse. He highlighted in the Leader in late July the emerging trend of people moving back from Dublin and abroad to Limerick because they could work from home.

I had a young couple in my office paying me a deposit. I said, Sorry to hear your wedding didnt happen. They said out of adversity comes opportunity. Both had been approved to relocate to Limerick and work remotely from Limerick. They said they could buy a house here for 50% less than they would pay in Dublin. That happened on a number of occasions with people returning from Dublin and abroad, said Mr Crosse.

Ailbhe O'Malley, Director of Sherry Fitzgerald Limerick, said they met people coming home from all over the world - Canada, USA, Dubai, Australia, Honk Kong and more.

They were really motivated, good buyers who wanted good family homes with space for home offices. People see there is still value in the Limerick market.

We traded for only nine months out of 12 but it turned out to be a resilient market, said Ms OMalley.

In many cases, she said there is more than one bidder on properties, which is leading to prices holding strong and increasing in many places.

We are lucky in Limerick that we have so much to offer  people want to move back here. They are not leaving Limerick, they are coming back to Limerick and that gives us confidence, said Ms OMalley.
Mumbai: Actor Kangana Ranaut violated the sanctioned plan while merging her three flats, a civil court here has remarked while rejecting her plea seeking to restrain the Mumbai civic body from demolishing the unauthorized construction.

A court in suburban Dindoshi dismissed an application filed by Ranaut last week. The detailed order became available on Thursday (December 31).

Judge L S Chavan noted in the order that Ranaut, who owns three flats on the fifth floor of a 16-storey building in Khar area of the city, merged them into one.

In doing so, she covered the sunk area, duct area, common passage and converted free Floor Space Index (FSI) into habitable area, the judge observed.

"These are grave violation of the sanctioned plan for which the permission of the competent authority is required," the court said.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had in March 2018 issued a notice to the actor for "unauthorized constructions" at her Khar flats. Another notice asked her to restore the structure to its original position as per the original plan, warning that otherwise the unauthorized portion will be demolished.

Ranaut challenged the demolition notice and also requested the court to restrain the civic body from carrying out demolition. The court had then ordered status-quo.

In the latest order on December 23 judge Chavan rejected the actor's application, sayingthe "interference of this court is not required". However, the court has given her six weeks to approach the Bombay High Court against the order.

On September 9, the BMC had demolished parts of Ranaut's bungalow in the Pali Hill area for alleged "unauthorized" construction. She moved the HC against it.

The high court later termed the BMC's action as illegal and malicious.
OAKLAND (BCN)

The family of Oscar Grant III on Friday renewed calls for murder charges against former BART officer Anthony Pirone, who with then-BART officer Johannes Mehserle was involved in the attempted arrest that led to Grant's death on New Year's Day 2009.

Cephus X Johnson, Grant's uncle, along with other family members, former Black Panther Party chair Elaine Brown, Oakland attorney John Burris and others, gathered Friday morning at the Fruitvale BART station where Grant was killed 12 years ago to the day.

While Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for fatally shooting Grant, 22, on New Year's Day after responding to a report of a fight on a BART train, Pirone was not charged for his involvement in the shooting.

Referring to a video that was taken of the incident, Johnson said, "Tony Pirone, with his 250 pounds on Oscar's neck, his hand on Oscar's face. You can hear in the video Oscar saying, 'I can't breathe.'"

A 2009 report on the case by former Oakland City Attorney Jayne Williams and then-attorney Kimberly Colwell of the law firm Meyers Nave found that Pirone, who knelt on Grant's back and pinned him to the ground, "started a cascade of events that ultimately led to the shooting of Grant."

Burris said in an interview Friday, "I was the one who did the civil case at the beginning. We at the time were demanding that Anthony Pirone be prosecuted. It was clear that Anthony Pirone started the whole thing."

Burris said, "The DA has said they would take a look at it, but nothing has taken place so far."

On Oct. 5, Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley's office said O'Malley would reopen the investigation into the circumstances of the fatal shooting.

The district attorney's office issued a statement that day confirming that it would reopen the case.

"I have assigned a team of lawyers to look back into the

circumstances that caused the death of Oscar Grant," O'Malley said in a statement Oct. 5. "We will evaluate the evidence and the law, including the applicable law at the time and the statute of limitations and make a determination."

Calls and emails to O'Malley's office were not immediately returned Friday.

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The Rendlesham Forest incident began 40 years ago on December 26, 1980

Air Force colonel witnessed something that couldn't possibly be of earthly origin

Lt Colonel Charles Halt was willing to stake his military reputation on that fact

Two nights after Christmas, 1980, and the American servicemen of Combat Support Group were letting off steam in the early hours at Woody's Bar.

An awards dinner was still in full swing and beer was flowing in the hut at RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk.

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No one paid much attention to the white-faced young airman who slipped into the bar and beckoned to his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt.

Halt left the table. The junior officer, Lieutenant Bruce Englund, looked nervous and confused: 'It's back, sir,' he said over the hubbub. 'The UFO  it's back.'

A Vietnam veteran and deputy commander of the camp, Halt was exasperated. Rumours of a bizarre sighting in the woods had been rife on the twin bases at RAF Woodbridge and RAF Bentwaters, near Ipswich, which were shared with the U.S. Air Force.

The men were so puzzled that they didnt think to alert the emergency services. They simply walked deeper into the woods, slowly and warily, like actors in a science-fiction movie

The first he'd heard of it was when he came on duty at 5am on December 27: he walked into his office to hear loud chatter and laughter that stopped abruptly as he entered.

'What's going on?' the 41-year-old Halt snapped. A sergeant answered, with a mixture of embarrassment and bravado: 'Penniston and Burroughs were out last night chasing UFOs, sir.'

Conflicting gossip and tall stories spread all day across the camp. Halt tried not to waste time on them, though protocol demanded that reports were filed.

The excitement was already half-forgotten by that evening . . . and then Lt Englund barged into Woody's Bar.

Halt left the bar to investigate. What he saw changed his life, and everything he thought he knew about the world, for ever.

In Rendlesham Forest, beyond the camp's perimeter, the war-hardened Air Force colonel witnessed something that could not possibly be of earthly origin  and he was willing to stake his entire military reputation on that fact.

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'I believe the objects that I saw at close quarter,' he later swore in an affidavit, 'were extraterrestrial in origin, and that the security services of both the United States and the United Kingdom have attempted  both then and now  to subvert the significance of what occurred.'

This was the beginning of the case dubbed Britain's Roswell: an encounter with apparently alien technology so extraordinary that no attempt by sceptics to dismiss it has been able to explain away all the basic facts of the story.

The Rendlesham Forest incident began 40 years ago in the early hours of December 26, 1980, as most of Britain was sleeping off the effects of Christmas Day.

Rumours of a bizarre sighting in the woods had been rife on the twin bases at RAF Woodbridge and RAF Bentwaters, near Ipswich, which were shared with the U.S. Air Force

Airman First Class John Burroughs was on patrol close to the East Gate at Woodbridge when he saw flashing red and blue lights, shining from the direction of the East Anglian coastline.

Burroughs had been standing guard at the camp for 17 months and had never seen anything like this. His first thought was that a light aircraft had come down in the trees.

He alerted his sergeant, Bud Steffens, and the two men reported their concerns before they were joined by another sergeant, Jim Penniston, and his driver, Airman First Class Edward Cabansag.

While Steffens stayed on duty at the gate, the other three took a Jeep into the woods. After about 250 yards, the track petered off and they got out to walk. By now, the lights seemed brighter and more varied  not only red and blue, but white and yellow.

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There seemed to be no flames or any other indication of a crash, though. The men were so puzzled that they didn't think to alert the emergency services. They simply walked deeper into the woods, slowly and warily, like actors in a science-fiction movie. A fourth man, Master Sergeant J.D. Chandler, caught up and joined them.

And then all four of the men's radios started to malfunction.

Realising they were cut off from their base, the men backtracked. The found they could still get a signal to the camp from where they had left the vehicle, so Chandler volunteered to stay there.

The others went forward, until they began to lose touch with Chandler. Cabansag agreed to hold back too, as a one-man radio relay station, while Burroughs and Penniston kept going.

Now the atmosphere in the forest had become strange and frightening. Static electricity made the men's hair bristle. Walking became heavy and difficult, as if they were wading through water.

As they approached a clearing, there was an explosion of light. Both men threw themselves to the ground. Burroughs looked up and saw Penniston, silhouetted by the red glow of an object in the open ground.

'The silence was then the most prominent part of it,' Burroughs reported. 'The area or field seemed dead. The air: no sound. No rustling of air or wind, no distant sounds, no animals or nothing.

'A dead silence. A strong static on clothes, hair and skin, being pulled towards the light. Then dissipated.' But Penniston's memory of the events was utterly different.

As the blast of light engulfed him, he saw beyond it a small metallic craft, about 10 ft across and 10 ft high. Roughly triangular, it appeared to be either standing on the ground or hovering just above it.

Dazed, Penniston walked closer. The hull of the object was dark and smooth, and incised with hieroglyphs. He ran a hand over the surface.

'The skin of the craft was smooth to touch,' he said. 'Almost like running your hand over glass. Void of seams or imperfections, until I ran my fingers over the symbols. The symbols were nothing like the rest of the craft  they were rough, like running my fingers over sandpaper.'

Light began to glow at the top of the craft and it lifted off slowly . . . then shot up into the sky and disappeared at what Penniston called 'impossible speed'.

The Rendlesham Forest incident began 40 years ago in the early hours of December 26, 1980, as most of Britain was sleeping off the effects of Christmas Day

Afterwards, it seemed to him that he had studied the object for several minutes  not the handful of seconds that Burroughs perceived passing. Both men were staggered to be told later that they had been out of contact for 45 minutes. More incredible still, both their wristwatches were now three-quarters of an hour slow.

This was the story going round the camp later that day, causing hilarity and incredulity.

In daylight, Burroughs and Penniston took a team of U.S. Air Force investigators to the site and found indentations in the ground, broken branches and scorch marks on the trees.

When the lights returned in the early hours of December 28, Halt took six men to investigate. Among them were Lt Englund and Airman Burroughs. He also took a cassette recorder, which he used to record the team's discussions at the site, and a Geiger counter to detect radiation.

The dark woods were 'strange' and 'eerie', in Halt's words.

His unease was heightened when farm animals began to bleat and grunt in the distance, and something in the darkness started to make sharp, shrieking sounds  possibly a wild muntjac deer.

Then the lights began  beams from airborne objects, 'strobe-like flashes' in the words recorded on Halt's cassette, 'shooting off' so bright that 'it almost burns your eye'. Then a pencil-thin beam hit the ground in front of him.

'We just stood there in awe,' he said later. 'Is this a warning, is this a signal, is this a communication? What is this? A weapon?'

Just as on the first night, a burning red oval light materialised. 'It reminded me of an eye,' Halt said, 'and appeared as though blinking. It manoeuvred horizontally through the trees with occasional vertical movement. When approached, it receded.'

Then the woods exploded in light once more. This time it was Airman Burroughs who felt himself drawn into it, for what seemed like a matter of seconds  though his companions testified he was gone for several minutes.

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'I have no recall of it,' he says now. 'I have no memory of what happened.' The team retreated. By the time they were out of the woods and in a meadow (where Burroughs regained his memory), they could see the red oval in the sky.

It seemed to be dropping blobs of light like molten metal over the air bases, before breaking up into multiple smaller white lights and dispersing in all directions.

'I have no idea what we saw,' Halt said, 'but I do know whatever we saw was under intelligent control.'

For the next 40 years, UFO believers and sceptics would argue furiously about what happened on those two nights.

The details did not become public at once, but leaked out slowly.

In October 1983, the now-defunct News Of The World tabloid obtained a copy of Halt's report and published extracts on its front page under the headline, 'UFO Lands In Suffolk  And That's Official'.

Two years later, a sceptical Guardian journalist investigated and concluded that what the airmen had seen must have been the beam of the Orfordness lighthouse, five miles away. Seen from one angle, the light appears to track through the trees, winking at just above ground level. The lighthouse also has two red lights mounted on aerials.

According to this theory, the depressions left in the ground by the UFO's tripod feet were in reality rabbit holes, and the scorch marks on trees were left by foresters.

The malfunctioning radios were put down to ordinary equipment failure and everything else was delusion caused by fear and over-active imaginations.

There is also the suggestive fact that a post-Christmas celebration was going on in Woody's Bar before the second expedition. Alcohol might have been a factor in the sightings and the way they were interpreted.

Other sceptical explanations include collective hallucinations caused by psychotropic drugs which (according to one truly outlandish conspiracy theory) were being administered to personnel at the air bases without their knowledge or consent.

More credible is the suggestion that the lights which Colonel Halt interpreted as 'molten metal' falling from the sky were created by a meteor shower.

But none of this explains the radiation readings on the Geiger counter  which have led some amateur investigators to theorise that there could have been an accident involving a nuclear weapon at the base. That would certainly explain the flash of light, though not why all who saw it survived.

A more feasible, though still highly speculative, theory was floated by ufologist Nick Redfern last year in a book called The Rendlesham Forest UFO Conspiracy. Redfern suggests that the U.S. military was experimenting with ways to harness ball lightning, a natural phenomenon, as a weapon.

Two years later, a sceptical Guardian journalist investigated and concluded that what the airmen had seen must have been the beam of the Orfordness lighthouse, five miles away. Seen from one angle, the light appears to track through the trees, winking at just above ground level. The lighthouse also has two red lights mounted on aerials

The idea of bottled lightning was first investigated by Cold War scientists in the 1950s.

Sometimes this was sheer sci-fi scaremongering: a journalist named D.V. Ritchie published a piece in Missiles And Rockets magazine in 1959, headlined, 'Reds May Use Lightning As A Weapon'.

Other studies had a more serious academic basis. Using a Freedom of Information request, Redfern obtained a document by two scientists called Lyttle and Wilson, who were employed by a military technology company called Melpar Inc, which was listed as 'an American government contractor in the 20th century Cold War period'.

Their paper was titled 'Survey of Kugelblitz theories for electromagnetic incendiaries'. Kugelblitz is German for ball lightning, a sort of levitating ball of fire.

Lyttle and Wilson proposed that if white-hot ball lightning could be generated artificially, laser beams might be used to guide it to targets. Colonel Halt reported seeing pencil-thin beams radiating down from the blinking red oval  could these have been lasers, Redfern wonders?

But perhaps the most entertaining explanation was uncovered by UFO enthusiast Dr David Clarke, after he received a letter from a former SAS trooper three years ago.

Though the government refused to acknowledge the fact at the time, in 1980 RAF Woodbridge was a nuclear site. If the public didn't know that American warheads were situated there, Soviet intelligence certainly did. The threat that enemy spies might penetrate the base was ever present.

To test the vulnerabilities, British special forces made repeated forays into the camp, demonstrating where the weaknesses were in its fortifications. One night, in August 1980, an SAS team performed a daring free fall from a high-altitude plane over Suffolk at night. Their black parachutes were designed to be invisible to the watchers below.

But the American radar equipment was more sensitive than the British had guessed. As the SAS men touched down inside the Woodbridge perimeter, they were arrested and dragged away for interrogation.

So far, so routine. This was meant to be an ordinary exercise, and both sides were carrying out orders. But then it went wrong.

One night, in August 1980, an SAS team performed a daring free fall from a high-altitude plane over Suffolk at night. Their black parachutes were designed to be invisible to the watchers below. But the American radar equipment was more sensitive than the British had guessed

The Americans reacted with unexpected aggression  subjecting the intruders to a brutal beating and 18 hours of questioning. Refusing to believe the parachutists were British military, they repeatedly accused them of being 'aliens'.

The SAS men were not freed until the Ministry of Defence in London demanded their release.

As one special forces trooper, calling himself Frank, told Dr Clarke: 'They called us aliens. Right, we thought, we'll show them what aliens really look like.'

In an elaborate prank, the unit rigged coloured lights and flares around the forest. Black helium balloons were attached to radio-controlled kites and sent buzzing over the treetops.

In the days after Christmas, when the SAS rightly guessed that the mood inside the base might be more relaxed and susceptible, the elaborate jape was triggered.

It proved more effective than the troopers could ever have expected. They hoped to spook a few naive U.S. airmen, jittery at being alone in the ancient woods. In fact, they convinced a Lieutenant Colonel that he was experiencing a 'close encounter of the third kind'.

Even the MoD took the reports seriously at first. But it wasn't long before someone in London remembered that Woodbridge was the scene of the previous summer's embarrassment, when an SAS unit was captured and labelled 'aliens'.

The connection was made. Frank and his friends were 'spoken to'. They admitted they might have indulged in a bit of a joke. Was it their fault if the Americans were so gullible?

Still, the investigation was thorough, and reports went all the way to the top. In 1985, Defence Minister Lord Trefgarne had an off-the-record meeting with Lord Hill-Norton, a former chief of the defence staff, to discuss the incident.

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In his briefing notes, the phrase 'no additional action required' is used. And in handwriting on the margin, Trefgarne has written, 'Oh dear'.
A child watching fireworks at her home was hit by a stray bullet shortly after midnight of the new year.

The Laredo Police Department announced on Friday that a 12-year-old girl was grazed by a stray bullet.

She was taken to Laredo Medical Center but had minor injuries.

The call reporting the incident occurred at 12:08 a.m.

The girl was standing on her driveway watching the fireworks next to her mother at their residence on Regina Drive.

Police located the bullet after the incident and it was seized. It was of an unknown caliber.

Laredo police warned the community on Wednesday morning via Facebook to not fire guns into the air in celebration of the new year.

The post called celebratory gunfire illegal and extremely dangerous and stated What goes up must come down... bullets shot up do NOT disappear.

It further said that A bullet fired up in the air can result in property damage, serious bodily injury and even death, and told citizens to report celebratory gunfire by calling 956-795-2800 or by using the Laredo PD app.
The COVID-19 pandemic has cast a long shadow and created uncertainty over the global economy.

The signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), however, offers a beacon of hope, as it marks a victory for multilateralism and free trade regionally and globally.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Chair of ASEAN 2020, witnesses Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh signing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement in Hanoi on November 15.

After eight years of negotiations, ASEAN and five of its partners finished an enormous workload to successfully conclude the deal, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said at the signing ceremony, which took place on November 15 within the framework of the 37th ASEAN Summit and related meetings hosted virtually by Vietnam.

He said the signing of the deal is the pride and great achievement of the ASEAN countries and partners in laying a foundation for a new, comprehensive, long-term cooperation period, bringing benefits to all countries in the region.

The RECP was launched in late 2012 as an ASEAN initiative to boost trade between its ten member states and its six dialogue partners - Australia, China, India, New Zealand, Japan, and the Republic of Korea. During last-minute talks on November 4, 2019, India pulled out over unresolved issues.

It is the worlds largest trade deal, with the 15 signatory countries together accounting for up to 32 percent of global GDP. Member economies are expected to together generate GDP growth of approximately 137 billion USD.

The unprecedented trading arrangement comprises a diverse mix of developed, developing, and least-developed economies in the region.

Analysts expect that the pact will fuel the development of regional and global supply chains and further push the economic growth of ASEAN and its partners, thanks to a wide range of open-market commitments on trade of goods, services and investment, the simplification of customs procedures, and trade facilitation.

In light of the adverse impact of COVID-19, the signing of the RCEP demonstrates the signatory countries strong commitment to supporting economic recovery, inclusive development, and job creation, while strengthening regional supply chains and supporting an open and inclusive rules-based trade and investment arrangement.

The RCEP is viewed as the regions urgent response to COVID-19, strengthening resilience during the post-pandemic economic recovery process.

The signing of the RCEP is a historic event, as it underpins ASEANs role in leading a multilateral trade agreement of this magnitude, despite global and regional challenges and eight years of negotiations, said Secretary-General of ASEAN Lim Jock Hoi.

Together with other free trade agreements (FTAs), the RCEP is hoped to give further impetus to Vietnams reform efforts, thus rapidly improving its business and investment environment.

According to Luong Hoang Thai, Director of the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT)s Multilateral Trade Policy Department, the RCEP forms the worlds largest free trade area, meaning Vietnam can benefit from a stable, long-term market. As the pact establishes a legally-binding regional framework concerning trade and investment policy, intellectual property, e-commerce and dispute settlement, it will contribute to creating a fair trade environment in the region, he said.

Nguyen Thi Quynh Nga, Deputy Director of the MoITs Multilateral Trade Policy Department, said what makes the RCEP different from other FTAs is that it integrates pre-existing bilateral agreements between ASEAN and five of its major trade partners with regard to rules of origin.

That means Vietnamese firms can use input materials from any RCEP country, including the 10 ASEAN countries and five partner countries, to produce goods and then export them to any RCEP nation and enjoy preferential tariffs for meeting rules of origin, Nga said.

To help Vietnamese enterprises make the most of opportunities brought about by the agreement, the MoIT has developed a plan to raise awareness of the trade deal and ensure its contents are known by relevant units and organisations as well as domestic firms, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The ministry will adopt programmes to help Vietnams key industries improve their competitiveness and further engage in regional and global value chains. It will also strengthen the capacity of Vietnams trade offices alongside information and trade promotion centres overseas, enabling them to deliver better information services to the business community regarding the RCEP.

VNA

Grabbing investment gains from RCEP agreement The countries in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership are set to benefit from a wide-ranging deal that will entice investors towards the region.

Market development programmes will also be built for Vietnams key export items, to give them broader access to the markets of RCEP member states.

VNA
The first babies to be born on New Years Day in southern Connecticut entered the world with snuggles and hugs from happy parents, as they symbolized hope for a bright future.

At Greenwich Hospital, at 12:02 a.m. Lilah was delivered, the daughter of Dana and Matt Wrigley of Stamford.

The hospital staff was buzzing that Lilah might be the New Years Baby, Dana Wrigley recalled, citing the excitement around the old tradition of newborns and the New Year.

It was a bit of a surprise, said the new mother, as her due date for delivery was Dec. 21.

I ended up going into labor on the 31st, in the afternoon, she said, Everyone was saying: this might be the New Years baby. And sure enough, she emerged on the First.

This is the couples first child. Were really excited about it, said Wrigley, Weve been waiting for her, obviously, and now she has some notoriety.

At Stamford Hospital, Jacqueline Tenore gave birth to a son, Anthony Tenore IV, at 12:11.

It was definitely exciting, said Tenore, He was supposed to come at Christmas. He ended up coming last night, and he came quickly. We got to the hospital luckily. Everything went well, and Im feeling really good. The staff really went above and beyond.

Tenore said she was thankful and appreciative that her husband, Anthony Tenore III slept on the floor of her hospital room  even though he has been experiencing back problems. The couple live in Norwalk and have an 18-month-old daughter, Anastasia.

Ashley Grace, the daughter of Lisa and Nicholas Detoro, of Milford, was the first baby to be delivered at the Childbirth Center at Griffin Hospital in Derby at 12:21 a.m. She has two siblings at home: a sister Alyssa, 9, and a brother Anthony, 6.

Nathan Alexzander Moore, was born at 1:49 a.m. to Tuanaysia Mike and Alexzander Nathanial Moore of New Haven at Yale New Haven Hospital.

In he Hospital of Central Connecticut in New Britain, Angel Mario Alejandro was born at 1:45 a.m. to proud parents Karen Cruz and Angel Alejandro.
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No. 4

The Giant Siphonophore

This might not be an individual, exactly. Scientists are calling it an entity.

The Apolemia, drifting deep in the sea like a long piece of undulating rope, is usually considered a colony of clones. If laid straight, it can be more than half the length of a football field, and is very likely the longest animal  er, entity  ever found.
Swaraj India chief Yogendra Yadav, who platform is leading the farmers protests, said on Saturday the Centres claims of resolving half of the cultivators issues was plain lie and that they have yet to receive anything on paper. Yadavs statement comes just a couple of days before the seventh round of discussion between the Centre and the farmers representatives to break the deadlock over the three farm laws.

Its a plain lie that the government has accepted 50% of farmers demands. Weve got nothing on paper yet, Yadav was quoted as saying by PTI.

Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar had said earlier this week that after the round of talks between the Centre and the farmers representatives on Wednesday, the two had reached a consensus on two out of four issues. The Swaraj India leader, however, rubbished these claims. Our two main demands  three farm bills should be scrapped and legal guarantee on Minimum Support Price (MSP) are still pending, he said.

Yadav said that if the farmers demands were not met after the meeting with the Centre on January 4, a march would be held on January 6. The next round of talks with the government will be held on January 4 and if our demands are not accepted, we will hold a march at Kundli-Manesar-Palwal on January 6. We will announce a date about when and move forward from Shahjahanpur border, he said.

Farmers across the country, especially from Haryana and Punjab, have been protesting around Delhi against the Centres three contentious farm laws that were passed in September. These laws are The Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act 2020. The demonstrators have made it clear that they would not accept anything less than a complete rollback of the three laws.
Cllr Pat Kennedy (FF) opened the discussion by noting the proposal had already been passed at a meeting of Bray Municipal District by five votes to three

A proposal to increase the parking charge at Bray seafront has received the green light from members of the local authority. Separately, a motion to increase the hourly parking charge at Bray seafront while leaving the day rate unchanged has been rejected by Wicklow County Council.

During their December meeting, councillors were asked to consider a motion to vary the car parking charges and extend the paid parking period in the Bray Municipal District at the Bray seafront. These changes would increase the hourly parking charge from 30 cent to 50 cent and the day rate from 3 to 5 and extend the parking period to include Saturday in parking zones D and H, which are the Strand Road from Martello Terrace to Fontenoy Terrace and Quinsboro Road - east of the railway to Strand Road and the North Beach Car Park.

Cllr Pat Kennedy (FF) opened the discussion by noting the proposal had already been passed at a meeting of Bray Municipal District by five votes to three.

Cllr Grace McManus (SF) proposed an amendment to the motion to increase the parking charges before the council. She suggested the hourly parking rate was increased, but the day rate left at 3. While 'a good discussion' had taken place at the Bray meeting, Cllr McManus said it had not been an agenda item and councillors did not have the opportunity to consult the community. Since the meeting, two issues had been identified. Many people working in the area park at the seafront, some of whom are frontline workers in nursing homes, and they are unhappy about the increase in the day rate. Secondly, Cllr McManus said commuters who park there to use public transport had indicated an increased day rate would reduce the incentive to use public transport.

The proposed amendment would 'hopefully act as protective measure for the workers down the beach and try to promote people using public transport,' Cllr McManus said.

Cllr Joe Behan (Ind) said he was not in favour of increased charges and had voted against the measure at the Bray meeting as 'the public got no opportunity to give their view'.

Cllr Behan suggested the issue should be referred back to Bray Municipal District to allow a public consultation to take place.

Cllr Aoife Flynn Kennedy (FG) pointed out there was no discretionary budget for the Bray Municipal District in 2021. The increase would provide funding for improvements in the area. She argued councillors had time since the November meeting to consult with the public. She also noted there were areas of free parking in the vicinity of Bray's seafront available to workers.

Cllr Anne Ferris (Lab) said councillors had had sufficient time since the November meeting to gauge the public's view. Cllr Ferris said she had been monitoring these consultations and there was broad support for the increased parking charge from the community.

'We're raising it by 20 cents. Now, I would ask anybody what can you buy for 20 cents? Very little on its own,' she said.

Cllr Ferris argued the move would not put off tourists or others parking at the beach. Instead, it would encourage a turnover of cars in the area and raise up to 200,000 for the district. Local businesses had been campaigning for the move as they had concerns that cars parked all day made it more difficult for their customers. She said she did not believe it should go back to Bray Municipal District as this would not change the vote, but delay the introduction of the new measures and the collection of 'really much-needed' money for Bray.

Cllr Ferris proposed the motion that parking charges at Bray seafront are increased from 30 cent per hour to 50 cent per hour and the day rate increased from 3 to 5.

Cllr Erica Doyle (Green) seconded Cllr Ferris's motion. She said the funding structure for local government was 'not fit for purpose'. She pointed out the 20c increase would provide funding for projects in the district. She agreed with Cllr Ferris that the move would help to encourage turnover of cars in the seafront area which would benefit users of the beach.

Cllr Dermot O'Brien (SF) seconded Cllr McManus's proposed amendment.

'I recognise that no-one wants to necessarily sit here and listen to all the Bray councillors have a debate about parking in Bray' Cllr O'Brien said, adding he was struck by the fact that the increase would add up for those on lower incomes. He argued it was fair to ask tourists to pay the increased hourly rate, but frontline workers in nursing homes 'deserve to be looked after and recognised in terms of the day rate'.

Cllr Edward Timmins (FG) suggested that proposals of this type should be discussed and voted on by municipal districts in future.

Lorraine Gallagher, Director of Enterprise and Corporate Services at Wicklow County Council, told councillors it was a reserved function of members to vary the parking charge. In relation to Cllr Behan's proposal to refer the issue back to the municipal district, Ms Gallagher said a public consultation was not required as it was a reserved function of the local authority.

Cllr Pat Fitzgerald (FF) indicated he may vote against the proposal, pointing out that parking in Arklow was 1 an hour. He added that time was being used on this issue, that could be better spent by members discussing other matters.

'If it's discussed at municipal district, we should take it and deal with it,' he added.

Cllr Behan said the lack of a legal requirement for a public consultation should not prevent it taking place. He argued that it was important for other districts and that the public is asked for their opinions. His proposal to refer the item back to Bray Municipal District was seconded by Cllr Peir Leonard (Ind).

Cllr Kennedy pointed out that it was a reserved function of the council to vary the parking charges. He called for a vote and said he would take Cllr McManus's proposed amendment first.

Members first voted on Cllr McManus's proposed amendment to the motion which would increase the hourly rate to 50 cent while leaving the day rate at 3. The amended was seconded by Cllr O'Brien.

13 councillors voted in favour of the motion, 17 against and two were not present, meaning the amendment was rejected by members of Wicklow County Council.

Councillors voted next on Cllr Ferris's motion to increase the hourly parking charge to 50 cent and the day rate to 5, which had been seconded by Cllr Doyle.

22 councillors voted in favour of increasing the parking charges, nine against and one councillor was not present. The motion to increase the parking charges in the seafront area of Bray was deemed to have passed.

Bray People
Susan Wright on Wednesday walked out of a Texas prison a free woman after spending 16 years in jail for brutally killing her husband in 2003.

According to a People report, Wright, a mother of two, stabbed her husband, Jeff Wright, 193 times on the night of Jan. 13, 2003. She was convicted of murder in 2004.

Wright, now 44, was released several months after being granted parole. Included in her parole's condition was she would have to report to the parole officer until 2024.

Related story: 3 Suspects Arrested After Ex-Republican Candidate Abducted, Tortured on Christmas Eve





The Incident and Wright's Case

Wright lured her husband into bed with a promise of sex before he tied him up and stabbed him 193 times. Prosecutors said that she did this as she intends to collect thousands of dollars in life insurance.

Wright claimed that she suffered from years of abuse and acted in self-defense as she takes the knife away from her husband after he raped her.

According to an ABC News report, Wright said she thought her husband was still alive when she tied him to bed.

Wright said she and her husband of five years showed to be a perfect couple in public. But Wright noted that their marriage in private was anything but perfect.

Wright testified as she cried, saying that she could not stop stabbing his husband.

"I knew as soon as I stopped, he was going to get the knife back and he was going to kill me. I didn't want to die," Wright said in the report.

She claimed that her husband was a monster who beat her, emotionally abused her, and accused her of cheating. Wright added that the night her husband died was the first time that she fought back.

Prosecutor Kelly Siegler accused her of faking her cry for the jury's benefit. Her husband's body was buried under their backyard patio. Wright's husband had been digging the area to install a fountain.

The body was discovered her lawyer notified authorities a week after her husband's death.

An unusual courtroom demonstration brought the Wrights' bed into the courtroom to show the jury how prosecutors believed the man was killed.

The defense's side put several witnesses on the stand who said they saw Wright's bruises, including Sue Wyche, the suspect's mother. Wyche's backed her daughter's claim of self-defense.

However, the jury rejected Wright's defense claims and convicted her of murder. She was then sentenced to up to 25 years in prison.

In 2010, Wright was granted a second trial after the court determined she did not receive enough legal representation during the sentencing stage in the 2004 trial. The new trial ended up giving her a 20-year sentence.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman said that Wright's parole includes anger control training, counseling, and obtaining gainful employment. Wright is also prohibited from leaving the state.

Related story: Golden State Killer Who Terrorized Hundreds Likely to Avoid Death Penalty




In a new twist amid the uproar over the vandalization of the Lord Ram idol, the Andhra Pradesh government has squarely placed the blame on a senior TDP leader. While this incident took place at the Sri Rama Swamy Devasthanam in Vizianagaram district on the night of December 28, several portions of the 400-year-old idol were recovered from a nearby pond. The Vizianagaram Police have formed 5 teams as a part of the probe.

According to a government memo dated January 2, former Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju has been sacked as the Chairman of the Trust board for not only the shrine where the vandalization took place but also the Sri Pyditalli Ammavari Devasthanam and the Sri Mandeswara Swamy Temple. This action has been taken in accordance with Section 28 of the Andhra Pradesh Charitable and Hindu Religious Institutions and Endowments Act. Alleging that he failed to discharge his "legitimate duties", Raju has been accused of neglecting the security aspects of the temple in connection with the vandalization of Lord Ram's idol.

Read: Naidu Slams Jagan Govt's 'total Indifference' Towards Farmers' Issues; Cites Suicide Data

Andhra Pradesh: State govt removes TDP leader & former Union Minister Ashok Gajapati Raju from the position of Chairman of three temples, including Lord Ram temple at Ramateertham.



A govt memo states that Ashok Gajapati Raju has failed in discharging his legitimate duties pic.twitter.com/3NQOitfRm4  ANI (@ANI) January 2, 2021

Read: Andhra Pradesh CM Jagan Mohan Reddy Launches Housing Scheme

YSRCP government comes under fire

Post this incident at the Sri Rama Swamy Devasthanam, the Jagan Mohan Reddy-led government has been at the receiving end of criticism. While Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan has demanded a CBI probe, TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu alleged that the CM was watching the attacks on temples like a "silent spectator". Claiming that more than 120 attacks have taken place on temples after the YSRCP government came to power, he demanded strict action against the culprits.

Former Andhra Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu remarked, "In the last 19 months, over 120 attacks took place on temples. These attacks were going on according to a premeditated plan. Over 23 idols were demolished in six temples at Pithapuram. Durgamma temple was brought down in Guntur."

On the other hand, BJP's state in-charge Sunil Deodhar compared the current spate of attacks on temples to the destruction of Goa temples in the 16th century. Terming the vandalization of Lord Ram's idol as "horrific", he claimed that the AP government was tacitly supporting a "particular religion". Moreover, he lambasted the police's failure to catch the culprits.

Read: SC Stays Andhra HC's Order On 'constitutional Breakdown In State'; Calls It 'disturbing'
Amid the countrys wait for a vaccine for the coronavirus, Dr Shekhar Mande, Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) on Saturday said the vaccine is safe and would not have adverse effects and urged people not to hesitate to take it.

I want to assure everyone that the vaccine is very safe. It has cleared all safety trials and there are no adverse effects. People should not hesitate in taking the vaccine, Mande told ANI.

Talking about the vaccine dry run that took place in four states across the country, Mande said, If Dr Harsh Vardhan said the dry run was a success in four states, that is the most authentic voice of the government. This is a very good development and should set the country on track for vaccination as soon as approval is granted.

He further compared the nation-wide vaccination process to the general elections.

When the vaccine eventually gets regulatory approval, there is a huge task ahead of the government to make sure that all our population gets vaccinated. Calling it a mammoth task would be an understatement. It is like conducting the general elections, he said.

He further stressed the importance of preparedness to get the vaccine to the people, deliver it to them, and monitor them afterwards for at least a short while to check for adverse reactions.

According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), the objective of the dry run that took place today for Covid-19 vaccine introduction was to assess operational feasibility in the use of Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network (Co-WIN) application in a field environment, to test the linkages between planning and implementation and to identify the challenges and guide the way forward prior to actual implementation.
DMK cadre manhandled a woman who raised a question to their leader MK Stalin during a gram sabha meeting he was conducting in Devarayapuram village panchayat in Coimbatore district on Saturday.

Videos surfaced of the skirmish which shows Stalin alleging that the woman was sent to the meeting to create a nuisance by AIADMK minister SP Velumani who hails from Coimbatore. Stalin had recently submitted a list of corruption charges against chief minister Edapaddi Palaniswami and other ministers including Velumani.

Madam, I cant answer your question. Velumani has sent you. Leave the venue, Stalin tells the woman who was identified as Poongodi and local news reports said that she belonged to the AIADMKs womens wing.

DMK cadre can be seen trying to drag her out but Stalin asked them not to touch her and wanted her to be handed over to the police. The woman went out holding a DMK cap and shouting a slogan, Destroy DMK.

Also read: Expert panel gives nod to Covaxin for restricted use

DMK cadre chased her, while the police took her out of the venue and managed to put her inside a vehicle but the cadre assaulted a man who had accompanied her. We took her to the hospital (Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital) because she complained of dizziness, said superintendent of police A Arularasu. AIADMK staged a road roko and we dispersed them. So far no one has registered any complaint.

Stalin continued the meeting warning Velumani not to repeat the incident. You (Velumani) can do this in one meeting but if we want, well make sure you and your chief minister cannot conduct any meetings, so stop with this, Stalin said. If she had the guts, she should have said shes from AIADMK and sat here, why did she wear a DMK camp?

Later, another video emerged of party workers handing over a mobile phone to her and telling her, Poongodi, talk to the minister. On the call, she says that she couldnt be patient when Stalin was accusing him so she questioned him and created chaos and that police rescued her.

Also read: Perfect score - Nine ace CAT exam, bag 100 percentile

AIADMKs IT Wing condemned Stalin for expelling a woman for questioning him. Their ally, BJPs vice-president K Annamalai tweeted a video of the incident and said that the DMK was no place for a woman.

Stalin has been conducting gram sabha meetings as part of the DMKs reject ADMK campaign ahead of the 2021 assembly elections. The ruling AIADMK government had ordered its district collectors not to permit these meetings stating that it violated the Panchayat Raj Act.

Meanwhile, DMKs organising secretary RS Bharathi has filed a complaint with Tamil Nadus director general of police, JK Tripathy on the incident. In his complaint, he said that minister Velumani conspired with unnamed officers including Poongodi who is the deputy president, womens wing, Coimbatore, ADMK... to incite violence in the peaceful Makkal Grama Sabha meeting.
Reacting to the news of Mike Conaways decision to retire from Congress, a Texas Tribune reporter wrote, His retirement is a major blow to the state's clout within the Republican conference.

Conaway leaves Washington as the ranking member  and former chairman  of the House Agriculture Committee and had served as chair of House Ethics Committee. The same Tribune reported noted that Conaways decision was somewhat of a surprise to some delegation insiders; Conaway was on track to take GOP leadership of the House Intelligence Committee in the coming years.

But in July, Conaway said it was time to go. He leaves after winning his first election in 2005; the district was drawn up after then-Speaker of the Texas House Tom Craddick insisted on a district where Midland-Odessa would be a main population area.

His goal in representing the nearly 30 counties of District 11 was to do a job worthy of the peoples trust in you.

For years, many Conaway detractors seemed focused on the Troubled Asset Relief Program vote from 2008, which he said was the vote he lost the most sleep over. The CPA said in retrospect, it was one of those few, few times where I had to vote my conscience and vote my own experience and my own understanding of the circumstances versus what I was being encouraged to do from back home. He said that money spent on TARP has been earned back by and collected by the Fed.

If the TARP vote really impacted constituents faith in their representative, it was hard to tell. He never received less than 70.36 percent of the vote in a Republican primary after the 2008 vote and never less than 78.64 percent of the vote in a general election.

Conaway more recently earned distinction for his work as chairman of the House Agriculture Committee  including passage of the 2018 Farm Bill -- and as the person who led the House investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. Conaway said he is proud that his committee was the first to finish and that not one of our conclusions was refuted by any of that other work that was done.

There will be much to unpack from Conaways time in Washington. He said this week he is confident that San Angelo Republican August Pfluger has the ability to represent the district well.

As for the immediate future, he and Suzanne will spend time in Seacrest Beach, Florida  where they have a home  and then return to Midland.

He said that somehow his resume showed up down here and I'm getting offers to drive a Coca-Cola truck route or be a security guy at the mall. So, I've got a bright future.

The following is a question-and-answer between Stewart Doreen of the Midland Reporter-Telegram and Mike Conaway.

MRT: What was your welcome-to-Congress moment?

CONAWAY: Suzanne and I had flown up for the swearing-in like theyre doing right now. And we get off the plane there in D.C. and there's a young Marine lieutenant standing there  a Marine poster kid. And he says, Mr. Conaway, please come with me, and my wife looks at me, and shes got these big, wide eyes. He's a handsome little guy. And so, he marches us down from the gate to the terminal, we collect our bags, and then they escort us into downtown. And she actually said, How did he know who we are? Bob Ney, at the time, was chairman of the house Admin Committee, and he had worked out an arrangement with the Department of Defense to have each new member greeted at Reagan Airport like that. And so, I guess that was probably my first thought of, Wow, I may be in the big time after all.

MRT: What will you miss about serving in Congress?

CONAWAY: I just love the job. It's multifaceted, obviously, and it's hard to pick anything most, but my team that I've been able to put in place over all these 16 years, and it's been relatively stable. I've had some great people come and go. But these young men and women -- and they are young compared to me, I'm a little codger -- they are some of the finest that our nation has produced. They're loyal, they're dedicated, they're patriotic, super intelligent. And I've had them on my personal staff, the Ethics Committee staff and then, of course, the Ag Committee staff and, I think I will miss working with them day to day the most. Sue and I have been blessed with a really good family, and we've been able to add to that family over these 16 years with some young folks that we basically in our hearts adopted his family because they're just some of the best this country's ever produced, so I'll miss them. I'll miss town-hall meetings and working with constituents, being back in the district and making the rounds. I really missed that this past year because we didn't get to do nearly as much of that as I wanted to or that I normally certainly would have done. Then, its just doing the job. It's been a terrific run, and about half of me hates to see it come to a close and half that wants to make my wife happy.

MRT: What was your favorite perk of being a congressman?

CONAWAY: For the first probably 10 years, there was a parking lot at DCA (Reagan National Airport) that members of the House, the Senate and diplomats could use. It was right there by the door. You just drive right in, park and walk into the airport. And then they began this multi-year remodeling project for DCA, and they took all that away. That was probably the perk that was the best because you could just drive right in, get out and your car would be there when you came back the next week.  I guess the day-to-day thing, was just being able to go through security without having to strip down and toss all your stuff in the bucket. That's a pretty good perk as well, just being able to go anywhere on campus that you wanted to go without having to go through security.

MRT: What was the one vote that created the most sleepless nights for you?

CONAWAY: The TARP vote is the only one that comes to mind, and I voted correctly on that. The one vote that I wish I had back was the Budget Control Act of 2011. But the TARP vote probably gave me the most trouble, because you know, the folks back in West Texas during that financial meltdown really weren't affected by it all that much. And I was getting this immense pressure to vote against it. And I've been in banking for six-plus years. And I knew the system was legitimately under immense pressure. The commercial paper market was about to collapse -- there were some really bad things happening -- and I knew in my heart that the right thing to do was to vote for it, but I was getting this pressure from back home to vote against it.

Voting for it was the right policy way to go, but it was one of those few, few times where I had to vote my conscience and vote my own experience and my own understanding of the circumstances versus what I was being encouraged to do from back home. I remember the first time we voted on it, I voted against it. And we all came home for a couple of days, and I got ticker-tape parades and people patting me on the back and all this kind of stuff. But I knew in my heart of hearts, that when it came back up, we would have changed it and fixed to the point where I was going to vote for it, so I was really torn that whole weekend back home. Everybody was bragging on me and all this kind of good stuff. But that's the one that gave me the most trouble from a Do what everybody's telling you to do or Did you do what you know is right. And in my heart, I know what I did was right. All that money that was spent on TARP has been earned back by and collected by the Fed. So net, it's been positive, but there are still a lot of folks who disagree with my analysis, most of whom didn't really have any deep understanding of banking, they just didn't want the federal government intruding like that. And I understand that, but, but like I said, I've been in banking long enough to know, this was a real deal and that I needed to support it.

MRT: Any regrets about what didn't get accomplished?

CONAWAY: Well, yeah, we didnt balance the budget the entire time I was there and no balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. There are lots of things out there that people talk about doing to our Constitution, but a balanced budget amendment is head and shoulders above anything else you could ever do. You made a brief reference to the increase in debt while I was there and the numbers speak for themselves, and I was a part of all those zillion decisions that got us to this point, but not being able to have better fiscal discipline to the system -- and that's just shared responsibility, no single member is going to be able to fix that deal. I mentioned that one vote that I do regret -- the Budget Control Act of 2011. (Former Republican Speaker of the House John) Boehner sold us the idea that this special committee could come up with enough cuts to mandatory spending to make it work and that it would be so terrible to institute sequestration, that we wouldn't do it  that it would be the sword of Damocles that would make us get there, that would make us address mandatory spending, which is where the bulk of the problem lies. And it didn't work. The special committees ideas didn't pass, and so sequestration kicked in, and it did immense harm to the Department of Defense over those years and still has. Thats the one bill I've voted for that I wish I hadnt. It's interesting, most of the folks who cling to sequestration and budget caps and other things out that were around in 2011 voted against that bill. And it now they cling to it like the Holy Grail.

MRT: What's the one thing you're most proud of accomplishing during your time in Washington?

CONAWAY: To do the work in D.C., and it takes 217 friends -- plus the speaker has to be one of those friends -- and the 60 over in the Senate, the president and that kind of stuff. Getting stuff done in D.C. is a tall order, but back home, the work that has been done by my constituent service team in the six offices that we have, every day somebody's life in the district was made just a little less difficult by the great work my team was doing -- whether it's income taxes, IRS, Social Security or VA or INS or need a passport immediately, all those kind of things that people have to have happen, my guys just were exemplary at it. I'm most proud of that body of work that contributed  in no small part -- to me getting to 75 and 80 percent of the vote every time. It was just the great work my team back home was doing. The work they've done over the past 16 years is what I'm proud of the most.

Legislatively, it would be of course the Farm Bill of 2018 as the biggest deal that I got to get done, but there was a crop insurance issue that I led the fight on in 2015, getting cotton back under the Farm Bill the way it should have been, that happened before the 2018 Farm Bill.  I'm proud of the report that we got done on the Intelligence Committee on the Russia investigation. It doesnt get a lot of play these days, but if you go back and look at it, not one conclusion was refuted by any of the other folks out there. Yeah, I was a little worried about it when we did our first and it came out pretty darn quickly. In comparison, Mueller had unlimited money and 40-plus investigators, and the Senate's just now finishing up their work, so I was a little concerned that they might find something that we didn't or find something that we should have found that we didnt. And not one of our conclusions was refuted by any of that other work that was done. So, I'm really proud of what we get done on the on the Russia investigation report.

MRT: One of the defining characteristics of your time representing District 11 is that it would have been impossible for someone to state where you were from inside District 11 based on your representation in Washington. In fact, it can be argued that you had a greater impact on the agriculturally dependent parts of the district than Midland-Odessa. Describe what it meant for you to represent the entire region like District 11.

CONAWAY: Part of it is, I made a pact with myself that I would do two public events in every county in the district every year where people would have public access to me. And back when I had Mentone and Orla, we would go out there twice a year. There would be all 67 votes out there. We just made sure I went to every county, because you could look at the district, and if you're just a pure politician, say, OK, I need to spend all my time in Midland, Odessa, San Angelo, maybe Brownwood, and maybe Hood County or maybe Granbury. And I can ignore the rest of those folks, because they quite frankly can't sway the deal.  The other thing that did I didn't want anybody to say is the only time Conaway ever shows up around here is when he's asking for the vote. That happens a lot. A lot about my colleagues they'll show up a month out from the primary, a month out from the general and that is the first time they had been back to that place in two years. I never wanted anybody to be able to say that.  In my view, it was just part of doing the job. And then when I became chairman of Ag, I watched other Ag leaders be very parochial.  I felt like as chairman of Ag, I represented all of it, not just cotton in West Texas, but all of it. And so, I worked really hard to make sure that I was going places I needed to go.

MRT: It was said that this district was created for Midland-Odessa, that the representative would be from Midland-Odessa. Did that create any pressure in any way for you?

CONAWAY: I didn't feel any. The pressure I felt would have happened no matter what and that was to do a good job. Do a job worthy of people's trust in you and worthy of that regardless whether a person lived in Midland-Odessa or Brownwood or wherever it was, but I didnt sense anything. There were some comments that (the district) was drawn for Mike Conaway, but that was just serendipitous. You know, Id just run in that special (election) to replace Larry Combest at exact same time the redistricting part was going on, and I just happened to be at the right spot at the right time. But you're right -- (Tom) Craddick said openly there will not be a new map unless there is a district that Midland-Odessa can be competitive in -- not that win it, but competitive. I benefited from that, but I had to be at the right spot at the right time.

MRT: Has conservatism changed from 2004 to today?

CONAWAY: I think so. It was more fiscal conservative in 2004-05 when I first got there. I remember we would agonize over $100 million here and there, and now, they're throwing $460 billion at this $2,000 check thing with hardly any analysis at all. And it's gonna go to folks who are totally, totally unaffected by COVID. And they're going to get four grand to the family. That would have never happened with Tom Delay out there. We simply would never have done that kind of a shotgun approach. He would have tailored it to the folks who lost their jobs and that are legitimately impacted by what's going on. Theres not a federal employee who has missed a paycheck, but those making less than ($75,000) are going to get a $2,000 bonus, and I'm not sure if that makes sense. Because it doesnt.  The life issues are probably the most defining between conservative and not. That line is sharper today than it has been. I think we're more polarized now than we were when I first got there. Maybe it's just because, we know more about partial-birth abortions today than we did in 2004, at least I do. And all the heinous things that goes on around late-term abortion that some of my colleagues vehemently defend  the violence in the womb. And so, yeah, I think it's different. It's morphed into a less, fiscally conservative than it was in 2005.

MRT: Which is made it more difficult to effectively represent District 11, cable news, talk radio or social media?

CONAWAY: Social media, hands down. You know, talk radio and cable news, they have a bit of a governor on them. I mean, you can't publish in your newspaper, something you know to be untrue or something that you've gotten that you have not tried to find the truth on. Well, social media has no governor, no filter and no restraint on it whatsoever. And so, you get these crazy conspiracy theories that pop up out of nowhere, and you start asking Wheres that come from and they say social media. Well, who is the knucklehead sitting in his mother's basement that pitched that conspiracy idea and does he have any credentials at all? I think social media is tougher. We are better today at finding those who are using divisive tools than ever, and I think social media is the most divisive tool we have.

MRT: What is the impact of Donald Trump on the Republican Party?

CONAWAY: Well, obviously, from the votes he got its positive because he got more votes than any Republican ever got and he's also broadened the tent.  Like I said were probably not as fiscally concerned as we previously had been. You know it was disappointing that he really didn't want to take up Medicare or any of the big financial drivers that the leadership is going to have to come out of the White House to actually fix the mandatory spending problems that we have. And he didn't seem to be as concerned about that as Republican leaders in the past have been. I think hes had impact that will make it easier to spend money we don't have than maybe under previous presidents.

MRT: Why is August Pfluger the right person to lead District 11 into the future?

CONAWAY: Well, one, he out-worked anybody else in the field. I didn't endorse anybody, but I offered to help everyone of them, and August took me up on it. And he would say, Hey, who do I need to talk to in this county or this town and I gave him a list of names and would have given anybody a list of names. And I'd go back by there and somebody was like Hey, I just talked to August Pfluger or Hey, Im about to talk to August Pfluger. So, he outworked everybody else in the race by head and shoulders. And it showed because he won without a runoff. That work ethic that he demonstrated there looked similar to the work ethic that I tried to put in for 16 years, making the rounds and doing the job that was supposed to get done. Second off, he's a super smart guy. Hes got a good background in the military. And that's becoming less representative in Congress. So, it's good that to have a veteran -- I'm a veteran, he's a career veteran  its good to have that perspective in Congress as well. And he's just good people  a good, decent God-fearing man with a terrific family. And so, I've got really, really high hopes and expectations for him to surpass whatever it is I might have been able to do in these 16 years during his term.

MRT: What advice have you offered him about being the representative of an entire district?

CONAWAY: Well, that was it. That's it. The folks in Mason County, all 5,000 or 6,000 deserve your attention as much as the folks in Tom Green County. And they need to be able to see and talk to you and have the access as those in counties where you get most of your votes.  Make sure you're making the rounds. And then, if I was on the phone with you right now -- based on my last walking off that floor Monday night after my final vote -- would be to just savor every single moment. Because nobody gets to go forever.
The Minority Caucus of Ghanas Parliament has presented what it describes as evidence of rigging of the recently-held general election to some international partners from the United States of America and The United Kingdom.



It is part of the Caucus series of transparent engagements on its fundamental concerns about what it deems a flawed December 7, 2020, presidential and parliamentary elections.



The session with the American and British partners was held at Parliament on Wednesday, 30 December 2020 led by Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu and Second Deputy Speaker Alban S.K. Bagbin.



They presented evidence and the basis for the NDCs rejection of the multiple results declared by the Electoral Commission for the presidential contest and the dubious parliamentary declarations particularly in Techiman South and Sefwi Wiawso.



The Minority also highlighted the grave human rights violations, which, according to its calculations, led to the killing of 7 Ghanaians and left many with life-changing injuries.



We shall continue with our series of legitimate engagements in the spirit of democratic accountability, resisting subversion of the peoples will and preserving the pillars of the Fourth Republic birthed by our political tradition, the Minority said.



The Caucus emphasised that the engagements shall proceed without prejudice to the petition filed at the countrys apex court by former President John Mahama.













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The sweeping powers would be employed in the event of the state government declaring a health emergency due to an epidemic of any communicable disease, the bill proposes. The legislation states that the government must provide clear and convincing evidence that the health of others is in danger before ordering a person or group to be detained. People being removed will have the right to legal representation and are allowed to supply the telephone numbers of friends or family to receive notification of the individuals detention.



The law apparently allows the governor or health official to unilaterally approve such detentions but a court order is required within 60 days of confinement, and judicial review is also required if the individual is still in detention after 90 days.



Citizens that are placed in detention will be released once health authorities determine that they are no longer contagious, the proposed law states.



The bill also allows the governor or relevant health authorities to require people deemed potential health risks to submit to medical examinations as well as undergo a prescribed course of treatment, preventative medication or vaccination.
New Delhi: The farmer union leaders will also hold a joint press conference on Saturday to decide on their next course of action ahead of their talks with the Centre on January 4 to resolve all issues pertaining to the farmers and end thir ongoing protest against the three contentious farm laws.

They have also said that if the talks with the government on January 4 fail then they will intensify the protest.

Farmers` organisations under the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) had met on Friday at the Singhu border during which it was decided that a tractor rally will be held on January 6 on Kundli Manesar Palwal (KMP) expressway if the Centre refuses to meet their demand regarding the continuation of MSP and other issues of concern.

The statement from the SKM said, "If the 6th round talks with the government are not fruitful then the Shahjahanpur border blockage will be moved towards Delhi and `Desh Jagruti Abhiyan` will be organised from January 6 to 20 across the country."

The SKM had also appealed to the common people to celebrate the New Year with the farmers at the protest site. "The appeal made by the SKM got a good response at various borders of the national Capital," the statement said.

A lot of people including farmers across the country also took a pledge to participate in the protest and support the movement. "Delhi For Farmers" also organised a protest in different parts of Delhi from 8 AM to late in the evening and farmers from Barnala reached Tikri border on Friday by driving their tractor in reverse gear.

Ex-servicepersons also extended solidarity to the farmers at the Ghazipur border as they celebrated the New Year with them and organised a massive cleanliness drive. Apart from this, Buddhist monks reached in large numbers in support of protesting farmers at the Gazipur border.

Farmers in other parts of the country also organised indefinite dharnas/sit-ins. The SKM also appreciated the resolution passed by the Kerala Assembly in support of the farmers` movement.
Georgia Data Show Over 30,000 of Trumps Votes Removed, Another 12,173 Switched to Biden: Data Scientists

Georgia election data indicate that more than 30,000 votes were removed from President Donald Trump and another 12,173 votes were switched to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, data scientists testified on Dec. 30 during a state Senate hearing.

Lynda McLaughlin from the Data Integrity Group, along with data scientists Justin Mealey and Dave Lobue, presented the results before the Georgia Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Elections.

Mealey worked as an electronic warfare technician in the U.S. Navy for 9 1/2 years and was a former CIA contractor as a data analyst and programmer for the National Counterterrorism Center. He currently works for one of the big four accounting firms as a programmer.

Lobue is a data scientist with over a decade of experience in a number of industries.

What we have here is we actually have fraud that we can prove in this election, there was fraud in Georgias election, we can prove it with data, Mealey said. The voting will of the people of Georgia is not reflected in what was certified by the Secretary of State.

According to their analysis, which was published online as early as Dec. 24, time-series election data show Trumps votes were decrementing in various counties instead of increasing as they do normally.

At least 30,593 votes were allegedly removed from Trump as result, including 17,650 votes in Dougherty County, 7,008 votes in Dodge County, and 5,935 votes in Putnam County.

The removals happened at the county level and were hard to observe at the state level because the decrements were offset by accurate data uploaded by other counties.

I want to make that very, very clear that at no point in an incremental process, should you decrement it, Mealey said.

Data Scientists say time series data show 17,650 of President Donald Trumps votes were removed in Dougherty County, Ga. (Screenshot)

The group said a huge number of Trumps votes were also observed being switched to Biden in a separate event.

A clear example of vote switching happened in Bibb county, they said.

At 9:11 p.m. local time, Trump received 29,391 votes as Biden simultaneously received 17,218. However, in the next reported time update, Trumps votes became 17,218, while Bidens changed to 29,391.

In this single event, 12,173 votes were switched, according to the data scientists.

State-certified election results show Trump lost Georgia by 12,670 votes. The Trump campaign is still challenging the results in various courts.

The Data Integrity Group didnt name any state official, county official, or related voting machine manufacturers for wrongdoing. They emphasized that the analysis is not partisan.

The analysis were going to be reviewing is purely scientific, not based on any political affiliation, red, blue, left, or right. The objective really focuses on numbers, data, and machine network systems, Lobue stated.

The Georgia secretary of states office didnt respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his office have denied vehemently that systemic election fraud occurred during the November election.

Ballot Tallying Process Under Question

The experts said during the Dec. 30 hearing that they believed the removals and switching could have happened during the Results Tally & Reporting (RTR) process.

The Epoch Times was unable to verify the allegation independently.

Based on information published on Dominion Voting Systems website, Georgia used Dominion products during the November election.

Poll workers can reject or validate ballots during the RTR process. In a widely circulated video, an elections supervisor in Coffee County demonstrated how Dominion voting software allows votes to be changed through an adjudication process. The process allows the operator to add vote marks to a scanned ballot as well as invalidate vote marks already on the ballot.

According to a statement from Richard Barron, director of Fulton County Board of Election and Registration, ballot adjudications happened substantially in the county, which has the largest population in the Peach State.

So far we scanned 113,130 ballots, weve adjudicated 106,000 plus [93.7 percent] of those, he can be seen saying in a video clip. The only ballots that are adjudicated are if we have a ballot with a contest on it in which theres some question as to what, how the computer reads it. So the vote review panel then determines voter intent.

However, the unofficial results that were used in the analysis by the group should be published after the adjudication process, according to a Dominion tally and reporting user guide (pdf), which is available on the website of the Colorado secretary of states office.

It is unlikely that the adjudication process would cause Trumps votes to decrease.

However, there is a step called auditing in the RTR process after the ballots are adjudicated and data are published and sent to the secretary of state and media data port. It appears that adjustments can still be made during the auditing step if needed after the unofficial results are made public.

The user manual doesnt provide detailed information about what specific changes, if any, can be made during the auditing process, including whether ballots can be added or subtracted during that process.

The article was updated to include data from more counties.

Correction: The vote switching happened in Bibb County, not DeKalb County. Removals of Trumps votes and switching of Trumps votes to Biden happened in separate events. The Epoch Times regrets the error.
The U.S. conducted the first airstrikes of the New Year in Somalia as a sign of continuing support for the Mogadishu government against al-Shabaab insurgents as U.S. troops continue to pull out of the country, officials with U.S. Africom Command said.

The two New Year's Day airstrikes hit al-Shabaab compounds, destroying two according to the initial assessment. No civilians were killed or injured, officials said.

Read Next: Thousands of National Guard Troops Prepare to Support Biden's Inauguration

"This action clearly demonstrates our continuing commitment to Somalia and our regional partners," Army Maj. Gen. Joel Tyler, director of operations for AFRICOM, said in a statement.

"We retain the means and the will to strike the al-Shabaab terrorist network when necessary to protect the region and ultimately, our own nation," Tyler said, referring to AFRICOM's repeated statements that the al-Qaida-linked group poses a potential threat to the U.S. homeland.

The U.S. conducted at least 51 airstrikes in Somalia last year, compared to 63 in 2019 and 47 in 2018, according to AFRICOM.

The New Year's Day strikes were the third since the Defense Department announced Dec. 4 that most of the 700-800 U.S. troops in the country were pulling out. President Donald Trump ordered the withdrawal, which is being conducted under the name Operation Octave Quartz.

Army Gen. Stephen Townsend, the AFRICOM commander, described the operation as a "directed repositioning" of troops to countries neighboring Somalia.

"To be clear, the U.S. is not withdrawing or disengaging from East Africa," Townsend said in a Dec. 19 statement. "We remain committed to helping our African partners build a more secure future."

As has been AFRICOM's practice, the type of aircraft used in the New Year's Day strikes were not specified.

On Dec. 22, AFRICOM announced that a naval armada including the aircraft carrier Nimitz' strike group and the Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) with 2,500 Marines from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard, had been positioned off the Somalia coast to cover the troop drawdown.

On Dec. 31, the Associated Press reported that the decision had been made to return the Nimitz to the U.S.

"Our strikes help keep these terrorists off balance to help our partners then address deeper problems such as governance and development," Air Force Maj. Gen. Dagvin Anderson, commander of Joint Task Force Quartz, said in Saturday's statement.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.

Related: US to Move Aircraft Carrier Out of Mideast Amid Tension
New Delhi: The government will provide free vaccines to most prioritised beneficiaries inlcuding1 crore healthcare and 2 crore frontline workers, in the first phase of covid-19 vaccination that is expected to begin soon, union health minister Harsh Vardhan said on Saturday.

As the Subject Expert Committee of Central Drugs Standards Control Organisation (CDSCO) on Saturday granted permission for restricted emergency use of Pune based Serum Institute of Indias vaccine, subject to multiple regulatory conditionalities and permission of restricted use in emergency situation in public interest as an abundant precaution, in clinical trial mode, especially in the context of infection by mutant strains, to Bharat Biotech International Ltd., Hyderabad, the vaccination drive is expected to start anytime next week according to sources.

"In 1st phase of#COVID19Vaccination free#vaccine shall be provided across the nation to most prioritised beneficiaries that incl 1 crore healthcare & 2 crore frontline workers Details of how further 27 cr priority beneficiaries are to be vaccinated until July are being finalised," Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan tweeted.

Ahead of the actual covid-19 vaccination drive, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare on Saturday conducted a nationwide mock drill at 285 session sites to test the end-to-end planned operations and the mechanism set up to ensure smooth vaccination for the highly infectious disease. The dry run of the vaccination drive on Saturday was spread across 125 districts is covering all States/UTs having adequate representation of urban and rural districts along with hard-to-reach areas. The Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan visited two mock vaccination sites in Delhi to review the dry run drill for administering the covid-19 vaccine. He first visited the GTB Hospital in Shahdara and later an Urban Primary Health Centre (UPHC) in Daryaganj.

The entire exercise of the vaccination process is being systematically taken forward, including training of personnel for administering the vaccine. Detailed guidelines have been issued to multiple stakeholders after extensive deliberations, paying attention to each and every minute aspect," said Harsh Vardhan.

The health minister said that the digital platform, Co-WIN, repurposed from the e-VIN platform is the real game changer, and will provide real time information of vaccine stocks, their storage temperature and individualized tracking of beneficiaries of the COVID-19 vaccine. This unique platform will assist the program managers across all levels through automated session allocation for pre-registered beneficiaries, their verification and for generating a digital certificate upon successful completion of the vaccine schedule. More than 75 lakh beneficiaries have been registered on Co-WIN platform till date, he said.

Talking about the preparedness for ensuring that the vaccine reaches even the remotest corner of the country, the health minister said that the countrys cold chain infrastructure has been sufficiently upgraded to ensure last mile delivery. Adequate supplies of syringes and other logistics have also been provided for. The total tally of covid-19 cases have climbed to 1,03, 09, 648 with the toll touching 1,50,420 on Saturday. Indias Active Caseload has dropped down to 2.50 lakh which presently stands at 2,50,183 on Saturday. Countrys active caseload comprises 2.43% of the total cases. According to the union health ministry, 19,079 persons in India were found to be covid-19 positive, 22,926 new recoveries were registered during the same period. Five States viz. Kerala, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh contribute 62% of total active cases, the government said.

India has recorded one of the lowest new cases per million population in the last 7 days (101). Brazil, Russia, France, Italy, USA and UK have much higher cases per million population reported in the last 7 days," said the government. Ten States/UTs have contributed 80.56% of the new cases. Kerala reported 4,991 cases in the last 24 hours. Maharashtra registered another 3,524 new cases yesterday while West Bengal recorded 1,153 new cases, the union health ministry said in a statement.

At least 224 case fatalities that have been reported in the past 24 hours. 75.45% of them are from Ten States/UTs. 26.33% of new fatalities reported are from Maharashtra which reported 59 deaths. West Bengal also saw a fatality count of 26 while Kerala reported 23 new deaths, the union health ministry said.

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Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-03 00:35:02|Editor: huaxia

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ADDIS ABABA, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Ethiopian government has deployed airplanes and helicopters in its fight against a locust invasion, an Ethiopian official said on Saturday.

Abera Lemma, Public Relations Director at Ethiopia Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), said the aircrafts are being used to assess the extent of locust invasion as well as to spray chemicals on locust affected areas.

Lemma said the aircrafts are being used in areas located in Ethiopia's Southern, Oromia and Somali regions hit hardest by the locust invasion, reported state media outlet Ethiopia Broadcasting Corporation.

Lemma further said there are plans to initiate a community-led campaign to fight the locust invasion which crossed to Ethiopia from neighboring Somalia.

MoA has dispatched dozens of experts to help with the efforts to battle the locust invasion which is threatening tens of hectares of agricultural lands. Enditem
Photo: (Photo : Alberto Soliman/ Pexels)

A Massachusetts police officer helps a woman give birth on New Year's Day. He was on duty when he received a call about a pregnant woman who was in labor.

According to a Facebook post, Officer Zach Hall was on his duty on New Year's Day when his phone rang about a woman in labor. It was around 2:45 a.m. when the woman went into labor.

The Agawam Police Department in Feeding Hills shared a post about what happened at the scene. It wrote that Hall had successfully helped a woman give birth to a "healthy baby girl" Sophia.

See also: Father and Son Graduate from Texas Police Academy Together, First in History

A nice change to the usual stuff

The APD added a congratulatory post with the photo of the officer holding the newborn. The post read that Hall was beaming, and the department was so proud of him. The APD also wrote that it was a "nice change" to the usual stuff that police officers have to go through.

The 34-year-old officer told "PEOPLE" how everything was surreal. He said that it was not like anything he has ever felt before. He recalled trying his best to remain calm for the nervous parents as he helped them bring a new life into the world.

Hall shared he felt proud and lucky to help the family and let their beautiful new baby come into the world. He explained that not many police officers experience the same as he did.

At approx. 2:45am on New Year s Day, Agawam Officer Zack Hall responded to a call for a woman actively in labor.... Posted by Agawam Police Department on Friday, January 1, 2021

See also: Oklahoma Cop Responds to Call About House on Fire, Ends up Saving His Family

Not nervous when he arrived

The police officer was not nervous when he arrived at the scene because he was not aware of the pregnant woman's situation. However, he realized that the woman was about to give birth anytime after seeing that the father was running out of the house.

Hall said that cops do not have time to focus on their emotions or nerves but do what they are trained to do. His police officer's wife, Melissa, also told the outlet that she was not surprised at her husband's.

Never expect to be in a particular moment

She said that while they were trained as first responders during such situations, they never really expect to be a part of such a special moment. She is very proud of her husband because she knows how much her husband wants to help the community every day.

See also: Heroic Nanny Shielded Two Children from Hit-and-Run Crash

Melissa noted on the photo posted by the APD saying how much one can see how proud her husband is based on his beam. She explained that Hall did not hesitate to help the parents and the newborn, who is a way to ring in the new year.

Hall hopes that his story would help uplift people and prove that not all police officers are bad. He was happy to get positive feedback from the community, primarily when most people only focus on the negatives.

He also acknowledges the parents' bravery because they were in such a crazy situation at that time. He could not be any happier for the new parents.
Union health minister Harsh Vardhan on Saturday urged the public not to pay heed to anti-vaccine rumours and said the anti-Covid-19 shots will be free across the country.

"I appeal to people not to pay heed to rumours. Ensuring safety & efficacy of vaccine is our priority. Different kinds of rumours were spread during polio immunisation but people took the vaccine & India is now polio-free," Vardhan said after reviewing the dry vaccination run at the Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) hospital in the national capital.

Not just in Delhi, it will be free across the country," news agency ANI quoted Vardhan as saying.

#WATCH | Not just in Delhi, it will be free across the country: Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on being asked if COVID-19 vaccine will be provided free of cost pic.twitter.com/xuN7gmiF8S  ANI (@ANI) January 2, 2021

"In 1st phase of #COVID19 vaccination, free vaccine shall be provided across the nation to most prioritised beneficiaries that incl 1 cr healthcare & 2 cr frontline workers," tweeted Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan today.

The dry run is being conducted by all the States and Union Territories governments.

According to the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW), the objective of the dry run for COVID-19 vaccine introduction is to "assess operational feasibility in the use of COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network (Co-WIN) application in a field environment, to test the linkages between planning and implementation and to identify the challenges and guide the way forward prior to actual implementation".

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Plainclothes officers were present when a Newark cop fatally shot a 39-year-old man, minutes into New Years Day, Mayor Ras Baraka said in a statement on Friday.

The officer has been put on administrative leave, the mayor said, but the cops identity was not released by Barakas office or authorities investigating the shooting. The victims name has also not be released in the shooting that officials said occurred near South 11th Street and Woodland Avenue in Newarks South Ward.

Just a few minutes into the New Year, some of our plainclothes Newark police officers arrived at a scene where shots were being fired and an officer fired one round, fatally striking someone, Baraka said in a statement on Friday. The Attorney Generals office is leading an investigation and the officer is on administrative leave while the investigation is underway.

The state Attorney Generals Office is conducting the investigation under a new law that was signed in January 2019. The law requires the state AGs office, instead of county prosecutors, to investigate shootings involving police.

It was not immediately clear if the officer who shot the 39-year-old in Newark was in plainclothes. The state Attorney Generals Office did not respond to a request for comment.

James Stewart, president of the Newark Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 12, called the actions of the officers heroic.

These officers heard gunfire and drove toward it, finding themselves in the middle of a running gunfight between multiple people, Stewart told NJ Advance Media. They became targets and did what they had to do to protect themselves. Their actions were nothing short of heroic, and Newark is lucky to have officers like these out there every day working to make the city a safe place.

Two firearms were recovered at the scene and at least one person was arrested, Baraka said in a statement hours after state officials announced on Friday they were investigating.

The identity and charges for the person who was arrested were not immediately made available. Spokespersons for the Newark Public Safety Department and Essex County Prosecutors Office referred questions to the state Attorney Generals Office.

Days before the year ended, Newark police touted in a press release that no shots were fired by city cops throughout 2020. A new police chief also took the helm of the department on Jan. 1 after the former head of the division retired in September.

The last time a Newark cop fatally shot a person was in 2019, when Patrolman Jovanny Crespo fired into a fleeing car, fatally wounding one man and critically injuring another. Crespo was indicted on charges including manslaughter, and court records indicate that his case is still ongoing.

The New Years Day shooting comes at a time when activists and the mayor have been re-examining the citys relationship with police as protests swept across the nation in the wake of George Floyds death in police custody in Minneapolis.

Newark announced it would divert $11 million from the public safety department to social services after peaceful protests took place in New Jerseys largest city during the summer. The mayor for years called for a civilian complaint review board, but its investigatory powers were overturned by the state Supreme Court in August 2020.

Baraka urged anyone with information or videos of the Newark shooting to contact the Attorney Generals office at 609-292-4925 or 609-984-5828.

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Rebecca Panico may be reached at rpanico@njadvancemedia.com.
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LOUISVILLE, Ky.  Vandals lashed out at the leaders of the U.S. House and Senate over the holiday weekend, blighting their homes with graffiti and in one case a pigs head as Congress failed to approve an increase in the amount of money being sent to individuals to help cope with the coronavirus pandemic.

Spray paint on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnells door in Kentucky on Saturday read, WERES MY MONEY. MITCH KILLS THE POOR was scrawled over a window. A profanity directed at the Republican senator was painted under the mailbox.

At House Speaker Nancy Pelosis home in San Francisco, someone spray-painted graffiti and left a pigs head and fake blood on New Years Day, police said. The vandalism was reported around 2 a.m. Friday, a police statement said, and a special investigations unit is trying to determine who did it.

KGO-TV reported that graffiti found on the garage door of the Democratic leaders home included the phrases $2K, Cancel rent! and We want everything, apparently referencing Democratic lawmakers failed efforts to increase the coronavirus relief checks from $600 to $2000.

The news station says security cameras surround the three-story brick home in the tony Pacific Heights neighborhood.

McConnell released a statement on Saturday condemning the vandalism at his home in Louisville.

Ive spent my career fighting for the First Amendment and defending peaceful protest, he stated. I appreciate every Kentuckian who has engaged in the democratic process whether they agree with me or not. This is different. Vandalism and the politics of fear have no place in our society.

McConnell said he and his wife are not intimidated by the vandalism. We just hope our neighbors in Louisville arent too inconvenienced by this radical tantrum.

Louisville police are investigating the incident at McConnells home, which occurred around 5 a.m. Saturday. There currently are no suspects, police spokesperson Dwight Mitchell said in an email.

On New Years Day, Senate Republicans refused to allow debate over a bill to increase the amount of COVID-19 relief. The increase, supported by President Donald Trump, passed the Democratic-led House but was blocked by McConnell.

The government has begun sending out the smaller payments to millions of Americans. The $600 payment is going to individuals with incomes up to $75,000. Congress approved the payment in late December.

 The Associated Press
Many on the Left are claiming the Election of 2020 was the best yet because of the high rate of participation by the American Voters. They ultimately want everyone to vote regardless of their legal status. While I agree that no legal voter should be denied the opportunity to vote and participate in government, I believe they ignore several issues that surfaced in the election. The Left applauds the work of the legislature in passing laws that support maximum participation.

They forget to mention how the voting regulations were changed by Judges and agreements by Governors, Attorney Generals, and Boards of Election to change mail in balloting requirements. Changes included the ability to fix deficient ballots, drop verification signature requirements and extend the time they could be received. All of these open the door for possible fraud and voter tampering. At no time did any Governor call the legislature into session to discuss the changes and get their approval as required by law.

In addition, it has surfaced that in many battle ground states ballots suddenly appeared overnight that were counted in secret and changed the results in many cases. How do we stop the cheating yet allow maximum voter participation?

Voting is both a right and a privilege. With all rights there come responsibilities. For example Freedom of Speech is a right yet we cannot yell fire in a theatre unless there is one. Along with every right is the responsibility to ensure it is not abused. The same principle should be applied to voting in order to rebuild confidence in the system. For example;

Early voting should be shortened but not eliminated. If you want to vote make the effort to do so in a timely manner. No voting after Election Day and no mail in ballots accepted after 6PM on Election Day. This will stop the ability of cheaters to find out how many votes they need and then find them so they could be counted a day or two later. It does help minimize voter fraud. Again along with your right to vote is the responsibility to vote in a timely manner. Judges, Governors and Boards of Election cannot change election laws without sending them back to the Legislature who originally passed them for reconsideration. Call them back into session if need be to address the issue. Voter ID needs to be enforced. I will not take the time to again explain how the argument that having an ID will lead to voter suppression is bogus. The list of things you need to have an ID for is endless. Paper ballots need to be the norm and machines should be checked to ensure there are no hidden programs that modify or cancel out the actual votes. The ability to observe by party members must be guaranteed and those that attempt to violate this must be arrested and prosecuted. If necessary both parties must be given the right to provide guards or observers to watch the machines or locked up ballots if they close down for the night and will resume the next day. Elections Law Reform must be passed that limit the amount of money or in kind help that can be given a candidate or a party. Super PACs must be reeled in and controlled.

We all want maximum participation of legal voters but we also want minimizing voter fraud so such fraud does not cancel out legal votes. The steps above will help ensure that and begin to rebuild confidence in the voting system that tens of millions believe was full of fraud and deceit.

If most or all of the above steps are not instituted future elections in America will be riddled with doubt and will eventually lead to violence as the people continue to believe they are being cheated and the system is rigged. Contact your Federal and State Legislators and ask them to pass laws to implement the suggestions above you agree with.



WE CANNOT ALLOW THIS TRAVESTY TO OCCUR AGAIN!!!!!
A police investigation has been launched after the body of a male teenager was recovered from a river in west Belfast.

The body was recovered from a river in the Twinbrook area in the early hours of Saturday.

PSNI Detective Inspector Miskelly said: "A 19-year-old male has been arrested as part of the investigation. There are no further details at present.

It is understood that, while no formal identification of the body has been made, the family of west Belfast teenager Conor Kerr, who was reported missing on New Years Day, have been informed.

West Belfast MLA Orlaithi Flynn said: "The discovery of the body of a teenager in Twinbrook is a shock to the local community. A police investigation into the incident are underway and should be allowed to continue unhindered.

"My sympathies are with the family, friends and loved ones of the young man who has died at this time. Anyone with information on the incident should bring it forward to the PSNI."

Download the Belfast Telegraph App Get quick and easy access to the latest Northern Ireland news, sport, business and opinion with the Belfast Telegraph App.

Belfast Telegraph
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 21:27:39|Editor: huaxia

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Aerial photo shows tourists visiting the lighthouse scenic area in Rizhao City, east China's Shandong Province, Jan. 2, 2021. The coastal city is visited by a great many tourists during the New Year's holiday. (Xinhua/Wang Kai)
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This article is an exploration into the self-representation of online Muslim youth and their engagement with contemporary politics. It is based on an analysis of responses to tweets on the recent Bihar assembly election.

On 11 November, immediately after the Bihar election results were declared, the Twitter community became active in analysis. Why did the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)Janata Dal (United) (JD[U]) win and why did the Mahagathbandhan lose despite all polls strongly suggesting otherwise? A well-known Delhi journalist, Shivam Vij (2020), tweeted, AIMIM was supposed to be the vote cutter but won five seats. A vote cutter is not supposed to win seats only cut votes. Either AIMIM is not the BJP-backed vote cutter Congress accuses it to be or it is a bit over-efficient!

In response, I tweeted Owaisi realizes that nobody but Muslims are going to bat for Muslims  he has no other option left but to go at it alone. The Congress has always been a disappointment to Muslims and no one else is stepping up (Kaur 2020).
MBABANE Take note of this codename - Project Harmonia  because it is most likely not going anywhere anytime soon.

Having been solemnised on November 22, 2019 by Minister of Information Communications and Technology Princess Sikhanyiso when she signed an agreement with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) - an Israeli government company (parastatal), this project is meant to bring premium cyber security infrastructure into the Kingdom of Eswatini.

The project is worth US$72 million, which is about E1.2 billion.

On the day the agreement was signed, governments official twitter account wrote: A Government-to-Government Cyber Security programme has been signed by Minister of ICT HRH Princess Sikhanyiso for the implementation of a robust, resilient and national cyber security framework for the Kingdom of Eswatini.

little harmony

It has since emerged that Project Harmonia has brought little harmony between senior government officials, prominent private citizens and officials from IAI.

The Times SUNDAY has learnt from highly-placed sources that even at Cabinet level, there are divisions regarding Project Harmonia.

Some ministers are reportedly questioning whether the project had the buy-in of Cabinet and whether the agreement that was signed was government-to-governmentor between the Ministry of ICT and IAI.

However, some people who are working closely with IAI said those with misgivings about the project were economic with the truth because presentations were made to Cabinet in the presence of the then Prime Minister, Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini, and other ministers.

Project Harmonia, the highly-placed sources disclosed, was supposed to be included in governments budget for the 2020/2021 financial year, but for whatever reason, this did not happen.

This has reportedly frustrated IAI whose officials were in the country to try and have the project kick-started through having government make a down payment of at least 25 per cent of the project cost.

This is said to have caused a serious rift between IAI, who were represented by the companys Director of Marketing and Business Development, Roi Shaposhnik, and the Acting Minister of ICT, Manqoba Khumalo.

Princess Sikhanyiso, the substantive minister, has been on leave since January 2020.

down payment

Minister Khumalo is said to have explained to the IAI representatives that the project was not in the budget so there was no way it could be discussed or a down payment made.

Secondly, Khumalo told them that even if the project had been included in the budget, it would have to go through the government tendering system where they would submit their bids to compete with other companies. The company said it had signed a contract with the Ministry of ICT; however, they were told that this was not a binding agreement ,but some form of MOU. But IAI insisted, which they still do, that this was a full and binding contact, one of the impeccable sources disclosed.

Suggestions were reportedly made by some senior government officials to have money reallocated to Project Harmonia from other projects under the Ministry of ICT.

However, this proposal is said to have not seen the light of day because the counter submission was that all monies had been committed to projects that were already ongoing.

Deputy Prime Minister Themba Masuku and Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg are understood to have participated in subsequent meetings with Khumalo and IAI officials to try and get to the bottom of the misunderstanding.

In the meeting where the Minister of Finance was present, he is said to have explained to the IAI officials how the government procurement processes worked and how budget reallocations were also done.

The minister (Rijkenberg) said as the person responsible for budget reallocations, he was not aware of a request from the Ministry of ICT regarding this projects budget. The notion of budget reallocation is therefore a fallacy, an impeccable source said.

Minister Khumalo is said to have told the officials that the project could also find itself not included in the 2021/2022 financial years budget because the agreement they claimed to have signed had not been to Cabinet.

The officials were told that there would be no payment of E1.2 billion without going through a tendering process, said one of the highly-placed sources.

tendering process

IAI was reportedly told that the only time other companies could be excluded from the tendering process was if they proved that no other company provided cyber security technology they were bringing.

Minister Rijkenberg referred this publication to the Ministry of ICT when he was asked about the project.

I can confirm though that no money has been paid to this company, the finance minister said.

The meeting involving Rijkenberg is said to have left the IAI officials not pleased and later informed Minister Khumalo that the Israeli government was not happy at all with the way they were being treated.

Minister Khumalo, realising the potential that such could have in the relations between the two countries, is said to have decided to engage the DPM because the Prime Minister was already indisposed.

The DPM told the IAI officials that he was not aware of any project that was called Project Harmonia. He said he was personally involved in the approving of budgets, but had never heard of such a project that would cost the country E1.2 billion. He said there was a constitution in this country which spelled out clearly how agreements with other countries were signed.

He asked for the documentation from government sanctioning the signing of the agreement for this project.

He said such agreements, in the absence of the constitutionally provided channels, was null and void, disclosed one of the sources.

Masuku confirmed the meeting with IAI officials and said his main aim was to get an understanding of the project because he knew nothing about it.

I didnt know about the project. When they came, I didnt know about it because being in my position doesnt mean I know everything. It was the first time that I got details about it when I met with them. I am still to get more details from the relevant principal secretary. Problems will always be there and we have to solve them, he said.

Asked how he did not know the project if it was presented to Cabinet and a government-to-government agreement had been signed, Masuku said there were many Cabinet presentations that were made by different cyber companies.

When they came to me and said an agreement was signed, I wanted to get more details about that because the signing was not in Cabinet, but ministerially through the AGs office etc. We are pursuing this, its just that we havent had the opportunity because of the busy schedule, the DPM said.

diplomatic channels

He said if the Israeli government was not happy about anything pertaining to the treatment accorded the IAI officials, such would be communicated through diplomatic channels.

Foreign affairs will help us because government policy dictates that if it involves government-to-government, then it will be dealt with by foreign affairs. Minister of Foreign Affairs will be able to tell us if they had received information from the government of Israel expressing concerns on the treatment of IAI officials, he said.

A locally-based representative of IAI said it was quite surprising that the DPM was now claiming not to know anything about Project Harmonia yet he was present in Cabinet when the project was presented.

He was sitting next to the prime minister and there were four other Cabinet ministers present. The prime minister even asked about the cost of the project. This happened in Cabinet offices where the Cabinet meeting was properly constituted, the representative said.

He said the project was passed by Cabinet and then it was allegedly agreed that because there was no budget for it at that time, it would be included in the 2020/2021 financial year.

huge delegation

The late prime minister said in the meantime, the process of formalising that project would continue. That is why it continued and the huge delegation from Israel came to the country in November 2019. The late PM okayed the project and gave Inkhosatana Sikhanyiso the go-ahead to sign the agreement. The AG even cleared the agreement, the representative alleged.

He said when the DPM met with IAI officials in parliament, Shaposhnik wanted to know what the hold-up was all about because a negative picture was being painted back home in Israel that Eswatini was not taking the project seriously.

The representative said the challenge with the current administration was the thinking that Project Harmonia was Inkhosatana Sikhanyisos baby yet this was a project initiated during the time of the previous administration led by then Prime Minister Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini.

The genesis of the matter is that Barnabas was sent by His Majesty to Israel to deliver a special message to President Benjamin Netanyahu. He was accompanied by the then Minister of Foreign Affairs Mgwagwa Gamedze, former Minister of Agriculture Moses Vilakati (now minister of tourism), and former Minister of Commerce Industry and Trade Jabulani Mabuza (now minister of agriculture). A high-powered delegation from Israel then visited the country afterwards and met with senior officials at Esibayeni Lodge where three themes emerged around pharmaceuticals, agriculture and cyber security, with the latter being quickly auctioned on. When HRH Sikhanyiso went to Israel in June 2019, it wasnt on her personal visit, but a lot was involved, stated the representative.

He said the current administration should not personalise the issue but should have the interests of the country at heart because there was a lot that was riding on the success of Project Harmonia.

He also clarified that the issue of the down payment that IAI had initially demanded had been addressed and the Israeli company informed that they would not be paid without work having been done and they reportedly understood.

Minister Khumalo, meanwhile, said Principal Secretary Maxwell Masuku should have the answers regarding the project. He is the one who has the detailsbecause they are the ones who have been working on it, the minister said.

However, Khumalo said he could confirm that the agreement that the ICT Ministry signed in 2019 was not approved by Cabinet.

He said the fact that a presentation was made to the PM and some Cabinet ministers did not constitute a Cabinet approval.

Cabinet approval

A Cabinet approval requires a Cabinet paper to be written and the draft agreement attached. It is then deliberated on and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirms knowledge of such if it involves two countries. All this is yet to happen, Khumalo said. He said besides, Cabinet approvals were from MOUs and could not be confused with procurement decisions that should go through the tender board.

We are looking at including a project on cyber security in the next financial years budget, but it will go through the normal procurement processes, the minister added.

Shaposhnik, the IAI official, said he would need to get permission from the Israeli Ministry of Defence before making a comment and then referred this publication to IAI Public Relations Manager Dafna Slyper who said she would also have to check with the Ministry of Defence first.

She promised to get back to the Times SUNDAY, but had not done so by late last night.

In its website, IAI states that it was established in 1953 as Bedek Aviation Company - a governmental institute for aviation  and started out as an all-purpose service and supplies provider, specialising in air defence solutions.

world leader

It is stated that in the decades since, the company has grown to become a world leader in both the defense and commercial markets, developing, producing and delivering state-of-the-art technologies and systems across a range of domains, including air, land, sea, space, cyber, homeland security and ISR.

It is further stated that cyber is a strategic sector for IAI, with the cyber business unit having developed unique solutions for cyber defense, protection, monitoring, prediction, identification, intelligence and accessibility.

Solutions are said to include national-grade cyber early warning centres, cyber security for mission-critical systems, aviation and maritime cyber security, cyber intelligence, cellular search and rescue system, and critical cyber protection solutions.

It is additionally mentioned that IAI leads the Israeli Cyber Companies Consortium (IC3), which offers end-to-end solutions for national cyber centres and comprises Israels foremost cyber companies; and the Israeli Aviation Cyber Companies Consortium (IAC3), offering cyber security solutions for the commercial aviation eco-system.

Both consortiums were reportedly established under the auspice of Israels Ministry of Economy and Trades consortiums programme.
Private equity firm KKR is setting up a private infrastructure investment trust (InvIT) to house operating renewable energy assets it aims to acquire in India, said two people aware of the development, requesting anonymity.

InvITs manage income-generating infrastructure assets offering regular yield to investors and a liquid way to invest in infrastructure projects. They can be either publicly listed on stock exchanges or privately placed to a handful of investors.

Also Read | Investing during all-time highs can be good strategy

KKR has started work on setting up a private InvIT under which all the renewable assets they are acquiring will be added. The plan is to shift the already acquired assets into the InvIT and, once they have added a significant mass of assets, they will monetize it by selling units of the InvIT to long-term investors, such as pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and insurance companies. Investment bank Axis Capital is advising KKR on the structuring of the InvIT," said one of the two people mentioned above.

KKR did not comment on Mints queries.

This will be the second InvIT backed by KKR in India. In 2019, KKR, along with Singapores GIC, had invested 2,000 crore in India Grid Trust, a listed InvIT that houses power transmission line projects. KKR and GIC hold a 60% stake in the InvIT. KKR is also designated as the sponsor of the InvIT.

While IndiGrid or India Grid Trust started out with only transmission assets, after KKRs entry, the InvIT has diversified into renewable energy focused on solar assets.

Last month, IndiGrid entered into an agreement to acquire 100% stakes in two 50-megawatts solar projects from Fotowatio Renewable Ventures B.V. (FRV) for an enterprise value of 660 crore.

Since IndiGrid is also acquiring solar assets and KKRs other InvIT will also acquire solar assets, one will have to see how they manage the two vehicles independently," said the second person.

In October, KKR had said that it has set up a new platform, Virescent Infrastructure, to manage its investments in the renewable energy space in India. Virescent owns 317MW solar assets in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, which were acquired from the Shapoorji Pallonji group for over 1,500 crore. KKR has also entered into definitive agreements to acquire operating solar projects across three states. The projects will also become part of the Virescent platform and will eventually be moved to the InvIT.

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The Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) says the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is marking a new dawn in Africas drive towards economic integration as it takes off Friday.

Al-Mujtaba Abubakar, President, ACCI who made this known on Friday in Abuja, said it would ensure that various recommendations for its implementation would be acted upon.

AfCFTA agreement came into effect on Friday, Jan. 1, 2021.

According to Mr Abubakar, Friday marked the realisation of a dream conceived in 1963 during the establishment of Organisation of African Unity, now African Union.

The continental trade is targeted at creating collective wealth and listing Africans out of the poverty bracket.

As a leading Chamber in Nigeria, ACCI is elated to be part of this historic occasion, a process in which we actively participated from the beginning to fruition, Mr Abubakar said.

We want to note that Nigeria has been fervently preparing for this day, especially through the mobilisation and strategic activities of the National Action Committee on readiness for the AfCFTA, he said.

The ACCI president noted that various sub-sectoral groups have worked for months collating, designing and launching various sectoral action plans to put Nigerias private sector on a strong footing for the continental programme.

Mr Abubakar affirmed that ACCI was a strong partner all through and set to ensure that various recommendations for accelerated readiness were acted upon.

According to him, Nigeria as the leading economy on the continent has a historic opportunity to deepen her economic reach and depth across Africa, leveraging on her affirmed strengths in services and manufacturing sector.

The president further said that Nigerian firms were already strongly rooted in many African countries.

He added that the new dawn would only enhance rather than diminish Nigerias economic influence on the continent.

Mr Abubakar expressed ACCIs commitment toward continuous mobilisation of her members to tap into the various sectoral action plans to enhance their capacities to trade within the context of the AfCFTA.

He said that ACCI would launch a Monthly AfCFTA Monitoring Review Roundtable to assess development within the free trade process, assess issues of interest and address disputation in the trading process.

READ ALSO:

The ACCI boss congratulated the Federal Ministry of Trade, Industry and Investment and the leadership of the Nigerian private sector and identified with fellow Africans on the development.

The AfCFTA was officially launched on March 21, 2018, in Kigali, Rwanda and as of December 2020, 54 AU Member States had signed the AfCFTA agreement.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that President Muhammadu Buhari signed the agreement establishing the AfCFTA on July 7, 2019.

Mr Buhari, thereafter, directed the constitution of a National Action Committee (NAC) which had coordinated its implementation readiness. (NAN)

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Stacey Abrams looks on during a campaign rally with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in Atlanta, Ga., on Dec. 15, 2020. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Georgia Judge Denies Request for Restraining Order From Stacey Abramss Group

A federal judge in Georgia on Friday rejected a request for an order that would have barred an election integrity group from filing more challenges to voters in the state.

Fair Fight, a group that says it aims to combat voter suppression, filed a request for the order. Fair Fight was founded by failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, a Democrat.

Fair Fight accused True the Vote, a group that says it aims at protecting the integrity of elections, of launching a coordinated campaign to harass and intimidate voters across Georgia.

In a 29-page ruling, District Judge Steve Jones, an Obama nominee, said Fair Fight did not provide evidence supporting that claim.

While the Court does not doubt that Doe Plaintiffs have legitimate fear of retaliation, there is insufficient evidence at this point to connect intimidation or harassment (real or attempted) to Defendants. At this stage, the connection to Defendants is too tenuous to find they have violated the law, he wrote.

Still, Jones added that the case isnt over and called the challenges to voters weeks before the Senate runoff elections suspect.

The Court will not abide attempts to sidestep federal law to disenfranchise voters. Nor will it tolerate actors brandishing these voter challenges to intimidate and diminish the franchise, for such acts diminish democracy itself. But the Court must rely on proper evidence and facts to determine whether these acts have in fact run afoul of federal law. The Court looks forward to seeing what evidence the Parties bring to bear, he said.

Fair Fight had asked the judge to stop Texas-based True the Vote from submitting or causing the submission of any further voter challenges, from participating in any poll watching or election observing activities, and from photographing or recording voters or election workers during the course of voting.

Fair Fight didnt immediately respond to a request for comment.

True the Vote announced last month that it was partnering with Georgians in every county to challenge 364,541 potentially ineligible voters.

Ongoing debates about the November election throughout the country have Americans focused intently on improving the integrity of our elections and restoring the faith of voters. Today we assisted concerned Georgia voters in taking a stand for the sanctity of every legal vote, Catherine Engelbrecht, the founder and president of True the Vote, said in a statement.

It is our hope that this historic challenge marks the beginning of the great awakening of American voters to serve our democracy by getting involved in the process.

The challenges led to at least two counties moving to remove voters from voter rolls, based on indications they were registered at addressed theyd moved from. A ruling by Abrams sister, a federal judge, stayed those counties, but one of the counties successfully appealed and the order was partially rolled back.

In an email to supporters this week, True the Vote accused Abrams and Fair Fight of attacking them, but said we are all standing firm and asked for donations.
Tammy Hembrow is welcoming 2021 in her true style.

On New Year's Day on Friday, the 26-year-old shared a photo of herself flaunting her sensational figure in a racy tangerine outfit.

Tammy, who isn't afraid to push the boundaries when it comes to fashion, was every inch the blonde bombshell as she posed up in a crop top and daring hip split trousers.

One of her raciest looks yet! On Friday, Tammy Hembrow showed off her sensational figure in a crop top and daring hip slit trousers as she celebrated the New Year

Her trousers featured racy cut-outs at the hips and helped show off a small tattoo on her waist.

Tammy completed her look with her long locks out and over her shoulders, neatly straightened, and makeup including dewy foundation and a smokey eye.

She shared a series of sultry pictures of herself on Instagram and wrote in the caption: '2020 taught me so much. 2021 I am so ready for you.'

Leaving little to the imagination: Her trousers featured racy cut-outs at the hips and helped show off a small tattoo on her waist

As she wished her followers a Happy New Year, she revealed she welcomed 2021 at home with her children and said that she 'wouldn't have had it any other way.'

Her racy photos come after Tammy said she'll always remember 2020 because it was when she met her boyfriend, Matt Poole.

She posted a photo of herself kissing the Ironman and surf lifesaver and wrote that 2020 was not all bad because it was the year 'she fell in love'.

Last week, Matt, 32, shared his own tribute to his new romance by posting a photo of himself cosying up to the busty blonde on his Instagram page.

Kiss kiss: Tammy recently said she'll always remember 2020 because it was when she met her boyfriend, Matt Poole. She posted a photo of herself kissing the Ironman and surf lifesaver and wrote that 2020 was not all bad because it was the year 'she fell in love'

'I can't complain': Last week, Matt, 32, shared his own tribute to his new romance by posting a photo of himself cosying up to the busty blonde on his Instagram

The couple also spent their first Christmas together, alongside Tammy's two children from her previous relationship with ex-fiance Reece Hawkins.

He wrote in the caption: 'I was planning on Sydney for Christmas, but I can't complain. Thank you for making it special. Merry Christmas, everyone.'

The couple, who had previously kept their romance a well-guarded secret, went public when they were spotted kissing at Brisbane Airport in September.

Celebrating together: The couple also spent their first Christmas together, alongside Tammy's two children from her previous relationship with ex-fiance Reece Hawkins

The influencer made her first appearance on Matt's Instagram account in a group photo shared in late August.

The couple's romantic display comes after Matt made his debut on Tammy's YouTube channel in September.

The pair, who met at an event in Bali last year, revealed in the video who had said 'I love you' first - Matt admitted: 'I did. I am obsessed.'
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In this undated photo provided on Jan. 1, 2021, by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un writes his New Year card to the public. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

Kim Jong Un Pens New Years Letter, With No Sign of Hallmark Speech

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sent a New Years letter to residents, eschewing his annual tirade against foreign powers, state-run media reported.

In the letter, Kim offered thanks to the people for having trusted and supported the ruling communist Party even in the difficult times, state news agency KCNA reported on Friday.

The North Korean leader has previously apologized for failing to fulfill promises of economic improvement and for the hardships citizens have endured as a result of international sanctions and strict measures aimed at preventing a coronavirus outbreak.

In the new year, too, I will work hard to bring earlier the new era in which the ideals and desires of our people will come true, Kim wrote, according to KCNA.

North Korea has said it has no confirmed cases of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, though officials in South Korea and the United States say that is unlikely. The virus causes the COVID-19 disease.

Kim as the clock turned midnight on Dec. 31, as well as other senior leaders, visited the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, where the bodies of his father and grandfatherthe previous rulers of North Korealie preserved under glass.

Kim was also accompanied by delegates to the Eighth Party Congress, a rare political gathering due to be held some time in early January, KCNA reported.

Kim usually gives a public address to North Koreans on Jan. 1, but he skipped the speech last year as well.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pens a letter to all people on New Years day in this undated photo supplied by North Koreas Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Dec. 31, 2020. (KCNA/via Reuters)

Instead, Kim issued a lengthy report and during an hourslong meeting of the Workers Party, called for active diplomatic and military countermeasures to preserve the countrys security.

Peace with North Korea was a key focus of President Donald Trumps foreign policy. Trump became the first U.S. president to meet with a North Korean leader and was seen joking and laughing with Kim at multiple events. At one point, Trump and Kim visited the Korean Demilitarized Zone, which marks the border between North and South Korea.

In late 2019, the United States refused to adhere to a year-end deadline set by North Korea to make concessions in nuclear talks.

North Korea threatened the United States with a Christmas gift, if negotiations didnt progress. Trump joked at the time that the surprise could be a beautiful vase. Nothing materialized from the threat.

Trump spoke of Kim in September 2020, as rumors swirled that Kim was close to death.

Kim Jong Un is in good health. Never underestimate him! Trump wrote on Twitter, without elaborating.

Kim vanished for weeks, prompting rumors. Some news outlets claimed he had died.

Kim later reappeared. His health appeared to be fine.

Kim, 36, took over as the leader of the country in 2011, when his father Kim Jong-il died.

Reuters contributed to this report.
A federal appeals court has cleared the way for the only woman on federal death row to be executed before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

The ruling, handed down Friday by a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, concluded that a lower court judge erred when he vacated Lisa Montgomerys execution date in an order last week.

U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss had ruled the Justice Department unlawfully rescheduled Montgomery's execution and he vacated an order from the director of the Bureau of Prisons scheduling her death for Jannuary 12.

Montgomery's legal team are expected to file an appeal by Saturday, according to Fox News.

She was found guilty of federal kidnapping resulting in death and sentenced to death in 2007 for the slaying of mother-to-be Stinnett. She strangled her to death and cut her baby from her womb using a kitchen knife.

This undated file image provided by Attorneys for Lisa Montgomery shows Lisa Montgomery. A federal appeals court has lifted a judge's order that had blocked the execution date for Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row

Lisa Montgomery (left) planned the brutal womb raid for months, and had lied to family members that she was full term. Incredibly the baby, Victoria Jo Stinnett (right), survived the attack and is now 16 years old

Bobbie Jo Stinnett is pictured above. Stinnett, 23, an eight-months-pregnant factory worker was slain in her Missouri home

Montgomery had been scheduled to be put to death at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, in December, but Moss delayed the execution after her attorneys contracted coronavirus visiting their client and asked him to extend the time to file a clemency petition.

Moss concluded that the under his order the Bureau of Prisons could not even reschedule Montgomerys execution until at least Jan. 1. But the appeals panel disagreed.

Meaghan VerGow, an attorney for Montgomery, said her legal team would ask for the full appeals court to review the case and said Montgomery should not be executed on January 12.

Montgomery's lawyers have argued that their client suffers from serious mental illnesses. Biden opposes the death penalty and his spokesman, TJ Ducklo, has said he would work to end its use. But Biden has not said whether he will halt federal executions after he takes office January 20.

Montgomery was found guilty of federal kidnapping resulting in death and sentenced to death in 2007 for the slaying of mother-to-be Stinnett.

Planning the heinous crime for months, she met her victim online under the pretense that she was interested in buying a puppy from her.

Montgomery posed as 'Darlene Fischer' and started chatting with Stinnett in the chatroom called 'Ratter Chatter.'

She told her victim she was pregnant and the two women chatted in the room and over email about their pregnancies.

Stinnett was eight months' pregnant while Montgomery was faking her pregnancy, telling her victim as well as her family and friends that she was full term.

On December 16, 2004, the two women arranged to meet at Stinnett's home over the purchase of the puppy, a rat terrier.

Once inside, Montgomery strangled Stinnett with a neon pink rope until she lost consciousness.

When Montgomery sliced her stomach open with a knife, Stinnett regained consciousness and a struggled ensued.

Montgomery then strangled the pregnant woman again, killing her.

She then cut the baby girl from her victim's womb and made off with the premature child, attempting to pass off the girl as her own

Bobbie Jo and Zeb Stinnett before her brutal murder in 2004

A group shot from the dog show in Abilene, Kansas. Lisa Montgomery (second from left), Bobbi Jo (second from right) and Zeb Stinnett (far right) pose with their dogs

Stinnett's mother discovered her daughter's butchered body hours later.

Montgomery was arrested by police the following day at her farmhouse. The baby, who miraculously survived the ordeal, was returned to her father Zeb Stinnett.

In 2007, a US District Court for the Western District of Missouri sentenced Montgomery to death for the crimes.

During her trial, Montgomery's defense argued the Kansas woman suffered from a delusional belief that she was pregnant, and said she may have been unable to differentiate between right and wrong when she killed Stinnett.

The defense team portrayed her as a victim of severe mental illness whose delusion of being pregnant was being threatened, causing her to enter a dreamlike state when the killing took place.

They also argued that she had post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by mental, physical and sexual abuse in her childhood.

But prosecutors said Montgomery carefully planned the fatal meeting at Stinnett's home in Skidmore, Missouri, pretending she wanted to purchase a rat terrier puppy.

They said Montgomery tried to pass off Stinnett's baby as her own, telling her husband she had gone into labor while on a shopping trip and having him pick her up near a Topeka health centre where she said she gave birth.

Montgomery, now 52, was convicted in 2007 of kidnapping and strangling Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant

Montgomery had undergone a tubal ligation in 1990 after the birth of her fourth child.

But soon after, she began falsely reporting a series of pregnancies. In 2004, she claimed to be due in mid-December.

Her husband, Carl Boman, had become suspicious of her latest pregnancy claim and threatened to use it against her as he sought custody of two of the couple's four children. A custody hearing had been set for January 2005.

Montgomery's mother and sister also had been telling Montgomery's husband and his parents that it was impossible for her to carry a child.

Prosecutors said Montgomery removed the baby from Stinnetts body, took the child with her, and attempted to pass the girl off as her own.

Montgomery's legal team has argued that their client suffers from serious mental illnesses.

'Given the severity of Mrs. Montgomerys mental illness, the sexual and physical torture she endured throughout her life, and the connection between her trauma and the facts of her crime, we appeal to President Trump to grant her mercy, and commute her sentence to life imprisonment,' one of Montgomerys lawyers, Sandra Babcock, said in a statement.

Two other federal inmates are scheduled to be executed in January but have tested positive for coronavirus and their attorneys are also seeking delays to their executions.
F

or those in search of some heart-warming schadenfreude this cold new year, let me offer you the tale of the economics columnist who got tricked. Never trust a skinny chef, they say.

And in that spirit, Ive always believed its beholden on those of us who write about money to know what were doing with our own personal finances, particularly when it comes to being on the lookout for the various devices that companies, sadly, often engage in to extract cash from the naive or the unwary.

Ive written in recent years about my scepticism of gift vouchers, of the sharp practices of energy companies, of the opaque fees of pensions funds. And much more besides.

I try to practice regular financial hygiene, periodically checking on the value (and existence) of my pension, combing my bank statement for suspicious transactions, chasing up invoices, pruning unwanted subscriptions and so on.

Recommended Home Office and police fail consumers exposing them to rampant fraud

As my wife will attest, I encourage her to do the same, sometimes rather zealously. I do it because I know the tricks that companies use, as its part of my job to write about them.

And yet, dear reader, despite all this I discovered recently that I myself had fallen into one of the very traps that I regularly lecture others about.

While looking through a list of transactions on my online account I noticed a 15 payment to something called WLY*COMPLETESAVE.CO.UK. By chance I knew for certain that Id not bought anything on that particular day, so I investigated further.

I downloaded my statement and discovered Id, apparently, made a payment to this entity for the same amount every month for 14 months, so 210 in total.

I googled the company and it turned out to be a club called Complete Savings that offers cashback on online purchases in return for 15 a month membership fees. This is not, to put it mildly, the kind of scheme I would knowingly sign up to.

I phoned the company and they told me that Id joined when Id booked some rail tickets on the Trainline website in November 2019. Id no recollection of doing so.

I can just about imagine I thought this was a way to receive a one-off discount but I certainly would not have consciously signed up to join some kind of monthly cashback club.

And if Id entered my name and bank details into their online form it must have been because Id thought this was something being operated by Trainline where, of course, Id come to buy my tickets.

It turns out that this is a long-running ruse by Complete Savings and its parent company Webloyalty. The headline offer on a retailers website is for the opportunity to get cash back after an online sale after a transaction, but the monthly charge and the club membership is in the small print.

Webloyaltys own US parent company, Affinion, paid $30m (22m) to numerous American states in 2013 to settle a probe into its sales and billing practices.

A decade ago, a number of UK retailers such as B&Q and Asda severed partnerships with Webloyalty after complaints from customers that were similar to mine  that they never thought they were signing up to an expensive monthly club.

After securing a commitment from Webloyalty last week to refund all my money, I contacted Trainline to tell them what happened and ask whether they too would sever ties with this company and stop it using their website to pick up new unwitting members.

There are, I was told, no plans to do so. Readers can draw their own conclusions about whether the Trainline is a safe online space.

Complete Savings refused to tell me which other online retailers it has partnerships with, but the many furious reviews of the service on Trustpilot suggests major companies such as Asda, Morrisons and WHSmith.

Recommended Why businesses should strive for a bad review on Trustpilot

Are there any larger lessons here? I believe there are. What Webloyalty and its partners are doing is legal. Complete Savings is 100 per cent compliant with the Advertising Standards Authority and complies with consumer protection rules, the Trainline told me.

And Webloyalty insisted to me in a statement that its monthly fee is clearly referenced on the online sign-up page. Yet legal or not, as far as Im concerned, its behaviour is utterly disgraceful. I feel I was gulled into making this costly mistake.

And the more we shop online  and internet retail sales have shot up from 20 per cent to 36 per cent of the overall total this year  the more people are going to be exposed to these kinds of online ruses.

We can tolerate them, clinging to the fact they dont technically break the law, or we can put pressure on regulators and legislators to simply shut down companies like Webloyalty that engage in them. I find myself in the latter camp.

I think this also alerts us to another looming technological pitfall. Why, despite my keeping a regular eye on my online account, didnt I spot the payments on my bank statement sooner? The answer is that theres been an explosion of relatively small contactless transactions this year due to the retreat from cash by retailers during the pandemic.

Identifying a relatively small outgoing nowadays is much harder in the morass of data. If contactless is the future, as seems probable, this threatens to make it harder for people to be alert to unexpected withdrawals. Regulators need to be cognisant of this.

And the banks need to do more too. As part of my financial hygiene, I keep a regular eye on my list of direct debits and standing orders but this automatic outgoing to Complete Savings wasnt listed among them.

Automatic monthly payments  known as continuous payment authorities  should surely be highlighted by banks and listed alongside ordinary direct debits and standing orders if people are to a have a chance of effectively monitoring their personal finances.

The rather terrifying fact is that if Id not noticed this one questionable payment, I might have been paying 15 a month forever. Now you might argue Im an idiot for accidentally signing up to something like this (or rather clicked up) and for failing to read all the small print on a website. Maybe Im not as financially savvy and observant as I think I am.

Perhaps you might say that if I did not immediately notice 15 leaving my account every month Im well-off enough not to have anything useful to say to people who are really financially struggling. And Ill happily take all that on the chin. But I really dont think its unreasonable to conclude that if it can happen to me it can happen to anyone.

And if youre still not angry about this practice and are murmuring caveat emptor to yourself, just imagine your granny or an elderly relative venturing online to buy train tickets or do some online shopping in a world populated by companies like Webloyalty.
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Subramani Mancombu

Global agricultural markets are likely to rule firm this year as they are set to receive continued support from China and weather-related developments that could affect the production of crops.

China will mop up stocks in trying to ensure food security for its citizens and as production of its pig herds recovers after the African swine fever (ASF) outbreak wreaked havoc in 2018 and 2019.

According to Trading Economics website, agricultural commodities such as soybeans, wheat, corn and sugar have gained at least 10 percent since last month.

Dutch multinational banking and financial services INGs head of commodities strategy Warren Patterson said that soybeans, corn, wheat and sugar have all seen a significant increase in Chinese buying in 2020.

Chinas soybean imports during January-October 2020 were higher by 18 percent year-on-year, corn shipments into the country were up 97 percent, sugar imports increased by 28 percent, and wheat purchases by 163 percent.

Though Chinas phase-I trade deal with the US played a role in imports of some of these commodities, further support had come from the recovery in pig herds in China.

China accounts for over 310 million pigs of the 677.6 million pigs produced globally for meat consumption worldwide.

Patterson said the Chinese government had accorded priority to increasing pork production, after the ASF outbreak saw pig herds fall to a 16-year-low in 2019. This pushed up prices of pork, a sensitive food in China which is the worlds largest consumer of the meat.

Patterson has drawn the inference from the Chinese data that showed a nearly 27 percent increase in pig herds in October compared with the year-ago period.

This is seen as the primary reason for the strong demand growth for animal feed in China. This has, in turn, supported corn and soybean prices in the global market.

A Chinese government report said that breeding of live pigs had increased rapidly, while production and sales of breeding pigs were booming.

Production of live pigs witnessed nine months of consecutive growth and in October were up 3.87 percent year-on-year.

Pig production had recovered to 88 percent of the levels seen at the end of 2017 and by the second quarter next year, the Chinese pig stock would return to normal levels, it said.

Growers actively replenished and expanded their stocks with 728 newly constructed large pig farms going on stream in October.

This follows Chinas effort in building industrial pig farms near urban centres, undoing its earlier policies during 2015-17 of relocating the farms on concerns over waste generated by these farms. The new farms are, however, less labour intensive and require less land.

China, where the average consumption of pork is 30 kg a year per person, plans to increase its pigs production by 200 million. The ASF, which broke out on its borders with Russia in August 2018 before spreading to the entire country, had left over 350 million pigs dead, including 200 million that were culled due to the outbreak.

Since the beginning of 2020, at least 13,000 large scale pig farms were set up, while 15,000 other such farms had resumed production after being affected due to ASF.

This has resulted in prices of piglets dropping 50 percent and pork prices too have declined sharply, the Government report said.

Patterson said that China had to rebuild its stocks as it had utilised them and thus, corn had good long term prospects.

The trend would additionally be aided by Chinas mandate to opt for 10 percent ethanol blending in petrol. The blending programme was suspended last year owing to tight stocks and limited production capacity.

China had agreed to expand buying US goods and services by a combined $200 billion over 2017 levels during 2020 and 2021. But it had met only 58 percent of its target till now.

It will now try to meet the target by resorting to buying agricultural commodities which will, in turn, support those markets.

INGs Patterson says that US corn sales to China is the largest since 2012-13, exceeding Beijings annual import quota of seven million tonnes.

On the other hand, the US had made a commitment to sell a record 29.2 million tonnes of soybean to China in the current marketing year to August with actual sales trebling year-on-year.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA), on the other hand, has projected Chinas soybean demand at 100 million tonnes this marketing year to September, while other analysts see the demand exceeding the projection.

The USDA has pointed out to the Chinese Agriculture Ministry which expects the countrys hog production to recover fully by the first half of this year - a pointer on how the agricultural commodities market could rule firm.

The global agricultural market will also be supported by the La Nina weather event, a global atmospheric-oceanic phenomenon caused by a decrease in sea surface temperature in the Pacific Ocean.

Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, the Philippines, Indonesia, Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia are among the nations that could be affected by La Nina, which can cause heavy rain and flooding in some parts of the world and drought in others.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation, an arm of the United Nations, had predicted that the La Nina event could last at least till March.

It has warned that there are chances of it extending till June this year. Thus, agricultural commodities could get additional support from these developments.

(Subramani Ra Mancombu is a journalist based in Chennai, who writes on topics in commodities and agriculture)

: The views and investment tips expressed by investment expert on Moneycontrol.com are his own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
Indians saw off 2020 with reliefand mountains of biryani and pizza.

Zomato and Swiggy saw record orders as people chose to ring in the New Year at home because of fears about the pandemic. People mostly chose biryanis and pizzas as they bade goodbye to 2020, according to food-delivery platforms and restaurateurs.

Zomato said it hit record gross merchandise value (GMV) on 31 December. The platform hit a peak of 4,254 orders a minute in the evening, co-founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said. Zomatos GMV rose 60% from the previous year.

Also Read | Investing during all-time highs can be good strategy

Rival Swiggy hit a peak of 5,500 orders per minute on the 31st evening and its base of new users doubled.

Restaurants and cloud kitchens said they did brisk business.

Yesterday, we clocked 60% more gross merchandise value than last New Years Eve. Thats GMV of 75 crore in one single day, with peak orders per minute rate of 4,254," Goyal tweeted on Friday.

It worked with 100,000 delivery partners on Thursday to fulfil orders across India.

The demand last night was much higher than what we could process. We ran out of delivery partner capacity much before peak time. If we had unconstrained supply, we could have hit 100 crore of GMV yesterday. Need to do better next time," Goyal said.

Local restrictions in several large cities, including curbs on public gatherings and a cap on the number of diners in restaurants and bars, prompted people to stay in.

This, Goyal said, was seen in the high number of orders being placed as early as 6:30pm on Thursday evening.

Our order velocity right now is the highest we have seen in our life so far (~2,500 orders per minute)," he said on Thursday.

At around 8pm, the platforms system was seeing an insane amount of strain" as it processed 140,000 live orders, Goyal said. Its delivery executives were ferrying 20,000 biryani and 16,000 pizza orders then.

The Delhi government announced a curfew on gatherings and events at public places between 11pm and 6 am on 31st and 1st nights to prevent large crowds.

However, the restrictions did not apply to licensed premises such as hotels, bars and restaurants, although such venues have to follow social distancing norms.

States such as Maharashtra, Punjab and parts of Gujarat had already announced night curfews ahead of year-end celebrations.

For the restaurant industry, the days from Christmas to New Years Eve are important for business.

Bars and restaurants had earlier said they expect to match up to 30-40% of last years business on New Years Eve, citing such restrictions.

Swiggy too reported numbers well beyond its own internal targets. The company had in a previous statement to the media said it expects a 50% jump in orders on New Years Eve.

Traffic increased by 100% during dinner time (on 31st), with tier-2 and tier-3 cities like Jaipur, Vizag etc. increasing by almost 200%. Tier-3 and 4 cities such as Berhampur, Rourkela, Karimnagar saw a 150 to 200% growth, higher than what we have observed in the metros," said a Swiggy spokesperson.

Cloud kitchen company Rebel Foods, which operatesfood brands Faasos, Behrouz Biryani, Mandarin Oak, Oven Story and Sweet Truth in India, too, said tier-2 and tier-3 cities reported a massive surge in orders.

This year due to night curfew implementation, we did more business than 31st December last year, supported by larger bucket size orders with higher average order value," said Raghav Joshi, co-founder and CEO India Business Unit, Rebel Foods.

Biryani, pizzas and desserts each grew massively in our portfolio, Joshi said.

Consumers, he said, ordered more biryani for lunch on 31st and the day ended with pizzas catching up and taking the lead".

Its Oven Story and Behrouz Biryani outlets saw the highest number of orders, followed by Sweet Truth.

Mumbai was the biggest city for the company followed by the Delhi-National Capital Region and then Bengaluru and Pune, but a huge change from last year was the 40% higher sales generated by tier-2 and 3 cities compared to last year", Joshi said.

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[January 01, 2021] SHAREHOLDER ALERT: CLAIMSFILER REMINDS BSX, SPLK INVESTORS of Lead Plaintiff Deadline in Class Action Lawsuits

NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 01, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors of pending deadlines in the following securities class action lawsuits: Boston Scientific Corporation (BSX)

Class Period: 4/24/2019 - 11/16/2020

Lead Plaintiff Motion Deadline: February 2, 2021

SECURITIES FRAUD

To learn more, visit https://www.claimsfiler.com/cases/view-boston-scientific-corporation-securities-litigation-4 Splunk Inc. (SPLK)

Class Period: 10/21/2020 - 12/2/2020

strong>Lead Plaintiff Motion Deadline: February 2, 2021







To learn more, visit https://www.claimsfiler.com/cases/view-splunk-inc-securities-litigation If you purchased shares of the above companies and would like to discuss your legal rights and your right to recover for your economic loss, you may, without obligation or cost to you, contact us toll-free (844) 367-9658 or visit the case links above.

If you wish to serve as a Lead Plaintiff in the class action, you must petition the Court on or before the Lead Plaintiff Motion deadline. About ClaimsFiler ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations. To learn more about ClaimsFiler, visit www.claimsfiler.com



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Norway firm refuses to certify Russia's Nord Stream 2 over new U.S. sanctions  media

The launch of the pipeline operation is impossible without such a certificate.

Reporting by UNIAN

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HAMILTON, Bermuda, Jan. 2, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Borr Drilling Limited (the "Company") (NYSE: BORR) (OSE: BORR) advises that the Company will hold a Special General Meeting on January 8, 2021. The Board of Directors has fixed the close of business on January 4, 2021, as the record date for the determination of the shareholders entitled to attend and vote at the Special General Meeting or any adjournment thereof.

A copy of the Notice of Special General Meeting and Form of Proxy (the "Notice") and associated information can be found on the Company's website at http://www.borrdrilling.com and attached to this press release. The Notice and associated information will also be distributed to shareholders by normal distribution methods.

Hamilton, Bermuda

December 31, 2020

This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/borr-drilling-limited/r/borr-drilling-limited---notice-of-special-general-meeting-of-shareholders,c3263323

The following files are available for download:

https://mb.cision.com/Public/16983/3263323/80c32d929a2a75d9.pdf 2021 Jan 8 SGMNotice

SOURCE Borr Drilling Limited
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By Eric Tucker, Associated Press

WASHINGTON  Evan Liberty was reading in the top bunk of his cell one evening late last month when a prison supervisor delivered news he had hoped for.

He says, Are you ready for this? Liberty recalled. I said, Uh, Im not sure. What is going on? He said, Presidential pardon. Pack your stuff.

Liberty is one of four former Blackwater contractors pardoned by President Donald Trump in one of Trumps final acts in office, freeing them from prison after a 2007 shooting rampage in Baghdad that killed more than a dozen Iraqi civilians. Even for a president who has repeatedly exercised his pardon power on personal associates and political supporters, Trumps clemency for the contractors was met with especially intense condemnation, both in the United States and the Middle East.

Historically, presidential pardons have been reserved for nonviolent crimes, not manslaughter or murder, and the traditional process led by the Justice Department values acceptance of responsibility and remorse from those convicted of crimes. The Blackwater contractors meet none of those criteria. They were convicted in the killings of unarmed Iraqi women and children and have long been defiant in their assertions of innocence.

In an interview with The Associated Press, his first since being released from prison, Liberty again expressed little remorse for actions he says were defensible given the context.

I feel like I acted correctly, he said of his conduct in 2007. I regret any innocent loss of life, but Im just confident in how I acted and I can basically feel peace with that.

The Blackwater rampage marked one of the darkest chapters of the Iraq war, staining the U.S. government reputation and prompting an international outcry about the role of contractors in military zones. The guards have long maintained they were targeted by insurgent gunfire at the traffic circle where the shooting occurred. Prosecutors argued there was no evidence to support that claim, noting that many victims were shot while in their cars or while taking shelter or trying to flee.

After a monthslong trial in 2014, a jury convicted the men in the deaths of 14 civilians and of injuring even more. A judge called the shootings an overall wild thing that cannot be condoned.

Liberty said he understands many may view him undeserving of clemency but attributes it to what he insists is a misguided narrative of the shooting. In the interview, he maintained that he did not shoot in the direction of any of the victims. I didnt shoot at anybody that wasnt shooting at me, he said.

He said he and the others would never take an innocent life. We responded to a threat accordingly.

Liberty, whose 30-year sentence was cut by roughly half last year, isnt certain how he came to be pardoned and said he has not spoken with Trump. But the group does have supporters, some with ties to the White House. The Blackwater firm, whose name has since changed, was founded by former Navy SEAL Erik Prince, a Trump ally whose sister, Betsy DeVos, is education secretary. Their cause also was championed by Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, an Army veteran.

Trumps approach to pardons has been heavily influenced by personal appeals from allies. Throughout his presidency, including in his most recent round of pardons, hes wiped away punishments for political backers, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and a pair of Republican congressmen who were early supporters of his 2016 campaign. Trump has also shown a willingness to intervene on behalf of service members accused of war crimes.

In announcing the Blackwater pardons, the White House cited the mens military service, the support they received and the tangled history of a case that zigzagged for years in Washingtons federal court, turning on radically different interpretations of the shooting.

Criticism was swift. A Washington Post editorial called the pardons a unique threat to national security and suggested the guards had committed astonishing acts of inhumanity. Iraqi citizens described old wounds being reopened. Soon after the announcement, a photograph of a 9-year-old victim in a blue-patterned shirt smiling faintly circulated widely online. The boys father told the BBC that Trump broke my life again.

They havent denied doing what they did, said Paul Dickinson, who represented victims in a lawsuit over the shootings. They havent apologized for what they did. They havent admitted any wrongdoing in what they did.

Blackwater guards, who as State Department contractors were responsible for providing diplomatic security, were already seen as operating with impunity in Iraq. The rampage further escalated international scrutiny of them, prompted multiple investigations and strained U.S.-Iraqi relations.

On Sept. 16, 2007, the guards were summoned to create an evacuation route for a diplomat after a car bomb explosion.

By prosecutors account, the shooting began after the guards four-vehicle convoy took up positions at Baghdads crowded Nisour Square, where the contractors launched an unprovoked attack using sniper fire, machine guns and grenade launchers. Liberty says he shot only in the direction of an Iraqi police post; the guards had been concerned by infiltration by insurgents of police ranks. Prosecutors say he and the others fired indiscriminately.

Defense lawyers say the shooting began only after a white Kia broke from the traffic and moved toward the convoy in ways the guards perceived as a threat and a potential car bomb. In a narrative disputed by prosecutors, the guards say they responded to insurgent gunfire. One contractor who received immunity described hearing the incoming pop of what sounded like AK-47 rounds shortly before another guard fired.

The case was bitterly contested for more than a decade, with the Justice Department reviving the prosecution after an original indictment was thrown out because of government missteps and flying in dozens of Iraqi witnesses to testify. Liberty and two others, Paul Slough and Dustin Heard, were convicted of manslaughter. Another, Nicholas Slatten, was convicted of first-degree murder.

A fifth guard, Jeremy Ridgeway, pleaded guilty and testified against the others, admitting firing multiple rounds into the Kia  which actually contained a medical student and his mother  but denied that he saw Iraqis pointing guns or that he felt threatened. Defense lawyers sought to undercut his credibility by noting that hed previously told a different story.

The lawyers challenged the verdict, citing in part newly discovered evidence  an Iraqi witness statement  they said contradicted what the jury was told.

Slattens murder conviction was overturned but he was retried and convicted. The 30-year sentences for the others were shortened after a federal appeals court said the punishments were excessive even though what happened defies civilized description.

After six years behind bars, Liberty had tried to not get his hopes up about a pardon. Dumbfounded when the news came, he grabbed a photograph of his grandfather, a list of Spanish vocabulary hed been studying and a motivational book on discipline, leaving the rest behind.

The New Hampshire native and Marine veteran said he is uncertain of future plans, though hes passionate about physical fitness and interested in helping veterans organizations. He says hes grateful to his supporters and to Trump for what he calls a second chance at life.

I feel like its my duty to go out and do something positive and live a good life because they gave me a second chance, so thats basically my goal.
India reported as many as 19,078 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of positive cases in the country to 1,03,05,788, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare informed on Saturday.

With this, the total number of active cases now stands at 2,50,183.

As many as 224 lives were claimed by the coronavirus in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll to 1,49,218.

So far 99,06,387 recoveries have been reported in the country.

Delhi reported 585 new cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours taking the total count of cases in the national capital to 6,25,954.





The metropolis reported 717 recoveries and 21 deaths in the last 24 hours, according to the Delhi Health Department.

With 10,62,420 samples tested for the coronavirus on Friday, the total number of samples tested so far stands at 17,39,41,658, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) informed.

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Lanka Hospitals likely to get nod to treat COVID-19 patients View(s):

A private hospital is likely to get permission from the health authorities shortly to act as a treatment centre for COVID-19 patients, the Sunday Times learns as positive cases have risen to 43,856 with 208 deaths.

Top health officials have already visited two private hospitals to determine whether they have adequate facilities, after they sought permission to treat COVID-19 patients, said Health Services Director-General Dr. Asela Gunawardena. The two hospitals are Lanka Hospitals at Narahenpita, Colombo 5, and Nawaloka Hospitals at Colombo 2.

We visited Lanka Hospitals last week and Nawaloka Hospitals two weeks ago, said Dr. Gunawardena, explaining that Lanka Hospitals was fairly satisfactory but the health officials have requested some alterations to its set-up. If the hospital did the adjustments and submit a refined proposal, permission would be granted to it to treat COVID-19 patients.

Health officials, meanwhile, have advised Nawaloka Hospitals that the location is not suitable for treatment of COVID-19 patients as it is a very busy place and suggested that they look for a more suitable site.

Dr. Gunawardena reiterated that the programme to send patients to Lanka Hospitals, once approved, would be centrally-managed by the Department of Health Services, while patient management, including support in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) setting would be carried out by Lanka Hospitals. The patients would have to bear the full cost of such treatment.

The Sunday Times also learns that the Big 5 of private hospitals  Asiri Hospitals, Durdans Hospital, Hemas Hospitals, Lanka Hospitals and Nawaloka Hospitals  have been given the nod to conduct Rapid Antigen Tests on patients before they undergo any procedures such as surgeries.

This will help these hospitals to exclude the important factor whether that patient is COVID-19 positive and prevent a large number of healthcare workers from getting exposed to the infection, Dr. Gunawardena added.
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Website URL: https://www.kasamba.com

Name: Santiago

Number: 972-74-700-4370





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Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 2 : The silver jubilee edition of the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) will be held at Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam, Thalassery and Palakkad. This has given rise to a controversy as a young politician among others feel the state capital loses its brand value due to the move.

"This is unnecessary, and they are killing Thiruvananthapuram as a brand. For the past 25 years, the festival was conducted at Thiruvananthapuram without hassles and it was a major festival for Thiruvananthapuram," Congress MLA K.S. Sabarinath told the media.

The festival will commence on February 10 at Thiruvananthapuram and will conclude in Palakkad on March 5.

The scheduling of the film festival in different places is owing to Covid pandemic and Covid negative certificate taken 48 hours before the screening of movies is mandatory for delegates.

Kerala state Chalachithra academy chairman and noted director, Kamal said that the MLA was mistaken and creating unnecessary controversy.

"The government and the academy has made it clear that the festival being conducted at different places is only for this edition owing to Covid norms and that from next year onwards the festival will be back in Thiruvannathapuram," Kamal added.

"I'm really pained at the controversy. A young MLA like Sabarinath should not have spoken like this as a huge gathering at Thiruvananthapuram will lead to the spread of the disease. We may not be in a position to control a huge crowd even if they attend the festival under mandatory Covid protocols".

Delegates are also divided over the IFFK being conducted in various places.

However, another regular festival fan, Sanjay Menon said: "I can't understand the controversy over conducting the IFFK in four places. Government has clearly said that this is only for this year owing to the Covid pandemic and as responsible citizens, we must cooperate with this".
Despite strict COVID-19 restrictions and a national night curfew to curb the new variant infections, as many as 2,500 attended an illegal New Year's rave party in France, raising alarm among the law enforcement and health authorities. While the police officers raided the site and attempted to shut down the rave, they were met with hostilities and violent confrontations broke out between the cops and the party-goers. According to a statement by Frances police, cited by local broadcasters, the police imposed a strict 8 pm COVID curfew and forbid people to gather. However, a large crowd gathered in Frances Marseille and Brittany to celebrate the new year, scrambling officers to action.

According to the sources of Euronews, Police cracked a party where 2,500 including local residents from Brittany and abroad had assembled to celebrate the new year. As law enforcement officers tried to disperse the crowd, they were attacked with stones and empty bottles in Lieuron, the prefecture in Ille-et-Vilaine said in a statement. The angry mob also set a police vehicle ablaze in Lieuron, south of Rennes. The authorities expressed concerns as the underground event posed risks of the super spreader event.

As the authorities attempted to crack down on the event, skirmishes broke out. Officers enforced a sanitary cordon around the site confining the mob within the venue. According to sources of France 24 present on the ground, party makers had gathered at an empty warehouse run by a storage company, discreetly, and the police were called in after locals reported loud blaring techno music and several motorcades parked in the area.

Read: All Passengers From UK To Be Tested For COVID-19 On Arrival Between Jan 8-Jan 30: Health Ministry

Read: AstraZeneca Set To Supply 2 Million Doses Of Its COVID-19 Vaccine Every Week To UK: Report

Officers identify Spain and Britain citizens

According to French reporters, the crowd did not adhere to the health safety measures such as social distancing and masks and mixed without caution. Among the crowd, officers identified citizens from Spain and Britain who had travelled to attend the celebration. Another event in Frances southern city of Marseille was also dispersed by the police officers around the same time, according to several reports. Frances Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin had deployed nearly 100,000 police and gendarmes across the country to ensure that the 8 pm curfew was lawfully adhered to.

Read: BioNTech Calls Out EU Over Failing To Order Enough COVID-19 Vaccines

Read: Portugal To Focus On Vaccination, Economic And Social Recovery During Its EU Presidency

(Images Credit: Twitter/@bretagnegouv)
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 18:24:12|Editor: huaxia

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NIAMEY -- The candidate of the Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism Mohamed Bazoum and Mahamane Ousmane from the Democratic and Republican Renewal are qualified for the second round of the presidential elections in Niger, winning 39.33 percent and 16.99 percent votes respectively, according to the provisional results made public on Saturday by the Independent National Electoral Commission. (Niger-Presidential Election)

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SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir -- At least eight civilians were wounded Saturday after militants carried out a grenade attack in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said.

The grenade was hurled towards government forces in Tral town of Pulwama district, about 42 km south of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir. (India-Blast)

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COLOMBO -- A total of 50,000 saplings have been planted under a program initiated by Sri Lanka's Ministry of Environment in the last one month and a half, state media reported here Saturday.

Minister of Environment Mahinda Amaraweera was quoted in state-owned Daily News as saying that 50,000 saplings had been planted as part of the "Husma Dena Thuru" program initiated by the Environment Ministry in mid-November. (Sri Lanka-Tree Planting Program)

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SANAA -- Three people were killed when artillery shelling hit a wedding in Yemen's Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, Houthi rebel-run al-Masirah TV reported on Saturday.

The shelling, which was launched on Friday evening, also wounded seven other people in the marriage ceremony in Al-Hawak district, south of the port city, the television cited a statement by the Houthi-controlled health ministry as saying. (Yemen-Shelling) Enditem
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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.-- A Staten Island foundation is making an impact across the country by giving back to those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.

The Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation will pay off the mortgage for the family of Fred Clardy Jr., an Alabama police officer who died in the line of duty in December of 2019, according to a report by AL.com

Clardy was an army veteran and had 14 years of experience as a police officer with the Huntsville Police Department. He tragically lost his life during a drug trafficking operation.

Clardy is survived by his wife, Ashlee, and five children.

Tunnel to Towers is doing great work not only for our family, but for other families that have also suffered the loss of a loved one. Not having to be burdened by a mortgage is a huge relief, Ashlee Clardy said in a statement.

Clardys father, Officer Billy Fred Clardy II, was also a police officer who died on the job in May of 1978

The foundation plans to pay off 36 homes this holiday season.

The charity has also pledged $3 million to support frontline workers amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. PPE and more than 100,000 meals were donated to ambulance workers and health-care workers, first responders and nursing home workers on Staten Island and all over the country.

The initiative was even recognized by President Trump at a ceremony at the White House where the foundation received a presidential citation.

Tunnel to Towers was formed nearly 20 years ago to honor the legacy of Stephen Siller, an FDNY firefighter who died in the 9/11 attacks after carrying 60 pounds of life-saving gear through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to the World Trade Center.
The Narcotic Control Bureau has arrested two Zambian nationals and have seized 5.350 kg fine quality Heroin from their possession. The officials said, "with their arrest, two new reverse routes of trafficking were identified."

KPS Malhotra, the deputy director of Operation, NCB, said that his team intercepted the accused Zambian nationals at T-3 of Indira Gandhi International Airport following a tip-off.

During the search operation, 5.350 Kg of fine quality of Heroin was recovered from them. The accused were identified as Mulapi Joshua and Mambwe William.

READ | Gelatin sticks & detonators packed in Tomato crates coming from TN seized by Kerala Police

READ | 3 held for peddling drugs, Rs 10 lakh worth narcotics seized

"Mulapi was held on December 25 and Heroin was recovered from him. He was hiding it in the cavities made inside his luggage bag. A complete network of such traffickers was identified and further information was taken. Following this, his aide William was also held on December 31. 700 gm of Heroin was recovered, which was hidden in the cavities made in his luggage bag," the official said.

The official said that with their arrests, they learnt about the reverse route of trafficking of Heroin into India.

The official said that Afghanistan is one of the major cultivators of Opium and engaged in production of Heroin. "The Border Guarding Forces had kept a strict vigil over the border and had made significant seizures of Heroin, both at the western frontier and the eastern frontier. The vigil of Border Guarding Forces compelled the drug traffickers to shift to some other route. Thus, the Drug Traffickers started pushing drugs into India through two different routes," the official added.

"Heroin sourced from Afghanistan and Pakistan is shipped via sea cargo to Sri Lanka and Maldives to evade detection. Then from the Maldives and Sri Lanka, Heroin is trafficked in India. Heroin is trafficked to African Countries from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Then through air route, with the help of couriers and passengers, Heroin is being trafficked into India. These are their two new routes," said Mr Malhotra. Further probe in the matter is on.

READ | NCB arrests 2 Nigerian nationals, seizes large quantity of drugs in Bengaluru

Listening to the media today, one sometimes hears the phrase new normal. The dictionary defines normal as conforming to a norm or standard. That means it is society that determines what is normal and what is not, depending on what is happening in the country.

As we begin 2021, with the usual hope and optimism, we must reflect on the year which has just passed, for 2020 also began on an extremely positive note. The economy was roaring, factories and jobs were coming back to America, the stock market was doing well, and unemployment among minorities and women was at the lowest rate ever recorded. Then the plague struck at the end of January, and subsequently, our world came crashing down around us; a situation which was only aggravated by George Floyds death.

All of us have seen and heard things during this past year that would have been unimaginable in 2019, but which today are almost a daily occurrence. We call these transformative events the new normal.

Examples of the new normal are all around us and affect all aspects of our lives. Defunding the police while crime skyrockets is the new normal. Prisoners being released back on the streets, while hairdressers and restaurant owners are fined and sometimes jailed, is the new normal. Big tech and mainstream media shutting down all voices opposing their agenda, while extolling the virtues of democracy and free speech, is the new normal. A CNN reporter describing demonstrators as peaceful protesters, while behind him the skyline burns, is the new normal. Closing down all restaurants, houses of worship, and small businesses while allowing protesters to burn, riot, and loot in the name of social justice is the new normal. Prisoners in certain states receiving the COVID vaccine while vulnerable seniors must wait is the new normal. The latest COVID Relief bill, which included only a paltry sum in relief for tens of millions of desperate Americans, while granting billions in foreign aid, is the new normal.

Apparently, our elected representatives in the House and the Senate believe the Sudanese national debt and the education of women in Pakistan are more important than their constituents. The late publisher William Randolph Hearst addressed this very issue nearly a century ago, on May 7, 1924, when he wrote: The day when this nation ceases to shape its foreign policy primarily for the safety and welfare of the American people will be the day on which its national doom is sealed - and its international doom too. These are only a few of the many examples of the new normal that assault and numb our senses daily.

If there is one issue that stands out in terms of importance, it would be defunding or re-imagining the police, for no civilized society can function without order, safety, and security. It is no accident that the peaceful protesters have made the police the number one target for vilification. This is especially true in blue states and cities where state and local governments, along with radical district attorneys, have acquiesced to all the protesters demands, refusing to prosecute them for their crimes and allowing them free rein to do exactly as they wish. This has resulted in their states and cities sliding even further into chaos and anarchy, as their tax base continues to move away in ever-increasing numbers.

Any normal person would stop and re-think their failed strategy but not these people. If anything, they double down on their ideology. Some might conclude they are irrational, but there is a method to their madness. It is a method that has been used before.

During the heyday of the Cultural Revolution in China, mobs of Red Guards rampaged through the streets of Beijing and other Chinese cities unencumbered by any police restraint. They assaulted anyone they deemed counter-revolutionary. Bloodied and beaten, with placards hung around their necks denouncing them for their crimes, these hapless individuals were hauled before a forum called a struggle session where various individuals, sometimes even their own children, would take turns denouncing them for every imaginable offense, up to, and including, thought crimes. The actual number of people killed during the Cultural Revolution is unknown, but it is believed to be in the millions. The purpose of all this was twofold. The first was to solidify Maos position as absolute ruler of China. The second was to cow an entire population into submission and obedience through fear, terror, and intimidation. It is a very effective tactic. Every single totalitarian state throughout history has used similar methods to ensure its continued rule.

The U.S. is on the verge of becoming a country in decline, ceding to China the position of dominant world superpower. One could say that this is part of the ebb and flow of history. Every single great civilization from the Greeks, Egyptians, and Romans in ancient times to the Aztec, Inca, and Mayan civilizations in our own hemisphere has gone through this process. Even the once-mighty British Empire, which at one time controlled a third of the world, and of whom it was said, The Sun Never Sets On, has withered away into near obscurity.

If you were to time warp back to Moscow in 1990 and tell the first Russian you met that within a year his country would implode, he would look at you as if you were crazy. The collapse of a great civilization can occur slowly over time as it did with Rome and Britain, or it can happen suddenly, as with the Soviet Union. Great civilizations go through an aging process and right now, ours is looking very old.

However, aging doesnt mean dead. We can buck the historic trend. Its true that we have forgotten the ideals that once made us great, and replaced the old normals of liberty, individual responsibility, equality, and unity with the new normals of identity politics, wokeness, cancel culture, and critical race theory.

In a speech on May 14, 1920, over a century ago, President Warren G. Harding warned the nation that: Americas present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration. Its time again for Americans to assert normalcy and restoration. And then, yes, America can and will be great again.

Caren Besner is a retired teacher who has written articles published by American Thinker, Sun-Sentinel, Dr Swier, News With Views, The Front Page, The Published Reporter, Washington Examiner, The Algemeiner, Jewish Journal, Independent Sentinel, Jerusalem Post, Arutz Sheva, San Diego Jewish World, The Times of Israel, The Moderate Voice, IsraPost, The Jewish Voice, Joo Tube, The Florida Veteran, and others.

IMAGE: Children playing together by Cade Martin, Dawn Arlotta, USCDCP, at Pixnio. Public Domain.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 1, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The White House Historical Association, founded by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961, celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2021. The Association also looks forward to ongoing work with the President and First Lady. In 2021, the Association will begin a collaboration with the 12th President and First Lady over the course of its history. Since 1961, the Association has invested $110,500,000 to maintain the museum-quality standard of the White House.

NEW Association Logo

The Association's new logo is in the image of the iconic South Facade of the White House as it appeared in 1961, the year the Association was founded.

Quarterly Lecture Series: "White House History with Susan Page"

New lectures include topics:

Personal Reflections on President Lyndon B. Johnson

Designing Camelot: A Discussion with the Authors

A Discussion with the Authors September 11 , Twenty Years Removed: A Look Back at the Nation and the White House

, Twenty Years Removed: A Look Back at the Nation and the White House Sixty Years Later: The Founding and Contributions of the Association

The 1600 Sessions

Hosted by Association President Stewart McLaurin, new podcast episodes will include:

Authors of Designing Camelot: The Kennedy White House Restoration

The first decades of the Association and its contributions to the White House

New Publications

The Association will release a special 60th Anniversary edition of its White House History Quarterly and several NEW books related to the Anniversary, including:

The signature book for 2021, Designing Camelot: The Kennedy White House Restoration

Observation of Mrs. Kennedy's Birthday

Since 2015, the Association has hosted a luncheon to mark Mrs. Kennedy's July 28th birthday. The Association will also soon announce details of a special tribute to Mrs. Kennedy at the historic Decatur House.

2021 Presidential Sites Summit

The White House Historical Association will host the Presidential Sites Summit at the historic Adolphus Hotel August 31-September 2.

First Ladies Symposium

The 2021 Annual Symposium will focus on First Ladies.

Educational Markers in Lafayette Square

The Association has worked with the National Park Service to construct an exhibit on Lafayette Square to teach about the construction of the White House by free and enslaved laborers living in the park community; uses of Lafayette Park since its creation; and political and social demonstrations in the space.

NEW Student Art Competition

New Episodes of White House History Live

NEW Features Added to the WHExperience App

SOURCE The White House Historical Association
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New Delhi:

Rahul Gandhi on Saturday met the victims of Saharanpur caste clashes and their family members at the districts border after authorities denied him permission to visit the violence-hit area.

Congress leader P L Punia, who accompanied Gandhi during the visit, said the party vice president promised the victims that he will work towards ensuring justice to them.

The administration tried to stop me on the UP border but I walked to Shahjahanpur Chauki, Saharanpur, where I met the families of the victims, Gandhi said in a tweet.

Today there is no place for the poor or the weak in India. The Dalits are being crushed, being pressed - not only in UP but in entire India, he added.

Gandhi also appealed to the administration to get an impartial probe done into the cases of violence and take steps for peace and brotherhood, Punia told PTI.

The district administration had refused permission for a visit by Gandhi to the violence-hit zone and he was stopped at the Saharanpur border by officials in the midst of elaborate security arrangements.

Punia said Gandhi asked the district authorities about the legal provisions under which he was being denied entry into Saharanpur which has witnessed clashes between Thakurs and Dalits. He had planned to visit Shabbirpur village, where Dalit houses were torched on May 5.

On being stopped by the district administration, the Congress vice president got out of his vehicle and met the victims and their families in a roadside eatery at the districts border.

Though Rahul Gandhi asked the administration to allow him to visit the hospital to meet the victims admitted there, he was told that all of them have been discharged, Punia said, claiming that last night he had gone to a hospital from where around 23 people were discharged abruptly.

According to him, Gandhi was told about incidents of violence and how 58 houses of Dalits were set afire.

The victims and their families also told Gandhi about a meagre compensation of Rs 5.12 lakh in total being disbursed to them so far, Punia said, claiming that those who perpetrated the trouble have got handsome compensation.

The district magistrate assured Gandhi that he will review the compensation given to the victims, he said.

Gandhi, who reached Saharanpur border from Delhi this morning, left for the national capital after the meeting with the victims, he added.

The victims demanded that as the post-mortem report of an upper caste youth, who was believed to have died during hurling of brickbats, stated suffocation to be the cause of death, the three persons arrested for it should be released, Punia said.

Earlier, ADG (Law and Order) Aditya Misra, camping in Saharanpur in view of the tense situation there, had said Gandhi would not be allowed entry as the administration wanted to avoid any confusion and provocation.

The ADG had also warned that a legal action would be initiated against the Congress vice president if he violated the law.

Meanwhile, Devendra Chauhan, a Thakur community leader, said they tried to meet the Congress vice president but failed.

Chauhan alleged that political leaders visiting the district had been meeting the Dalits, while a Thakur youth had also been killed in the violence.

He maintained that prominent leaders should not be allowed to come here as their visit leads to worsening of the situation.

He criticised Gandhi for attempting to enter the district at a time when the situation was tense.

Violence first broke out here about 40 days ago following a procession to mark Ambedkar Jayanti. On May 5, one person was killed and 15 people were injured in clashes in which houses of Dalits in Shabbirpur village were allegedly torched by Thakurs.

About a dozen police vehicles were set ablaze and 12 policemen were injured on May 9.

On May 23, another person was shot dead and two others were wounded, following which the government had suspended the senior superintendent of police and district magistrate and transferred the divisional commissioner and the deputy inspector general of police.

The Centre has sent 400 anti-riot police personnel to Saharanpur to help the district administration restore peace in the region.

Earlier in the day, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi tried to visit violence-hit Saharapur district in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday but was stopped at the district border by the police.

Later, Rahul addressed the media saying he was not allowed to visit the region. He further stated that he will return from the place where he was stopped today as requested by the administration.

Rahul Gandhi was also accompanied by actor turned politician Raj Babbar.

Commenting on NDA government Rahul Gandhi said, in todays India there is no place for weaker sections of society.

Criticising the NDA government Rahul Gandhi said that the NDA government is spreading fear among weaker sections all across country and has not fulfilled its promise of providing employment to the youth.

Speaking on Kashmir issue, Rahul said that situation has got worse under the Modi regime.

IMMEDIATE PLAYOUT: Rahul Gandhi addresses the media in Saharanpur (Uttar Pradesh) https://t.co/xSSitCPUCd  ANI (@ANI_news) May 27, 2017

ALSO READ: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi denied permission to visit riot-hit Saharanpur

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Love Island star Zara Holland has issued a grovelling apology to the government and people of Barbados after breaking quarantine in a bid to flee the isle when her boyfriend tested positive for Covid-19.

In a statement issued on behalf of the former Miss England, the 25-year-old model claimed her decision to break the Barbados strict coronavirus rules had been a massive mix-up and misunderstanding.

Miss Holland and Elliott Love, 30, were detained by officials at Grantley Adams International Airport after breaching their quarantine conditions to remain at their hotel when Elliott tested positive for the virus on Tuesday.

Former Miss England, Zara Holland, 25, (pictured with partner Elliott Love) claimed her decision to break the Barbados strict coronavirus rules had been a massive mix-up and misunderstanding in an apology to the people of Barbados

Miss Holland and Elliott Love were detained by officials at Grantley Adams International Airport after breaching their quarantine conditions. Pictured: Zara on holiday in Barbados in 2019

The pair were instructed to remain at their 300-a-night Sugar Bay resort hotel (pictured) after Zara's 30-year-old partner tested positive for the virus on Tuesday

In a statement, published by Barbados Today news website, said: I firstly want to apologise to the entire country of Barbados for what has been a massive mix up and misunderstanding during my most recent stay.

I am currently working with the local authorities to rectify any issues on my part and will issue an update and full statement which I think is the only right thing to do to the Government and citizens of Barbados.

I have been a guest of this lovely island in excess of 20 years and would never do anything to jeopardise an entire nation that I have nothing but love and respect for and which has treated me as a family.

The couple were initially placed in isolation at a specialist Covid-19 quarantine facility in northern Barbados.

Miss Holland has since been released after testing negative for a second time for the virus but Mr Love remains at the facility, Barbados Today reported.

Elliotts brother Harvey told MailOnline: Zara is out of quarantine. She is in a hotel.

The Love Island star, who remains on the island, faces up to 12 months in jail and a 18,000 fine for breaking Barbados strict Covid-19 quarantine rules.

The pair are thought to have had a test when they arrived on the island on Sunday.

Making a break for it? Zara Holland has reportedly been arrested in Barbados after trying to return leave with her boyfriend when he tested positive for coronavirus (pictured in Barbados in April 2019)

Claims: The former Love Island star, 25, and her beau Elliott Love, 30, are thought to have had a test when they arrived on the island on Sunday and received his positive result on Tuesday

In Barbados yesterday, the Daily Nation reported: 'The couple, who have been dating for four years, arrived here last Sunday aboard a Virgin Atlantic flight and were to be quarantining in a Christ Church hotel. Visitors have to be cleared after two mandatory tests, which usually take about three days.

Covid rules for visitors to Barbados Before arriving in Barbados visitors have to fill out an online form and preferably include an upload of their negative COVID-19 PCR test result. It is then mandatory for travellers from High-Risk and Medium-Risk countries to receive a second test while on island. While waiting for the results visitors then have to restrict their movements to their accommodation and cannot have visitors. If the result is positive, then the person is assessed at a government facility for a minimum of 24 hours. After this there is the option to self-isolate at your own expense or go to a government isolation location, such as the Paragon Military Base. However if a positive test is returned, the visitor cannot return home. They have to isolate until they have recovered. Upon recovery, you can resume your vacation or return home, Visit Barbados explains. The country has had just 383 Covid cases and only seven deaths since the start of the pandemic. Advertisement

'However, after Ministry of Health officials informed them that one of them had tested positive, the couple apparently removed their red wristbands, boarded a taxi to Grantley Adams International Aiport and attempted to book a flight back to the United Kingdom aboard British Airways.

'Sources said while the male is in isolation until he recovers from the virus, the 25-year-old model who won a major beauty contest in the UK, was under quarantine until tests prove that she did not have the virus. However, if she turns out to be positive, she too will be isolated.'

A tourist was jailed for six months earlier this week for breaching Barbados' strict Covid-19 protocols, even though he'd only popped out for a drink.

Dean George Scott, 49, from Jamaica, admitted leaving quarantine to 'buy Fanta' and other snacks after arriving on the holiday island at the beginning of December, when he appeared in court.

Chief Magistrate Ian Weekes said the sentence served as a 'clear warning' to others.

He said: 'I got to send a message to you and to all the other people that this cannot be tolerated. We have made too much gain, so you have to do six months. Walking out of quarantine no man, this cannot be allowed.'

Other guests at Sugar Bay are not having to quarantine as a result of the couple's alleged breach, with staff confident no one else came into close contact, but visitors isolate on arrival anyway until a negative test is confirmed.

The couple were thought to be being held on a Covid ward at the St Lucy Hospital in northern Barbados before Holland was allowed to return to a hotel.

A Barbadian police spokesman said: 'Zara Holland has been released from a medical facility to go to her designated hotel. Elliott Love remains a resident at the medical facility.'

Island chief medical officer Dr Kenneth George said: 'There are three tourists who are of special interest. Two are in quarantine and one in police custody.

'Two were apprehended at the airport. This is a police matter and I trust that the appropriate evidence will be submitted.'

While a spokesman for the country's Ministry of Health and Wellness added: 'Police have held for questioning at least three tourists in relation to alleged breaches.

The Paragon Isolation Centre on Barbados where Zara Holland and boyfriend Elliot Love were taken after being arrested

Not an ideal start to 2021: The duo are said to have been given red wristbands but allegedly cut them off and tried to flee to the airport in a taxi (Zara is pictured in Barbados in 2019)

'We will take firm action against any individuals who breach protocols.'

Meanwhile, local reports in Barbados say that airport staff have been quarantined after coming into contact with two British tourists, believed to be the couple.

Last night the Foreign Office confirmed they were aware of Zara Holland and Elliot Love's antics.

An FCDO spokesperson said: 'We are supporting a British man and woman in quarantine in Barbados, and are in contact with their family.'

MailOnline has contacted Zara's representatives for a comment.

Before arriving in Barbados visitors have to fill out an online form and preferably include an upload of their negative COVID-19 PCR test result.

It is then mandatory for travellers from High-Risk and Medium-Risk countries to receive a second test while on island.

While waiting for the results visitors then have to restrict their movements to their accommodation and cannot have visitors.

If the result is positive, then the person is assessed at a government facility for a minimum of 24 hours. After this there is the option to self-isolate at your own expense or go to a government isolation location, such as the Paragon Military Base.

Hot spot: The couple, who have been together since 2016, have visited Barbados several times (pictured on a holiday with Zara's family in 2018)

Finding fame: Zara appeared on Love Island in 2016 and has since spoken out about how her 'rollercoaster' experience on the reality show left her battling anxiety and depression

In action: Since Love Island, Zara has turned her attentions to running a business with her mum (pictured on the reality show with Daniel Lukakis)

However if a positive test is returned, the visitor cannot return home. They have to isolate until they have recovered. Upon recovery, you can resume your vacation or return home, Visit Barbados explains.

The country has had just 383 Covid cases and only seven deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Zara, who was de-crowned of her Miss Great Britain title after romping with Alex Bowen on reality show Love Island back in 2016, found love with boyfriend Elliott.

The pair struck up a romance just months after Zara left the show, and she later told the Daily Star that he was 'the one'.

She gushed: 'We're very happy together and have such a great time. He is absolutely amazing and he's definitely the one.'
The Kentucky home of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was vandalized just days after he refused to allow the upper chamber to vote on boosting stimulus checks to $2,000.

WERES MY MONEY was spray painted on the front door to McConnells home in the Highlands section of Louisville on Saturday.

On the window adjacent to the front porch, graffiti is seen which says: MITCH KILLS THE POOR.

The vandalism was first reported by WDRB-TV.

A spokesperson for Louisville Metro Police Department told DailyMail.com that the incident happened at around 5:00am on Saturday.

Police said there was minor damage of graffiti on a window and a door. So far, no suspects have been identified and investigators continue to pursue leads.

The spray painted message was found more than 24 hours after vandals struck the $5million San Francisco home of the second most powerful member of Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Vandals spray painted 'WERES MY MONEY' on the front door of the Louisville, Kentucky, home of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The above image is from Saturday

On the window adjacent to the front porch, graffiti is seen which says: MITCH KILLS THE POOR

Vandals also spray painted an obscenity in referring to the Senate majority leader on Saturday

McConnell's home is located in the Highlands section of Louisville, Kentucky

McConnell on Saturday released a statement to the Louisville Courier Journal which read: 'Vandalism and the politics of fear have no place in our society. My wife and I have never been intimidated by this toxic playbook. We just hope our neighbors in Louisville arent too inconvenienced by this radical tantrum'

McConnell on Saturday released a statement to the Louisville Courier Journal which read: 'Ive spent my career fighting for the First Amendment and defending peaceful protest.

'I appreciate every Kentuckian who has engaged in the democratic process whether they agree with me or not.

'This is different.'

He continued: 'Vandalism and the politics of fear have no place in our society.

'My wife and I have never been intimidated by this toxic playbook.

'We just hope our neighbors in Louisville arent too inconvenienced by this radical tantrum.'

Pelosis home was vandalized in the early morning hours of New Years Day with a pig's head surrounded in a pool of red paint, as well as a spray-painted message appearing to allude to the failed $2,000 stimulus checks.

Photos of the disturbing scene shared on social media by conservative filmmaker Maggie VandenBerghe on Friday showed the House Speaker's white garage door defaced with black graffiti text reading: '$2k Cancel RENT! We want everything!'

According to TMZ, San Francisco Police had been called to the home on reports of vandalism at the property in the early hours of New Year's Day.

Officers arrived around 3am and documented the incident in a report, but it is unclear if there are any suspects. DailyMail.com has reached out to the San Francisco Police Department for comment.

VandenBerghe, a self-proclaimed patriot and independent journalist that has been featured on conservative news outlets in the past, accused police in her post of trying to cover up the incident after the city reportedly called in the vandalism.

Nancy Pelosi 's San Francisco home has been vandalized with red paint, a pigs head and a spray painted message about $2,000 checks, according to TMZ

Police sources told the outlet that cops were called out to reports of vandalism at the House Speaker's property in the early hours of New Year's Day. Her home as it normally looks above

'City called to clean up at 3am & police attempting to stop photos of scene. Media SILENT,' she tweeted.

The San Francisco mansion is located in the city's swanky Pacific Heights neighborhood and counts as one of Pelosi's several residences in California.

The four-bedroom, three-bathroom house has an estimated worth of $5.4million, according to property records.

The home was also once the site of a small protest in September, when Pelosi came under fire for getting her hair styled at a local salon that had been closed under COVID-19 restrictions.

The Speaker of the House is yet to comment on the incident.

Pelosi has been calling for the second round of stimulus checks to be increased from $600 to $2,000 - an amount also proposed by Donald Trump.

But the efforts have so far fallen short with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday blocking the Democrats' standalone bill to send the checks to Americans.

McConnell told Pelosi the Senate won't be 'bullied' into passing it, dashing hopes of the higher checks being sent out to Americans.

San Francisco officers arrived on the scene around 3 a.m. and a police report was taken, TMZ said. Pelosi is seen above in Washington, DC, on Wednesday

Pelosi had urged the Republican to allow the upper chamber to vote on the bill after it passed in the House through a bipartisan vote.

'The Democrats and Republicans in the House have passed that legislation. Who is holding up that distribution to the American people? Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans,' she said Wednesday.

'In blocking it, they are in denial of the hardship the American people are experiencing now, health wise, financially, and every way.'

But judging by the state of the garage door, some Americans are outraged with Pelosi over her efforts.

This isn't the first time the House Speaker's home has been targeted.

Back in September, a Youtuber appeared to defecate in the driveway of her home in a livestream video.

In the footage, the man was seen walking through the streets of San Francisco in search of the Democrat's home.

Once he found her home, he set up a camera across the road and walked over to her driveway.

Armando then saluted his viewers, pulled down his pants and proceeded to squat.

After a few seconds, Armando stands to his feet and wipes his buttocks before walking away and leaving behind what appeared to be feces.

'That was for President Trump,' Armando is heard telling his viewers.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 2)  The police officer who shot his unarmed neighbors during a heated argument last month will be dismissed from service after a recommendation is released "anytime soon," the spokesperson of the Philippine National Police said Saturday.

Nauna na pong nagbigay ng pahayag ang ating chief PNP [Debold Sinas] na siya po ay madi-dismiss. Anytime soon, lalabas po ang rekomendasyon ng Internal Affairs Service (IAS), PNP spokesperson Ildebrandi Usana told CNN Philippines Newsroom Weekend, referring to Senior Master Sergeant Jonel Nuezca, who shot to death Sonya Gregorio and her son Frank Anthony Gregorio five days before Christmas in Paniqui, Tarlac.

[Translation: The PNP chief earlier announced he will be dismissed. The PNPs recommendation for his dismissal will be out anytime soon.]

The IAS said on December 21 it was targeting to finish within 30 days the dismissal case against Nuezca.

Nuezca is facing two counts of murder charges, without bail recommended, over the fatal shooting, which was caught on video. The video went viral, sparking outrage from people across the nation. The altercation started when Nuezca complained about the firing of a PVC cannon or 'boga' by the Gregorios.

Usana said Nuezca is currently detained in a Bureau of Jail Management and Penology facility.

Records shared by the PNP showed Nuezca had faced six cases over his last 10 years in service, including two homicide cases in 2019. Officials said the two homicide cases were both dismissed due to "lack of substantial evidence."
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(Newser)  Nearly 40% of all Georgia's registered voters have already cast their ballots in the US Senate runoff race. More than 3 million early votes were cast, a record in the state, Reuters reports. Early voting ended Thursday, but the votes will not be tallied until Election Day Tuesday. Per 11 Alive, both Democrats and Republicans can find reasons to be hopeful in the early voting data; the fact that 31% of early voters are Black, a higher percentage than in the general election, is good for Democrats, but the fact that almost 62% of early voters are 50 or older is good for Republicans. Incumbent Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are battling Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, with Democrats needing to win both races in order to get to a 50-50 split in the Senate, meaning incoming VP Kamala Harris would break any ties.

story continues below

Complicating matters for Republicans, President Trump posted a Twitter thread Friday in which he claimed the state's Senate runoff is "illegal and invalid." As the New York Times and the Hill explain, the thread started off with Trump reasserting his unfounded claim that the presidential election was stolen from him, then going on to slam a Georgia consent decree he declared unconstitutional (which thus, he claimed, renders both the state's general election and the runoff invalid). He was apparently referring to a March consent decree allowing voters an opportunity to fix ballots that appeared to contain a signature not matching the one on file with election officials. Trump backers have filed lawsuits seeking, and failing, to find that decree illegal. Republicans are concerned his railing against the election process could harm Republican turnout in Georgia, where Trump is holding a rally Monday. (Read more Georgia stories.)
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Among the most critical roles in government as Britain embarks on its new global journey is the job of Business Secretary.

Whether Alok Sharma remains in place, or there is a new incumbent, the historically sub-octane Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) will be responsible for firing up a fresh approach to technology, innovation and climate change.

It must recognise the importance of science, R&D and our great research-based universities. All will be central to the cause if the Government is going to fulfil the vision of a thriving UK outside the EU.

Flying the flag: The government must recognise the importance of science, R&D and our great research-based universities

Significant changes in strategic direction were taken last year in the shape of more aggressive carbon-free targets for the economy and the pledge to scrutinise closely overseas-generated takeover bids which could impinge on our national security.

As much as we want to fulfil the Thatcherite vision of an open economy, the UK needs a broader definition of the public interest which embraces the economic consequences of takeover bids.

There are a number of deals which were allowed in the interregnum between the referendum and January 1, 2021, which should never have happened. The most notable was the 23billion sale of Cambridge-based smart chip pioneer Arm Holdings to Masayoshi Son of Softbank in 2016 in the false belief that the Japanese tech entrepreneur was a long-term and safe owner. Neither has proved true.

Arm's valuable Chinese offshoot was sold off to a Chinese entity and exposed to a Beijing power struggle. Silicon Valley competitor Nvidia is now bidding for Arm, recognising the value of its Cambridge-grown intellectual property.

Other recent transactions which should never have been done are the sales of satellite group Inmarsat and aerospace innovator Cobham. Both had valuable satellite technologies which are now having to be replicated or bought in.

Among the current crop of takeovers, there are questions to be asked as to whether it is sensible for the UK, a leader in the design of computer gaming, to allow Codemasters to be swallowed by California-based Electronic Arts.

In online sessions discussing my book The Great British Reboot, the most frequently-posed question is: couldn't Britain have just as easily pursued a more global strategy, to support great sectors such as tech, pharma and the creative industries, from inside the EU as outside? Possibly, it could and Germany  with its robust manufacturing base  has had success in China.

Being part of the EU has distorted the vision of corporate Britain and government. As latecomers to the EU project, Britain has been a proselyte. Both firms and government have chosen to see the nation's future through the European prism.

The UK rigorously has adhered to state aid rules and competitive bidding whereas rivals have not. That's why there are Siemens trains running on the Thameslink service rather than locomotives built by UK-based Bombardier.

It is why during the pandemic EU governments provided assistance to aerospace whereas the UK insisted that airlines and aerospace companies should sort out their own problems.

Outside the EU, the Bank of England and City regulators will have the opportunity to inject more flexibility into the system

There has been a big fuss recently, from Labour among others, about how financial services is neglected in the new UK-Europe accord. There is some truth with the drift of an estimated 3,700 jobs and 1.2 trillion of assets under management to the Continent.

Being tied to Europe in finance is not without problem. On issues such as short trading in shares, bank bonuses and a transactions tax on dealings, the UK has found its form of capitalism under attack.

The Bank of England's Andrew Bailey argued during hearings on the Woodford collapse that had UK principle-based regulation been in place, rather than rules-based scrutiny in Brussels, the result may have been very different.

As the country presses forward with an ambitious infrastructure programme, with 100billion per year in the current spending envelope, escaping the EU will be of real advantage.

Brussels rules, for instance, restrict insurance and pension fund investment in big projects. Outside the EU, the Bank of England and City regulators will have the opportunity to inject more flexibility into the system.

As a nimble offshore economy with great creative and scientific advantage, the UK holds many aces. It must now be careful not to gamble them away.
The labour ministry has sought stakeholders' feedback on the draft model standing orders for the manufacturing, mining and service sectors to set standards for service conditions and employees' conduct. "Pursuant to section 29 of the Industrial Relations Code, 2020; the Central Government has published the draft Model Standing Orders for the Manufacturing Sector, Mining Sector and Service Sector in the official gazette, inviting suggestions/objections from the stakeholders within a period of thirty days," the Ministry of Labour and Employment said in a statement on Saturday.

The draft orders were notified on December 31, 2020. Keeping in view the needs of the services sector, a separate model standing orders for the services sector has been prepared the first time, the statement said.

"These Model Standing Orders will pave the way for the industry harmony in the country as it aim to formalize the service-related matters in an amicable manner," Labour Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar said in the statement. All three model standing orders encourage employers to use information technology in the dissemination of information to the workers through electronic mode.

To provide safeguard to the IT industry, "involvement in unauthorised access of any IT system, the computer network of the employer/ customer/client has been prescribed as misconduct, according to the draft orders. The concept of "Work from home" has been formalised in the model standing orders for the service sector.

The draft order for the services sector provides that in the case of the IT Sector, the working hour shall be as per agreement or conditions of appointment between employer and workers. "Habitual (offender) with respect to indiscipline has been defined if the worker found guilty of any misconduct three or more times in preceding twelve months," as per the draft order.

Rail travel facility has been extended to the workers in the (entire) mining sector. Presently, it is being availed by the workers in coal mines only. Uniformity has been maintained in all the three Model Standing Orders while providing some flexibility considering the sector-specific requirement, the ministry said.

The model standing orders adopted in respect of an industrial establishment will also be applicable to all other units of the industrial establishment irrespective of location. As per the orders, where an employer adopts Model Standing Orders of the central government with respect to matters relevant to industrial establishment or undertaking, then, such model standing order shall be deemed to have been certified.

Also read: Flying out of Delhi to be costlier from Feb; here's why
About The Video

From India approving Oxford-AstraZeneca's vaccine to WHO giving 'emergency validation' to Pfizer vaccine, here are the top updates on the pandemic. India approved Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for emergency use authorization. The approval paves the way for Oxford vaccine rollout in India. Three vaccine companies had applied for emergency use authorization in India. States and Union Territories have prepared for vaccine dry run on January 2. This is a trial before the actual vaccination drive begins in the country. Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan reviewed the preparedness for the dry run. India also allowed import and export of Covid-19 vaccines without any value limitation. CBIC ameded regulations to facilitate the vaccine import/export through courier. Meanwhile, flights between India and the UK will resume from January 8, union minister Hardeep Puri said. The minister confirmed that operations of flight till 23 Jan will be restricted to 15 flights per week. This comes amid the new Covid strain detected in the UK. On Friday, four more people tested positive for the new strain. Watch the full video for more updates on the pandemic.
APJ Abdul Kalam wanted to quit as President in 2005, here's why

Former home minister and senior Congress leader Buta Singh passes away

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Jan 02: Former Union Minister and senior Congress leader, Buta Singh passed away at the age of 86 today.

"Shri Buta Singh Ji was an experienced administrator and effective voice for the welfare of the poor as well as downtrodden. Saddened by his passing away. My condolences to his family and supporters," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a tweet.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also condoled his death and said that the nation has lost a loyal public servant.

AR Rahman's mother, Kareema Begum, passes away

Singh, who fought his first elections on an Akali Dal ticket, joined the Congress in the 1960s. He was elected to the third Lok Sabha in 1962 from the Sadhna constituency. He also held the positions of Union Home Minister and Union Agriculture Minister.

Vaccines to be provided for free across India, says health min | Oneindia News
Gautam Gulati Opens Up On Testing Positive For COVID In UK, Says He's Missing Ghar Ka Khana And Wants To Fly Back Home

Gautam Gulati is stuck in a very difficult situation. The actor has gone to the UK, where a new strain of Coronavirus has been discovered. Then, he has now also contracted the virus. Needless to say, he is in a distressful mental state. amidst all this, he is keeping up at work virtually and has now also opened up about testing positive for COVID.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by   (@welcometogauthamcity)

In a recent interview with ETimes, he revealed what had happened. He said, I am an early riser, as I like to start my day with a workout. However, recently, I woke up with a body ache and felt weak. It didnt subside even after four days. When I lost my sense of taste, I knew it was COVID. I underwent a rapid test, which came positive. He has been taking all necessary medicines and precautions to get well soon.

However, he is missing his mother and ghar ka khana! He added, My mother and brother are obviously worried for me. So, while I am a bit stressed, I try to divert my attention towards more productive things. I miss my mother and the fact that I could have eaten homemade food. Chaahe khichdi mil jaati unke haathon ki.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by   (@welcometogauthamcity)

He is also planning to return home as soon as flights resume and doesn't even mind doing a break journey. Well, we are praying for his speedy recovery!
Many Nigerians have demanded the release of Sahara Reporters publisher, Omoyele Sowore, and other activists being detained by the police at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.

The citizens on social media asked President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene as the police have failed to speak on the arrest of the activists, 24 hours after.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how Mr Sowore and other activists were arrested at Gudu junction in Abuja during a protest tagged #CrossoverWithProtest.

The protest, organised by the former presidential candidate, was held in some states with participants carrying candles and placards showing their grievances against the government.

Mr Sowore was reportedly brutalised before being dragged into one of seven vehicles mobilised to the protest ground by the police.

He has since been in custody alongside others at Abattoir police station in Logokoma, Abuja.

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), Amnesty International, Coalition for Revolution (CORE) and various civil rights organisations have demanded the release of the activists and also threatened to sue the police for the illegal arrests.

Nigerians have also stormed social media to trend the hashtag #FreeSowore.

Sources familiar with the arrests said the police plan to arraign Mr Sowore and the others on Monday but PREMIUM TIMES was unable to independently verify this as of the time of this report.

Also, an injured Mr Sowores picture appeared on social media on Friday evening.

The police have not made any comment on the arrests.

The police spokesperson, Frank Mba, did not respond to repeated calls and text messages put across to him by this newspaper for his comments.

Many have likened the recent development to the 2019 incident when Mr Sowore was arrested by the Buhari administration.

He was detained for over 100 days for calling for a protest. Despite court orders granting him bail, he was only released after local and international pressure.

The police said he was planning to overthrow the government of Mr Buhari.

See some of the tweets demanding Mr Sowores release below:

https://twitter.com/SavvyRinu/status/1345120157333643264?s=19

Police brutality and illegal arrest could not stop the annual scholarship of the Sowore Foundation. Earlier today, Kiribo community of Ese-Odo LG in Ondo state benefited from @YeleSowore's self sacrificing gesture. #FreeSowore pic.twitter.com/ll6Nc5cxp4  kofobeckley (@kofobeckley1) January 1, 2021

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Just heard from a reliable source that sowore has gone on hunger strike after being denied of his books and clothes to change with, saying "i can't feed my stomach when have not feed my brain" #FreeSowore @PoliceNG should at least allow him read during his abduction. pic.twitter.com/IgBrf0LOrF  Debtriz (@Debtriz1) January 1, 2021

If I choose to protest daily throughout 2021, it is not the business of Buhari, SSS or the Police. It is my business. #FreeSowore  Inibehe Effiong (@InibeheEffiong) January 1, 2021

This is @AyowoleSanyaolu in a tensed engagement with Ibikunle Amosun Former Ogun State Governor over funding of education in the state. He was abducted & brutalized along with @YeleSowore in the early hour of today by Buhari. #FreeSoworeNow #FreeSowore #RevolutionNow pic.twitter.com/X3b6auNHqc  Irahim (@TheIOShowa) January 1, 2021

They've transferred culture into governance, when the king speaks nobody should bring up anything else, when an elder talks the younger ones should keep quiet. Foul! Na elder wey get sense, na elder wey respect us we go respect. Tueh!#FreeSowore  Ayemojubar (@ayemojubar) January 1, 2021

https://twitter.com/iamProficience/status/1345091460283166723?s=19

So all the cry and the begging was to become this? Hmm, you don't know a man until you know his heart and this face doesn't reveal a man. #FreeSowore pic.twitter.com/6LtZf7mLYi  Ayemojubar (@ayemojubar) January 1, 2021

In spite of his ordeal, he sent this message with assertiveness: "The arrest of an individual should not deter the education of my people. The programme should continue." That's what true leaders do!#FreeSowore pic.twitter.com/JtEl0sSEpw  kofobeckley (@kofobeckley1) January 1, 2021

https://twitter.com/Flobim1/status/1345090064951480322?s=19

You pay bandits millions and beg them for the inconveniences you might have caused them.. The same you negotiate with terrorists, bring them back to the society, hoping to draft them into the Army.. But harmless @YeleSowore is your headache!#FreeSowore unconditionally!! pic.twitter.com/Y78v5RLDz0  Oluwagbenga Ajongbolo (@arakunrinajos) January 1, 2021

https://twitter.com/iamProficience/status/1345161991028137984?s=19

Sowore was violently arrested and currently unlawfully detained for exercising his fundamental right to protest. Whereas, terrorists and bandits are being pampered and treated like kings by our political leadership. Those supporting his detention need help from mental illness. pic.twitter.com/8pQxS6dtcK  FESTUS OGUN (@mrfestusogun) January 1, 2021

The Police has not said why they arrested Sowore, but you're already making stupid excuses for them. Are you a citizen or a slave?  Inibehe Effiong (@InibeheEffiong) January 1, 2021

The president said in his new year broadcast that he will face the challenges in the country with renewed determination. Is this the renewed determination?? The Government wants to kick off 2021 by oppressing Nigerians. We wont be Silent!!! #FreeSowore #EndOppression pic.twitter.com/BJtR72cLcd  DeboMacaroni (@mrmacaronii) January 1, 2021

We must commend Yele Sowore for consistently putting himself at the front of the line. More importantly, we must not let the govt think he is in this alone. #FreeSowore https://t.co/h8iXPlWuUD  Ayo Sogunro  #Transformist; #EndSARS (@ayosogunro) January 1, 2021

This is the 2nd time Buhari regime will kidnapped Sowore at midnight. Only armed robbers do that. #FreeSowore  Ayemojubar (@ayemojubar) January 1, 2021

My heart breaks that #FreeSowore is the first tweet I'll be doing in the year 2021. The level of lawlessness, impunity and crass tyranny in Nigeria is disturbing and worrisome.  FESTUS OGUN (@mrfestusogun) January 1, 2021

This is where Nigeria should wake up o. Think, what exactly do you think is @YeleSowore's offence?? Asking for better Nigeria?? Truth is they are not scared of Sowore, they're scared of you. They now once we all stand up to this, Game over. Wake up Nigeria!!! #FreeSowore Now!  Olawale Adebayo (@IamMandate) January 1, 2021

This is how @MBuhari treat citizens demanding good governance while bandits and terrorists are being rewarded with cash and overseas trip.

Nigerians be prepared for 2021!

Sowore was brutalized overnight before he was arrested. #FreeSowore pic.twitter.com/wfRW4j0SzU  Towolawi Jamiu #EndSarsNow (@jharmo) January 1, 2021

Dear President Buhari, why do we need to trend #FreeSowore the first day of a new year. Shame no dey catch una?  Ayemojubar (@ayemojubar) January 1, 2021

The Nigerian Government tackles their greatest problem by re-arresting Sowore in 2021.#FreeSowore  Kikelomo sowore (@KikelomoSowore) January 1, 2021

Coming online to hear the abduction of Omoyele Sowore by Federal Government thugs last night over his style of celebrating the new year eve. Impunity knows no bound As it is in Uganda so it is in Nigeria.#FreeSowore pic.twitter.com/cVzXwNLySF  Obinna Ezechukwu (@EzechukwuObinn2) January 1, 2021
Home > 2021 > Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, Jan 2, 2021

Letter to the Readers  Mainstream, Jan 2, 2021

Once again we have crossed the doorstep of a new year. The year that we leave behind was one with a difference. Since the time I was born in the mid-1940s, I have never experienced a year of such a grave pandemic as this year, 2020, that took a toll of so many lives. What will the new year, 2021, bring to us? Hope or catastrophe? That is the moot question today. The present does not hold any positive reply although we still hope for the best from the days ahead.

A year ago in December 2019, it was written in the editorial column of Mainstream:

It has been repeatedly conveyed in these columns in the past that since 2014 what the country has been experiencing has no parallel  the incessant attack on the minorities, Muslims and Christians in particular, along with assaults on the depressed sections of society, especially the Dalits. Initially, these incidents, constituting a real blot on our society were sought to be attributed to fringe elements but over time one has been witness to the fringe elements increasingly identified with those occupying the centre-stage of the ruling circle.

There is no gainsaying that with his second victory at the hustings last year, Modi with his Sancho Panza is in a highly defiant mood and carrying on a total overhaul of the country. All democratic conventions are being set aside, control over every inch of political space by the ruling party is underway and an unaccountable personalised style of governance is growing by the day. Many authoritarian steps taken by this regime would need to be listed, here but let us highlight one.

After the May 2019 victory, Modi-Shah duo first sought to break the backbone of the people of Kashmir by withdrawing the special status of the people of the region for which purpose the Constitutions Articles 370 and 35A were revoked  the whole idea being a direct assault on the people of that Muslim majority area thereby exposing the naked face of the present BJP regimes anti-Muslim approach. This was accompanied by turning the territory into a zone of Indian occupation completely reversing the countrys ethos thereby earning the worlds opprobrium with all major political leaders including those like Dr Farooq Abdullah in detention and the people of the region being gagged into silence. At the same time, the State was transformed into two Union Territories - those of J&K and Ladakh. This kind of arbitrary action was a direct assault on democratic functioning and the result is there for all to see from the outcome of the recently held local body elections.

In the editorial columns one year ago it was mentioned there is no time to lose. It is incumbent on all of us to resist the fascist onslaught on our national identity.

Eighty-five years ago one of the well-known members of the international brigade that went to fight in Spain and gave his life John Cornford wrote a poem to Margot Heinemann

Heart of the heartless world,

Dear heart, the thought of you

Is the pain at my side,

The shadow that chills my view. The wind rises in the evening,

Reminds that autumn is near.

I am afraid to lose you,

I am afraid of my fear. On the last mile to Huesca,

The last fence for our pride,

Think so kindly, dear, that I

Sense you at my side. And if bad luck should lay my strength

Into the shallow grave,

Remember all the good you can;

Dont forget my love.

These are memorable words, made more memorable by the advent of fascism on Indian soil. Let us pledge: No Pasaran, we shall not allow fascism to triumph in our country.

o o

Tributes:

Sunil Kothari the Indian Dance historian and Critic passed away on December 27, 2020.

Robert Hossein the great French actor and film director has passed away on December 30

S. Viswam, the noted Indian journalist passed away, he had been Chief of Bureau of the Deccan Herald in New Delhi and had been a member of the Press Council of India. He had been close to Mainstream weekly and contributed to it over a long period.

Roshan Vajifdar, the famous Bharatanatyam dancer passed away, last week in Kodaikanal. She had appeared in Kishore Sahus film Mayurpankh, screened at the Cannes Film Festival of 1954.

We pay our tributes to the above people.

January 2, 2021  The Editor
Irelands chief medical officer has warned that Irelands Covid-19 incidence rate could be at its highest, as the county saw a record-breaking number of coronavirus cases in a day.

The Department of Health recorded 3,394 cases within the last 24 hours.

There have also been four further deaths related to Covid-19 in Ireland.

As of 2pm on Saturday, 607 Covid-19 patients were in hospital, of which 56 are in ICU. There have been 71 additional hospital admissions in the past 24 hours.

Dr Tony Holohan, said: The incidence of Covid-19 is as high, if not higher now than it was in March.

We're starting to roll-out the COVID-19 vaccine. Vaccines teach your immune system how to create antibodies that protect you from diseases.



Learn more about how vaccines work: https://t.co/vCx0p2b4CJ#VaccinesWork #CovidVaccine pic.twitter.com/r7jMvPFtJJ  HSE Ireland (@HSELive) January 2, 2021

Every individual needs to act as if they are infectious. Hospitalisations are rising to levels close to what we saw in the springtime. Everyone needs to stay at home other than for essential work or care.

It is really important that vulnerable and older people do not leave their homes unless absolutely essential.

This includes asking neighbours or family to carry out errands such as grocery shopping, limiting all contacts to only those people you live with or have to visit for essential care reasons.

We need to rediscover the spirit of solidarity and community we saw in March and April so that we can all do our part in protecting older and vulnerable people.

People particularly vulnerable to Covid-19 include older persons and people with pre-existing medical conditions including cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease and cancer.

Irelands 14-day incidence rate is now at 381.6 per 100,000 people.

Earlier, Philip Nolan, chairman of the NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, said that Ireland is in a very significant surge.

He warned that up to 6,000 cases a day could be seen in the coming days following the backlog in the system which is likely to see an additional 9,000 cases reported.

We now have 581 #COVID19 patients in hospital. There are 50 people in ICU. We have likely not seen the worst impacts yet. But everything we do today to stop this virus spreading makes a huge difference. Please let's all play our part to protect our health service.@HSELive  Paul Reid (@paulreiddublin) January 2, 2021

It comes as the head of the Health Service Executive (HSE) warned that Ireland has not yet seen the worst impact of the surge in Covid-19 cases on hospitals.

The high levels of coronavirus cases across the country have sparked warnings from health officials about the rising number of patients in hospital.

Paul Reid, chief executive of the HSE, urged the public to follow health guidelines.

The number of Covid-19 patients in hospital has been rising in recent weeks, with the number of coronavirus cases in ICUs more than doubling in two weeks.

Itas important people know how the vaccination programme is going. Iam going to have the vaccination numbers added to the existing data hub which shows the #Covid numbers. pic.twitter.com/bKkAby6DR2  Stephen Donnelly (@DonnellyStephen) January 2, 2021

More than 109,000 coronavirus tests have been carried out in the last seven days, with a positivity rate of 16%.

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said that the number of vaccinations will be reported with the number of coronavirus cases published daily by his department.

It has also been reported that a further nine cases of the variant form of Covid-19 found in the UK have been detected in Ireland.

Cillian De Gascun, medical virologist, said that further testing of SarsCoV2 samples dating from December 23 to 29 found the additional variant cases.

He said it takes the total number of cases found to 16.

PA Media
She welcomed her first child, a daughter named Elle, with Bachelor husband Tim Robards in November.

And on Saturday, Anna Heinrich showed off her incredible post-pregnancy body in a mini dress.

The 34-year-old criminal lawyer flaunted her physique on Instagram as she attended a virtual wedding from the comforts of her Sydney home.

How does she do it? The Bachelor's Anna Heinrich (pictured) showed off her slim post-baby body in a mini dress on Saturday as she attended a virtual wedding from her Sydney home

The former Bachelor star styled her blonde hair straight and wore a neutral palette of makeup for the photo.

'Wedding ready... we were meant to be in Adelaide celebrating but unfortunately due to current circumstances we were unable to attend,' she wrote.

'Next best thing FACETIME,' she added.

Earlier this month, every state rushed to effectively ban NSW residents from crossing their borders in response to the coronavirus outbreak in Sydney's Northern Beaches.

Working hard! Anna showed off her incredible post-pregnancy body in a gold mini dress just two months after giving birth to her baby girl

Anna and her husband Tim announced their daughter Elle's birth on Instagram on November 14.

'Introducing the newest addition to our family, Elle Robards,' Anna wrote, alongside a photo of herself cradling the newborn.

Meanwhile, Tim shared some sweet family pictures on his feed and said he's 'fallen in love twice all over again'.

Growing family: Anna and her Bachelor star husband Tim announced Elle's birth on Instagram on November 14

'I've fallen in love twice all over again with these two!!! I just love, love, love our little Elle Robards,' he wrote.

He added: 'How bloody amazing!!!! I never knew my wife was a superhero... what a woman!!'

Tim and Anna fell in love on The Bachelor Australia in 2013 and married in a stunning ceremony in Italy in 2018.
As mainland China continues its crackdown on Christian churches, it has not overlooked the churches in Hong Kong, which are now experiencing "intense pressure" from the Chinese Communist Party.

A recent report from Reuters reveals that China seeks to control the Catholic church in Hong Kong to silence pro-democracy voices within it. One way it wants to do this is by appointing the next bishop for the city.

Some clergy members said China wants to use in Hong Kong an agreement it has with the Holy See that gives it an influence in choosing prelates. However, Vatican officials claimed the agreement excluded Hong Kong because the city was semi-autonomous from the mainland.

Hong Kong hasn't had a bishop since Michael Yeung died in January 2019. The Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples appointed Cardinal John Tong as the diocese's Apostolic Administrator in the absence of a bishop.

Four people, who refused to be identified, told Reuters that the cardinal has been restraining pro-democracy voices within the Catholic church by telling the priests to refrain from political sermons and from using words that cause "social disorder."

The sources also said Tong targeted the diocese's Justice and Peace Commission, which upholds religious liberty. In October, his curia censored the commission's statement on the relations between China and the Vatican. The curia deleted a reference to Bishop James Su Zhimin of Baoding, Hebei province, who was arrested 36 years ago and was never seen again.

Cardinal Joseph Zen, former Bishop of Hong Kong, said the Catholic church in the city no longer enjoys its freedom of speech.

"We are at the bottom of the pit - there is no freedom of expression anymore," the cardinal said. "All these things are normal in mainland China. We are becoming like any other city in China."

He added that authorities in Hong Kong can now accuse anyone from the church of "offending the National Security Law" for saying "any word," something that the office of Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam contradicts by saying religious liberty is protected in the city.

An unofficial, low-profile diplomatic mission of the Vatican in Kowloon is also under attack. In May, authorities arrested two nuns who worked there when the nuns went to Hebei province for a visit.

The nuns were detained for three weeks, after which they were put under house arrest. Authorities have prohibited them from going out of the mainland. They were not given any formal charge.

Nuns in the mainland are usually left alone, which is why Hong Kong clerics believe the arrest of the two nuns is an indication that CCP doesn't want the continued presence of the Vatican's diplomatic mission in the city.

Despite this, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied the existence of such a diplomatic mission.

"As far as we know, the Vatican has not set up any official representative institution in Hong Kong," the ministry said in a statement.

Authorities have also targeted the evangelical churches in Hong Kong. In December last year, police raided the Good Neighbor North District Church's Kwun Tong and Fanling branches because it allegedly falsely declared the amount they raised from their crowd funding campaigns.

The raid was conducted after HSBC froze the church's account and the accounts of its pastor and his wife. The police reportedly ordered HSBC to freeze the said accounts.

The Good Neighbor North District Church is known to have supported pro-democracy protesters in 2019.

Evangelical Christians in Hong Kong are preparing for the worst, according to a recent report from the International Christian Concern. Hong Kong Christian churches are also struggling against division, with some being pro-democracy and others being pro-Beijing.
The year 2021 is filled with new hopes and aspirations. This new year is also the Year of the Ox in the Chinese lunar calendar. The Ox, one of the first animals to be domesticated, played a huge role in agricultural civilizations. In the eyes of the Chinese people, oxen are hardy and strong. Here in Beijing, I wish you a happy and healthy New Year!

2020 was an extraordinary year. It brought many difficulties and hardships to the world. The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 hit the human community. Under the command of Chinese President Xi Jinping, through the painstaking efforts of the whole nation, China has made great achievements in epidemic prevention and control. China also became the only major economy in the world to achieve positive growth in the past year.

Currently, COVID-19 is still spreading in many countries around the world. We empathize with the world, and it is our sincere hope that we can get through the hard times as soon as possible, and that everyone is healthy and safe.



As media professionals, it is our duty to report facts and truth. In the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak, more than 2,000 of my colleagues immediately went to the frontlines. Their work included live coverage from COVID-19 wards in the "Red Zone," as well as a multi-language documentary "Together Against COVID-19." They showed the world the real situation of China's fight against the pandemic in a timely and objective manner.



We launched a special live show called "COVID-19 Frontline," featuring medical professionals from around the world. Chinese medical experts shared their experiences in fighting the pandemic. We also spoke exclusively with Richard Horton, Editor-in-Chief of the medical journal "The Lancet," and Peter Forster from Cambridge University in the UK, who is the lead author of a study on how the virus has mutated as it has spread. The experts used scientific facts to clarify various rumors about the epidemic.



The past year has seen touching moments and heart-warming stories. 900 years ago, Zhang Zai, a Chinese philosopher from the Northern Song Dynasty, had a famous saying. The meaning of the saying is that sadness and poverty can strengthen people's will to help them succeed. That is applicable not only to individuals, but also to nations. Though facing hardships, we have witnessed love and kindness, and gained a deeper understanding of the true meaning of a community with a shared future for mankind. Through this pandemic, we have come to realize that only by cooperation can mankind overcome common challenges.



Although the pandemic has hindered face-to-face communication, it has also brought us closer. During the past year, I have exchanged nearly 300 letters with ambassadors from many countries and representatives from international media outlets, including the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, BBC, CNN, the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, NHK, Radiotelevisione Italiana, and the European Broadcasting Union. We have exchanged our greetings, advocated for more commitments and enhanced consensus. China Media Group has discussed cooperation opportunities and the fight against COVID-19 with over 100 media organizations from European and Latin American countries through "cloud forums." We have also established cooperation platforms with multiple media outlets, and co-produced programs such as "Track of History," "China's Greatest Treasures," and other projects, which have provided humanistic care and support to people during the pandemic.

Just like COVID-19, poverty has long been a disease in human history that needs to be cured.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has said, "Eliminating poverty has been the dream of mankind since ancient times. It is the fundamental right of all peoples to pursue a happy life."

In 2020, China reached its goal of eradicating absolute poverty nationwide.

After eight years of hard work, as many as 100 million people have been lifted out of extreme poverty.

China has made history in poverty eradication efforts.



To mark the milestone, we released the multilingual documentary "China's War on Poverty." It is a joint production between China and the United States.

We also launched a series of special programs, such as the "Global Action Initiative - Poverty Alleviation."

We want to share China's experiences with the world by introducing its efforts for the country's less-developed areas.



While fulfilling our role as the media, we continue to work toward building a world-class mainstream and multi-media platform.

We have used "5G+4K/8K+AI" technology in our broadcasts of major scientific expeditions, such as China's Chang'e 5 lunar mission and the Fendouzhe (Striver) submersible's deep-sea explorations.

At the third China International Import Expo, we live-streamed shopping events, which opened a new channel for many European products entering the Chinese market.



I have always believed truth is the essence of the media. Its responsibilities and quality are reflected by reliable news and authoritative information.

Unfortunately, in some media reports about China, prejudice has replaced fairness and rumors have distorted facts. Fallacies and fiction have appeared, whether in stories on pandemic prevention and control or reports on Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

We have responded in a timely manner and disclosed facts. We may differ in opinions, but there is only one truth.

I hope in the coming year, we all fulfill our responsibility of revealing more facts.



There is a famous saying in Europe that a just man has more friends.

In the new year, China Media Group will continue to fulfill its responsibilities as a global media platform, adhering to an objective and fair position, spreading truth, being the voice of justice, and sharing the beauty of civilization to the world.



2021 marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.

One hundred years ago, the Party was established with only 13 members. Today, we have more than 90 million members, leading China to a peaceful rise.

So what is the success code of the Communist Party of China, and why have one-point-four billion Chinese people chosen to support this century-old party?

This will be the focus of our news reports in the new year.

We will uphold the professional spirit of pursuing excellence while introducing China with comprehensive and objective reports, and providing our audience with more high-quality programs.

The New Year's sun shines brightly.

May the Chinese Year of the Ox bring you good luck.

I wish you all the best!

Original article click here.

SOURCE CGTN
Bollywood star Salman Khan was not too happy as he appeared on the first Bigg Boss 14 Weekend Ka Vaar of 2021 on Saturday. He had to deal with some ugly fights of the contestants and he even signed off saying he would return to the housemates later as he was in no mood to waste time and energy trying to solve their issues.

Salman opened the episode with the issue of Rakhi Sawant getting hurt by Jasmin Bhasin actions earlier this week. He scolded Jasmin and told her that blaming the channel, and even doctors was not good. After Rakhi was hurt when Jasmin put a mask on her head, Jasmin had claimed that Rakhi was just creating drama and was not genuinely hurt. He informed the housemates that Rakhi chose to stay back, just on painkillers, and not to go out for an MRI as that would have required 14-days quarantine. Salman also asked Jasmin to apologise after explaining that Rakhi was really hurt, and two doctors confirmed it.

Apologise right then when someone says they are hurt. You should have said sorry when she was crying, but you were teasing her. Even if she is acting, that is her problem. You made her a soft target and all of you are after her just because her nature is different, he said.

Salman also scolded the rest of the contestants for making fun of Rakhi. Only Vikas Gupta understood, perhaps because he has been sidelined by the entire house and faced similar situation. You guys think Rakhi is uncool and you guys are too cool? Vikas understands her, supports her in such situations and also corrects her when she goes wrong. Rakhi is different, but needs to be appreciated for her own, real and genuine personality. No one knows what all fights and struggles Rakhi has seen. She puts up a brave face and always tries her best to entertain us all, Salman said. Rakhi kept crying as Salman advocated her. Salman added, Seriously, I think you (Abhinav) need to be a husband, and take a stand. Even if you do not want to be a husband, be a contestant.

Salman then took up Rubina Dilaik and Sonali Phogats fight where the former threatened to not cook for an entire week, and the subsequent fight that Rubina had with Arshi Khan. After showing footage of their fight, Salman said, You may be privileged that you sleep in a quiet room with air conditioners but our people stay near bus stands, railway stations and airports and they can easily sleep with all that noise! The industry where you work, you get a lot of work and one day you will stop getting work. You wont know where it all went. Is there a rule that no one can speak at night? He also asked Nikki Tamboli if the entire house would have reacted the same way if anyone else threatened to quit household chores and she agreed that everyone would have targeted the person refusing duties, not the other way. Salman then said it was the entire house at fault, and not just Rubina, as she behaves as she rules and others allow her to do it.

Salman said neither Colors, nor Endemol nor the creative team gave Rubina such rights, asking who gave her the authority to do so. Salman also questioned Rubina on her action during a fight with Arshi in the morning. When Arshi was fighting with Rubina, the Shakti actor showed her the pinkie finger. Salman asked Rubina what the action meant. After asking everyone else, Salman said, You wanted to show another finger but you refrained because this is national television. Everyone understands you meant the other finger. Rubina claimed it was an instinctive reaction and she continued with it as she could see Arshi was being triggered.

After Salmans interaction ended, Aly Goni and Vikas got into a fight even as they were trying to sort out differences with Arshi. Aly even pushed Vikas and Aly claimed, Mere friends ko backmail karta hai, iska phone lao mai abhi prove karta hoon. Kya bola tha kya kiya tha humne Argentina me? Vikas denied all allegations and also asked Jasmin to name the person who kicked him out of Khatra Khatra Khatra.

Also read: Bryce Dallas Howards tribute to Jurassic World co-star Irrfan Khan was her most liked pic of 2020: Miss you greatly

Aly then claimed it is a game strategy for Vikas to be seen with anyone who is a single target for the entire house, so that he gains all the sympathy. When Eijaz Khan interevened and asked Aly to not go personal, or talk about issues form outside the house and continue his fights professionally, Vikas said he may speak about whatever but not fake things about issues from outside the show.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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January 02 : Actor Lisa Ray is known for her works in films acclaimed films like Water, Kasoor, and The World Unseen. The Canadian actor has been a warrior when she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma type of cancer.

The Kasoor actor today highlighted her thoughts by sharing a picture of the snowmen describing the art of living. On her Instagram, Lisa stated that making more snowmen gives proof that one can make art out of nothing.

Lisa wrote, Exchanging a sagging, slowly melting snow person for sweet memories. The gift of my life, is my correspondence with my friend, author, artist and professional retreater @thepostcarder I feel compelled to share - because wit and wisdom should not be hoarded- what he wrote to me today: Make more snowmen - they are proof that we can make art out of nothing, and that everything beautiful we do ultimately melts into oblivion

On the personal front, Lisa Ray was born in Toronto to a Bengali father and a Polish mother. She spent some time in Calcutta during her childhood. She announced her engagement with Jason Dehni in early 2012. The two got married in late 2012, in California. The couple has twin daughters Sufi and Soleil, born via surrogacy. She often posts pictures with them.

On the work front, Lisa began her modelling career in the early 1990s, appearing for leading India brands. She made her acting debut with the 1996 Tamil film Nethaji. Her first Bollywood project was in Kasoor, an offbeat romantic thriller released in 2001.
A Moscow-based foundation with links to the Vagner Group, a Russian military contractor force, says three Russians and one Ukrainian national have been freed from captivity in Libya.



Aleksandr Malkevich, head of the Foundation for the Protection of Traditional Values, said on Telegram on January 2 that the four individuals had been "kidnapped" several weeks ago, but did not say why they were in Libya or who had allegedly detained them.



The foundation says it is a a non-profit organization whose activities are aimed at protecting the national interests of the Russian Federation."



Moscow has been accused of supporting mercenaries fighting against the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in the Libyan capital, Tripoli. The GNA is vying for power against strongman Khalifa Haftar, who is supported by the United Arab Emirates, Russia, and Egypt.

The Vagner Group is believed to be headed by Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close associate of President Vladimir Putin.



In October, the European Union and Britain hit Prigozhin with an asset freeze and travel ban over Russias role in Libya's civil war.



Prigozhin "is engaged in and providing support" for the Vagner Group, threatening Libya's "peace, stability, and security," according to the bloc.



In December, the Foundation for the Protection of Traditional Values said two of its employees were released in Libya where they had been held since May 2019.



Malkevich said on December 10 that Russian citizens Maksim Shugalei and Samer Khasan Ali Sueifan had been released and would return to Moscow.



Libyan authorities said Shugalei, who is also a lawmaker in Russia's northern Komi Republic, and his interpreter Sueifan, were arrested on suspicion of trying to influence elections in Libya, which Russian officials have denied.



Shugalei and the foundation are widely known to have links to the Internet Research Agency, a St. Petersburg-based organization known as the Russian "troll farm."

Based on reporting by AFP and Interfax
Lower House Speaker and Liberal Chairman Ludovic Orban remarked in his New Year's message that 2020 was "perhaps the toughest year in our recent history", "a year of war that isn't over yet, but which we hope will end soon." Orban also voices his confidence that by mid-2021 vaccination will bring the pandemic to a halt, according to AGERPRES.

Taking to Facebook a few hours before the end of 2020, Ludovic Orban wrote that this "was a year in which we all, citizens and authorities, were put to the test in order to cope with a crisis humanity had never before been faced with. I want to thank each and every Romanian who, through their conduct and solidarity, has made an essential and necessary contribution to saving the lives of others. An individual gesture may not always be perceived as meaningful, but I assure you that it has been and will remain as such. We must realize that thanks to the rule-compliant behavior of most of us we have managed to keep the pandemic under control, which is an exceptional feat we can be proud of as a society, because only through a joint effort have we found the strength to overcome the trials of 2020."

He also referred to the efforts of the medical workers, stating that he stands by the side of "our front line heroes and of the medical workers who have made and are making superhuman efforts. We will remain forever grateful to these people for their dedication in putting their lives on the line in order the save their fellow people. I think with grief and compassion of the families of those who have fallen in the line of duty in this pandemic and I wish them closure."

The former Prime Minister also shows that in 2020 the Liberal government has thrown in "all its energy and skill" in order to reduce as much as possible the losses caused by the health crisis. "It was a year of racing against the clock, in which we had to compensate for material shortages, for a reduced administrative capacity, but also for the disloyal conduct on the part of other political actors. We enjoyed, however, the partnership of President Klaus Iohannis whose support was decisive. It's been a year of war that isn't over yet, but which we hope to end soon," the Liberal leader wrote.

Ludovic Orban also emphasizes the importance of the COVID vaccination for winning the fight against the virus.

"The New Year finds us in full swing vaccination campaign and I am convinced that once this process is completed we will return to a normal life. I hope that by the middle of next year vaccination will put an end to the pandemic and each of us will be able to fully enjoy the social interaction we've missed so much. I urge every Romanian to take the vaccine because it's the only tool whereby we can defeat together this ruthless virus. Also, it is extremely important that we remain cautious and observe the health rules until the vaccine produces a general immunization in society," the Chamber of Deputies' Speaker argues.

In conclusion, he says that at the passage of the years we can look to the future with hope and confidence.

"Our efforts in this difficult year have proven that we can be united in hardship, but they will also make it possible to unleash the joy of being together, of coming back to life the way we wish in 2021. Happy New Year, dear Romanians! May the New Year bring you plenty of good health, faith and hope!," Ludovic Orban writes in the end of the message.
A labourer who allegedly threatened to harm his partner and their 10-month-old baby on New Years Day has appeared in court charged with a breach of the peace.

Maciej Pawel Klinder (33), originally from odz in Poland but now living in Belfast, appeared at Laganside Magistrates' Court on Saturday and was granted bail following a short hearing.

The court was told police attended an address in Sunnyside Park, south Belfast, shortly before midnight on New Years Day following an abandoned 999 call.

Detectives told the court the attending officers were met by the defendant who presented his wrists for arrest and said if he was not arrested he would hurt his partner and their baby of ten months.

The court also heard the defendant, who has the word family tattooed above his right eye, told police at the scene he hoped to go away for a long time otherwise he would hurt his partner and their child.

Mr Klinder, who refers to himself as SirCandy Montana on his Facebook profile, was arrested for behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace before appearing in court on Saturday morning.

District judge George Conner granted him bail of 150 to reside at an address approved by police and ordered him to stay away from Sunnyside Park and not to contact the injured parties.

The matter was adjourned until January 8 and no plea was entered.

Download the Belfast Telegraph App Get quick and easy access to the latest Northern Ireland news, sport, business and opinion with the Belfast Telegraph App.

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India on Saturday delivered the first consignment of relief materials to the cyclone-hit Fiji, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said.

Another consignment is due to reach by January 6. The Ministry, in a statement, said over 6 tons of relief supplies were put together in a short span of time by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and were airlifted to Fiji with the help of Air India and Fiji Airways via Sydney, Australia.

Fiji was hit by a Category 5 Tropical Cyclone Yasa on December 17-18, 2020, which caused extensive damage and destruction of critical infrastructure.

The relief material sent by the Government of India, consisting of shelter and hygiene kits, will provide immediate assistance to the cyclone-affected communities, the statement read.

Despite challenges posed by the pandemic, over 6 tons of relief supplies were put together in a short span of time by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and were airlifted to Fiji with the help of Air India and Fiji Airways via Sydney, Australia. This was possible thanks to the effective cooperation among multiple agencies in three countries to deliver the relief material to Fiji in record time, it added.

The Ministry said that India has firmly stood by Fiji during times of crisis and devastation caused by natural disasters like Tropical Cyclone Winston in 2016.

The relief material sent now in the wake of Tropical Cyclone Yasa highlights Indias commitment to providing Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) support to Friendly Foreign Countries as a first responder, it added.

Disaster Risk Reduction and Management is an important pillar of Indias Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI) announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November 2019, the Ministry noted, adding that India remains committed to extend full support to Fijis efforts to restore livelihoods of the affected communities and to build resilient infrastructure. (ANI)
shyml BHPian

Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Lahore Posts: 119 Thanked: 532 Times

1920 Hudson Limousine Quetta, Pakistan Shared by my friend Harris Aziz from Islamabad, recently this car has emerged out of same family, original from new, ownership from Quetta, Pakistan. The family has put up the car in Islamabad heritage museum last week. Wonderfully preserved and sympathetically restored. Most car enthusiasts, yours truly included, never knew of its existence.

Quetta was, in the Raj todate, an important station on the border of the empire and site of the British Indian Army's staff college. Its a awesome route by train with bewildering tunnels and civil/ railway engineering masterpiece. A lot of Army officers took their cars to Quetta by train from all over India when coming for training.

Quetta became a source for the very hard to get automobiles because of that as officers could then be posted anywhere in the Empire and disposed of their possessions. A landmark event was the 1935 earthquake which unfortunately razed the town to the ground and it was never the same.

The 1930 Studebaker and the Hupmobile presently owned by my friend Karim Chappra also came from Quetta. There is a Pierce Arrow of the Khan of Kalat somewhere in Quetta also. Ofcource the RR Phantom II Chassis 76WJ also came from Quetta.

My own family acquired, in 1945-55 period, a Studebaker President tourer as well as a Ford Model A tourer from Quetta where my maternal uncle Chaudhry Ata Muhammad, was a Principal and later Director of Education. He always had a couple of cars perhaps due to easy pickings, and also bought them for our families in Lahore, Jullundher and Batala.

I will do research on the Seth Musajee Essajee family of Quetta and post.

This car is reputed to have been placed under use of the Quaid e Azam M A Jinnah on his visits to Quetta, by the family.



Amer Ahmad

Lahore, Pakistan Attached Thumbnails







































































Last edited by shyml : 28th December 2020 at 12:50 .
PM to deliver keynote address on occasion of Virtual Vesak Global Celebrations on Buddha Purnima 25 May 2021 | 11:26 PM New Delhi, May 25 (UNI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver the keynote address on the occasion of 'Virtual Vesak Global Celebrations' on Buddha Purnima on Wednesday at around 0945 hrs. see more..

Indian Navy deploys rescue teams in view of Cyclone Yaas in West Bengal, Odhisha 25 May 2021 | 8:20 PM New Delhi, May 25 (UNI) Indian Navy on Tuesday said that its rescue teams have already deployed at costal places in West Bengal and Odisha in view of severe cyclonic storm Yaas which will start its landfall on Wednesday morning. see more..

UNI NEWS DIGEST AT 2000 HRS FOR MAY 25, 2021 25 May 2021 | 8:14 PM Bhubaneswar: Cyclone YAAS to make landfall in early hours of Wednesday, Odisha govt. to evacuate 7.5 lakh people (CA23)

New Delhi: Indian Navy deploys rescue teams in view of Cyclone Yaas in West Bengal, Odhisha (DI14)

: SC seeks response from Bengal govt over 'exodus' after post-poll violence (DI13)

Visakhapatnam: AP: Major fire in HPCL unit in Vizag; No casualties (MS30)

Mumbai : Black Fungus: Mah govt provides free treatment, orders 60k Amphotericin B injections (By17)

Chandigarh: Sukhbir asks CM to make allocation for purchase of vaccines worth Rs 1,000 cr (DR38)

Mumbai : Sensex ends weak at 50,637.53 pts (DC15)

Moscow : Irans election watchdog approves seven candidates for upcoming Presidential vote (FN35)

Dubai : 'Too difficult to call a winner': Hadlee on WTC final between India & NZ (SPD4)

UNI JAL JW2014. see more..

VP Naidu greets people on eve of Buddha Purnima 25 May 2021 | 6:48 PM New Delhi, May 25 (UNI) Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday greeted the people on the eve of Buddha Purnima and urged them to celebrate this festival at home and by adhering to COVID health and hygiene protocols. see more..
Who will become the true head of the Republican Party after Donald J. Trump is no longer president?

Though therell be no shortage of people wholl believe themselves deserving of the crown, there is no obvious answer to that question. Because when a party holds the presidency, the guy in the White House is the de facto head of that party. And at the same time, many folks in the opposition party are jockeying for position, looking to become the top dog.

Consider this: When Trump was debating Joe Biden, then the Democratic Partys presidential nominee, the former reality TV star strove to portray the longtime senator and former vice president as someone beholden to the socialist left. Bidens response: I am the Democratic Party.

Though his retort was perhaps a bit inelegant, it was nonetheless accurate.

Biden, an old-school, old-fashioned Democrat, had just won the partys presidential nomination, having vanquished a field of younger candidates, with a great many of them far, far to the left of him politically. Yet primary voters chose the generally moderate Biden.

Its his party now and will be as long as he is president.

When Trump was elected, he quickly took control of the once-Grand Old Party, remaking it in his own chaotic image. Whatever Republicanism had been was gone, replaced by Trumps notions  such as they were.

One imagines some Republicans trying to move forward acting as though Trump never happened, adopting an attitude of, And now, we return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Good luck with that. Even after he has left the White House, Trump will continue to tweet unceasingly, fancying himself kingmaker, and there will surely be plenty in his corner who will listen to him and egg him on.

Therell be other Republicans who will look to claim the mantle of Trumpism, vowing, either explicitly or otherwise, to pick up where The Donald left off. Good luck with that, too. Trumps true believers cherish their man, not some set of ideals.

Whats needed, for the good of the country, is a viable Republican Party that is fully grounded in reality. A center-right party that has an established and clearly articulated set of principles.

Right now, its far easier to hope that such could emerge than it is to imagine how that might happen in the coming post-Trump America.

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Louise Thompson furiously lashed out at an Instagram troll on Thursday evening, after she was accused of not wanting to marry her fiance Ryan Libbey.

The former Made In Chelsea star, 30, took to the image-sharing platform to post a series of throwback snapshots of herself and her beau holidaying in the Maldives as she celebrated the arrival of the New Year.

However, her slew of scenic snaps aboard a boat ignited a barrage of criticism, as she was accused of flouting Tier 4 travel restrictions, as well as just wanting a 'ring' from Ryan  prompting Louise to brand one troll an 'ill-informed a**hole'.

Lashing out: Louise Thompson furiously lashed out at an Instagram troll on Thursday evening, after she was accused of not wanting to marry her fiance Ryan Libbey

Commenting under her post, one person advised that the TV personality 'stick to covid rules instead of flouting them all over Instagram'.

Branding her purported actions 'repulsive', the comment concluded with the cutting words: 'Also hoping you may actually marry Ryan but you clearly just wanted a [ring].'

Using a row of emojis to depict that she found the comment laughable, Louise hit back, writing in a swiftly deleted response: 'Why would I want a ring and not a marriage you ill informed a**hole.'

Marriage was at the forefront of another fan's mind, plainly posing the question: 'When is your wedding?'

Throwback: The former Made In Chelsea star, 30, took to the image-sharing platform to post a series of throwback snapshots of herself and her beau holidaying in the Maldives

Ouch: However, she was accused of flouting Tier 4 travel restrictions, as well as just wanting a 'ring' from Ryan  prompting Louise to brand one troll an 'ill-informed a**hole'

Louise evasively responded: 'Hopefully one day,' adding a series of laughing emjois.

Elsewhere, Louise  who just last week was accused to breaking Tier 4 travel restrictions  faced such charges once again, when a number of her followers believed the Maldives snaps to have been brand new.

'How are you on a gorgeous boat on the sea fishing, when so many others can't even leave the house,' questioned another follower. 'Curious.'

Louise wrote back: 'Just assume (as I'm at home now for the next few months) that there is a chance I might delved into my photo library to post something from the last that conjure up a certain emotion.' [sic]

When another wrote that she was 'freezing [her] balls off for the gram, Louise shot back: 'In the Maldives 3 months ago I don't think so. Those days are over.'

Snaps: Louise  who just last week was accused to breaking Tier 4 travel restrictions  faced such charges once again, when some followers believed the Maldives snaps to be brand new

The brunette beauty had shared a philosophical message about the past 12 months as she posted the images, which included one of her getting a kiss from Ryan.

She wrote: 'New year, same me (but a tiny bit better as I learn from the many mistakes that I will undoubtedly make over the next 12 months). Especially as my only resolution is to keep pushing myself out of my comfort zone.

'Soz ryan. Lets hope youre not stuck with me 24hours a day for the next 365.'

Addressing a photo showing Ryan fishing, Louise added: 'Ps. Ryan accidentally caught a SHARK with that tiny line. We put it back and dined out on a couple of his more fruitful catches - slide 7. It was nil point for me. No beginners luck.'

The star's series of defensive strikes comes after she was accused of breaking Tier 4 restrictions after sharing a snap of herself on Instagram last week Wednesday.

Message: The brunette beauty had shared a philosophical message about the past 12 months as she posted the images from their sunny getaway

Louise shared a post posing in a quiet street and tagged the location as London, but eagle-eyed fans recognised it as in Topsham, Devon which is currently in Tier 2.

The imposed rules state there is a ban on travelling in or out of Tier 4 areas.

Reality star Louise lives in the capital with Ryan, and it is not known whether this photo was taken before the restriction were imposed.

One wrote: 'This looks like outside of @ebbsandflow home in Topsham??', to which Ebbs and Flow replied: 'It is! That's our new signage!'.

Another added: 'Definitely not London', while a third chimed: 'You are soooo not in London like'.

In Devon? Last week Wednesday, Louise was accused of breaking Tier 4 restrictions after sharing a snap of herself on Instagram

Fleeing London? The former MIC star, 30, shared a photo of herself posing in a quiet street and tagged the location as London, but eagle-eyed fans recognised it as in Topsham, Devon

'Have you travelled out of Tier 4', typed another fan. To which a different follower responded: 'She sure has.'

Louise and Ryan have been quiet on Instagram stories after being quizzed about her location in the comment section of her post.

MailOnline contacted Louise's representatives for comment at the time.

It comes after Sage experts revealed the coronavirus R rate in the UK linked to an existing strain of COVID-19 has risen to between 1.1 and 1.3.

The outbreak of the new variant of Covid-19 is spreading fastest in London and the East of England, where the R could be as high as a shocking 1.5, and it is at least one or higher in every region of England except the North East and North West.

Travel ban: Under current rules there is a ban on travelling in or out of tier four areas

'You aren't in London!': One wrote: 'This looks like outside of @ebbsandflow home in Topsham??', to which Ebbs and Flow replied: 'It is! That's our new signage!'

Before Tier 4 was imposed across the capital, Louise had previously spoken about how she was going to spend Christmas with Ryan's family.

The influencer previously admitted she's 'working on her relationship' with fiance Ryan and they still haven't made plans for their wedding following their two-year engagement.

In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, Louise said being in isolation with the hunk hasn't been easy and they've agreed to 'try harder and make the effort to appreciate each other'.

Louise explained: 'At the beginning it wasn't that easy but we've had to make a really conscious effort to make some changes.'
Year 2020 had its own hits and misseshits because we got to lounge and work in our pyjamas and misses because we couldnt meet our friends for major part of the year. However, the one thing that the year taught us is to persevere. No matter how dark the times got, people all around the world looked for little things that brought them and others the much-required joy. Naturally, when the year had to finally draw its curtains, the world unanimously hoped for a better year and a future ahead. So, maybe not in the hottest nightspots of the city or travelling to the Alps, the New Years Eve still saw many celebrations in its own little way. Heres a roundup on how the celebs back home chose to spend their NYE and rang in 2021 into their lives:





Alia Bhatt and Shaheen Bhatt



Image: Instagram



Somewhere between the serenity of the lakes, warmth of the bonfire and a nip in the air of Ranthambore forests, Alia Bhatt chose to toast for the New Years with her family and Ranbir Kapoor. Although being low-key, closer to Mother Nature soiree, and while taking safari rides, Bhatt doesnt cease from setting the right sartorial goals for the year to come!


Local funeral homes are operating near capacity as they struggle to keep up with a high number of deaths in a short time related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Many of Midlands seven funeral homes have recently had 25 to 30 families waiting to bury loved ones at a time, according to Sparky Clark, owner of Willowbrook Funeral Home on Florida Avenue.

Bobby Garcia, co-owner and funeral director at Lewallen-Garcia-Pipkin Funeral Home, said they purchased an additional cooler because of the rise in the number of deaths from COVID-19. Theyre about a week behind on all services, he said.

Were overwhelmed, Garcia said when asked how he and his staff were coping. Were trying to do everything as normally as possible so families can at least have that last chance to see their loved ones.

The delay for services is in part because bodies infected with the coronavirus must be quarantined for three to four days before a viewing can be held. Garcia said they have 11 viewing rooms between their two locations, and they were working on 16 bodies this week.

Midlands four cemeteries are also serving more families than usual, creating an additional delay in when loved ones can be laid to rest.

Those cemeteries only have a certain number of services they can accommodate per day  its a first-come, first-serve, Clark said. We have had families that have had to wait an additional two to three days just because of the cemeteries being packed out as well.

The funeral directors said families have been patient about the wait.

Most families are very understanding because they know the severity of the situation with the pandemic, Clark said. Are they happy about it? Not necessarily, but they understand with the additional deaths that are occurring.

The personal protective equipment staff wear when working on bodies  gloves, masks, gowns and face shields  has stayed the same, but theyre going through equipment more frequently. So far, the directors said theyve been able to order what they need and havent experienced any shortages.

The greatest worry for employees is exposure to the coronavirus, though Garcia said they were able to receive their first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine this week.

Clark said theres always a risk of contracting a communicable disease in their line of work.

We got into this business knowing that we would deal with situations like this, he said. Were well aware of the risk of every day, even outside of a pandemic.

We make sure that we protect ourselves as well as other members of the community with every case, whether it be from COVID or not, because we dont ever know the cause of death until the death certificates signed off on.

There have been reports from California to Wyoming to Ohio of funeral homes overwhelmed by COVID-19 deaths, with funeral directors saying theyre as exhausted as front-line hospital workers.

In Midland County, 185 people have died from COVID-19 complications, and 40 people died from COVID-19 in December alone.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani this week threatened President Trump, saying in a few days, the life of this criminal will end.

Rouhani made the threat in a speech to the Iranian Cabinet, citing the martyred Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was taken out in an airstrike nearly a year ago that was ordered by Trump.

In an English translation posted online by the Iranian government, Rouhani said: In a few days, the life of this criminal will end and he will go to the dustbin of history.

One of the effects of this stupid and disgraceful act, Rouhani said of the airstrike that killed Soleimani, was that Trumpism ended.

We are very happy about this and we believe that the period after Trump will be a better condition for regional and global stability, Rouhani said. As I said after the martyrdom of Martyr Soleimani, I emphasize again that if you cut off Martyr Soleimanis hand, we will cut off your leg from the region and we will continue the resistance until that day, Rouhani said.

Our nation will not give up until they take revenge on his blood as its right, he vowed.

The threat came just days before the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 3 drone strike on Baghdad airport that killed Soleimani, deemed one of the worlds most dangerous terrorists.

Rouhani accused Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of savage assassination, saying Iran wont let them get away and has every right to avenge the blood of their popular commander.

As long as you are in the region, our revenge has yet to be exacted, the Iranian president added.

Trump last month issued his own warning to Iran. Following rocket attacks on the U.S. Baghdad Embassys Green Zone Dec. 19, Trump issued a warning in a Twitter post: Some friendly health advice to Iran, he wrote. If one American is killed, I will hold Iran responsible. Think it over.

The U.S. military is taking steps as the rhetoric heats up.

In precautionary moves, the U.S. moved the aircraft carrier Nimitz and its strike group back into the region this month. As of Tuesday, the Nimitz was off the coast of Somalia to safeguard the withdrawal of U.S. troops, according to U.S. Africa Command. On Thursday, however, the Associated Press reported the carrier was leaving the region, Military.com reported on Thursday.

On Wednesday, two U.S. B-52 Stratofortress bombers flew over the Persian Gulf, avoiding Iranian airspace in a 36-hour show-of-force mission from Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, U.S. Central Command said. It was the third time in six weeks that U.S. B-52s had flown near Iran. We do not seek conflict, but no one should underestimate our ability to defend our forces or to act decisively in response to any attack, Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, said in a statement Wednesday. The U.S. continues to deploy combat-ready capabilities into the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility to deter any potential adversary.

Daily Wire
VINCI Airports and infrastructure fund GIP have committed to funding the next stage of a scheme to upgrade Gatwick's 'standby' northern runway

It would be used alongside Gatwick's existing runway as a so-called 'runway-lite'

Gatwick's shareholders have given the green light to a runway expansion that would add around 90 extra flights per day, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

In recent weeks, the airport's billionaire investors  French giant VINCI Airports and infrastructure fund GIP  have committed to funding the next stage of a scheme to upgrade Gatwick's 'standby' northern runway, currently used as a taxiway and emergency runway, for routine use.

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It would be used alongside Gatwick's existing runway as a so-called 'runway-lite', operating short-haul take-offs by the end of the decade.

Gatwick will now develop the planning application for the project, including environmental surveys, and hopes to launch a public consultation in the summer.

It is understood that if the plan gets the go-ahead, its shareholders would invest hundreds of millions of pounds.

Until the pandemic, Gatwick was the busiest single-runway airport in the world. But its biggest airline customers  BA, easyJet, Norwegian and Virgin Atlantic  have suspended or scaled back flights.

Gatwick expects passenger demand to recover to pre-crisis levels from 2023 and said the northern runway expansion would add 2 billion to the economy and create thousands of jobs.

The scheme is also environmentally sustainable, in line with Gatwick's commitment to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

A spokesman said: 'Progressing our plans now could help us secure the long-term prosperity and jobs in the region for years to come.'
Police in Texas are investigating a string of incidents involving people firing guns on New Year's Eve  one of which police say led to the death of a child.

The Arlington Police Department on Friday detailed multiple incidents of New Year's Eve gunfire on its Facebook page. Two of the incidents ended in fatalities, while a third ended in an exchange of gunfire between suspects and an officer who responded alongside two security guards.

Police have arrested suspects in those three cases, though they're still hunting for a suspect in a fourth case posted late Friday.

I don't ever recall a New Years Eve like this," Arlington police Lt. Christopher Cook told WFAA-TV.

The shootings illustrate a danger that police departments nationwide wanted to avoid. Police in Richmond, Virginia, warned against celebratory gunfire after the death of a 28-year-old woman at the start of 2020. Police in Alabama offered a cash reward for tips that lead to the arrest and conviction of people who fired guns into the air.

Even the Arlington Police Department posted a warning on Dec. 31, saying celebratory gunfire is, "illegal and you can be charged with a crime. It can also seriously hurt somebody."

Body-camera video released: Minneapolis police involved in first fatality since George Floyd

The first incident in Arlington happened shortly after midnight. Police were called to an apartment after someone heard a gunshot, according to an arrest warrant affidavit provided to USA TODAY. Police didn't find anyone inside the apartment, but found blood.

Eventually, a car that matched the description of one that left the area after the shooting returned to the scene, and police questioned the two people inside the car.

One the of two, 21-year-old Zantyler Hooks, admitted to shooting the 4-year-old victim, identified by police as Messiah Taplin, according to the report. Hooks told police he was watching rap videos with Messiah and he was mimicking the video while holding the gun, which he thought was unloaded, according to the affidavit.

Story continues

The gun went off and the child was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Hooks was arrested on a manslaughter charge.

'Historic' first: San Francisco ex-cop charged with on-duty homicide of Black man

The second incident also happened shortly after midnight on New Year's. Police were called to a residence and found a woman on the back patio with a gun next to her, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. Detectives spoke with relatives of the woman, identified as Blanca Guerra, who said they received phone calls from Mario Alanis, 34.

In the phone calls, he told the relatives he accidentally shot Guerra, according to the affidavit.

Alanis told another person, whose name is redacted in the affidavit provided to USA TODAY, he tried to fire his gun into the air after midnight. He threw the gun on the ground when it didn't fire, then it when off when he attempted to reload it, striking Guerra, according to the affidavit.

Alanis was also arrested on a manslaughter charge.

California authorities: COVID-19 patient fatally beats hospital roommate with oxygen tank after he 'started to pray'

"You will always run to some fireworks calls," Cook told WFAA-TV. "Youll run to some shots-fired calls. But typically, what we worry about is intoxication manslaughter cases and fatality crashes. Weve never, to my knowledge, dealt with this many shootings and certainly, (ones) of this magnitude, in such a short amount of time.

Gunshots also rang out at an apartment complex where an Arlington police officer and two security guards were looking at security footage for an "unrelated case," the police department said in a press release.

"As the officer and security guards went to investigate the shots, it is believed a suspect fired multiple rounds in the direction of the officer and security guards," police said in a statement.

One of the security guards sustained a "minor injury," according to police. The guards and the officer all returned fire, but "it is not believed that any rounds from the security guards or the officers struck any persons," police said.

The suspects, who police believe were at the apartment complex "to fire celebratory gunshots into the air for New Years Eve," left the scene in a white car, which was later located with three men inside, according to a press release. The three men  Felix Barrientos, 31; Juan Magallanes, 28; David Garcia, 24  were all arrested on various charges.

Police are still looking for a fourth suspect, as well as the rifle used in the incident.

No one was injured in a final incident posted late Friday. A bullet from what police are calling "presumed 'celebratory gunfire'" struck the window of a 6-year-old's room while the child slept.

"Thankfully the child was not injured!" the Arlington Police Department posted on Facebook.

Contributing: The Associated Press; Brad Harper, Montgomery Advertiser.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Texas police investigating New Year's Eve gunfire that left child dead
The scorching sun and strong cold wind have formed marks on the miners skin; their faces plastered with red sand blowing in the harmattan air. Despite being exposed to the dry air and cold, as most tin mining sites are located around mountain tops, the dauntless miners gather in groups without footwear to look for their daily bread.

Despite the harmattan, which had already set in by October, Mama Ladi and her grandchildren are undeterred. Ladi Pam, popularly called Mama Ladi, is over 60. An indigene of Barkin Ladi, she resides in Sabon Layi, with her five children and 21 grandchildren.

Although a tin mining site was only discovered in this community a few years ago, Mama Ladi has, for over 35 years, mined tin ore with other women at different locations in the area. She has depended on the sales of this solid mineral for her daily upkeep for years, as her husband is old and weak and her sons out of jobs.

When she met this reporter in October 2020 at Sabon Layi Tin mining site, she and her grandchildren had already gathered a small portion of washed tin ore with the hope of moving them to the tin shade for sale. She uses the proceeds to purchase items such as school books, soap, cream and clothes for the family.

This is my purpose here on earth and God will judge me faithful. One day when all my strength goes away, my sons will take care of me as I did them, she said happily with an aura on contentment.

Sabon Layi, in Barkin Ladi, Barkin Ladi Local Government Area of Plateau State, has over five tin shades spread across different communities for miners to sell their extracts.

While Mama Ladi and tens of others operate at Sabon Layi, a large number of artisanal miners fend in other areas such as Kuwait, Bagin bingiga, Zat and Maiyanga. Of these areas, Sabon Layi has more miners on-site as tin deposits were recently discovered in the location and like a wave, the miners usually migrate to the new one.

The process of mining is majorly done with local appliances and involves many hands. Once the miners have successfully charted a ring for themselves after moving to a new site, they go and settle the landowners with the sum of N50,000.

Charting a ring or hole in mining means acquiring a space to mine.

In such a situation, the viability of a site determines the number of rings found, as one is likely to find about 10 rings in a plot of land. The amount paid is to seek permission from the landowner to mine the land, the government plays little or no role here.

Sometimes, the money is contributed by between two to eight persons, depending on their financial strength; other times, only one does. When multiple people come together to do this, the gains are shared among the sponsors once the extraction process is over.

Although women function prominently in this process  identifying viable sites, paying off landowners, mining, washing etc.  they are seen mostly in the menial, less capital intensive parts of the process. They are mostly involved as rollers, pan carriers, washers and food providers.

Tin is widely used for plating plating steel cans used as food containers, in metals used for bearings, and in solder. Tin-plating of iron protects it from corrosion.

Ruth Ezekiel, one of the artisanal miners in Sabon Layi, said it is very hard to find women who sponsor men to mine. Ruth has been an artisanal miner since 2015 and joins other women in mining on site.

Some women are also afraid to sponsor because, at the end of the day, the men cheat them by taking higher portions, Ms Ezekiel noted.

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On a typical tin mining site, the currency used for purchase is tin. For the women that wind the wheel, they are rewarded based on the number of turners pulled out. For instance, if they mill out 10 turners, they share one turner. If they mill out 30 turners, 10 of them will share three turners.

If the holes mined in a week contain enough tin deposits, a woman can make between N30,000 and N50,000, an average of N5,000 to N10,000 per day. Most female miners who spoke to this reporter said they use these funds, which is not always that much some times, to meet domestic needs, making it difficult for them to save enough to sponsor mining holes.

Glory, an indigene of Ebonyi State, who recently joined the miners due to economic hardship, is one of those that would never dream of sponsoring a mining hole no matter how much she wishes to. She has been earning N1,000, or less per week in recent time.

In 2018, her husbands provision shop was burgled, leaving them with nothing. So she decided to combine mining with other menial jobs like tending to pigs and harvesting farm produce during harvest seasons for local farmers.

It has not been easy for me as a woman, sometimes the other women pity me and give me small portions of their tin, then I go and sell for N300 or N400, in a week I make between N800 and N1,000.

Tedious mining done by women

Every stage of the tin mining process is as strenuous as the digging itself. After charting a hole and settling the landowner, the diggers begin their journey into the thick, dirty and muddy sands, ignoring the possibility of a hole crash. They dig to almost 60 feet until they locate tin deposits. This process could last up to two weeks.

As they dig wide enough for only one man, they put the sand in the turner, the women mill the turner out and drop it back into the hole. These women identify themselves as members of that mining group.

Another group of women bring food for the labourers to quench their thirst and hunger. They also attach themselves to that group until the process is over when they can receive their shares. After digging is over, the heaps of yellowish sands are stored for the next day when washing commences, using a long pipe connected to the stream and pumped by a generator.

They use the shovel to wash by turning the yellowish sands over and over. During this process, the tin ore, which is heavier than sand, separates itself at the bottom. The washers are in three levels; the first at the top washing and separating the tin from sand, there is a higher concentration of tin here; then the remaining flows down to the second and the third washers; after which you get to the bottom, where you find the women who had served meals or helped in transporting the sands scurrying for leftovers, like Mama Ladi, her grandchildren, and Glory.

If God blesses your hole, one day you can carry N1 million to your house, noted Emmanuel Chung, one of the sponsors who had come to supervise the work. He added that since women earn very little money on-site, they cannot afford the amount needed to pay for sponsoring a rig; men do that instead.

A sponsor in the tin mining vocabulary in Sabon Layi is one who invests capital to employ other miners to extract tin. He or she bears the burden of feeding the miners, renting mining tools, and facilitates the entire process from start to finish, including transportation.

Being a sponsor, Mr Chung is not involved in any of the dirty jobs, he only supervises, retrieves the end product once done and pays. Most people who do this at the mining sites visited are males. On the other hand, females constitute the majority of the workers on the ground.

For instance, at Sabon Layi mining site, out of 109 miners, 53 of them were women, 47 men, and nine children.

Mr Chung said it takes a lot to become a sponsor. After you get a pass as a sponsor, you need to hire able-bodied people who can dig and wash. You need to provide all the equipment they need, and food of course and make sure you settle them well after everything.

Although they wish they could, most females involved in mining do not have the financial wherewithal to become sponsors.

Some men helping women miners

PREMIUM TIMES visited two tin shades in Barkin Ladi where tin mining transactions take place. A typical tin shade in Sabon Layi has machines, such as separators, which filter tin from columbite, iron and sand, and measuring scales for weighing the quantity of tin. Buyers and sellers of tin assemble here to transact business.

After the women arrive from the mining site, they dry the mined tin on a cemented floor and take it to the separator. This consists of about five nozzles where the solid minerals extracted alongside tin are filtered out into different pans.

Once the separation is over, they take the tin to the scale for measurement. Half a scale of tin costs N1,000, one scale (1 pound) costs N2,000 and a bag (70 pounds) costs N140,000.

The manager of FKJ Mineral Resources tin shade, who simply gave his name as Samson, said his clients are mostly men.

Sometimes the women bring between 1  10 pounds and earn between N5,000 to N10,000 while the men bring like a half or one bag and earn between N70,000 and N140,000.

From what was earlier gathered, what women bring to the shade most times are proceeds from their labour as they are usually paid in the mineral rather than money.

The situation is the same at Hamdan Kasiran tin shade. Iliya Kasiran, the manager said, our major clients are men, we only support women.

Mr Kasiran noted that the only support his company gives to women is by providing interest-free loans for them to be able to sponsor tin holes so that the goods can be brought to their tin sheds.

But this support is not much because women are yet to be fully integrated into the sector, most of them are unskilled labourers, he said.

Mr Samson at FJK reinforced Iliyas submission. He said that his company gives women money to go to the mining sites and buy tin where it is less expensive.

When they buy from there, they bring it back to us, we take out our cut and pay them for whatever is left, that is how they make their gain.

He, however, noted that this category of women is different from the rollers, pan carriers and washers on site; saying they are more advanced.

Favourable tin business for advanced women

This reporter observed that while a large number of women profit less from doing labour, especially the unskilled ones, others on the top side of the chain benefit from the business. The category of women that provide auxiliary services earn less, they are mainly illiterate and are employed as labourers, ore carriers, washers, panniers, and they help crush fragmented big boulders into smaller aggregates or provide goods and services.

Whereas women with means and knowledge about the business, although only a few, sponsor different holes and make profits from buying and selling.

One of them is Esther Yakubu. Ms Yakubu has been sponsoring, buying and selling tin over the last two years when she first ventured into the business. When she first started in 2018, she had only N10,000 and had to get a loan from FJK company where she works. Ever since then, she has been able to carry out enough businesses. Through this, she has been able to buy a piece of land and train herself through school.

Ms Yakubu said there are other women who collect loans from FJK company and sponsor sites like her, but their numbers cannot be compared to that of men. She was quick to say that the business is profitable and favourable to all, irrespective of gender.

Yes, it is a profitable business, whether as a woman or as a man, for me it has been profitable. I was able to buy a piece of land and trained myself through school from the buying and selling tin. I have a lot of customers who call me every time.

Although there is no association of sponsors in Barkin Ladi, Ms Yakubu said there is likely to be only eight women out of every 20 sponsors, even as she insisted that the profession has no respect for gender.

It is favourable for both men and women, there is no discrimination, strictly business. If you know the business as a woman, you will make money. All you have to do is to be diplomatic with people. In fact, sometimes the labourers prefer working with women, because when things get tough, if its man-to-man, it may lead to fighting, but with a woman that is less likely to happen, she added.

Just like Emmanuel Chung, Ms Yakubu does not have a license but works as a staff of FJK company, a tin shade.

As long as the job keeps coming, I am not planning to leave this business anytime soon. I am having plans of growing big, eventually have my own tin shade where I can process my material. I dont have to go to someone company and process. I have an uncle who wants to open a tin shade for me to manage.

Ms Yakubu said the risks involved in the business discourages other women from growing big.

I lost about N400,000 recently because there were not enough tin deposits in the hole the miners dug, for some other women, this will be too much to bear, she said.

I have plans to help other women. Just like when I started, someone was there to lift me up, so when I find myself in that position I will definitely have to help, especially for those women who are interested in learning.

A mining sector catering for women possible

Although there is a critical lack of data, women are believed to account for up to 30 per cent of the global artisanal mining workforce and up to 50 per cent in Africa. For instance, at Sabon Layi mining site in Barkin Ladi Plateau State, during a random headcount by this reporter, the number of women seen were 57, children nine and men, 43. In Benue State where baryte is mined, all 25 miners belonging to the Benue state Miners Association are males, no female.

According to a study conducted by the International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology Studies (2020), the risks and hazards involved in artisanal mining have a chance of dissuading females from active participation in the job.

Female participants largely work in the washing of the ore and transportation. This may imply that male miners in the study area are more available to effectively take crucial decisions, especially on mining activities.

Mining is supposed to be an activity done by everybody but if you understand it is a very physical activity, so that is why you find men more into it than women, noted Kabiru Mohammed.

Mr Mohammed is the president of Nigeria Miners Association. He noted that lack of technology, awareness, education and finance prevents many people, including women, from participating and even registering with the association.

Mining is capital intensive, you dont just go there and say let me go and bring money, you have to use the money to bring out the money. It is capital intensive, if you put in your money, you make money, he said.

For instance, a single excavator costs about N100 million, we are not talking about other machines such as bulldozer, caterpillar, tipper, and the rest. Before you become a full-scale miner, you can imagine how much money you need to invest. Mining is not just by getting a hole and a digger and you say you are mining, it takes a lot.

He said over 80 per cent of those in mining are small scale and artisanal miners who are looking for their daily earnings to handle domestic problems, not those who are really into real mining.

This view is shared with Emmanuel Azaka, the Chairperson of Benue State chapter of the miners association.

The 25 mines in Benue are owned by men. We had two women among us before, but one of them is dead and another left, but she was a pioneer.

Women do not have an interest in mining and you cant force them to. Some of them are well-to-do but have no interest in mining, he said.

Emily Achor-Offodile, Secretary of Women in Mining in Nigeria, shares the opinion that mining is a capital intensive venture and involves lots of technicalities which require external support. These supports do not come in handy for women, bearing in mind the African tradition that limits women from taking up tedious jobs such as mining.

We have women in Osun State who took a loan but with COVID-19, they have not been able to work and pay off the loan. They have used the capital to feed their families during the lockdown, so when they will eventually resume, how do they raise the capital back? she asked.

The Women in Mining in Nigeria (WIMIN) was established in 2006 to protect the rights of all groups of women affected by mining operations and progress the employment, retention and professional development of women who are often left out in all negotiations relating to mining.

According to Mrs Achor-Offodile, access to data continues to be a limitation to tackling the representation of women in mining.

There is no data relating to women in mining as a federation currently available due to lack of access to funding. The government only identifies with them when they form cooperatives, she said.

Support for this report was provided by the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ) and is made possible through funding support from Ford Foundation.
I created Afro Yoga Allies for non-Black people who genuinely care about achieving racial justice and equity, particularly in the wellness industry,

Afro Yoga, an emerging wellness and education nonprofit that provides yoga and wellness instruction for everyone by supporting equity, diversity, and inclusion in the wellness industry, announced the launch of Afro Yoga Allies. Afro Yoga Allies is a sister platform to Afro Yoga. Its objective is to link non-Black allies with BIPOC to glean anti-racism education and build racial equity in the wellness industry through direct investment in the wellness of BIPOC communities.

With today's announcement, Afro Yoga Allies is also announcing its first round of funding scheduled for January 15, where five aspiring teachers will receive scholarships to complete yoga and wellness courses and training. Both the member allies and the Afro Yoga leadership team will collaborate through a digital community where all content is led, reviewed, and approved by BIPOC. The portal is the source of all profits from the work of allies, directly investing to benefit yoga teachers applying for the Afro Yoga Community Fund. (501c3).

"I created Afro Yoga Allies for non-Black people who genuinely care about achieving racial justice and equality, particularly in the wellness industry, to work with us," said Angela Franklin, the founder and executive director of Afro Yoga and Afro Yoga Allies. "Our allies are real change agents; people who are committing to improving racial justice by making their businesses more inclusive and welcoming and helping build funds for students learning to become yoga teachers."

Since 2017, Ms. Franklin has sought to intersect where wellness and social justice meet by leading racial equity and community building training for companies and organizations including Lululemon, UC-Davis and many other universities, nonprofit organizations, and people to advance her work. For four years, Afro Yoga has become an innovative organization for others to learn Kemetic yoga whose origin lies in Ancient Egypt and become educated on racial and social justice, as well as to create safe places for BIPOC to practice yoga.

"It is past time for acknowledging the colonial behaviors embedded in our way of being and living and the impact this has on the yoga industry. Our Afro Yoga Allies program is an important way for the yoga industry, and health and wellness can address it," said Ms. Franklin.

About Afro Yoga: Afro Yoga, is a wellness movement comprised of Kemetic Yoga, racial justice education, community engagement and optimal health that is revolutionizing the wellness industry. To learn more visit https//:afroyoga.org/allies

and follow on IG: @afroyogabyangie.
As holiday gatherings came to a close, South Carolina hospitals were caring for nearly 2,000 COVID-19 patients.

On Saturday, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control released the first coronavirus data of the year, showing that 1,994 coronavirus patients were hospitalized statewide as of Friday night.

The latest numbers also include 84 more confirmed deaths, raising the tally toward 5,000 South Carolinians who've died with the virus since the pandemic began.

New cases reported: 4,219, which is 2,570 percent higher than the 158 tallied on March 31, the day Gov. Henry McMaster ordered nonessential businesses to close.

Total cases in S.C.: 283,424, plus 24,942 probable cases

New deaths reported: 84

Total deaths in S.C.: 4,968 confirmed, 317 probable

Total tests in S.C.: 3,703,632

Hospitalized patients: 1,994

Percent of positive tests, 7-day average: 29.7 percent. Five percent of tests or fewer returning positive results is a good sign the virus' spread is slowing, researchers say.

Hardest-hit areas

The top South Carolina counties for new coronavirus cases reported Saturday were Greenville, 846; York, 397; and Pickens, 258.

Sign up for our new health newsletter The best of health, hospital and science coverage in South Carolina, delivered to your inbox weekly. Email

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What about tri-county?

Charleston County had 180 new cases; Berkeley, 75; and Dorchester, 103.

Deaths

Thirteen of the 84 deaths reported Saturday were patients aged 35 to 64, and the rest were 65 and older.

They lived in Aiken, Anderson, Beaufort, Berkeley, Cherokee, Colleton, Darlington, Dillon, Dorchester, Florence, Georgetown, Greenville, Greenwood, Horry, Kershaw, Lancaster, Laurens, Lexington, Marion, Marlboro, Newberry, Orangeburg, Pickens, Richland, Spartanburg, Union and York counties.

Hospitalizations

Of the 1,994 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 on Saturday, 413 were in intensive care and 214 were on ventilators.

What do experts say?

Authorities continue to urge South Carolinians to take precautions, such as wearing masks or other face coverings, social distancing and frequently washing hands.

They also urge anyone who believes theyve been exposed to the virus or who is developing symptoms to get tested. Those out in the community or not able to socially distance should get tested monthly, DHEC advised.

Go to scdhec.gov/findatest to find a testing site in your area.
Source: Reuters

Members of the OPEC group of oil producers and their partners will meet via videoconference on Monday to decide on production levels for February, hoping to turn the corner on a difficult year.

The OPEC+ ministerial meeting comes after oil consumption tanked in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Despite a pick up in prices towards the end of last year, the market levels for black gold remain uncertain.

After their last summit, from November 30-December 3, the OPEC+ members agreed to increase production by half a million barrels per day in January.

Also at that meeting the 13 members of the OPEC cartel, led by Saudi Arabia, and their six allies, led by Russia, agreed to meet at the beginning of each month in order to decide on any adjustments to production volumes for the following month.

Russia and Saudi Arabia are respectively the second and third biggest oil producers in the world after the United States.

The decision illustrates OPEC's desire to maintain a strong influence on the oil market and the gravity of the situation for crude producers last year.

'Remaining demand uncertainty'

Before the pandemic, OPEC members were content with two summits per year at the organisation's headquarters in Vienna.

"Finally, we saw a strong demonstration of OPEC+ will and capability to manage the market, laying the groundwork for Brent's recovery to over $50 per barrel despite remaining demand uncertainty in the market," JBC Energy analysts said in a statement.

The two contracts of reference, North Sea Brent Crude and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude both ended the week around the $50 per barrel level, far lower than the prices seen at the start of 2020 but well up on the lows seen last year.

In March, Moscow and Riyadh embarked on a brief but intense oil price war which led prices to plummet.

On April 20, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude collapsed to minus $40.32 per barrel -- meaning producers paid buyers to take the oil off their hands.

The climate between the two oil giants has eased since then, with the Russian and Saudi energy ministers meeting in mid-December in a display of unity.

It remains difficult, however, to predict the evolution in demand as governments begin rolling out vaccination programmes against the coronavirus.

Last month OPEC predicted a slight rebound in the market while noting continued uncertainties, particularly in the transport sector.

Despite the heft of the OPEC+ countries, countries outside the system have a major impact on the oil market; principally the United States which is still producing 11 million barrels of crude per day.

Even within its ranks, OPEC will have to pay attention to developments in the three members which have been granted exemptions from quotas -- Libya, Iran and Venezuela.

Libya's production had been almost wiped out by civil conflict but has spiked since October after the signing of a ceasefire deal.
When thinking about this column space over those doldrum days between December 26 and now, few things came to mind. Who wants to read any more reflections on 2020? Who needs another Covid column? And what could anyone possibly say about 2021?

This is not an ordinary new year or New Year's Day, and 2020 was no ordinary year.

But my Instagram feed still filled up with images of all sorts. There were photos of worn-out runners alongside the thousands, yes thousands, of kilometres walked in them.

There were photos of Covid babies and house keys, and lots and lots of pictures of people either getting into the sea, in the sea or getting out of the sea.

There were posts about better times to come  the hope that everyone in Ireland will have been offered the vaccine for Covid-19 by this August. Yes this August, because we are now in 2021.

There were posts about the types of questions one might ask themselves as one year ends and another begins. Some questions include: what are you leaving behind in 2020 and what are you taking with you?

I've yet to answer either of those questions for myself.

Away from Instagram and in the private world of text messages, a dear friend admitted that a part of her did not want to let go of 2020.

It was the year in which her beloved mother was still alive, but 2021 would be the year her mother never got to see.

In the midst of public grief, there is personal grief.

In WhatsApp there were memes and messages gladly wishing 2020 farewell, but not so many about welcoming 2021.

In newspaper columns in other countries there were lessons learnt about collapsed sourdough starters and pithy philosophies on a year spent watching television that ranged from the bizarre Tiger King to the culture-shifting Normal People.

And then in the chasm between the comedic farewell to one year and the tragic welcoming of another, there is an air of something no one can quite name, perhaps doesn't want to name.

Apprehension.

Apprehension as we enter the unknown, an abyss between how we used to live and how we will live post-pandemic. Apprehension as we exit a year where everything we believed was certain and solid and unchangeable became uncertain.

Would my dad make it through chemo without catching Covid-19?

How much longer will I have to be a parent and a teacher for?

Will the schools reopen?

Can I catch Covid from a takeaway?

How long does Covid live on surfaces?

Will my workplace close down under the new restrictions?

Will my new baby's first glimpse of me be me wearing a mask?

Can we sneak 11 into the church for the funeral of a woman who gave birth to 10?

We are in an abyss, still. We are in an unknown. We are in uncertainty. And the human brain hates ambiguity.

Us humans like facts and stats and certainty. We love control. Not this.

We are in a void.

In April 2020, the novelist Arundhati Roy wrote a confronting piece for the Financial Times. It was neither doom-filled nor utterly optimistic.

It was called 'The Pandemic is a Portal'.

It was kind of along the same lines as what President Michael D Higgins was saying about using the pandemic to reset our society.

Roy said the coronavirus had "made the mighty kneel" and "brought the world to a halt like nothing else could".

She said we longed for a return to "normality"; that we were attempting to "stitch our future to our past" without really acknowledging the "rupture".

The rupture is our seam come undone. The rupture is a tectonic, irreversible shift in how we do things around here. The rupture can be repaired, but the repair cannot return our world back to us as it was.

In the repairing of this rupture, we have "a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves", said Roy.

We should not desire to return to rat races or whole days of a week spent on commuter belts. We should not long to continue to miss bath time and bedtime five nights a week.

We should not desire to return to a world in which the housing market is a private entity where families are evicted indiscriminately. We shouldn't long for a return to a society where double jobbing and nixers and side hustles are needed to make ends meet.

"Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next," wrote Roy.

After months of uncertainty, the solid certainty of crossing from one calendar year to another reminds us of the unknown we are living in  we're neither back to normal nor are we living in a post-pandemic world.

Last Tuesday, in its last media briefing of 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) experts warned that, even though the pandemic has been very severe, it is not necessarily the big one.

The planet is fragile. We live in an increasingly complex global society. These threats will continue. If there is one thing we need to take from this pandemic, with all of the tragedy and loss, [it] is [that] we need to get our act together. We need to honor those weve lost by getting better at what we do every day," said WHO's Dr Mike Ryan.

This shouldn't scare us into paralysed powerlessness. This should inspire us into empowered action. The world has made changes before.

Back in March 2020, President Higgins called all of this.

What is going to emerge globally, is that there is an unanswerable case now, both globally and regionally in the European Union, for having universal basic services.

That is a flow of basic services that will be there to protect us in the future, from which we can depart to be able to live, for people to have a sufficiency for what they need. This is what happened after the war; this is what happened after the Great Recession in 1929," he said.

Despite the start of a new year and the end of an old one we are in a void  neither back in our old world nor in our new one.

And from that void we can be paralysed by uncertainty or we can emerge with new ideas.
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Aspen, CO (81611)

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Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low 43F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph..

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TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

Indian Fathima fought for years to get her son from her cheating husband and his girlfriend. However, when she finally managed to, it was along with many legal tangles related to her sons nationality.

Yet, despite the adversities, she kept her battle alive to save her son. Finally, her ordeal came to a successful conclusion last Thursday.

Fathima secured an out pass from the Indian Embassy with the help of Sudheer Thirunilath, the Director of Humanitarian Aid, Middle East Region. Thirunilath told The Daily Tribune (TDT), They flew back to a new life this Thursday.

However, reaching this point was not an easy task for Fathima, whose original name is Lilly Kumara Potla. After landing in Bahrain for the first time years ago as a domestic worker, she lost her familys support after converting to Islam and marrying Ahmad Rauf Ali, an Indian citizen.

According to her, they got married with the blessings of a Sheikh, but failed to register the marriage. However, life went on smooth until she became pregnant. Things went awry with the birth of our first child, Fathima told TDT.

Her husband complicated the things further by writing just Fathima in hospital records instead of her legal name. Finally, the hospital refused to record the child as mine, Fathima said.

The worst was yet to come. A few months back, her husband asked Fathima to return to India to correct her legal status. I should not have done that, she admitted. I trusted him to take care of the child, but that never happened. He never bothered to bring me back and started living with another woman.

Fathima tried frantically to get her child back, but with no success. In between, justice took its course, with Ahmad landing in jail for kidnapping a woman. The court gave him a short jail term, but a jailbreak attempt increased that to 17 years.

Compounding her agony, Fathima also failed to find where her kid was, as Ahmads girlfriend was not ready to hand the child over. When asked, the other woman claimed that she had sent him to India.

Things then took a different turn when the girlfriend suffered a massive heart attack. During her final moments, the woman revealed to Fathima that the child was with her new boyfriend.

Finally, the boy was reunited with his mother. For the long three years, she tortured my kid.

The other mother used to beat me, burned my body and hit me every day, the nine-year-old recalled with tears in his eyes. However, without a legal document to prove her marriage, her son remained stateless. Without access to legal protection, education, health care, it was a vulnerable position. Fathima continued to knock doors. That ordeal came to an end this Thursday. With the help of Mr Thirunilath, Lilly Kumara Potla and her son Shareef Ahmad Mohammed flew back to India.

Earlier this year, Ahmad also got his life back through a royal pardon and returned to India in March 2020. However, before leaving he signed an affidavit authorising Lilly Kumara Potla to personally accompany her son from Bahrain to India.

Mr Thirunilath told TDT that the boy born in 2010 remained stateless until then, as there were no legal documents to prove his parents marriage. We arranged all the necessary documents, with the help of the Indian Embassy. The Embassy also issued a legal out pass to facilitate his travel to India. The child travelled to Hyderabad and will join his father there. They boarded a flight to Hyderabad Thursday.
A federal judge threw out Texas Republican Representative Louie Gohmert's suit against Mike Pence to overturn the presidential election amid the formal count of votes next week.

A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit

Jeremy Kernodle, Texas U.S. District Judge, and a Trump appointee dismissed the lawsuit Friday, ruling the plaintiffs fell short of 'standing,' as per Daily Mail via MSN. Kernodle also alleged 'an injury to the vice president, which is not fairly traceable.'

Arizona's slate of GOP 'alternate' electors and Gohmert sued Pence, so Gohmert could expand his powers to solely determine the Electoral College votes to count when he presides the January 6 session of Congress.

Pence has mostly a ceremonial role in the next week's proceedings, Daily Mail reported. Gohmert argued in a new filing on Friday afternoon that Pence is more powerful than an 'envelope-opener in chief.'

On the filing, Gohmert wrote, "Under the Constitution, he has the authority to conduct that proceeding as he sees fit."

Read also: US Congress Overrides Trump's Veto of NDAA

Pence will preside over the vote certification

According to the Financial Times, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected two cases. However, the assaults, and unsubstantiated claims of fraud, have failed to reverse President-elect Joe Biden's victory and undermine the faith in the electoral system.

The election result was announced days after the vote-counting, which took longer than the recent polls due to the significant number of postal ballots cast due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Gohmert's case allows Pence to reject electoral college votes on January 6 when they are approved by Congress, as per the BBC News.

Pence will preside over the vote certification in Congress in a ceremonial role involving opening and tallying the envelope containing college votes. Gohmert's suit aims to expand Pence's role allowing him to cast judgment on the votes' validity.

However, Judge Kernodle, appointed to the Texas court, rejected the case, saying it was based on speculative incidents. A U.S. Justice Department lawyer representing Pence urged Gohmert to dismiss the suit. On Thursday, the representative suggests that it was not the vice-president's office to scrutinize the outcome.

Most Republicans in Congress are expected to vote in favor of the results' certification. But their vote will not likely change the outcome. On January 20, Biden is due to be sworn in as the United States president at a scaled-back ceremony with 1,000 tickets only to imply the COVID-19 precautions.

Votes are allotted to the District of Columbia and states that the electoral college system says based on their congressional representation. The Guardian reported that some Republicans said they plan to object to the presidential electors' count next week in Congress.

A lengthy debate in the Senate could be triggered but has no chance of overturning the results. Pence's filing said, "The Senate and the House, not the vice president, have legal interests that are sufficiently adverse to plaintiffs to ground a case or controversy."

Read also: US Vice President Mike Pence Gets COVID-19 Vaccine Shot on Live TV

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Portland police on Saturday identified four of the five suspects they arrested a day earlier after an armed robbery at a Northeast Portland marijuana dispensary led to a high-speed chase and lockdown in the Hollywood neighborhood.

Police said they had arrested Daniel Mugisha, 20, of Portland; Abdi Guhad, 18, of Portland; Sammy Bulambo, 22, of an unidentified location; Dan Gajhabukha, 19, of Portland; and a 17-year-old juvenile. Each of them are accused of first- and second-degree robbery and were booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center  except for the juvenile, who was booked at the Donald E. Long Juvenile Detention Center.

The incident began about 1:45 p.m. Friday, when officers were called to a marijuana dispensary in the 2800 block of Northeast Sandy Boulevard where multiple teens with guns were reported to have carried out a robbery, officials said.

Emergency dispatchers broadcast a description of the getaway vehicle and, at 2 p.m., an officer located a vehicle matching that description near Northeast 99th Avenue and Prescott Street. The officer attempted to stop the vehicle, but the driver did not pull over, and the officer initiated a pursuit.

The driver traveled onto Interstate 84 westbound and traveled at speeds estimated to be as fast as 100 miles per hour, according to police. The driver exited the highway at Northeast 43rd Avenue, and the suspects jumped out of the vehicle and ran, police said.

Officers arrested two suspects, but three initially remained at large. Police established a perimeter in the Hollywood neighborhood and asked neighbors within it to stay where they were and lock their doors. By about 5:30 p.m., the lockdown had been lifted and the five suspects detained.

Police said they had located a .22-caliber handgun they believe was used in the robbery.

 Rob Davis

rdavis@oregonian.com

503.294.7657; @robwdavis

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A medical worker tests novel coronavirus samples in a lab in HCMC, April 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran.

A Vietnamese woman returning home from Britain has been found to be infected with the new, more contagious coronavirus strain.

She was among a group 305 passengers returning to Vietnam by Vietnam Airlines flight VN50 that landed in Can Tho on December 22.

On arrival, they were sent to quarantine facilities in Can Tho and the nearby provinces of Vinh Long and Tra Vinh and HCMC.

On testing two days later six of them were found to have Covid-19, four in Vinh Long and two in Tra Vinh.

The infected samples were sent to the HCMC Pasteur Institute, Vietnam's leading epidemiology facility, for genetic sequencing, and it confirmed that one of the patients, a 44-year-old woman, was infected with the SARS-CoV-2 VOC 202012/01 (Variant of Concern, year 2020, month 12, variant 01) first found in Britain and said to be 70 percent more transmissible than the old one.

The woman, who has had high blood pressure for 10 years, is now in stable condition.

She is undergoing treatment at the Tra Vinh Tuberculosis and Lung Disease Hospital for a sore throat, slight fever and cough but does not have breathing difficulties.

Her husband in the U.K. has also tested positive for novel coronavirus.

Earlier 33 countries reported finding the variant since Britain first reported it on December 8.

Vietnam has had 1,474 cases of Covid-19 and 35 deaths so far and has gone one month without local transmission.
Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain said on Saturday the vaccine against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) will be provided free of cost to residents in the Capital as the day-long Covid-19 vaccination dry run began across the country. Yes, medicines and treatment are being provided for free in Delhi, anyway, Jain said when asked if the vaccine will be provided free of cost in the city, according to news agency ANI.

Yes, medicines and treatment are being provided for free in Delhi, anyway: Delhi Health Minister Satyender Jain on being asked if COVID-19 vaccine will be given free of cost in the state pic.twitter.com/PCMUvYWOTl  ANI (@ANI) January 2, 2021

The Centre, too, has repeatedly stressed that the Covid-19 vaccine will be provided free of cost across India. Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Saturday reiterated this commitment. Not just in Delhi, but it will be free across the country, ANI quoted him as saying.

#WATCH | Not just in Delhi, it will be free across the country: Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on being asked if COVID-19 vaccine will be provided free of cost pic.twitter.com/xuN7gmiF8S  ANI (@ANI) January 2, 2021

India is close to getting its first Covid-19 vaccine, Oxford University-AstraZenecas Covishield, which now requires approval only from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI). Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) will manufacture the vaccine in the country.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

As India is getting closer to getting its maiden Covid-19 vaccine, questions have been raised in some quarters on whether the shot will be provided free of cost. Opposition parties have also repeatedly demanded that the government provide vaccines for free across the country, instead of promising it in only poll-bound states. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had raised eyebrows when it promised free vaccines in Bihar, where the assembly elections took place in three phases in October-November last year.

Saturdays pan-India vaccination dry run follows the two-day exercise in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat and Punjab on December 28 and 29.
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New Delhi: Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) President Syed Sadatullah Husaini called for a peoples movement that promotes peace and communal harmony to counter the growing polarization in the country. Addressing the media at the monthly press conference, he talked about various issues related to the anti-conversion laws, violence against minorities in Madhya Pradesh, farmers agitation, the safety of journalists and the introspection of major events of 2020.

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Asked about reports from UP over harassment of minorities due to newly passed laws on inter-religious marriages, the JIH President said: it is indeed a matter of concern that a project of polarization is being run in the country in which laws are made to create communal division. The situation in Uttar Pradesh is extremely alarming and how things are moving is reminiscent of dictatorial regimes of third world countries. Asked about a recent remark that Hindus are patriotic by nature, Mr. Husaini replied: It is not correct to look at things through a communal prism. There are good and bad people in all communities. Creating a climate of hate and division is very damaging for the country. This discourse of polarization needs to be challenged. Regarding the reported violence against minorities in Madhya Pradesh, the JIH chief said: Our fact-finding teams are on the ground and will be sending us their report shortly. Prima facie information is quite worrying. The people, civil society, social organizations have to join hands and counter this growing polarization with love, tolerance and harmony. Jamaat-e-Islami Hind is trying to do its best to raise public awareness about this growing menace and we want to create a social and public movement against communal hatred and violence.

When asked about the PMs AMU speech and also regarding when the JIH would have face-to-face talks with the government, he replied: The PM says good things but his government and ministers do not practice what he preaches and so his words become irrelevant. A government belongs to all the citizens and not to a particular party or community. Our message and stand on various issues do reach the government and we are open to any dialogue with the government if it seeks us.

Earlier, JIH Vice President Prof.Mohammad Salim Engineer briefed the media on various issues. He talked about various events of 2020, the RSF report on Indias low ranking in terms of the safety of journalists and the Jamaats position about the farm laws and farmers agitation. Secretary of the JIH Shariah Council, Maulana Dr. Raziul Islam Nadvi also addressed the press conference and explained the fatwa of the Council regarding the permissibility of taking the Covid vaccine. He said: The use of any forbidden substance as a medicine is prohibited. However, if an impermissible substance is transformed into something completely different in terms of properties and characteristics, then it may be considered as clean and permissible. Even if the vaccine contains prohibited substances; in case of unavailability of halal vaccines, in dire and emergency situations to protect human life shall become permissible.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 09:20:37|Editor: huaxia

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SAO PAULO, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's COVID-19 death toll totaled 195,411 after 462 more patients died in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health said Friday.

Meanwhile, tests detected 24,605 new cases, bringing its total to 7,700,578.

While Brazil celebrated the New Year without festivities and fireworks amid the ravaging pandemic, local authorities were still struggling to prevent the public from flocking to beaches on New Year's Day.

In Riviera de Sao Lourenco, one of the most exclusive beaches in the southeast state of Sao Paulo, police even threw smoke bombs on the sand to keep beachgoers away.

Brazil has the world's second-highest COVID-19 death toll, after the United States, and the third-largest outbreak, after the United States and India. Enditem
Music Network and Wicklow County Council Arts Office invite County Wicklow residents aged 55 and over to participate in a new shared learning music project with renowned Wicklow quartet Sonamus.

Making Music with Sonamus: the Wicklow Teaching Residency presented by Music Network and Wicklow County Council Arts Office offers participants individual and group tuition on piano, guitar, cello or whistle between January and June 2021.

Tuition is entirely free of charge and instruments will be provided as needed for the duration of the project. Reading music is not essential for participation in this project, and players of all levels are encouraged to apply, even if a little rusty.

People can apply online at musicnetwork.ie, or call programmes administrator Sarah Ledwidge on 083 0162718. Commenting on the announcement, CEO of Music Network Sharon Rollston said: 'We're very pleased to announce this exciting new participatory project Making Music with Sonamus: the Wicklow Teaching Residency in partnership with Wicklow County Council Arts Office. It's designed to provide a quality learning experience which helps people to rediscover their love of playing music, and we're delighted to have Sonamus on board as our ensemble-in-residence to inspire, encourage and share in their music-making journey.' Arts Officer at Wicklow County Council, Jenny Sherwin said: 'This is one of these vital initiatives which will sustain people throughout the winter in creative activities and will increase their contacts safely.'

Benefiting from the combined musical backgrounds of Sonamus members Eamon Sweeney (guitar), Rachel Factor (harpsichord), Annette Cleary (cello) and Tim Doyle (whistles), the tuition programme will offer project participants an opportunity to experience and learn an array of musical styles and techniques. Between January and March 2021, participants will receive up to 10 one-to-one weekly instrumental lessons. Group instrumental lessons will also be held on weekday mornings in April at Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray. The project concludes with three large ensemble sessions also conducted at Mermaid Arts Centre. Please note all lessons will take place either by video call or in person, as public health guidelines dictate. Technical support to enable online learning will be provided to participants if necessary.

Applicants must be aged 55 or over, resident in County Wicklow and have some previous experience on one of the four instruments on offer. Alternatively, experience on a similar instrument will also be considered. Places are limited to 15. Priority will be given on a first-come first-served basis, however additional criteria that will be taken into account for selection include availability of teaching slots, availability of instruments, ability to partake in the full programme and geographical spread throughout the county.

Making Music with Sonamus: the Wicklow Teaching Residency is presented by Music Network and Wicklow County Council Arts Office. Music Network is funded by the Arts Council of Ireland. This initiative is also funded by Creative Ireland and the Government's Resilience and Recovery Plan 2020-2021, and supported by Mermaid Arts Centre.

Wicklow People
US President Donald Trump has extended a suspension on issuing certain work visas and green cards through the end of March, justifying the measure as a means to shore up jobs for US citizens amid the coronavirus pandemic.



Allowing immigrant workers into the country would "pose a risk of displacing and disadvantaging United States workers during the economic recovery following the COVID-19 outbreak," a presidential proclamation released on Thursday said.



Therefore, measures imposed in April and June that significantly restrict legal immigration to the US should remain in place, for now, it said.



The limits are now set to remain in place as president-elect Joe Biden replaces Trump in the White House in January.

The Labor, Homeland Security and State departments are to periodically review whether changes to the measures are necessary.



The orders apply only to aliens who are currently outside the country and do not yet have permission to enter. Those who already have permanent residency are not affected, and there are exceptions for people including spouses and children of US citizens.



The US economy is struggling and the number of people receiving unemployment benefits is now 19.6 million, compared with only about 1.8 million a year ago. A large number of daily new Covid-19 infections gives little hope for a quick recovery.



Whilst the government painted a pessimistic picture to justify the measures in the proclamation, Trump claimed in a video message released on Thursday that the country had weathered the pandemic "dramatically better" economically than experts had predicted.

Source: dpa/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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As India gears up for a coronavirus vaccine, the country is slated to undergo a vaccine dry run today. This is the second dry run in the country. Earlier, on December 28 and 29, four states -- Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Punjab -- conducted the first COVID-19 vaccine dry run.

This development comes a day after a government-appointed panel recommended the approval of Oxford-AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine candidate manufactured by Serum Institute. The Drugs Control Authority of India is yet to give its nod.

Here's all you need to know about the nationwide coronavirus vaccine dry run:

The aim of the dry run is to test the linkages between planning and implementation so that the challenges in the process can be identified. The Co-WIN application, developed to assist in the vaccination drive, will also be tested in this process.

A sample number of beneficiaries will undergo a mock immunisation process. Staff of vaccination centres, a select group of healthcare workers will participate in the mock immunisation drive. Each centre will enrol 25 beneficiaries for the mock drill.

Each state and Union Territory has been asked to conduct the dry run at minimum three session sites in their capitals. Districts situated in difficult terrain and ones that have poor logistical support will also be included in some states.

Each designated vaccine centre will conduct every step of the vaccination process from registering test beneficiaries in Co-WIN database to verifying IDs. The mock drill will include registration, verification, mock vaccination and post-shot observation.

There will be separate entry and exit in model sites that will have a 'three-room set up'. There will be adequate space outside for awareness generation activities, displaying all IEC material and ensuring all protocols are being observed.

"Let us attempt to implement it as a real exercise with attention to the minute detail. Proper coordination will go a long way in building mutual understanding so that the upcoming vaccination drive may proceed without any glitch," said Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan.

Also read: Serum-Oxford's 'Covishield' vaccine gets panel nod for emergency use; DCGI next

Also read: Panel seeks more data for Covaxin; conditional nod to Oxford's Covishield
The primary objective of the dry run is to assess the operational feasibility of using the Co-WIN application in a field environment. The app was specially designed to keep a track of Covid-19 vaccination programme and allow Indian citizens to apply for a Covid-19 vaccine shot

Amid reports of COVID-19 vaccine candidate Covishield being recommended for emergency use authorisation in India, a dry run for COVID-19 vaccination was held across India to test the linkages between planning and implementation, and to identify the challenges.

This was the second dry run this week. On Tuesday, a dry was held in select areas in Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Gujarat.

According to the Union Health Ministry, the objective of the dry run for COVID-19 vaccine introduction is to "assess operational feasibility in the use of Co-WIN application in the field environment, to test the linkages between planning and implementation and to identify the challenges and guide the way forward prior to actual implementation. This is also expected to give confidence to programme managers at various levels".

The Co-WIN app was specially designed to keep a track of COVID-19 vaccination programme and allow Indian citizens to apply for a COVID-19 vaccine shot.

The data gathered in the dry will be used in the planned vaccination of healthcare workers and frontline workers as the initial priority groups. All the healthcare workers from government and private facilities have already been enlisted and their details uploaded as per the Centre's instructions.

The date for actual vaccination will be announced once the DCGI approves Covishield manufactured by Pune-based SII for emergency usage.

The dry run will also equip the state and UT administration in the management of vaccine supply, storage and logistics including cold chain management, the ministry stated.

Another important focus of the dry run will be on the management of any possible adverse events following immunisation (AEFI) at vaccination centres. In addition, adherence and management of infection control practices at the session site, to prevent disease transmission, the ministry said.

The mock drill includes concurrent monitoring and review at the block and district levels and preparation of feedback.

What's a COVID-19 vaccination centre like

The Union health ministry has prepared a detailed checklist and shared with the states and UTs to guide them in the dry run. As per the guidelines, each vaccination centre will be divided into three rooms. The first will be a waiting room, where people will wait for their term to get vaccinated. The second room will be the vaccination room, where the vaccine will be administered. Those who have been vaccinated will then proceed to the observation room where trained personnel will observe them for any side effects for half an hour.

Explaining the procedure, a health official at Dahod in Gujarat where a mock run was held on Saturday, said that a vaccinator verifies the documents of the beneficiaries at the entry gate before sending them to the waiting room. In the waiting room, the vaccinator enters the details of the beneficiaries in the Co-WIN application before sending them to the vaccination room, where they are administered a mock vaccine and explained about various protocols.

Click here for latest updates on COVID-19 Pandemic

From there, they are sent to the observation room for thirty minutes before leaving, the official said.

As part of the mock exercise, user IDs for beneficiaries were created through data feed in the Co-WIN application, using which the beneficiaries were selected and messages sent to them along with the location of the vaccination centre.

The same process will be followed once the actual vaccine becomes available.

According to govt guidelines, each vaccination site will have a separate entry and exit besides this 'three-room set-up' with adequate space outside for awareness generation activities, display all IEC material at these sites and ensure that all SOPs and protocols are being practised at the identified sites in an ideal environment along with vaccination teams to be identified and trained in all aspects.

The dry run also tested the efficacy of the process to select beneficiaries and successfully register them in the Co-WIN app.

Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope said on Saturday that the selection of beneficiaries for the first phase of actual mass vaccination will be modelled on the Election Commission's polling procedure.

"The only exception will be that the person who gets an SMS can only come to receive the shot. "Like a polling booth, a person has to show an identity card before entering a health centre. After verification, the vaccine will be administered, and the person who received the shot will be shifted to the adjacent restroom for observation (for any adverse reaction)," the state health minister said.

He said separate rooms will be earmarked for men and women at health centres.

"The person who is administered COVID-19 vaccine will be monitored by doctors or nurses in these rooms and will be provided medical support in case he or she feels uneasy due to anxiety or any other adverse reaction. Maharashtra is now prepared to carry out (actual) vaccination drive for masses," Tope added.

96,000 vaccinators trained so far

As the vaccine administrators will play an important role in the vaccination process, training of trainers and those who shall administer the vaccine has been taken up across various states.

Around 96,000 vaccinators have been trained for this purpose. A total of 2,360 participants have been trained in the National Training of Trainers and over 57,000 participants trained in district-level training in 719 districts. States are augmenting the state helpline 104 (which shall be used in addition to 1075) for any vaccine/software-related query.

Where is the dry run being held?

According to a previous statement of the health ministry, the activity was proposed to be conducted in all state capitals in at least three session sites.

However, in some states, the drill also includes districts that are situated in difficult terrain/have poor logistical support. In Maharashtra and Kerala, the dry run is being held in other major cities besides the state capitals.

Tamil Nadu: The dry run was held at three centres each in the districts of Chennai, Tiruvallur, Nilgiris, Tirunelveli and five in Coimbatore. "An initial learning was that the room earmarked for vaccination should be more spacious," Tamil Nadu Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan told reporters, adding officials from the WHO and UNICEF also witnessed the drive.

Quoting initial inputs, he said the dry run, involving about 2,000 personnel and 510 participants, showed overall satisfactory results, adding that the focus of the exercise was preparation and planning for the proposed roll-out of thev accination. The mobile application and other processes, including identification of beneficiaries worked well and aspects like internet connectivity in hilly regions were also studied and all of these observations would be sent to the Centre, he said.

Goa: The mock drill was carried out at three state-run Primary Health Centres (PHCs) at Corlim, Panaji and Aldona, all in North Goa, which were identified for the purpose.

Kerala: At least 25 health workers each took part in the dry run, organised in four districts of Kerala on Saturday. The vaccine mock drill was conducted in four districts - Thiruvananthapuram, Idukki, Wayanad and Palakkad. Kerala is planning to inoculate government and private sector health workers, medical students and Asha and Anganwadi workers the first phase of the vaccination and so far, 3.13 lakh people have registered for the same.

Telangana: The dry run was held at four centres in Hyderabad and three centres at Mahabubnagar. The state government has already trained 10,000 healthcare personnel for administering vaccines and the state has the capacity to vaccinate 10 lakh per day, state Health Minister Eatala Rajender said on Saturday. The government is expecting to receive five lakh doses of vaccines initially, followed by another 10 lakh and one crore doses subsequently.

Rajasthan: Dry runs for the universal vaccination as per the protocol received from the Centre were held Saturday at 19 centres of seven districts of the state, including three in Jaipur. During the dry runs, the support staff for the inoculation were given training and the state now is ready for the vaccination after receiving the vaccine.

Karnataka: The dry run for COVID-19 vaccination is being held in five districts -- Bengaluru Urban, Belagavi, Kalaburagi, Mysuru and Shivamogga, according to reports. In Karnataka, three session sites  one each at district, taluk and primary health centre levels  have been chosen for the dry run. After the dry run, feedback will be collected from those session sites of each district, the government said.

Maharashtra: Four districts in the state have been selected for the dry run of the coronavirus vaccine. These include Pune, Nagpur, Jalna and Nandurbar. In Pune district, the health centres at the district hospital in Aundh, primary health care centre at Man, and Jijamata Hospital in Pimpri Chinchwad have been enrolled for the dry run. In Nagpur, Daaga hospital, rural hospital in Kamptee and primary health care centre in Nagpur city has been identified for the run. In Jalna, centres selected include district hospital, subdistrict hospital, Ambad and Shelgaon primary health care centre in Badnapur taluka. In Nandurbar, district hospital, primary health care centre in Ashte and Navapursub-district hospital has been selected.

Punjab: After successfully conducting a two-day dry run on Tuesday in the two districts of Ludhiana and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar (Nawanshahr), Punjab Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu recently said in a statement that the sate will be conducting another drive in Patiala on 2 and 3 January with support from UNDP and WHO. As per the Centre's guidelines, the dry run will be conducted at Government Medical College; Sadhbhavna Hospital; and the Community Health Centre in Shatrana.

Haryana: According to PTI, the state has planned a dry run at three sites in Panchkula. The drive will be held at three sites, officials said.

Gujarat: After a first successful dry run earlier this week, the Gujarat govt held a day-long dry run to check the preparations for COVID-19 vaccination in four districts of Gujarat. The govt had selected the districts of Dahod, Bhavnagar, Valsad and Anand for the second dry run. As many as 300 registered beneficiaries were to undergo dummy vaccination at 12 centres across these four districts.

Gujarat Health Commissioner Jaiprakash Shivahare had told reporters on Friday that the state government has already trained 16,000 vaccinators and created a cold chain infrastructure to store one crore vaccine doses as part of its preparation in case the actual vaccination drive is announced.

Uttar Pradesh: The state has planned a dry run for vaccination against COVID-19 at six places in the state capital Lucknow. According to reports, the state has trained 70,000 vaccinators and will be conducting the initial vaccination in phases.

Chhattisgarh: The state govt has identified seven districts for the dry run namely Raipur, Surguja, Bilaspur, Rajnandgaon, Durg, Bastar and Gaurela-Pendra-Marwahi (GPM). Three session sites -- a district hospital, community health centres (CHCs) and primary health centres (PHCs) have been selected as centres for the exercise.

Delhi: Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, Shahdara, Urban Primary Health Centre, Daryaganj, and Venkateshwar Hospital, Dwarka, are the three sites in Delhi which have been selected for the dry run of the roll-out of COVID-19 vaccine in the National Capital. The Delhi govt is planning to administer COVID-19 vaccine to 51 lakh priority category persons in the city in the first phase of the vaccination

West Bengal: West Bengal is conducting the COVID vaccination mock drill at Urban Primary Health Centres at Duttabad and Madhyagram and at Amdanga Rural Hospital in North 24 Parganas district. Twenty-five health workers were identified for the dry run.

Second dry run in a week

Saturday's was the second dry run this week. The first round of the dry run was conducted in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Punjab on 28-29 December in two districts each where five-session sites with 25 beneficiaries each were identified.

No major issues were observed in the operational aspects during this dry run. All States expressed confidence in the operational guidelines and IT platform for large scale programme implementation, the Union health ministry said.

How the Centre, states prepared for the dry run

Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan had on Thursday said that for each of the three-session sites, the Medical Officer In-charge will identify 25 test beneficiaries (healthcare workers).

The states and UTs have been asked to ensure that the data of these beneficiaries is uploaded in Co-WIN. These beneficiaries will also be available at the session site for the dry run.

The states and UTs shall prepare the facilities and users to be created on Co-WIN application including uploading the data of Health Care Worker (HCW) beneficiaries, the ministry stated.

The states and UTs have been asked to ensure physical verification of all proposed sites for the adequacy of space, logistical arrangements, internet connectivity, electricity, safety, etc. and prepare at least three model session sites in each state (at state capital) for demonstration.

With inputs from PTI
Did you buy a Powerball ticket in Hedgesville? You might have won $50G
Let me add to your New Year wishes! Hope your 2021 got off to a good start.

And see, people you dont even know have been praying for all of us (guurst):

The temple bells are nearly done, 107 seven times on 31st, and one on the 1st, for a total of 108. Each ringing represents the subjugation of one of the 108 human sins. https://t.co/Yz2r6eXLYR  Wrath Of Gnon (@wrathofgnon) December 31, 2020

Country diary: the awkward teenagers of the seal world Guardian

Was I wrong to fall for a cheating cat? BBC (resilc)

With Centuries-Old Techniques, This Farm Is Preparing for the Future Reasons to be Cheerful (guurst)

This burp-catching mask for cows could slow down climate change Wired (Kevin W)

These solar-powered barges can scoop up 50 tons of plastic from rivers each day The Optimist Daily (David L)

Timber Tax Cuts Cost Oregon Towns Billions. Then Clear-cuts Polluted Their Water and Drove Up the Price. ProPublica (David L)

#COVID-19

Yes to Masks. No to Parties. 2021 Will Be a Lot Like 2020 Wired (resilc)

Thailands Social Security Office to pay out workers at 50% of daily wages for up to 90 days if forced to stop work due to Covid-19 Pattya News. Furzy:

If Thailand can take care of its citizens affected by the virus, ya would think Amerika The Wealthy could too.but OH NO.socialism, communism, lazy people.cant do that.what a heartless country the USA has become.

The Staggering, Heartless Cruelty Toward the Elderly Atlantic (Chuck L). From early-ish last year, still germane.

China?

The Final Hours of Ethiopias TPLF Regime Counterpunch (Chuck L)

US and Israel join forces to reject United Nations budget Yahoo News

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Imperial Collapse Watch

The U.S. Shouldnt Bother with a Summit for Democracy American Conservative (Kevin W). Pathetic.

Trump Transition

Will Trumpism outlast Trump? Financial Times (Kevin W) Trump: the Final Daze CounterPunch (resilc) FBI: Another Fraud on the Court? Ray McGovern (Anthony L). Sadly, people like McGovern, with a much better grasp of facts, have lost. The official narrative is well cemented. The one time in his entire presidency that Congress has overridden Trump is to enact a bill that prevents him from withdrawing troops with 20 days to go  Michael Tracey (@mtracey) January 1, 2021

Biden

2020

Violence Against Women Act Blocked Angry Bear

Occupy the SEC Criticizes NCUA over Proposal to Expand Derivatives Trading at Credit Unions Occupy the SEC. Still kicking!!! Letter here.

Techs top seven companies added $3.4 trillion in value in 2020 CNBC (Chuck L)

Guillotine Watch

Joseph Bachelder III, Engineer of the Golden Parachute, Dies at 88 New York Times (resilc)

Class Warfare

The Customer Is Not Always Right Food & Wine. Todays must read. The article attributes the worsening of bad behavior to Covid, but the ultimate origins are income inequality, which has gotten much worse under the pandemic. Management guru Michael Schrage has long said most businesses need to fire ~15% of their customers because they are abusive and/or demand things the enterprise never said it would provide. But restaurants feel they cant turn anyone away, plus the bad attitude often isnt evident until the customer is seated. Inside the Whale: An Interview with an Anonymous Amazonian Logic Political Consciousness From the Daily Grind Prem Thakker. UserFriendy: Important backstory from that viral clip. See below:

Antidote du jour (Tracie H):

And a bonus (guurst):

A fully grown Acanthurus olivaceus is very hard to beat. Stunning fish. The species is widely distributed but is replaced in Marquesas by its sister species, Acanthurus reversus. https://t.co/dUTAXzOmDS  KaiTheFishGuy (@FishGuyKai) December 20, 2020

And yet another bonus (bob h):

See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here
(Newser)  A pro surfer helped prevent what could have been a beach tragedy in Hawaii, and it's captured in video you can see here. Australia's Mikey Wright was filming the surf from the beach in Oahu on New Year's Eve when it became clear that a swimmer was in serious trouble in the heavy waves, reports the Guardian. "He's gonna need to be saved," a post at FortheWin quotes Wright as saying. He hands his phone to his wife, and she can be heard yelling, "You can't save him," as he heads toward the surf.

story continues below

Wright, 24, can be seen the grabbing the swimmerit turned out to be a womanand helping her withstand the huge waves crashing down on them as he gets her closer to shore. Other beachgoers helped drag her to safety. Neither the unidentified swimmer nor Wright were seriously injured. "She was trying to come in (over the rocks) and I said, 'We have to go down the beach, Wright tells Australias Telegraph. "We ended up grabbing a hold of her and going down with the current. I just said to her, dont let go and hold on.'" (Read more surfers stories.)
Bengaluru, Jan 2 : Karnataka on Saturday issued a circular allowing all shops and commercial establishments employing ten or more people in the state to operate on a 24x7 basis for next three years.

The move is aimed at generating employment and accelerating economic growth.

The state government in its circular stated that no employee should be made to work more than ten hours a day and be allowed to take a off once a week on a rotation basis.

"All employers shall not require or allow any person employed to work therein for more than eight hours in any day and forty-eight hours in any week and the period of work including overtime shall not exceed ten hours in any day," the government order said.

All employees are entitled to at least one week-off, the government said. It added that if an employee is made to work beyond eight hours in a day, she will have to be paid an overtime allowance.

Women employees shall not be allowed to work beyond 8 p.m. on any day in normal circumstances.

"Provided that an employer after obtaining written consent from a women employee may allow her to work between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. subject to providing adequate protection to her dignity, honour and safety," the circular said.

The government said any employers or managers violate its directives regarding shift timings will face action.

"If employees are found working on any holiday or after normal duty hours without proper indent of overtime, penal action shall be initiated against the employer/manager as laid down in the Karnataka Shops and Establishments Act and Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments Rules," the notification read.

These are the following conditions: 1) The employer shall display the details of every employee at a conspicuous place in the shop or commercial establishment.

2) Every employer shall exhibit details of the employees who are on holiday/leave on a daily basis in a conspicuous place in the shop or commercial establishments.

3) The wages including overtime wages of the employees shall be credited to their savings bank account as prescribed under the payments of wages Act, 1963.

4) An employer shall not require or allow any person employed to work therein for more than eight hours in any day and forty-eight hours in any week and the period of work including overtime shall not exceed ten hours in any day and fifty hours in a period of three continuous months.

5) If employees are found working on any holiday or after normal duty hours without proper indent of overtime, penal action shall be initiated against the employer/Manager as laid down in the Karnataka Shops and Establishments Act, 1961, and Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments Rules 1963.

6) Transport arrangements shall be provided to the woman employee who works in shifts. A notice to this effect shall be exhibited at the main entrance of the shop or commercial establishment indicating the availability of the transport.

7) The employees shall be provided with restroom, washroom, safety lockers and other basic amenities.

8) Every employer employing woman employee shall constitute internal complaints committee against sexual harassment of woman under the Sexual Harassment of Woman at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (Central Act 14 of 2013) and the said committee shall be operative.

9) The notification said that the above terms and conditions shall be treated and implemented in addition to those provisions specified in the Karnataka Shops and Establishments Act, 1961. (Karnataka Act No. 8 of 1962) and The Workmen's Compensation Act, 1923 (Central Act 8 of 1923).

In the case of violation of any statutory provision or any of the above terms and conditions noticed by the inspector or otherwise necessary penal action shall be initiated against the employer/manager as laid down in the Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1961 and Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments Rules, 1963.

It may be recalled that Karnataka government had issued such circular in November 2019 and January 2020 also but this was opposed vehemently by various sections of the state as a result of this it was subsequently withdrawn. This is the third attempt in as many years by Karnataka to allow shops to remain open 24/7.

She's currently enjoying a sun-soaked getaway in Dubai with boyfriend James Lock after flying out to the city amid the UK's Tier 4 lockdown for a 'work trip'.

And Yazmin Oukhellou managed to fit in a spot of sunbathing as she took to Instagram on Saturday to showcase her tanned and toned figure in a white two-piece from Pretty Little Thing.

The TOWIE star, 26, made sure all eyes were on her as she showed off her ample cleavage and tiny waist in the strapless bikini.

Sizzling: Yazmin Oukhellou looked incredible as she showed off an eye-popping display in a bikini snap posted to Instagram on Saturday

Slicking her brunette locks back in a ponytail, Yazmin simply captioned the post: '02-01-21,' to signify the date she posted the picture.

Yazmin later took to her Instagram story to treat her fans to a series of small clips in her swimwear ensemble, as she posed up a storm for the camera, giving them all a glimpse of her peachy posterior.

The reality star's Dubai holiday comes amid an increasing amount of fury over many influencers and reality stars 'bending rules' to jet abroad while most of the UK remains in Tier 4 lockdown restrictions.

Cheeky: The TOWIE star, 26, made sure all eyes were on her as she donned a skimpy white bikini, which displayed her toned stomach and legs

Holiday: Yazmin is currently enjoying a sun-soaked getaway to Dubai, having joined a string of reality stars who have visited the city over the festive period amid the UK's Tier 4 lockdown

All in the details: The white bikini featured circle hoops on the bust and briefs

Yazmin had previously faced criticism from fans when she had jetted out to the city with boyfriend James for 'business purposes'.

She later hit back at the backlash, explaining that she is launching a new business in Dubai in the future.

'Just so you know, me and James have come to Dubai because I am launching something very exciting here in the New Year.

'I've had to come now to get everything set up and we will be keeping you posted,' she said in a video shared to her Instagram story.

'So we are here for work purposes, for business. Obviously we'll make the most of it while we're here as well. But we are here for business purposes.'

UK guidelines state that in Tier 4 areas, you are only allowed to travel abroad for work purposes, while travelling for pleasure is currently banned.

Relaxing: The TOWIE couple jetted off for a sun soaked holiday despite living in Tier 4 Essex and government restrictions forbidding overseas travel for leisure

Despite proving that they had received negative coronavirus tests to enter the United Arab Emirates for their work trip, fans were left unimpressed by Yazmin and James' actions.

In response to a follower who pointed out in the comments that she should not be travelling out of Tier 4, Yazmin wrote: 'We're working out here not that I need to disclose my business.'
Controversy continues over burial or cremation of Muslims who die of COVID-19; security concern over Mawanella incident

Growing role for military; retired and serving officers being appointed to top administrative positions

PC elections will be postponed, TNA proposes sweeping constitutional changes, seeking more powers to Regions A worrying reality that has escaped most Sri Lankans appears to be the fast-changing national security landscape as a New Year has just begun.

Apart from painfully inflicting people or killing them, the deadly coronavirus is unbelievably the cause. Exacerbating it enormously is the deteriorating economic situation.

It is now 11 years, 7 months and 16 days since the security forces and the Police militarily defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). It came after three different phases of the separatist war, each euphemistically called in numerical order. Every phase saw a military sophistication by the two sides in an internal war between a state actor and a non-state one. Thousands including civilians died and billions of rupees worth of property were destroyed. Exponentially different taxes were introduced to fund the war and living costs soared. Flourishing in that environment, behind a cloud of secrecy, was unbridled corruption. Millionaires, both in and out of uniform, were born.

In hindsight, over a decade after the war was won militarily, successive governments failed to deliver peace. Tamil youth who fled to western countries to avoid LTTE conscription, and made it rich over the years, resorted to a non-lethal weapon  the vote. They became a key factor during elections in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, France, and Australia, among other nations. Politicians there needed their votes and the new citizens encashed it for their support. Over the years, they were one of the main sources of funding for Tiger guerrillas. When the United States introduced a resolution (co-sponsored by Sri Lanka) before the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), alleging among other matters, that local troops too committed war crimes, it is these overseas groups that held periodic protests in Geneva (Switzerland), other world capitals and carried out a high-pitched propaganda drive. They still do.

For successive governments, it is again clear in hindsight, that the three phases of the separatist war, were necessitated by some salient factors. Despite intelligence warnings on some occasions, the political leaders strongly believed, the war was not winnable. Interlocutors also did their job to convince them. Nevertheless, there was hard intelligence that the guerrillas were embarking on recruit and re-arm for another round on such occasions. One report from the Armys Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI), seen by the Sunday Times, gave an accurate forecast of the retraining and regrouping exercises. It was accompanied by a list of LTTEs procurements.

In the war-torn LTTE-held Wanni years ago, I was told of how the slain LTTE leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, once remarked to his fighting cadres that their journey towards Eelam had plenty of bus stops. They were called peace talks, he said.

During Eelam War 1 they fought with assault rifles and Fifty calibre (.50) guns, for the first time in Sri Lanka. Eeelam War II saw the introduction of Surface to Air (SAM) missiles (also for the first time) and the liberal use of mortars. During Eelam War III, ahead of the military, the LTTE first introduced an older version of the Multi-Barrel Rocket Launchers (MBRL). It also had 152 mm artillery guns.

During the first phase, if they had fought like guerrillas, robbing weapons from Police stations and troops, in the later stages they had evolved themselves to resemble a conventional army with limited naval and air capability. Yet, they wreaked havoc and emerged as one of the fiercest guerrilla groups in the world. The end came when Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka led troops to military victory. Making available all the wherewithal and support was President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was then Defence Secretary.

Concern over Muslim extremism

And now, there are fearful concerns that history may repeat itself in a different way. Just this week, a miscreant or more, hurled a stone at a glass cage that protected the Lord Buddhas statue in Mawanella, a Muslim town on the main highway to Kandy. That this area has been a hotbed of Muslim extremist groups and was continually active ahead of the dastardly Easter Sunday attacks in 2019 is well known. Early warnings then reached the Police. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) was too slow to follow up investigations.

Their lethargic approach was revealed in the Sunday Times and also transpired at the Commission of Inquiry now probing the string of incidents. That a colossal intelligence and security failure led to more than 268 innocent men, women and children being killed in churches and hotels is now history. As it often happens, who indeed was responsible in allowing such heinous acts, at least for the moment, remains a mystery. Shameful enough, it came about after the security forces and the police, stronger than ever before after the military defeat of Tiger guerrillas. The Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) also suffered a heavy blow under the Yahapalana government. Its role was altogether ignored by their leaders. A database they had built up over time on Muslim extremists was ignored.

The Police are yet to identify who is behind the Mawanella stone throwing incident. Intelligence operatives are scouring the area, picking up threads of information. However, what is of bigger importance here is firstly why it was done. Was it not to provoke a backlash against the Muslim community? It is in this general area that Buddha statues had been previously destroyed by associates of Zahran Hashim, a top cadre of the Muslim extremist group. He died during the attack on Shangri La Hotel overlooking the Galle Face Green. Operatives are also checking whether the loss of explosives from a nearby quarry site was linked to the stoning incident.

The recent weeks have seen an increase in the number of protests by Muslim groups demanding burials of Muslims who die of coronavirus. Facilitating such protests were contradictory signals from different sections of the Government. They said the burial issue was being re-considered. Muslim businessmen donated refrigeration equipment to hold bodies until a decision was arrived at. It is amidst this, that health authorities announced that there would be no change to the Gazette notification which calls for the cremation of bodies of Covid-19 victims.

Thereafter, more than ten bodies of Muslims which lay frozen were cremated. Yet, the protests continued. That saw a response in the form of groups with placards, attended also by members of the Buddhist clergy, demanding that cremations should continue. One such protest was outside the Presidential Secretariat. No one can be faulted for holding protests which is their democratic right. However, this tit for tat series of protests, it is no secret, leads to tension and polarisation which is not a healthy sign. It can tear to pieces the fabric of national unity which is now like a sieve and fan further divisions. There appears to be a worrying pattern emerging.

During the near three-decades of separatist war, Muslims sided with successive governments and supported their actions. The vast majority did not endorse the extremists on Easter Sunday massacres. Yet, there are areas where their social integration with other communities, like in the years past, could have been much better. They have allowed suspicion to breed. It is incumbent on their leaders to identify such issues and address them apolitically on a priority basis. Of course, one has also to be mindful that there are legitimate issues confronting them. Muslim politicians in the Government are oblivious to this. Confrontation and provocative statements, like what some ruling party Muslim leaders with no political experience or knowledge, now resort to, can only betray their brethren. It will never make them heroes.

As revealed last week, Tamil and Muslim groups teamed up together to stage protests in world capitals against the cremation of Muslims who die of Covid-19. From London, they are together directing operations to obtain sworn affidavits from next of kin of those who died about matters related to cremation. A few have already sent them. The identities of some in the health sector who opposed burials are being compiled. A fund-raising campaign has begun. Some local media lapped up a WhatsApp message where the Muslim Council of Britain said it would launch legal action against the Sri Lankan Governments forced cremations. It does not, however, say where such legal action would be taken since it cannot do so except in Sri Lanka. Such action has already been dismissed by the countrys Supreme Court.

As previously pointed out, local health authorities contend that burials would contaminate the water table and force the spread of the coronavirus. However, this is countered by other experts who say many countries were practising burials in keeping with the guidelines issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Governments detractors, both in Sri Lanka and abroad, are seizing on these developments to step up their campaign against alleged vilification of Tamil and Muslim minorities. This is ahead of the UN Human Rights Council sessions in Geneva where the issue is slated to figure. Foreign Ministry officials are speaking of the likely visit of a UN envoy to discuss issues related to the minorities. We are aware of the different issues before Geneva. There is a Committee (including myself) studying them, Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena told the Sunday Times. Suhada Gamlath, a former Justice Ministry Secretary has been appointed Advisor to the Foreign Affairs Ministry and assigned matters relating to human rights.

A far more important development in this regard has come from top officials of a country well-disposed and supportive towards Sri Lanka. During informal discussions on the prospects of more investments, they had pointed out their serious concerns over the rising state of instability  a strong deterrent to foreign investment in their view. This, they have pointed out, is at a time when Sri Lanka is facing a less than friendly response from leading western nations. They have impressed on us the immediate need for action to prevent a polarisation of communities and avert a crisis that will affect the economy, said an intelligence source familiar with the developments. The dilemma, the source pointed out, is the position we are placed in. That calls for decisive action.

Another senior intelligence source, however, argued that the Government is not unmindful of the situation. They are aware and are keeping a close tab on developments but declined details. However, the Sunday Times learnt that the presence of a controversial Muslim politician at the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) protest outside the General Cemetery at Borella also came under close watch. His name has been linked to extremist groups.

Militarys growing role

The source declined to comment on whether the recent promotions of Lt. Gen. Shavendra Silva, Chief of Defence Staff and Commander of the Army, and Defence Secretary Kamal Gunaratne as Generals is in any way related to the new developments. Whilst General Silva has won a years extension of service, General (retd.) Gunaratne has been rewarded with a promotion, eleven years after the military defeat of Tiger guerrillas. Both Generals have played key roles in the final battles to defeat the Tiger guerrillas.

Just three days before being promoted, General (retired) Kamal Gunaratne was the chief guest at a commissioning ceremony at the Military Academy in Diyatalawa. Speaking to 187 officer cadets, General (retd.) Gunaratne said, While leading your men and women to safeguard people from any threat, whether it is manmade or natural disaster, the military is also expected to engage in the nation building campaign in keeping with the Presidents Vision Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour in the drive towards a brighter and prosperous future.

Four Sri Lankan officer cadets who underwent their basic military training at the Chinese Military Academy, two cadets trained at the Indian Military Academy, nine cadets trained at the Pakistan Military Academy and an officer cadet trained at the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst, United Kingdom, also received their commisions.

It is not immediately clear whether the promotions of both the Army Chief and the Defence Secretary, relate to an impending enhanced role for the military in governance. However, it is well known that both serving and retired military officers have taken up considerable civilian space with appointments in the administrative service and state bodies. More such appointments are on the cards. In addition, retired military personnel are to be inducted into an outfit to take over security operations in prisons. On Friday, Army Co-ordinating Officers were assigned to the countrys 25 districts to oversee operations against the Covid-19 pandemic. Except for a Colonel, most are Majors General and Brigadiers. Until now, the task has been undertaken by District Secretaries under a Presidential Task Force. Another matter now under consideration is the positioning of a senior Army officer each to Ministries to oversee development work. They may receive the rank of Additional Secretary.

Last month, Lalith Weeratunga, Principal Presidential Advisor, was the chief guest at Sri Lanka Army Way Forward strategy 2020-2025 at the Army Headquarters. The veteran state sector official, Weeratunga, said that the public sector should take forward for their enhancement the capacity and confidence building because they do not know the way the Army does things. He said people in the public sector can learn and take the cue from the Army since we are certain of uncertainties in the world more than ever. He said management institutions should look at the Armys strategies and take them on board at ground level using it as a platform.

PC elections

The Government has been able to overcome at least one concern in 2021 by deciding not to conduct Provincial Council elections. Minister Mahinda Amaraweera told the Sunday Times, We decided to postpone the PC elections until the new constitution is adopted. It will be accompanied by a new electoral system. The prevailing COVID -19 pandemic, he said, was also a factor that contributed to the postponement. This decision was taken unanimously at a meeting of party leaders of the ruling alliance chaired by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. He too stressed that the election should be postponed in view of the current pandemic, Amaraweera said.

The PCs were set up under the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. It was brokered by India under the 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement which came after the ethnic violence in July 1983. In the light of other priorities, it is highly unlikely that a new Constitution could be promulgated in this year. Moreover, the process itself would be time consuming. The Experts Committee headed by Presidents Counsel Romesh de Silva, has already ended receiving public representations. The outline of a draft has to be formulated and consultations would have to be held with all stakeholders  a time consuming process.

TNAs proposals for new Constitution

In a 21-page submission to the Experts Committee, the Tamil National Alliance (Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchi, Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation and Peoples Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam) noted that no other issue had required the country to make commitments to India and the rest of the international community, including the UN  and all of those commitments include the pledge to grant a meaningful power sharing arrangement to the Tamil-speaking peoples of the north and east of Sri Lanka. Here are some of the highlights of the provisions which the TNA seeks to include in the new Constitution

Nature of the State: (1) Sri Lanka (Ceylon) shall be recognised as a free, sovereign, independent, and united Republic comprising the institutions of the Centre and of the Regions, which shall exercise powers of governance as laid down in the Constitution.

(2) One of the Regions shall be for the territory predominantly occupied by the Tamil speaking peoples in the North-East.

2. Fundamental Rights: The Constitution shall include a comprehensive list of fundamental rights and freedoms, founded on human dignity and personal autonomy, and reflecting the full gamut of Sri Lankas international human rights obligations.

3. Language: (1) The Constitution shall recognise Sinhala, Tamil, and English as the official languages throughout Sri Lanka, and the languages of administration in the entire island.

(2) Citizens should have a right to interact with the State, whether in person or in correspondence, in the language of their choice.

(3) The Constitution should specify that official documents, notices, or directives which communicate, imply, or impose a penalty or fine or punishment have no force or effect in law in the event they are issued in violation of language rights.

4. The Executive: 16 (1) The Constitution shall provide for a government with a ceremonial President who is accountable to Parliament, and who acts on the advice of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister shall be the head of the cabinet of ministers.

(2) The cabinet of ministers, the state ministers, and the deputy ministers, shall be appointed by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister from amongst members of Parliament. Assignment of subjects and functions shall be within the powers of the Prime Minister, and these powers may be exercised by the Prime Minister at any time.

5. The Legislature: (1) The Constitution shall provide for a bicameral legislature with a chamber comprising members directly elected by the people, and a second chamber comprising representatives of the Regions.

(2) Legislation shall be passed upon passage of a Bill by simple majority through both chambers, except in the case of amendments to the Constitution, in which case, the Bill shall be passed with a two-thirds majority in both chambers. And in the case of amendments affecting devolution to the Regions, it shall have an additional requirement of assent by every one of the delegations from the Regions to the second chamber.

6. Sharing of Powers of Governance: (1) There shall be Regional Councils for every Region, as defined in a schedule to the Constitution.

(2) There shall be a Governor for each Region, who shall be appointed by the President on the advice of the Chief Minister of the relevant Regional Council, and such advice shall only be given with the approval of the Regional Council.

17 (3) The Governor shall, except as provided in the Constitution, act on the advice of the Chief Minister and the cabinet of ministers of the Regional Council.

(4) Regional Councils shall have legislative power over subjects specified in a schedule to the Constitution. The statutes duly enacted by a Regional Council shall prevail over all previous legislation on the same subject with respect to the relevant region.

(5) Suitable time-bound arrangements shall be made with regard to Governors assent to statutes to avoid delay.

(6) National policy on a devolved subject defeats the object of devolution. Therefore, all Regions must be consulted and where all Regions agree, national policy must be confined to framework legislation within which Regions can exercise fully legislative and executive power pertaining to the devolved subject. Framework legislation shall not curtail devolved power.

(7) The Central Legislature may make laws with respect to subjects devolved to the Regional Councils, provided all Regional Councils vote to approve the said Bill. Where a Regional Council does not so approve, the Act, if passed, shall not have force or effect within the said Region.

(8) Devolved power cannot be overridden or taken back without the consent of the Region concerned. In the case of Constitutional amendments affecting devolution, it should have the approval of every regional delegation from the Regions in addition to two third majority votes in both Houses.

(9) Assignment of subjects and functions shall be based on the principle of maximum possible devolution. All subjects other than such subjects as must necessarily be with the Central Government, such as national security, national defence, armed forces, foreign affairs, and national economic affairs, must be devolved.

(10) Some of the important subjects and functions to be devolved shall include (but not be limited to): 18 a. land; b. law and order; c. education including tertiary education; d. health; e. housing and construction; f. agriculture and agrarian services; g. irrigation; h. fisheries; i. animal husbandry and livestock development; j. resettlement and rehabilitation; k. local government; l. regional public service; m. regional police service; n. religious and cultural affairs; o. all other socioeconomic and cultural matters; p. cooperatives and cooperative banks; q. industries; and (r). taxation, central grants, international and domestic loans and grants, and foreign direct investment.

(11) All appointments to the regional public service and regional police service, other than the Chief Secretary and other secretaries to regional ministries, shall be made by the Regional Public Service Commission and the Regional Police Commission, as the case may be, which shall be answerable and responsible to the Chief Minister and to the cabinet of ministers of the relevant Region.

(12) The Chief Secretary shall be appointed by the President with the concurrence of the Chief Minister of the Region and shall be removable by the President on the advice of the Chief Minister. Secretaries to regional ministries shall be appointed by the Governor on the recommendation of the Chief Minister and the cabinet of ministers of the relevant Region and shall be removable on their advice.

19 (13) There shall be adequate provision made in the Constitution for the protection of the minority communities in every Region.

7. The Judiciary: (1) The Constitution shall provide for a Constitutional Court, comprising members appointed by the Constitutional Council, to hear and determine the constitutionality of legislation made by the Central Legislature and statutes made by Regional Councils. Such power may be exercised prior to the enactment of such law or statute, or after enactment, whether it arises in the course of legal proceedings or by the direct institution of proceedings.

(2) In respect of matters relating to the interpretation of the Constitution, the decisions of the Constitutional Court shall be final.

(3) Jurisdiction with respect to fundamental rights applications shall be exercised by the Provincial High Courts.

8. Public Security: (1) The Constitution shall provide that the declaration of a state of emergency shall be made by the President, on the advice of the Prime Minister, or on the advice of the Governor of the Region with the concurrence of the Chief Minister of Region. Such a state of emergency shall only be declared when there are reasonable grounds to apprehend the existence of a clear and present danger to public security, preservation of public order (including preservation of public order consequent to natural disasters and epidemics) or the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the life of the community in the country or Region. A state of emergency can be declared only with respect to the territory where such a clear and present danger prevails.

20 (2) The declaration of emergency shall state the basis on which such a state of emergency was declared and shall be limited in time. (3) The Declaration of Emergency shall be subject to parliamentary approval or the relevant Regional Councils approval, as the case may be, and be subject to judicial review by the Constitutional Court. If such approval is not granted, or where the Constitutional Court so holds, such Declaration of Emergency shall stand rescinded.

9. Land: (1) Land shall be a devolved subject. All state land used by the Central Government for a subject in the Central List shall be continued to be used by the Central Government. Rights acquired by citizens in state land shall be preserved. All other state land shall vest in the Region concerned and can be used by the Region in terms of its devolved powers over land.

(2) Alienation of state land shall be done on the basis of the principles enunciated in the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam Pact and Senanayake-Chelvanayakam Pact.

(3) Regions shall have powers of land acquisition and requisition. Law and order shall be a devolved subject. There shall be a National Police Force, and Regional Police Forces for each Region. Offences that are reserved to be dealt with by the National Police shall be listed in a schedule to the Constitution. All other offences shall be within the purview of the Regional Police.

SJBs plans for 2021

As reported in the Sunday Times (Political Commentary) of December 20, the conduct of PC polls formed the subject of discussion at the weekly cabinet meeting held on December 14. Three ministers proposed that it be delayed and it was then decided to seek the view of leaders of the ruling alliance partners.

Ranjith Madduma Bandara, General Secretary of the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB), the largest opposition in Parliament, had a different take on the postponement. All this is because they have lost their popularity. They know for sure that they cannot win the same way as they did at the presidential election, he told the Sunday Times.

He said that the SJB had obtained an adjournment debate in Parliament on Thursday to discuss the current situation in the country. The Covid-19 pandemic is spreading and the economy is fast deteriorating. He said that his partys priorities in 2021 would be to strengthen trade unions affiliated to it and increase membership of womens organisations. From January 15, he said, SJB organisers would be appointed to various electorates.

Madduma Bandara confirmed that former Minister Champika Ranawaka, who has quit the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), was being offered a position in the SJB. We are still discussing and have not reached a final decision on the title, he said. Ranawaka has already formed what he calls an apolitical organisation called Brigade 43. It is a group of professionals to work towards the development of the country, he said. It was in 1943, he said, that free education was introduced in Sri Lanka.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake, leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) led National Peoples Front (NPF), welcomed the postponement of PC polls. He told the Sunday Times, This is not the time for PC polls when the country is facing a fast-spreading Covid-19 pandemic. Added his colleague and spokesperson Vijitha Herath: People are concerned about unemployment, travel restrictions, the worsening economy and the skyrocketing cost of living due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, they are not concerned of the political situation. People only want COVID-19 eradicated before PC elections.

A New Year has arrived but for the United National Party (UNP), there is, however, no significant change. Party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe is likely to name Deputy Leader Ruwan Wijewardene to the vacant bonus seat in Parliament. However, there are other contenders, too. One who is making a bid for the position is former minister Ravi Karunanayake. A final decision is to be made before January 5 when Parliament meets.

In more than one sense, the challenges for the ruling alliance will be a mixed bag of issues, more difficult than the past year. Thus, a success or failure, both in Sri Lanka and abroad, hinges on these issues.

Ranils lawyers accuse Sirisena of malice; respond to his allegations Vidanaparthirana Associates, Attorneys at Law, has written to the Sunday Times on behalf of former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, over comments made on him by former President Maithripala Sirisena, in these columns last week. The entirety of the statements in column 2 of the said page (11) under the sub heading Sirisena speaks out purporting to be the interview with the former President, are false and have been made maliciously with the object of defaming our client and in an attempt, to hold him up to ridicule and to lower his esteem in the minds of the public. The Sunday Times account was based on a tape-recorded interview and the contents have been reported accurately. However, the law firm said the contents it has listed below have been made maliciously by Mr Sirisena to defame our client. This is what the letter says: (Ref. to Mr. Sirisenas comment); There were lot of issues. The Central Bank bond scam took place. The Commission of Inquiry did not function properly. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) investigations were not conducted properly. They were interfered with. He always weakened every investigation. Vidanapathirana Associates; Our client instructs us that the Commission of Inquiry referred to above was appointed by Mr. Sirisena as the President of Sri Lanka and up to now he has not made any allegation that it did not function properly. The above statements are totally false and false to the knowledge of the person making the statements. They have been made maliciously by Mr. Sirisena to defame our client. Several investigations were carried out regarding the Central Bank bond issues and no evidence was disclosed or even hinted at to the effect that our client interfered with or weakened any such investigation. (Detailed answers have been given in point 4 below). In fact, it was our client who ordered the Police to investigate this matter. Our client met with the Attorney General who appointed a Senior State Counsel to give advice and to co-ordinate investigations with the Police. We are instructed to state that these are figments of Mr. Sirisenas imagination. (Ref. to Mr. Sirisenas comment); He had no need to bring down his good friend Arjuna Mahendran from Singapore to become Governor of the Central Bank. Vidanapathirana Associates; Mr. Arjuna Mahendran was qualified to head the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, especially due to the perilous state the Sri Lankan economy was in January 2015. He had worked in the Central Bank earlier and thereafter had been the Chairman of the Board of Investments of Sri Lanka. It was the decision of our clients Government that the Governor of the Central Bank must have experience in the Central Bank as the two previous Governors had no such experience. Mr. Mahendran was appointed Governor by the President after consultation with the relevant Ministers and with their approval. Even Mr. Mahendrans successor, Dr. Indrajith Coomaraswamy, had similar experience at the Central Bank. (Ref. to Mr. Sirisenas comment); I think he supported Mahendran to escape from Sri Lanka. Vidanapathirana Associates; Mr. Arjuna Mahendran gave evidence before the Presidential Commission and thereafter obtained its permission to leave Sri Lanka. He has not returned since then. The above statement has been made maliciously and is a figment of Mr. Sirisenas imagination and totally unsupported by any facts disclosed. It is a false statement which is known to be false to the person making it. (Ref. to Mr. Sirisenas comment); Inquiries were conducted by the Police on people who probed the bond scam. Orders were given by him. The Police were under them. An example  when the Commission of Inquiry checked the phone records of Arjun Aloysius, they have found that he (Aloysius) had worked with politicians, especially with Ministers. When the commission of inquiry inquired into it, Ranil Wickeremesinghe carried out an investigation against the CID officers concerned. He (Wickremesinghe) paralysed the investigation. Vidanapathirana Associates; These are false statements of facts and false to the knowledge of the person making them. These statements have been made maliciously by Mr. Sirisena to defame our client. There was no evidence that our client interfered with or weakened any Police investigation or that he investigated the CID officers concerned. In fact, the Police functioned under the direction and control of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry. Several investigations were held into the issue of bonds by the Central Bank: a lawyers committee (appointed by our client), a Parliamentary Select Committee (appointed by Parliament), a Presidential Commission of Inquiry (appointed by Mr. Sirisena and a forensic audit into Central Bank bond issues from 2002 to 28th February 2015 (appointed by the Monetary Board). None of these investigations have revealed that our client was culpable or even remotely connected to any wrongdoing in the issue of such bonds. (Ref. to Mr. Sirisenas comment); The Cabinet Committee on Economic Management (CCEM) then chaired by Wickremesinghe was corrupt. It had taken certain decisions without even seeking cabinet approval. The CCEM was under the control of the cabinet, but Wickremesinghe, with his good friends created a lot of economic problems. Through those actions corruption too took place. Vidanapathirana Associates; These are totally malicious false statements and false to the knowledge of the person making them. All decisions of the CCEM were enforced through Cabinet decisions. Our client instructs me that only members of the Cabinet or high-ranking officials were involved with the decisions of the CCEM. His good friends (whoever they may be) had nothing to do with the decision-making process. Our client further instructs me that all Ministers of the cabinet were his friends. Our client specifically instructs me that there has been no evidence at all of corruption in such decision-making process. If such corruption existed, it was the bounden duty of Mr. Sirisena as Executive President of Sri Lanka to take appropriate action.
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US sanctions have no legal effect on the Chinese mainland and in Hong Kong, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) addressed in its statement on Thursday, stressing that sovereignty is essentially non-negotiable and core interests are impossible to be compromised.

As part of an escalating anti-China campaign, the US has unilaterally imposed a series of sanctions since last August on more than a dozen of Chinese officials including Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Carrie Lam. The sanctions included allowing US authorities to freeze these officials' assets and prohibit US firms from doing businesses with them.

The US has violated international law and basic norms governing international relations by unilaterally imposing sanctions on Chinese citizens and legal entities in accordance with its domestic laws, CBIRC noted in the statement.

"We will firmly uphold national sovereignty, security and development interests, support financial institutions in conducting their businesses in accordance with the law, and provide fair and quality financial services to all clients, including citizens from Hong Kong and the mainland," it said.

According to the CBIRC, a number of new foreign institutions have been established in the banking and insurance industries over the past year and quite a few of them are from the US. Both Chinese and US enterprises and citizens have benefited from the extensive financial cooperation between the two countries.

"A stable China-US relationship not only serves the fundamental interests of the people in the two countries, but also represents the common expectations of the international community," CBIRC noted.
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The county medical examiners office handled a record number of cases overall, mostly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the release said. The COVID-19 deaths accounted for more than half of the offices 2020 caseload.
The couple has reportedly been arrested after trying to fly home to the UK after Elliot Love tested positive for Covid-19. Photo: Instagram

Love Islands Zara Holland has reportedly been arrested after she and her boyfriend tried to leave Barbados after he tested positive for Covid-19.

According to The Sun, Ms Holland (25) and her boyfriend Elliot Love (30) have been accused of attempting to leave the country after they were both given red bands, meaning they had to quarantine.

After Mr Love tested positive, the couple were to spend time in the quarantine facility Paragon Miliarty base, however, they have reportedly been held on suspicion of breaking coronavirus restrictions by trying to dodge the facility and flying back to the UK.

While trying to return to the UK, the couple were reportedly met by police in the airport after the manager in their luxury hotel noticed they had cut off their red bands.

Ms Holland and Mr Love could face a fine of up to 18,000 each or a year in prison. A source told The Sun that Ms Holland provided a second negative result on Thursday and has been allowed to leave the facility they are currently in.

Her whereabouts are now unknown but her partner is to stay in the facility for at least ten days until he provides two negative results.

Many people have taken to Twitter to share their fury with the couple allegedly trying to fly home to the UK after Mr Love tested positive for the virus.

Rubberbandits Blindboy said: Trying to hop on to a plane full of people, knowing youre positive is some real nasty behaviour.

The Apprentices Pamela Laird wrote: This is outrageous! Trying to board a flight knowing they are covid positive. I hope they get the maximum fine they could have infected who knows how many people at the airport, which could still kill someone. People travelling for holidays right now are unbelievably selfish.

While 2FMs Louise McSharry gave her opinion on the situation, writing: Flying to Barbados for a sun holiday in the middle of this phase of the pandemic is bad, but attempting to get on a plane having tested positive is truly shocking.

Yet more confirmation that some people absolutely do not give a s**t about anyone other than themselves.

Ms Holland, who appeared on series two of Love Island, has disabled comments on her Instagram.

Online Editors
(Photo : Youtube/Wing) Google Wing fights new law of FAA

Last week, the United States government made the biggest set of changes to drone law in the country. The government has ruled that almost every drone in the United States airspace will need to tell their exact locations and the locations of their pilots.

This is in order to address safety, national security and law enforcement concerns regarding the integration of the aircraft into the airspace of the country.

Google's response to drone law

Google expressed their distaste about the new rules. The company's drone delivery subsidiary called Google Wing wrote a post about the new law. The statement was posted by Reuters titled "Broadcast-Only Remote Identification of Drones May Have Unintended Consequences for American Consumers."

Also Read: How to Start Vlogging? Consider Checking Camera Drones

The post argues that the FAA's decision to have drones report their location might let observers track the movements of the drones and the pilot. Observers may also figure out where the pilot is, and also track personal information such as home address, PO Boxes and other sensitive data.

Google Wing also stated that American communities would not accept this kind of surveillance of their deliveries or road trips, and this should also not be accepted in airspace.

Google Wing during the pandemic

The Google Wing drone delivery system created and developed by Google is currently being used in the country by numerous residents. It was at its peak during the coronavirus lockdown on the first half of 2020, when the drone delivered medicine and toiletries to people.

Google Wing is run by Google's parent company called Alphabet Inc., and the service had been running numerous test programs since 2019. Right after completing the tests, the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States.

When the lockdown happened, the program of Google Wing was fixed just in time to deliver baby food, medicine, canned goods, toiletries and other essentials to people who were in need, especially those in rural areas.

Wing CEO James Ryan Burgess told Dezeen that since the outbreak started, they have seen a significant increase in requests for deliveries. They have made more than 1,000 deliveries in April 2020 alone.

Google Wing's drones have a wingspan of a meter. It can carry parcels that weigh up to 1.3kg and it can fly for about 12 miles. Google started testing its drone delivery service in Australia back in 2014, where the unmanned aerial cars dropped off dog treats and first aid kits for those who lived in the Australian outback.

Customers can submit their order through an app, and it will prompt the drone to fly to a delivery facility to pick up the specific item that is packed in a cardboard carrier.

The drone then flies to its destination, laden with package, at a specific altitude, before dropping and hovering seven meters above ground to deliver the package.

The package is then lowered and released. Customers no longer needs to go out and touch the drone or to unclip the package from it as it just does it automatically before it flies of and it goes back to the base.

In April 2019, Google Wing became the first drone operator in the United States to be approved as a commercial service to deliver good by the Federal Aviation Administration or the FAA, according to The Verge.

With the recent decision of the FAA to keep drones tracked and recorded, drone companies, including Google, will have to make an appeal.

Related Article: US vs China: America Plans to Ban Usage of Chinese Drones

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Sieeka Khan

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Neil McCabe of Grown Forest, which aims to plant 50,000 trees across Ireland by the end of next year to widen Irelands biodiversity and revive our wild forests.

An expanse of land in Kilmuckridge is about to become wild again thanks to a novel initiative by a group of eco-conscious firemen.

Neil McCabe, Stephen O'Reilly and Damian Bligh, who all work as fireman, have bought several acres of land in Wexford and planted native Irish trees there.

'We've bought a few acres in Ballyteige in Wicklow and in Kilmuckridge, and in early January we're buying 24 acres in Leitrim and Roscommon," Neil explained.

'The land is cleared, planted and all of the trees - native woodland species Whitethorn, Oak, Holly, Hazel, Alder, Birch, Yew, Blackthorn and Hornbeam - are tagged.'

Other trees which have naturalised over time in Ireland are planted around them to form a protective border, building up a rich collection of natural bacteria and insects to support a healthy biodiversity which includes native wildflowers, weeds and native bees.

'As each tree grows it will supply oxygen, reduce carbon emissions, restore biodiversity, create new and important space for our wildlife and offer aid to our fragile and damaged ecosystems," Neil continued.

'This is about trying to make Ireland wild again, to widen biodiversity and rewind the clock a little so we can look forward to a better future.'

To help fund the project, the trio are asking people to gift a native Irish tree, either to themselves or to someone else.

Tree buyers receive a woodland certificate designed by Irish illustrator Sally Caulwell, explaining where your tree is - it can also be framed for 23.

In a novel initiative, the wood from long-gone dance halls from around the country, still bearing revellers' stiletto and heel marks, will frame the cards sent to those who receive the green gift.

'This is a labour of love for us and we're asking people to gift a native Irish tree, either to themselves or to someone else,' Neil said.

'These trees are planted and protected for generations to come, long after we're gone, and are legally protected from being cut down at any stage.'

Those who purchase trees will be helping out another cause - 10 per cent of the proceeds of each tree sold goes to Dublin Zoo.

The enterprising trio have so far planted 9,000 trees and aim to have another 40,000 in the ground in the next 12 months.

Neil, Stephen and Damian have backgrounds in design, advertising, sustainability and fashion and met through their day jobs in Dublin Fire Brigade.

Year-round sea swimmers and surfers, their eco drive was fuelled by concerns over microplastics polluting the world's oceans.

In 2018, they launched Grown, which produces a collection of men's and women's shirts, tops and hoodies, made entirely from 100 per cent organic cotton, hemp and recycled fibres.

Every cent in profit from the clothing firm goes straight back into the ground with Grown Forest.

'We all went without pay to buy land all over Ireland,' said Neil. 'At the moment it's just the three of us, we then pull along other people who have bought from us and ask them to come to our planting days.'

For more information: www.grownforest.ie.

Gorey Guardian
People across China mourned Yuan Longping, the father of hybrid rice who helped feed millions. Following the death of the iconic agronomist on Saturday, cities across the nation held memorial ceremonies. People lined up in rain to bid farewell to the scientist at the Mingyangshan funeral home in Changsha, where a service took place on Monday. Flowers were also laid in places Yuan had studied and worked

May 25, 2021 06:22 PM
There was a time when Ontario Armstrongs dreams were as clear as the windowpane print on the pocket squares that defined his Philly-based haberdashery brand, Armstrong & Wilson.

I had aspirations of major success," said Armstrong who cofounded Armstrong & Wilson 10 years ago. My dream to the finish line included a multimillion-dollar mens accessories brand and a flagship store.

Then the pandemic hit. Travel stopped. Fabric stores closed. Factories halted production. People stopped shopping. And the department and specialty stores that carried Armstrong & Wilson  including Nordstrom  closed dozens of doors.

Prior to COVID, I only had one journey," said Armstrong, whose ultimate goal is still retail success. "Now my vision for myself isnt as one-dimensional as it used to be. I had to change my dream, rethink who I was. I now have a different vision for myself.

COVID-19 didnt just take the lives of our loved ones. Its changed how we think about our future. We still want to live our best lives, but now many of us have to rethink our paths to getting there. Our aspirations or ultimate goals still include joy, happiness, contentment, being the best at what we do, and living a full life. But the careers, the jobs, the education, the paths we take to get there are forever changed.

For many, thats crippling. The coronavirus has crushed our spirits as we are left wondering: Who are we now? Why should we go on? Is there anything even left to aspire to with so much uncertainty in the world?

 READ MORE: Our indulgences have become more about self-care than spending. Picture a future of lattes, not luxury.

The one thing that we can be certain of, however, is that there will be a future on the other side. And if we live to see it, we have to be prepared for it. So while our long-term goals of finding happiness will likely remain the same, its important that we really start working on how we get there.

The most tenacious of us have already started. Syreeta Scott, owner of the salon Duafe, still wants to be at the top of the natural hair-care game. But now her post-COVID-19 dream includes investing and developing real estate. She bought the North Philly building where her salon is housed and is committed to providing fair housing for her tenants. My dreams for myself now include activism, said the 45-year-old entrepreneur.

Erin Wallace, 42, still has designs on being a prodigious restaurateur. But her company, which owns Devils Den in South Philadelphia, is turning away from being so event-focused. Instead, her dreams include mentoring other women business owners.

 READ MORE: What will sex, dating, and marriage look like on the other side of the pandemic?

And Wick Vipond, a vice president at the Philly-based advertising agency The Perception, still wants to take over the branding world. However, this 40-year-old dads path to happiness now includes spending more time with his kids.

I was always very focused on operating within someone elses rules ... I was trying to find success by playing someones game, Vipond said. But Ive shifted perspective. I can work hard and be present. My dreams for myself reflect that now.

If you are still here, you still need to dream

The pandemic forced us all to slow down and reevaluate. And weve realized that our aspirations were often obtained by following someone elses rules. Nothing illustrated this cookie-cutter idea  that we all needed the same things for ultimate happiness  more than fashion.

I covered the fashion industry for more than a dozen years. And right now, as I write this essay in yoga pants, it all seems for naught. I cringe at the industrys overuse of the word aspirational. Too often, it was used to promote the insidious narrative that our clothing and accessories were key to helping us fulfill our personal potential. Not just our clothes: The house we lived in. The restaurants we frequented. The car we drove. These were sold as the things dreams are made of to create the lives we aspired to.

But really, what does that matter now, especially if the world as we know it is gone?

If you are still here, you still need to dream, said Heather Coletti, a professor of philosophy at Villanova University. You need to have a reason to get up every morning. Basic survival doesnt feed you. Those of us without dreams risk being physically alive, but dead inside."

The pivot

So whats the solution? We have to be willing to pivot. Detour. Give up our old dreams but and not be afraid to dream bigger. The life we aspire to depends on it.

The people who will survive this with their ability to dream intact will be more flexible, Coletti said. And its somewhere inside that flexibility where they will be able to modify their dreams, transforming them into something new and relevant."

 READ MORE: Having fun after COVID-19: Will the good times roll back, or stumble?

Sydney Grims, the director of business development at Fearless Restaurants, made a small change in her schedule to work in a friends stable.

I literally rediscovered my dream of me being in the equestrian world," Grims, 29, said. It was something I could not focus on because of my work aspirations, but this fills my tank. My therapy is being around horses."

The pivot came for Vipond early on in the pandemic, when he left his cushy position at a venerable advertising firm to join a much smaller agency.

Life doesnt get better by chance, Vipond said. It gets better by change and there is no good time for that."

As for Armstrong, hes still rebuilding his dream career. Over the last nine months, hes dabbled in modeling and built his social media platform.

I dont how Im going to get there, but I know where I want to go. I gotta keep pushing."
Kimberly Wyatt has revealed she was told she is 'too professional' to be a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing.

The Pussycat Dolls star, 38, is a trained dancer but bosses turned her down after her bandmate Ashley Roberts' appearance on the show in 2018 led to accusations of a 'fix' as she also had years of dance experience.

Speaking to The Sun, Kimberly said: 'From any chats that I've had, Strictly feel that I'm too professional to be a contestant.

Show: Kimberly Wyatt has revealed she was told she is 'too professional' to be a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing (pictured in 2019)

'So much as I'd love to learn ballroom, my dancing experience holds me back as a contestant.'

Ashley was a clear front-runner during her series and made it to the final with Pasha Kovalev where she was beaten by Stacey Dooley and her partner Kevin Clifton.

Kimberly began dancing in her teens and appeared as a dancer in Nick Lachey's music video for Shut Up.

Robin Antin, the creator of The Pussycat Dolls, was the choreographer for the video and asked Kimberly to be in the group.

Hard luck: Kimberly is a trained dancer but bosses turned her down after her bandmate Ashley Roberts' appearance on the show in 2018 led to accusations of a fix (Ashley pictured with Pasha Kovalev in 2019)

Kimberly also spoke about the criticism The Pussycat Dolls received for their raunchy performances on The X Factor: Celebrity in 2019 and on The One Show last year.

538 viewers complained about the performances, many upset about the revealing costumes the group wore.

Responding to the criticism, Kimberly said: 'It makes me sad people are so hung up on costumes. Pussycat Dolls stands for being empowered females owning their space and being there for each other.'

Firing back: Kimberly also spoke about the criticism The Pussycat Dolls received for their raunchy performances on The X Factor: Celebrity in 2019 and on The One Show last year

Kimberly previously discussed criticism aimed at the group after a performance on Australian morning show Sunrise angered some viewers last March for similar reasons.

Speaking to news.com.au, she said: 'I thought we were beyond this, but obviously the conversation needs to continue.

'Were warriors when we step on stage, throwing everything into it. Its unfortunate that its so misunderstood by so many people.

'Luckily we have a presence online now and we can help people understand us, understand dance, understand what intention means as a performer.'
The governor of Iliinois has erased nearly 500,000 cannabis-related criminal records in the state.

J B Pritzker cleared the states non-felony marijuana cases, along with 9,219 low-level cannabis convictions to start 2021.

The Democratic politician signed legislation in 2019 legalising recreational marijuana use in Illinois, which started last year.

That allowed for almost 770,000 state residents to have marijuana-related offences expunged, which sees a record of criminal conviction destroyed or sealed from state or federal records.

The governor had said it could take four years to work through the cases, but announced that nearly 500,000 had been thrown out heading into 2021.

We will never be able to fully remedy the depth of the damage in communities of colour, who have disproportionately shouldered this burden, said Mr Pritzker.

But we can govern with the courage to admit the mistakes of our past  and the decency to set a better path forward.

The legalisation of cannabis in the state also created a programme that reinvests 25 per cent of tax revenue from it into a fund for youth development, anti-violence projects, economic development and civil legal aid services in areas dealing with high levels of gun violence, child poverty and imprisonment.

The state had until 1 January 2025 to expunge all 492,192 cannabis arrest records.

The process is still continuing in the states 102 counties, where they have another four years to complete the task.
Statehouse Reporter

Danny Jin is the Eagle's Statehouse reporter. A graduate of Williams College, he previously interned at the Eagle and The Christian Science Monitor. Danny can be reached at djin@berkshireeagle.com or on Twitter at @djinreports.
File photo

Regional police commissioner Milan Galic later told N1 broadcaster the victims were local residents, four men and four women, aged between 18 and 20.

Not less than eight men and women have been found dead in a cottage in Bosnia, sparking some stir in the area.

They were found dead in an apparent carbon monoxide poisoning during a New Years Eve celebration.



Police spokeswoman Martina Medic said officers responded to a call at about 10am local time on Friday and went to a house in Tribistovo where several people were found dead.



Regional police commissioner Milan Galic later told N1 broadcaster the victims were local residents, four men and four women, aged between 18 and 20.



They most probably suffocated but more information will be available after the investigation, he said.



Their bodies were discovered on Friday after friends staying in a neighbouring cottage went to wish them a happy new year, according to Vecernji.ba.



One man reportedly forced entry to the property, where he found the group unconscious on the ground floor.



In a Facebook post, the Posusje municipality, where the village is located  about 90 miles south west of the capital of Sarajevo  mourned eight young lives lost and urged local cafes and restaurants to close down to honour the victims.



Top officials from Bosnia and Croatia offered condolences to their families as a national day of mourning was declared for 2 January.



The flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina will be flown at half mast on government buildings and media in the state will adjust its programme schedule for the day, according to the Klix.ba website.



Bosnian and Croatian media said the eight were high school and university students who died from carbon monoxide leaking from a generator they used for heating as they celebrated New Years Eve in a holiday cottage.



Carbon monoxide is an odourless, colourless and tasteless gas that can cause sudden illness and death.
A controversial cleric with a disgraced reputation in Kansas City recently checked out and/or departed this mortal coil to meet his maker.

The news of his passing, of course, embarrassed the faithful yet again but this morning we want to highlight hope for redemption.

To wit . . .

ACTIVISTS AGAINST PRIEST SEX ABUSE CONTEND THAT THE PRIEST'S DEATH COULD HELP VICTIMS HEAL!!!

Here's the argument and a continued call for Kansas City victims to come forward . . .



SNAP: Notorious Catholic Priest Dies in Missouri



A Catholic clergyman from the Diocese of Kansas City  St. Joseph who faced multiple lawsuits for child sexual abuse has died. We hope that the news of his passing will bring comfort to the many people he irreparably harmed and will encourage other still-silent and suffering victims to come forward and get the help they need.



In addition to having been sued many times, Fr. Michael Tierney is also on the Diocesan list of clergy with substantiated abuse allegations. The entry for the priest on the list notes that a canonical trial decreed guilt in multiple cases.



Despite the fact that Catholic officials in Kansas City were notified of allegations against Fr. Tierney at least as early as 2008, the priest was only permanently removed from ministry in 2011. Sadly, this pattern of Diocesan delay and inaction is likely what allowed Fr. Tierney to hurt so many in the first place.



We do not celebrate Fr. Tierneys death, but we recognize that the passing of abusers often makes their victims feel more comfortable and safer. We hope that those who were hurt by Fr. Tierney will feel that comfort and safety today and that any others who were hurt and have yet to come forward will find the strength and courage to do so now.

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Developing . . .
High drama was witnessed in Kaithal City on Saturday as hundreds of farmers and members of Anganwadi workers union held a protest outside the residences of Haryana minister of state for women and child welfare Kamlesh Dhanda and local MLA Leela Ram Gurjar.

Heavy police force was deployed to control the protesters, but farmers removed the barricades with the help of tractors and reached near the residence of Dhanda.

They have been demanding the resignation of Dhanda to support their ongoing agitation against the three agriculture laws.

Earlier, the protesters had reached the residence of Kaithal MLA Leela Ram Gurjar and demanded an apology from him for his alleged statement likening the protesting farmers to terrorists. We have come to the residence of MLA Gurjar to ask him to find out the terrorists amongst us, the farmers associated with BKU (Charuni) said.

They also threatened to boycott them if they failed to support their agitation.

We had voted for them so that they could raise our voice, but they failed. Now, we demand the minister and the MLA to resign from the BJP to join our protest and we will ensure their win again, the protesters said.

Kaithal superintendent of police Lokender Singh said the situation was under control as the protests ended peacefully. He said that no FIR has been registered against any farmer.

This is the second such protest in Kaithal in the past one week. The Kaithal police had booked around 100 unidentified farmers for threatening Kamlesh Dhanda and JJP MLA Ishwar Singh and blocking their way on December 25.
Six test cases have been done in Philippines by team at King's College London

Australia, Canada, the United States and Britain found to have fathered children

The research technology that was used to find California's Golden State Killer

It comes in the wake of the 2011 Oxfam scandal that found staff had engaged in sexual misconduct with victims of the 2010 Haitian earthquake

Researchers are uncovering British foreign aid workers who fathered children abroad by using publicly available DNA databases.

Six test cases have already been completed in the Philippines by researchers from King's College London, finding men in Australia, Canada, the United States and Britain to have fathered children in the country.

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They did so either through sex tourism or in relation to foreign aid work, The Telegraph reported.

The research - that uses genealogy technology - comes in the wake of the 2011 Oxfam scandal that rocked the aid sector after allegations said that staff had engaged in sexual misconduct with victims of the 2010 Haitian earthquake.

Researchers at King's College London are tracking down men who fathered children while in the Philippines as aid workers. The research - that uses genealogy technology - comes in the wake of the 2011 Oxfam scandal that rocked the aid sector after allegations said that staff had engaged in sexual misconduct with victims of the 2010 Haitian earthquake (pictured)

One of the men - a British man and former aid worker for the World Bank - was found to have fathered two children in the Philippines 20 years ago.

Now in his 70s, the man was tracked down in the UK by the team using public data. He has now accepted the children.

The project is being led by Andrew MacLeod, a lawyer at Griffin Law, visiting professor at King's College and the co-founder of Hear Their Cries, an anti-child abuse charity in Switerland,

It has been awarded around 44,000 in funding by the university to expand its work into central and Western Africa.

Mr MacLeod told The Telegraph that the small amount of funding will allow the project to 'take a second go at the proof of concent'.

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'We're now identifying partners, women and children to repeat the programme we did in the Philippines in those parts of central and West Africa where almost certainly the fathers will be aid workers,' he said.

The lawyer added that some of the funding will also go towards hiring an academic at the university to conduct research into the 'underreported nature' of sexual abuse in the aid industry.

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He hopes that the project can become a 'permanent international institution' which 'does nothing but to seek out and find victims of abuse,' he told the newspaper.

Once a suspected victim of aid worker abuse is identified, the field team will take a DNA sample that will be returned to London.

One of the men - a British man and former aid worker for the World Bank - was found to have fathered two children in the Philippines 20 years ago. Pictured: An Oxfam project in Haiti in 2011 after the earthquake that displaced 55,000 people

Mr MacLeod then works on behalf of each individual victim to trace their father using DNA databases that are publicly available.

A similar method was used to catch the 'Golden State Killer', who killed 12 people and raped 45 women between 1975 and 1986.

Police used public family tree data to track Joseph James DeAngelo down. His fingerprint have been on file for decades without being identified.

While DeAngelo himself had not uploaded his data himself to the public site, a distant relative had. This allowed police in California to find him in 2018.

Kings College's forensics department is working with other faculties on a six month pilot, Denise Syndercombe Court, Professor of Forensic Genetics said.

The goal is to 'fully document the extent of the issue' and to provide genetic evidence of the abuse, she said.

The team is planning to present the project at a conference in May 2021, Covid-19 restriction permitting, with the goal of getting support from national and international governments, as well as industries and charities, to limit any abuse that is ongoing, the professor explained.

After lobbying governments for decades, Mr MacLeod - who has previously held senior positions at the UN - said that he is yet to see any 'meaningful change' within the industry.

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But said he was optimistic the new technology can help to hold the perpetrators of the abuse to account now that he has 'all the tools' at his disposal.
If you havn't done it yet,to get one of the fastest volcano news online:

Karymsky, the most active volcano of Kamchatka's eastern volcanic zone, is a symmetrical stratovolcano constructed within a 5-km-wide caldera that formed during the early Holocene. The caldera cuts the south side of the Pleistocene Dvor volcano and is located outside the north margin of the large mid-Pleistocene Polovinka caldera, which contains the smaller Akademia Nauk and Odnoboky calderas. Most seismicity preceding Karymsky eruptions originated beneath Akademia Nauk caldera, which is located immediately south of Karymsky volcano. The caldera enclosing Karymsky volcano formed about 7600-7700 radiocarbon years ago; construction of the Karymsky stratovolcano began about 2000 years later. The latest eruptive period began about 500 years ago, following a 2300-year quiescence. Much of the cone is mantled by lava flows less than 200 years old. Historical eruptions have been vulcanian or vulcanian-strombolian with moderate explosive activity and occasional lava flows from the summit crater.

The volcano in Iceland with the unpronounceable name... but famous in 2010 when its ash clouds drifted over Europe and forced a unprecedented large-scale airspace closure for several days, stranding millions of passengers.

An adventurous expedition to some of the most spectacular and active volcanoes in the world! Our volcano expedition to Vanuatu lets you spend 1 week on Ambrym with its multiple active lava lakes and 4 days on Yasur, famous for its spectacular fireworks. Guided by professional volcanologist, small groups (May-Sep).

The Earth is not the only place with volcanic activity. Active volcanism also occurs at at least 3 other bodies in our Solar System.

We're proud to present our new volcano calendar 2015: 13 different and attractive images of volcanoes, volcanic landscapes and phenomena taken during volcano tours over the past few years.

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Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Rain showers early will evolve into a more steady rain overnight. Low around 65F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch..

Tonight

Rain showers early will evolve into a more steady rain overnight. Low around 65F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch.
OTTAWA  The NDP has stripped Northern Manitoba MP Niki Ashton of her official critic roles for travelling to Greece without telling her partys leadership team.

OTTAWA  The NDP has stripped Northern Manitoba MP Niki Ashton of her official critic roles for travelling to Greece without telling her partys leadership team.

"This has been a very difficult time for me and my family," Ashton told the Free Press in a text message, declining an interview.

The party said it was blindsided Thursday, when it learned Ashton had gone to visit her ailing grandmother in Greece, despite Canadian officials urging citizens to not leave the country.

As a result, Ashton will no longer hold the roles of NDP critic for transport and public ownership, and her role as deputy critic for gender issues.

In a statement, the NDP said Ashton did not inform Leader Jagmeet Singh and the party whip about the trip beforehand.

The NDP checked with its 24 MPs to see if theyd left the country as news emerged of provincial politicians from Ontario and Saskatchewan vacationing abroad.

"While we are sympathetic to Ms. Ashtons situation and understand her need to be with her family, millions of Canadians are following public health guidelines  even when it made it impossible for them to visit sick or aging relatives," reads the statement.

"Canadians, rightfully, expect their elected representatives to lead by example."

The news comes just after Ontario MPP Rod Phillips resigned from his role as that provinces finance minister, after it came to light that he was vacationing in the Caribbean island of St. Barts.

Phillips had posted numerous photos and videos on social media that suggested he was still in Canada over the holidays. A handful of similar cases of provincial cabinet ministers and MLAs then came to light, though none in Manitoba as of Friday.

Ashton stressed she was travelling due to her grandmothers illness.

She announced she was in Greece in a Friday tweet. Her previous tweet noted "COVID-19 isnt taking time off for the holidays, and neither can the feds."

In its news release, the NDP noted Greece currently only allows foreigners who can prove an essential reason to visit, and argued Ashton had passed that test.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 13:22:22|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Before the COVID-19 pandemic, most Americans were convinced of the stories Washington had been peddling all around, which portrayed the country as a steadfast and powerful defender of people's lives, equality and fairness.

However, a much different storyline about the very same protagonist has been developed as an array of calamities unfolded in the United States during the year 2020, from the dismal response to COVID-19 to the most divisive election in U.S. history.

Just as U.S. writer Evan Osnos wrote in his recently published book, "the trials of 2020 have dismantled some of the most basic stories we Americans tell ourselves."

FAILURE IN CONTAINING COVID-19

"The world's richest, most powerful country has botched even rudimentary responses to the pandemic -- finding masks, making tests," said Osnos.

According to the real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University, the United States has recorded over 20.1 million COVID-19 cases and more than 347,000 related deaths, leading the world in terms of both the caseload and the death toll.

"This is a staggering and mind-numbing number," Sourabh Gupta, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for China-America Studies, said in a recent interview with Xinhua. "Yet, we still have to cope with nonsensical debates about individual freedoms and mask-wearing."

Experts have attributed the U.S. failure in containing the virus to an absence of a national strategy, politicized policies as well as misinformation and conspiracy theories that have allowed the pandemic to take root and become rampant.

"A vacuum of leadership, coupled with incompetency in the country to take early action to prevent the spread of the virus even after the COVID-19 virus had been identified" has all contributed to the U.S. failure, Sarwar A. Kashmeri, an international relations analyst at Norwich University, told Xinhua.

"Throughout the course of this pandemic, politics has been an obstacle to public-health initiatives," said an article titled America Needs a COVID-19 Reckoning on the webpage of The Atlantic in early December.

"In the United States, there has been a great deal of misinformation and confusion about COVID-19," John Manzella, editor-in-chief of The Manzella Report, told Xinhua.

"As a result, many Americans still do not understand the importance of wearing a mask or social distancing -- a problem that very likely has resulted in higher COVID casualties," he said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country's top infectious disease expert, has also warned the pandemic "might actually get worse" in the next few weeks.

According to predictions from the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, another 193,000 Americans could lose their lives over the next two months.

ERODING PUBLIC FAITH IN INSTITUTIONS

Restoring faith in U.S. institutions, like a good government, a well functioning electoral system, a fair judiciary, and sound property rights that protect investments, is another challenge facing the country, noted Manzella.

A series of unexpected events like the "Black Lives Matter" protests, raging gun violence, and intensifying conflicts between parties and social groups has all indicated that U.S. institutions are losing Americans' trust.

"Declining trust in American institutions is tantamount to chipping away at the building blocks that ultimately support our wealth creation model," Manzella said.

The recently staged saga about the U.S. presidential election is functioning as a catalyst for such a process of eroding Americans' faith in the institutions, according to the experts.

President-elect Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump by "a massive 7 popular million votes" in Election 2020, yet if "only 45,000 votes" in the states of Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin had changed hands, which is "less than 1 percent" of the difference in the popular vote, both Trump and Biden would have exactly 269 electoral college seats each, according to Gupta.

"America's electoral college system is utterly broken," said Gupta.

"It reflects very poorly on the state of America today that in a year in which the country, for lack of honest political leadership, has suffered more deaths than all U.S. troop casualties in all the U.S. wars of the 20th century combined with the exception of WWII, the incumbent president failed to retain office by a mere 45,000 votes! This is utterly shocking," he said.

"This was not the total repudiation of Trump and Trumpism that so many had hoped for. Instead, in some quarters, it amounted to an embrace, with Trump actually increasing the total number of votes he'd received in 2016," said a Time report.

It is "a shock, if not a surprise, for those eager for the country to turn over a new leaf," the report said.

"The electoral college system heaps an unnecessary degree of artificial polarization and rural bias upon the political system, which at the end of the day has real world consequences like controversial judicial selections. And which, in turn, has led the political system to keep chewing upon itself for the worse," said Gupta.

AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM SHATTERED

The tumultuous year of 2020 has again thrown into sharp focus the American exceptionalism, a concept that has become an anachronism in the 21st century, experts said.

"The catastrophic U.S. response to COVID-19 is ... the product of an insularity in U.S. politics and culture that the American way is invariably the best, has blinded the country's leaders (and many of its citizens) to potentially lifesaving lessons from other countries," wrote Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, in his Foreign Affairs article "Exceptionalism Is Killing Americans."

Domestically, the U.S. exceptionalism was built on the country's "remarkably dynamic entrepreneurial streak, which ensured unparalleled intergenerational mobility to its residents," according to Gupta.

Internationally, the U.S. exceptionalism was built on "America's power of leadership which was best exemplified by its own power of example -- and notwithstanding the immense military capabilities that it enjoyed," he said.

But now, domestically, the U.S. "inter-generational mobility machine has broken down with economic gains accruing to the very top and near top of the income and wealth pyramid, and remaining across generations within this wealthy cohort," Gupta said.

"The U.S. has suffered a huge loss of standing in the post-Cold War era, given its numerous illegal wars and the failure to abide by the very international rules that it had itself laid down after WWII," he noted.

"It is also no longer an engine of prosperity overseas as it used to be," Gupta said, explaining that the United States "can no longer expect to lead by power of example; it must learn to lead by consensus as a 'first among genuine equals' during these uncertain times." Enditem
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Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 09:16:01|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that China will continue to advance global cooperation on epidemic response, strengthen joint prevention and control, and assist countries and regions in need.

"We will never slacken such efforts until humanity secures a final victory against COVID-19," he said in a recent interview with Xinhua News Agency and China Media Group.

Wang summarized China's contributions and support to the global COVID-19 response in six respects, including being the first country to report cases to the world, taking the most rigorous control measures to fight the virus, conducting the largest-scale online exchanges on epidemic response, providing urgently needed assistance by launching the largest global emergency humanitarian campaign since the founding of the People's Republic of China, doing its best as the largest manufacturer of medical supplies, and being the first to pledge to make vaccines a global public good.

"When hit by an unknown coronavirus, China took immediate actions to carry out epidemiological investigation, identify the pathogen and publicize key information including the genome sequencing of the virus. All this sounded alarm bells across the world," he said.

Wang said that China effectively controlled the virus within the shortest possible time, and steadily resumed economic and social activities, making an early contribution to building a strong global line of defense against the virus.

"We organized over 100 video meetings with experts from other countries, opened an online knowledge center to share China's experiences with all countries, and published eight updated versions of diagnosis and therapeutic solutions and seven updated versions of prevention and control protocols," he said.

To help people across the world prevailing over the virus, China has provided assistance to over 150 countries and 10 international organizations, sent 36 medical teams to 34 countries in need and provided funding to WHO and other relevant UN agencies, according to Wang.

As the largest manufacturer of medical supplies, China has provided countries around the world with over 220 billion masks, 2.25 billion protective suits and over 1 billion testing kits, Wang said.

"We were the first to pledge to make vaccines a global public good, bearing in mind the greater good of humanity," he said. Enditem
Carriers from India and the UK will each be operating 15 flights per week till 23 January to and from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad only

New Delhi: Only 30 flights per week will operate between India and the UK when services resume from 8 January, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri announced on Friday and said this arrangement will continue till 23 January.

Indian and UK carriers will each be operating 15 flights per week during the aforementioned period to and from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad only, he said.

Over 60 passenger flights per week were flying between India and the UK in December.

However, the Aviation Ministry suspended all passenger flights connecting the two countries from 23 December onward as a new variant of coronavirus emerged in the UK.

The minister had announced on Wednesday that passenger flights between the UK and India would remain suspended till 7 January and they will resume in a "strictly regulated" manner thereafter. The earlier suspension period was from 23 to 31 December.

Puri tweeted on Friday, "It has been decided that flights between India and UK will resume from 8 January 2021."

"Operations till 23 January will be restricted to 15 flights per week each for carriers of the two countries to and from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad only," he added.

The Health Ministry had announced on Tuesday that samples of all international passengers who arrived in India from 9-22 December and tested positive for COVID-19 will be subjected to genome sequencing, which helps in understanding how the new virus variant spreads and evolves.

The presence of the new UK variant of the virus has already been reported by Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore.

Scheduled international passenger flights continue to remain suspended in the country since 23 March due to the pandemic.

However, airlines have been permitted to operate special international flights under the Vande Bharat Mission since May 2020 and under the bilateral air bubble pacts since July.

India has formed air bubble pacts with 24 countries, including the UK.
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Turkey's health minister says the country has identified 15 people who carry a highly contagious coronavirus variant that was discovered in the United Kingdom.

In a statement Friday, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said the strain was found in travelers arriving from the U.K. He said they were in quarantine, along with people they had been in contact with. He said the strain was not identified in passengers from elsewhere.

Turkey suspended flights with the U.K. along with other countries in late December upon discovery of the new strain's spread and quarantined at least 4,603 passengers. Turkey also began to require a negative PCR test result for all international arrivals last week.

Turkey has among the worst infection rates in the world but official statistics show the 7-day average of daily infections has dropped to around 15,000 from above 30,000 since evening curfews and weekend lockdowns were instituted in early December.

The official death toll is 21,093, according to ministry statistics, but critics have accused the government of deliberately downplaying the extent of the county's outbreak.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

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Lets face it, last year was rough. So, if you just cant rouse yourself to choose a show or two to see at this years Sydney Festival, sit back, take our advice and youll soon find yourself at a bee hive, a beauty pageant or a dance party washing away the blues of 2020.

IM IN THE MOOD FOR...

Messy laughs, acrobatic japery, physical theatre

Robbie Curtis is the Worker Bee and Lizzie McRae is ever-striving Queen Bee in the family show A Bee Story.

Pelt paint-filled balloons at two men suspended high in the air in a once-spotless shipping container-living room in The Cleaners (Centenary Square, Jan 14-24, free). Created and performed by Hayden Jones and Sam Foster, founders of Shock Therapy Productions, this endurance work lasts for 10 days and pits the meaning of existence with the futility of trying to keep things perfect (and spotlessly clean). Buzzing with acrobatics, physical comedy and live music, A Bee Story (Vaucluse House, Jan 6-10, $25) is a family show featuring performers Robbie Curtis and Lizzie McRae, as the rambunctious and ever-striving Worker Bee and Queen Bee facing unexpected trials and hiccups while restoring their home and bee community after a bushfire ravages their hive. Playwright James Elazzis Queen Fatima (Riverside Theatres, Jan 7-16, $44-$59) unleashes the power and chutzpah of 30-year-old Fatima, unmarried and desperate to impress her future in-laws. Shaking the foundations of Miss Australia Lebanon as she works to win the pageants crown, Fatima crushes stereotypes, ballgown fabrics and expectations in a comedy thumbing its nose at outdated ideals of a womans worth.
Dozens of people in Florence took to the Tennessee River for the Polar Plunge on New Year's Day.

This polar plunge is different because it is raising money for suicide prevention. Organizers didn't hit their goal this year because of the pandemic, but said each dollar raised is an accomplishment.

"We didn't have any sponsors like we normally do, so it's a lot lower, but we're just proud to raise a dollar really," said event organizer, Melissa Miles.

This year, Josh and Melissa Miles helped raise $2,800 that will go to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, but this event almost didn't happen because of the pandemic.

"We don't want to spread the COVID, but we've seen firsthand and through studies that this isolation and fear, and everything going on in the world right now has increased the normal mental health problems 10-fold," said Josh Miles.

Josh Miles is a veteran, too, and said he started this five years ago to raise awareness about veteran suicide, but it's grown since then. Their message has stayed the same.

"It's a message of empathy. If you get people together that can relate to one another, then they are more likely to help one another. We don't want people to feel alone, because most everyone has felt alone at some point in your life, when in reality you're not. There are people out there that will love and help you and support you," said Miles.

Miles said he hopes anyone seeing this and needs help will reach out for it. He said things can get bad, but they will always get better.
Bunscoil Loreto pupils during the launch of the School of Sanctuary programme in 2019.

Bunscoil Loreto has become the first primary school to be awarded School of Sanctuary status.

Over the past year, the school was assessed by a team from Places of Sanctuary Ireland and was judged to be outstanding in terms of welcoming and including young people from diverse backgrounds and for spreading the message of sanctuary though the community.

Schools of Sanctuary coordinator Homayoon Shirzad said: 'Bunscoil Loreto is model to other primary schools in its outstanding and highly creative work to welcome and support children from multiple nationalities that have joined the school and to help build brides of understanding across society.

'As a refugee parent, I know how much this atmosphere of welcome will mean to all new families'.

Philip McKinley, founder of the Discovery Gospel Choir and of Universities of Sanctuary Ireland said he was enormously impressed by Wexford's wide range of initiatives.

The school celebrates languages, food and festivals from the various countries, while other initiatives include setting up a 'sanctuary space' for reflection; establishing a sanctuary committee among the children; inviting asylum seekers in to give talks; and embedding these activities into the curriculum and sharing them with other schools.

Children from all classes shared what it means to them to be School of Sanctuary, and the younger classes linked the Christmas story to seeking sanctuary, explaining that the family of Jesus had to flee as a refugee because their lives were threatened by Herod.

In 2020, the school brought its song, 'All Are Welcome' to Walton's national schools competition and were one of only six schools due to perform in the National Concert Hall, which was unfortunately cancelled due to Covid-19.

Places of Sanctuary Ireland is an all-Ireland network of groups working to promote a culture of welcome and inclusiveness across every sector of society.

Gorey Guardian
NEW DELHI: A major fire broke out at Harley Davidson showroom situated on the first and second floors of a building in Moti Nagar area of New Delhi in the wee hours of Saturday (January 2).

According to ANI inputs, the fire broke out in the showroom at around 1:38 am today.

Upon receiving the information, a team of fire brigade department reached the spot and began the rescue operation. At least 25 fire engines were pressed into service to douse the flames.

As many as four people were rescued from the night club on the third floor of the building. A Delhi Fire Service (DFS) official told the news agency that the flame was brought under control by 5:50 am.

No casualty was reported in the incident.
COVID-19 testing is carried out at the Summer Hill testing clinic in Sydney, Australia on Dec. 31, 2020. (Brook Mitchell/Getty Images)

NSW Effort to Stem Western Sydney Virus Spread

New South Wales (NSW) contact tracers are racing to contain coronavirus spread after three cases were recorded linked to western Sydney.

Two casesa man in his 40s and a man in his 20sare under investigation after 32,000 people came forward for testing in the 24 hours to 8 p.m. on Thursday.

The third case, a man in his 20s, is a close household contact of one of the other two men.

NSW Health expanded its list of exposure sites on Friday evening, saying anyone who visited BWS in Berala between Dec. 22 and 31 must get tested immediately and isolate.

Specific times of potential exposure on those dates can be found on the NSW Health website.

None of the three new cases are linked to the northern beaches hotspot which now totals 146 after two previously recorded infections were linked.

The state government is urging western Sydney residents from Greystanes, Auburn, Berala, and Lidcombe with even the mildest of symptoms to get tested.

NSW Health has also put out an exposure alert for shoppers who visited menswear store Culture Kings in Sydney between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 28.

The suburb of Croydon is the site of a number of new cases in Sydneys latest COVID-19 outbreak in Sydney, Australia Dec. 31, 2020. (Brook Mitchell/Getty Images)

Anyone who was there during that window should get tested and self-isolate if they experience any COVID-19 symptoms.

Meanwhile, a mystery source that sparked the Croydon cluster and two cases in Wollongong has now been linked to the Avalon cluster, with the connection between the cases revealed by genetic testing.

Patrons who dined at the Swallowed Anchor restaurant in Wollongong on Dec. 19 have been urgently called after one case from Croydon and another from the local area both attended on that date.

There may have been a transmission event at that venue, NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said.

Victoria shut its border with NSW at midnight on Friday.

The state announced its decision on Thursday, prompting two days of disruption and upset plans as Victorians holidaying in NSW rushed to get home.

Other alerts for Eden and Bermagui on the NSW south coast come after two coronavirus cases travelled to NSW from Victoria on Dec. 30.

Anyone who visited the Great Southern Hotel in Eden that afternoon should get tested and isolate until further advice, as well as Bermis Beachside Cafe in Bermagui on the evening of Dec. 31.

New health alerts were also issued on Friday for Bunnings in Ashfield on Dec. 28, Woolworths at Strathfield Plaza on Dec. 20, Woolworths at Berala on Dec. 24, 26, 28, and Haberfields Clark Rubber on Dec. 28.

Stay-at-home orders applying to northern beaches residents north of the Narrabeen Bridge will continue until at least Jan. 9. A lockdown for the peninsulas southern zone will be in place until Jan. 2.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the recent low numbers recorded in NSW were encouraging and he thanked the community for listening to health advice and coming forward for testing.

COVID still hasnt gone away, it hasnt taken a holiday, it wont be going anywhere, and as a result, we continue to deal with the very serious challenges, he said.

On Friday evening the Tasmanian government announced NSWs Wollongong Local Government Area would join Greater Sydney as a medium-risk area from midnight, meaning arrivals from there will have to quarantine for 14 days.

Tasmania classifies Sydneys northern beaches as a high-risk area, meaning no entry to Tasmania is allowed unless a special exemption is granted.

By Andi Yu
ESCONDIDO, Calif., Dec. 28, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via InvestorWire - CB Scientific. Inc. (OTC:CBSC) ("CBSC" or the "Company"), a provider of innovative products and services for the ambulatory noninvasive cardiac monitoring space, announces today the addition of dozens of new device clinical trials of its my-Cam device and new hospital monitoring contracts through the Companys exclusive authorized distributor, Mango Wellness Co., Ltd. (MWC) and My Cardia Thailand Co., Ltd. (MCT) in Thailand.

Mango Wellness Co., Ltd.s successful participation as an exhibitor at the Royal College of Physicians of Thailand Annual Conference in Pattaya, Thailand, Oct. 29-31, and again at the Thailand Cardiologist Annual Conference in Hua Hin, Thailand, Dec. 10-12, produced overwhelming interest from more than 160 physicians who have requested on-site evaluations of the Companys innovative my-Cam monitor and my-Cardia software portal in these two regions of Thailand. Mango Wellness Co., Ltd. and My Cardia Thailand anticipate adding 100 contracted hospitals in the first quarter of 2021, totaling more than 1,000 ambulatory remote cardiac event monitoring tests during this time.

Further penetration of the remote cardiac monitoring market in 1,300 hospitals in Thailand, given the increased shift towards home healthcare and growing concerns pertaining to the early detection of cardiac heart rhythm abnormalities, is expected as MWC and MCT expand their outreach throughout the country.

CB Scientific plans to make further announcements to keep its shareholders, industry participants, and the public markets informed through press releases and regulatory filings as new developments occur.

CB Scientific Inc. Company Contact Information:

340 State Place

Escondido, CA 92029

Telephone number:

(888) 225-0870

Emails:

General inquires: info@cbscientificinc.com

Investor Inquiries: investor@cbscientificinc.com

Company Website and Social Media Outlets:

CB Scientific website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn

Mango Wellness Co., Ltd./My Cardia Thailand Co., Ltd. Company Contact Information:

Mango Wellness Co., Ltd.

Glas Haus Building, Level P, Unit PO1

1 Sukhumvit 25, North Klongtoey

Wattana, Bangkok, Thailand 10110

My Cardia Thailand Co., Ltd.

190 Sutthisan Road, Intersection 1

Ratchadaphisek, Dindaeng

Bangkok, Thailand 10400

Telephone number:

+66 (0) 21015576  Mango Wellness

+66 (0) 971566481  My Cardia Thailand

Emails:

General inquires: info@mangowellnessthailand.com

info@mycardiathailand.com

Company Website and Social Media Outlets:

www.mangowellnessthailand.com, www.mycardiathailand.com

Twitter - https://twitter.com/ThailandMango

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/mangowellnessthailand/, https://www.facebook.com/mycardiathailand/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mangowellnessthailand11

You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUkd57GAqiAbwzmHC6wG6OQ, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnvz5qPLQjxko1Hc3bUJBDw

Forward-Looking Statements

This information disclosure may contain forward-looking statements covered within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements relate to, among other things, plans and timing for the introduction or enhancement of our services and products, statements about future market conditions, supply and demand conditions, and other expectations, intentions and plans contained in this press release that are not historical fact and involve risks and uncertainties. Our expectations regarding future revenues depend upon our ability to develop and supply products and services that we may not produce today and that meet defined specifications. When used in this press release, the words plan, expect, believe, and similar expressions generally identify forward-looking statements. These statements reflect our current expectations. They are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, changes in technology and changes in pervasive markets. This release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 27E of the Securities Act of 1934. Statements contained in this release that are not historical facts may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain. Actual performance and results may differ materially from that projected or suggested herein due to certain risks and uncertainties including, without limitation, ability to obtain financing and regulatory and shareholder approval for anticipated actions.
The recommendation for Bharat Biotech's vaccine came a day after the COVID-19 expert panel cleared the Serum Institute of India's emergency use authorisation application for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine 'Covishield'

A COVID-19 expert panel of the CDSCO on Saturday recommended a second COVID-19 vaccine COVAXIN, indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech and the ICMR, for emergency use authorisation, especially against the mutant strains. The SECs recommendations will now be considered by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), who will grant the final approval, reports said.

This came on a day India tested its COVID-19 vaccine delivery system with a nationwide trail, as it prepares to roll out an inoculation programme to stem the coronavirus pandemic.

Meanwhile, the number of new COVID-19 cases in the country fell below 20,000 while the national recovery rate rose to 96.12 percent, according to data from the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Additionally, Union health minister Harsh Vardhan appealed to people not to be "misguided" by rumours and disinformation regarding the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, while announcing that the govt would bear the cost towards inoculating one crore healthcare workers and two crore frontline workers.

Also, the ICMR said that India has successfully cultured the new coronavirus strain, which originated in the UK.

In a tweet, the ICMR claimed that no country has yet reported successful isolation and culture of the UK-variant of SARS-CoV-2.

Culture is the process by which cells are grown under controlled conditions, generally outside their natural environment.

COVAXIN recommended for emergency use approval

Day after clearing the Serum Institute of India's emergency use authorisation application for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine 'Covishield', the Subject Expert Committee on COVID-19 of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) Saturday issued a similar direction for Bharat Biotech's COVAXIN, paving the way for the roll-out of COVID-19 shots in the country in the next few days.

Both the vaccines now await the final approval of the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), the Union health ministry said on Saturday.

COVAXIN has been indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

The SEC has recommended "grant of permission for restricted use in emergency situation in public interest as an abundant precaution, in clinical trial mode, especially in the context of infection by mutant strains, to Bharat Biotech," the health ministry stated.

However, PTI quoted sources as saying that the committee also stated that Bharat Biotech shall continue the ongoing phase 3 clinical trial and submit data emerging from the trial as and when available.

The committee noted that the vaccine is an inactivated whole virion, coronavirus vaccine, having the potential to target mutated coronavirus strains, the PTI report added, citing sources. The data generated so far demonstrates a strong immune response (both antibody as well as T cell) and in-vitro viral neutralisation.

After detailed deliberations, the SEC has also recommended for grant of permission to Cadila Healthcare Ltd in Ahmedabad for the conduct of phase-3 clinical trial protocol for its vaccine candidate.

Vaccine dry run held across India

As India came closer to the roll-out of COVID-19 vaccine, dry runs were held across the country on Saturday. The dry-run was being conducted in state capitals in at least three session sites. Some states also included districts that are situated in difficult terrains or have poor logistical support, PTI reported.

Maharashtra, Kerala and Gujarat conducted the mock drill in four districts each, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in five districts each, while Rajasthan carried out the dry-run in seven districts.

The first phase of the dry run was conducted in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Punjab on 28 and 29 December, with at least 125 intended beneficiaries at five sites in a maximum of two districts each.

The Union health ministry had said that no major issues were observed during the pilot dry run and all states had expressed confidence in the operational guidelines and IT platform for large-scale programme implementation.

Specific teams were formed for various tasks conducted on Saturday's rehearsal by the district administrations. Activities like uploading of dummy beneficiary data, session site creation, vaccine allocation, communicating vaccination details to beneficiaries and vaccinators, and beneficiary mobilisation, etc, were carried out.

In Delhi, where the dry run was held at three sites, state health minister Satyendar Jain said that free coronavirus vaccine will be provided to the people in the city. Interacting with reporters during a visit to a facility in Daryaganj, he said the system "seems flawless" as of now.

On Saturday, the dry run was conducted at identified health centres in Nagpur, Jalna, Pune and Nandurbar districts of Maharashtra. In Kerala, at least 25 health workers each in four districts  Thiruvananthapuram, Idukki, Wayanad and Palakkad  took part in the drill.

In West Bengal, the dry run was held at Urban Primary Health Centres in Duttabad and Madhyagram and Amdanga Rural Hospital in North 24 Parganas district

A senior official in Assam said the dry run will continue regularly in the state till actual vaccination takes place.

In Karnataka, the exercise was held at Kalaburagi, Shivamogga, Mysuru, Belagavi, and Bengaluru districts, and in Tamil Nadu, the dry run was held at three centres each in the districts of Chennai, Tiruvallur, Nilgiris and Tirunelveli, and five in Coimbatore.

An important focus of the dry run was on the management of any possible adverse events following immunisation (AEFI), and adherence and management of infection control practices at the session site to prevent disease transmission, the union health ministry had said.

The states and UTs were asked to ensure that the data of beneficiaries is uploaded in the Co-WIN app, ensure physical verification of all proposed sites for the adequacy of space, logistical arrangements, internet connectivity, electricity, safety, etc. and prepare at least three model session sites in each state (at state capital) for demonstration.

They were asked to ensure that the model sites have separate entry and exit in a 'three-room set-up' with adequate space outside for awareness generation activities.

The dry run will equip the state and UT administration in the management of vaccine supply, storage and logistics including cold chain management, the ministry had stated.

Won't compromise any protocol in vaccine approval: Harsh Vardha

Union Health Minister Vardhan said on Saturday free vaccine will be provided in the first phase to the most prioritised beneficiaries, including one crore healthcare and two crore frontline workers.

He also said the details of how 27 crore priority beneficiaries  those above 50 years of age and those below it having comorbidities  will be vaccinated until July were being finalised.

Vardhan stressed that there would be no compromise on any protocol while approving the vaccine.

The minister dispelled doubts regarding the country's capability to undertake such a massive vaccination drive, describing how India had unparalleled experience in dealing with immunisation and runs one of the largest such programmes in the world.

"I appeal to the people not to be misguided by rumours regarding the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine. We will not compromise on any protocol before approving a vaccine," Vardhan said underlining that vaccine hesitancy was an issue even when the country started polio immunisation drive, but "we must remember its success".

The health minister has been credited with doing pioneering work in the successful mass pulse polio immunisation programme.

"It is as a result of our steadfastness and dedication that India was declared polio-free in 2014. Our rich learning from the earlier immunisation drives including the Polio vaccination campaign is being used to guide our present countrywide COVID-19 vaccination campaign," he was quoted as saying in a statement.

Guidelines for the nationwide dry run were updated based on the feedback from the insightful pilot dry run held earlier in four states, Vardhan said.

One primary contact tests positive for UK strain in Karnataka; 37 UK-returnees report infection in Kerala

Amidst the nationwide trial of the COVID-19 vaccination system, the Central Government and various state governments continued to trace returnees from the UK who have tested positive, in a bid to curb the spread of the new 'infectious' virus strain detected in Britain.

One primary contact of a UK returnee was among 10 people who tested positive for the new strain of the 2019 novel coronavirus and all of them are undergoing treatment, Karnataka health minister K Sudhakar said on Saturday.

"Ten people have so far been confirmed with the new variant of coronavirus infection... nine of them are returnees from the UK, while one is a contact, the mother of one them. All of them are undergoing treatment and are without any serious health condition. They will recover soon," he said.

The minister told reporters here that so far 32 people who returned from the UK and 10 of their contacts  a total of 42  have been confirmed with COVID-19 infection during the RT-PCR test.

Their samples were sent for genomic sequencing and 10 among them were confirmed to be infected by the new variant of the virus.

In Kerala, 37 people who returned from the UK to Kerala recently tested positive for COVID-19 , state health minister KK Shailaja said.

She added that the samples of the UK returnees have been sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) for further testing for the mutant variant. She said that of the 11 results received from NIV, none had tested positive for the new variant.

However, in Gujarat, four COVID-19 positive people were confirmed to have been infected by the new strain, PTI reported. Results of 15 samples that had tested positive for coronavirus on arrival in Ahmedabad are currently pending with the NIV.

"All the passengers who had reached Ahmedabad from the UK were screened, and the samples of those who had tested positive for the novel coronavirus were sent to the NIV. We have received intimation that the UK strain of coronavirus has been detected in four such cases," Principal Secretary (Health), Jayanti Ravi told reporters.

All UK passengers to be tested on arrival between 8-30 Jan; India-UK flights to begin from 6 Jan

All passengers coming from the UK between 8 and 30 January would be subjected to self-paid COVID-19 tests on arrival, the health ministry said in a standard operating procedure (SOP) issued on Saturday while the civil aviation ministry announced the decision to resume flights between the two countries.

Moreover, each passenger arriving from the UK would have to bring his or her COVID-19 negative report from a test done 72 hours prior to the journey, the SOP stated.

"Airlines to ensure the availability of negative test report before allowing the passenger to board the flight," the health ministry's SOP stated.

It said adequate arrangements should be made for the passengers who will be waiting for their RT-PCR test or its results at the airport.

"Passengers testing positive shall be isolated in an institutional isolation facility in a separate (isolation) unit coordinated by the respective state health authorities," the SOP said.

If the genomic sequencing indicates the presence of the new variant of SARS-CoV-2, the patient will continue to remain in a separate isolation unit, it said.

The patient will be tested on the 14th day after having tested positive and he or she will be kept in the isolation facility till his or her sample has tested negative, it added.

Additionally, Union aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri said that flights from India to the UK will resume from 6 January, while services from the UK to India will resume from 8 January onwards.

"Resumption of flights between India & UK: India to UK from 6 Jan 2021. UK to India from 8 Jan 2021. 30 flights will operate every week. 15 each by Indian & UK carriers (sic)," Puri said on Twitter.

"This schedule is valid till 23 Jan 2021. Further frequency will be determined after review (sic)," he added.

Earlier, Puri had announced on Friday that only 30 flights per week will operate between India and the UK when services resume from 8 January and that this arrangement will continue till 23 January.

COVID-19 caseload details

India's caseload rose to 1,03,05,788 on Saturday, while the number of people who have recuperated from the disease crossed 99 lakh, according to the health ministry.

A total of 19,079 people tested positive for the coronavirus infection on Saturday, while the toll due to the disease climbed to 1,49,218 in the country with 224 new fatalities, the ministry's data updated at 8 am showed.

The number of active COVID-19 cases remained below three lakh for the 12th consecutive day.

There are 2,50,183 active coronavirus cases in the country, which accounts for 2.43 percent of the total caseload, the data stated.

According to the ICMR, 17,39,41,658 samples were tested for COVID-19 in the country till 1 January, including 8,29,964 on Friday.

The 224 new fatalities include 59 from Maharashtra, 26 from West Bengal, 23 from Kerala and 21 from Delhi.

Of the 1,49,218 COVID-19 deaths reported in the country so far, Maharashtra has accounted for the highest of 49,580, followed by Tamil Nadu (12,135), Karnataka (12,096), Delhi (10,557), West Bengal (9,738), Uttar Pradesh (8,379), Andhra Pradesh (7,108) and Punjab (5,349).

With inputs from PTI
Irish Institute of Music and Our Balbriggan team up for Christmas song and video.

Local schoolchildren have joined songwriting star Lesley Roy in a virtual multilingual rendition of Mariah Carey's festive hit All I Want for Christmas is You.

It comes just days after Ms Roy, a native of Balbriggan, announced that she will represent Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2021 in Rotterdam next May, with her song Story of My Life.

The video of the song, which featured the voices of children and young families in 11 different languages, was produced and released by the Irish Institute of Music and Song (IIMS) and Our Balbriggan.

Balbriggan is the youngest and most culturally diverse town in Ireland and, according to the most recent census, the most spoken languages in the town after English are Polish, Lithuanian and French.

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While Ms Roy sings the first line of the song in English, local children complete the rest in Irish, Portuguese, Polish, Spanish, Lithuanian, Russian, Mandarin, Romanian, French and Sinhalese.

Balbriggan's cultural heritage was highlighted in the video, which features footage of the children singing against the background of several cultural landmarks, such as the Martello Tower, the 14th century Bremore Castle and the lighthouse.

Lesley Roy lives and works as a songwriter in Manhattan, New York, and, like so many other Irish people, will not make it home this Christmas. She took part in the festive video as a way of saying happy Christmas to everyone in her home town.

The video was produced by the creative team at the IIMS, which is based on Church Street, Balbriggan. The IIMS was recently granted planning permission to build a 400-seat concert hall, which is expected to be complete by March 2022.

The Balbriggan video of All I Want for Christmas is You, is available to watch on the Irish Institute of Music and Song YouTube channel and Our Balbriggan social media channels.

For more information, visit www.irishinstituteofmusic.com

Fingal Independent
The Week

After publicly expressing "grave concerns" over Arizona's audit of the 2020 election results, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) was "stripped" of her ability to "defend election lawsuits" by the state's Republican-led House Appropriations Committee, reported Arizona's ABC 15 on Tuesday. The duty was transferred "exclusively" to Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) through the end of the 2023 fiscal year. Democrats say the move is retaliation against Hobbs' defense of Arizona voters in "lawsuits filed by the State Republican Party and others challenging Arizona's election results," per ABC 15. "It can't be just a coincidence" that Republicans are blocking a "vocal critic of the audit," writes Elvia Diaz for azcentral.com. Democratic State Rep. Randy Friese reportedly called the move "troubling," "disturbing," and "quite nefarious." Furthermore, the Appropriations Committee removed Hobb's "oversight of the Capitol Museum," ABC 15 reports, after Hobbs angered state lawmakers when she "flew a gay pride flag from the building's balcony" in 2019. Katie Hobbs has conscientiously supervised elections in Arizona. Republicans there just stripped her of some powers -- including her ability to litigate election lawsuits. They gave control of that process to the state AG, a Republican. This is how democracy gets dismantled. https://t.co/VamVgXfxgR  Tim O'Brien (@TimOBrien) May 25, 2021 In an article for azfamily.com, Hobbs labeled the entire audit "a political stunt," adding that it is "dangerous to people's safety and to the integrity of our democracy." She later tweeted a photo on Tuesday of a fruit basket sent by Stacey Abrams and Fair Fight, saying that's how "you know you're doing it right." When @staceyabrams, @gwlauren, and their crew at @fairfightaction send you a fruit basket, you know you're doing it right. pic.twitter.com/yQ11UdmXso  Katie Hobbs (@katiehobbs) May 25, 2021 Read more at azfamily.com. More stories from theweek.comBiden says he underestimated Trump's ability to spread 'the big lie'Biden needs some braggadocioReport: D.A. convenes grand jury expected to hear Trump investigation evidence
Christians in Hong Kong are bracing themselves against persecution from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) amid uncertainties about the future of religious liberty in the city.

Just six months after the National Security Law was imposed, Hong Kong authorities have already arrested activists, journalists, and others who have expressed opposition against the CCP.

Religious groups are not exempt from this harassment. Last month, police instructed HSBC to freeze the accounts of the Good Neighbor North District Church and the accounts of its pastor Roy Chan and his wife, who fled to the U.K. in October.

Police also raided two venues of the Good Neighbor North District Church upon accusations of money laundering and fraud, saying the church misdeclared the amount they raised from their crowd funding activities.

In connection with the investigations, police arrested the former church director, a church employee, and two female members. Because of the police's ongoing investigations, more than 20 staff members of the Good Neighbor North District Church have resigned.

The church believes they are being harassed in retaliation for its show of support to the 2019 pro-democracy protesters.

Now, Hong Kong Christians are preparing themselves for the worst that could happen in light of China's crackdown on Christian churches.

The International Christian Concern (ICC) interviewed two Christians-Aniela and Pastor Joel (not their real names)-who left Hong Kong to hide in a third world country to know about the plight of the churches in the city and what their future could possibly be.

Aniela described what they would do in case of a crackdown on Christian churches. The first part of the plan is to acknowledge the possibility that they could get arrested for their faith.

"We have prepared ourselves," Aniela explained. "Firstly, we know we might be arrested."

"Secondly, we will turn our churches into small groups, as long as we are not caught," she continued.

And if that didn't work, she said they would close their churches "and resort to using creative means" to continue gathering in secret.

Pastor Joel said that thanks to the pandemic, the church has adapted virtual meetings, which could be of great help once Beijing intensifies its attack on Christian churches.

"During the pandemic, most churches have become virtual. I know a small group that brought worship to an elderly's home. They brought iPad along for streaming and helped clean the house afterward," Pastor Joel said.

Both Aniela and Pastor Joel told ICC that the body of Christ in Hong Kong suffers from division. Some Christians are pro-democracy, while others are pro-government. They believe this division is exactly what the CCP wants to happen to Hong Kong churches.

Christians have different reasons for being pro-Beijing. One of them is receiving certain benefits from the communist government.

"Hong Kong Anglican Church, which is the most pro-CCP [denomination], recently was granted two large contracts (each worth 38 million USD) by the government to manage two wellness centres," Pastor Joel said.

"This move is to show the carrots a church can receive if they align with the government," he added.

Pro-government churches would probably become like the Three-Self Patriotic churches in the mainland. However, the CCP would likely call them by a different name so as not to be accused of breaking the "one country, two systems" framework.

Pastor Joel also said churches that operate schools in Hong Kong would choose to cooperate with the authorities to keep their properties.

Although the future of Hong Kong Christians looks bleak, the harassment of churches has not weakened the faith of believers. On the other hand, their faith has been strengthened because of what's happening, Pastor Joel said.

"As a Hong Kong Christian, now is the time when I feel like I understand the Bible the most," one believer told him.

Communist China has been trying to stop the growth of Christianity by harassing churches, arresting church leaders, exerting pressure on their landlords so they would be forced to vacate the properties they rent, and shutting down, repurposing, or demolishing their church buildings.

Many Christians have gone missing for years. Others have endured torture in prison. Yet despite all these, the churches in mainland China continue to grow.

The Chinese government estimates that there are 200 million "religious" people in China, with 38 million belonging to Protestant churches. The number of Christians continues to grow.

A newsletter from Asia Harvest, a Christian organization that partners with local ministries to plant churches, states that the number of Christians in China has risen to 100 million.

"In the 71 years since China became communist, the Lord has laughed at efforts to destroy His kingdom, and He has overseen the greatest revival in history, with the church in China growing from about one million believers to well over 100 million!" the newsletter says.
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This tech wrap has a mix of all kinds of news. From official announcements by companies to leaks and bug fixes, we witness all kinds of news today. Some companies that took the headlines were Samsung, Huawei, Apple and Xiaomi. So, check out the most popular news in the past 24 hours.

Android 11 update for Mi A3 bricking phones, users complain

Xiaomi started rolling out the Android 11 update for Mi A3 earlier this week. Shortly after, users started complaining of their phones bricking upon installing the new software update. Xiaomi has acknowledged the problem and halted the update rollout following these complaints by users. The firm has also replied via the Mi Support Twitter page.

Govt plans chatbot like Alexa, Google Assistant to deliver public services

The government on Friday invited bids to develop a chat bot or voice assistance application like Amazon's Alexa or Google Assistant to deliver e-governance services to the public. The artificial intelligence-based conversational platform is expected to interact with the public in multiple languages, analyse sentiments and intent, collect and analyse data to give personalised experience to users.

WhatsApp users made over 1.4 billion voice and video calls on New Year's Eve 2020

WhatsApp made a new record on New Years Eve with more than 1.4 billion voice and video calls on the messaging app. This is the highest number of calls ever made globally in a single day on WhatsApp.

Apple iPhone 13 Pro models may get the most-anticipated display feature, 120Hz refresh rate

Since last year, Apple fans have been debating over the fact that when the company will include 120Hz refresh rate feature in its iPhones. However, a tipster has now re-confirmed that this feature is coming for sure, but only in iPhone 13 Pro models.

Apple and pears: Apple may discontinue lawsuit against Prepear

Back in August last year, Apple had sued meal prep company Prepear for its logo that looked similar to Apples iconic one. Apple said that the Prepear logo that consisted of a minimalistic fruit design with a right-angled leaf. However, now the firm has reportedly dropped the case against Prepear but may be willing to negotiate and solve the dispute.

Samsung confirms Galaxy Buds Pro on its website

Samsung is expected to launch the Galaxy Buds Pro, its new TWS on January 14. The Galaxy Buds Pro have been spotted on multiple leaks confirming its launch even though Samsung hasnt announced yet. Samsung Canada has now listed the Galaxy Buds Pro on its website confirming the name of the wireless earbuds.

Samsung Galaxy M02s to launch in India next week

Samsungs first smartphone launch of 2021 could take place next week. Samsung is reportedly planning to launch the Galaxy M02s budget smartphone in India. This smartphone will be priced under 10,000.

Huaweis next flagship chip is going to be a 3nm one, to be called Kirin 9010

Huawei just launched the Kirin 9000 a few months ago and that chipset comes in two variants - the Kirin 9000 and the Kirin 9000E and is currently only found in the Huawei Mate 40 series smartphones. Now, according to a tipster, the next flagship Kirin processor is coming soon and will be called the Kirin 9010.

Samsung users enter 2021 with a minor yet interesting OneUI 3.0 bug

It looks like Samsung is off to a bit shaky start in 2021 when it comes to software updates. According to a new report by Galaxyclub.nl, Samsung users are encountering their OS first bug of the year with OneUI 3 that the firm rolled out recently.
Emergency room physicians in California have revealed how hospitals are so overstretched amid the coronavirus pandemic that patients can only be admitted when another one dies.

California, the most populous state with 40 million residents, has become a leading US flashpoint of the pandemic despite some of the nation's toughest restrictions on social gatherings and business activities.

The soaring COVID-19 case load has pushed hospitals in and around Los Angeles in particular to their limits, filling emergency rooms, intensive care units, ambulance bays and morgues beyond capacity, and creating staff shortages.

In Santa Clara, near San Jose, hospitals have run out of space in intensive care units and are now treating patients in the emergency room.

Dr. Marco Randazzo, an emergency room physician, told CNN: 'Often, the only time we can move someone is when a Covid patient dies.'

More than 21,000 patients are in beds across California being treated for coronavirus, with over 4,500 patients in intensive care units.

On Thursday, the country set a new record with 125,379 COVID-19 patients in hospitals, the most for a single day since the pandemic began.

Pictured: A doctor checks on patients inside a facility in Apple Valley, California

The situation at hospitals across the United States is growing more dire by the day

ICU available capacity is at zero percent across the state of California due to COVID-19

The state has released data stating there is 0.0 percent ICU capacity available in California, although that number varies greatly by region, with the Bay Area sporting a 6.3 percent capacity remaining, while Southern California is at 0.0 percent.

Briefing reporters on Thursday, Cathy Chidester, director of the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency, called the situation a 'hidden disaster,' not plainly visible to the public.

Heightened demands of caring for those struggling to breathe has also left many hospitals in the region short on oxygen, both in supplies and the ability of older facilities to maintain adequate pressure flow through ventilators, Chidester said.

She also described ambulances forced to wait several hours at a time to unload patients, causing delays throughout the county's emergency response system.

To ease ER overcrowding, the county is denying ambulance transport to hospitals of emergency patients who are already under hospice care with do-not-resuscitate directives, according to Adam Blackstone, a spokesman for the Hospital Association of Southern California.

Medical experts attribute the worsening pandemic in recent weeks to the arrival of colder weather and the failure of many Americans to abide by public health warnings and requirements to stay home and avoid unnecessary travel over the year-end holiday season.

The crisis faced by healthcare systems has become especially acute in Los Angeles County where one patient is dying every 10 minutes from the respiratory virus, according to county health officials.

'We are clearly not out of the woods -- we are in the thick of the woods,' said Dr. Ahmad Kamal of Santa Clara Valley Medical Center.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention forecasts that over 80,000 could lose their lives to the coronavirus in the next three weeks alone.

Some hospitals are treating patients in emergency rooms or makeshift ICU wings

There are also oxygen tents that are being held outside of California emergency rooms

California is one of the states seeing the biggest surge of cases as the pandemic rages on

The US marked a sobering start to the new year on Friday as COVID hospitalizations exceeded 100,000 for the 31st day in a row, with more than 2,000 new deaths,

Some states, including New York, New Jersey, and Nevada, have seen declines in hospitalizations over the past couple of days.

But other states, such as Texas and Iowa, continue to see sharp rises in coronavirus hospitalizations. The former counted 12,481 COVID-19 patients in state hospitals on New Year's Day.

Pictured: A person is loaded into an ambulance after being administered oxygen

California has lost over 26,000 people to the COVID-19 pandemic so far

Pictured: An administrative worker hands a COVID-19 test to someone in Los Angeles

Hospitals are not the only facilities running short on room in California.

The Associated Press reports funeral homes are also running out of room and struggling to deal with the overflow of the deceased, reminiscent of the early days of the pandemic when New York City deployed freezer trucks near hospitals for those who died.

'I've been in the funeral industry for 40 years and never in my life did I think that this could happen, that I'd have to tell a family, 'No, we can't take your family member,'' said Magda Maldonado, who owns the Continent Funeral Homes in Los Angeles.

In California, there were almost 38,000 new cases on New Year's Day, pushing the state past 2.35 million total cases. The state also added 271 more to the death total, which now stands at 26,236 people.

The United States surpassed 20 million total cases this week as the death toll continues to climb simultaneous to the slow rollout of several COVID-19 vaccines.

The United States surpassed 20 million coronavirus cases in total earlier this week

Adding to anxieties over the current surge is the emergence of a mutant strain of COVID-19 that has now been confirmed in three states: Colorado, California and Florida. The strain was first detected in the United Kingdom and is thought to be 70 percent more transmissible than the original.

Florida became the third state to confirm a case of the strain on Thursday evening after it was detected in a man his 20s who lives in Martin County and has no history of travel.

California, which reported its first case of the strain on Wednesday, confirmed three more people have been infected with it in the San Diego area on Thursday night.

Earlier this week, the first case was confirmed in Colorado and officials say they are also investigating a second suspected case in the state.

The fact that the confirmed cases in Colorado and Florida both involved individuals with no recent travel history means that the variant must already be circulating on US soil.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, has been sounding the alarm that it's only a matter of time before other states detect the strain.

'We predicted it would be, when you have so much of it in the UK, which then spread to other countries in Europe and Canada, it was inevitable that it would be here,' Fauci told Today on Thursday.

'You'll be hearing reports from other states and more cases in the state that is already reported. Unfortunately, that's just the reality of the way these viruses spread'.

But he added: 'The good news is that it does not appear to be more virulent, namely, making people more sick and leading to more death.'

There are fears the number of infections - followed by hospitalizations and deaths - will only continue to rise in the coming weeks as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) revealed that it screened 1,163,696 people at airport checkpoints on Wednesday, December 30.

It marked the fifth consecutive day that the number of passengers screened exceeded one million and the ninth day this month that the threshold was passed.

Offering a bit of hope, Operation Warp Speed chief Dr Moncef Slaoui on Wednesday announced that a one-shot coronavirus vaccine could be in use by February if Johnson & Johnson's jab is approved.

Slaoui said Phase 3 trial recruitment for the vaccine has been completed and Johnson & Johnson is currently working with the Operation Warp Speed team to accelerate the availability of the vaccine doses.

'I think it can be quite a game-changer,' Slaoui told reporters. 'We're hopeful that this vaccine, which is a one-shot vaccine will have equivalent efficacy to those of Moderna and Pfizer.'

Single-dose shots would mean faster rollout, and that people would likely be protected from coronavirus in a matter of weeks after the injection - rather than the about one-month period it takes for Moderna or Pfizer's shots to reach their protective peak.

In the weeks since Pfizer and Moderna's jabs were approved several states have struggled to implement effective plans to get them out to patients.

Pandemic is set to kill another 115,000 Americans in January but universal mask wearing and faster vaccine roll-out could save thousands of lives, model reveals

The coronavirus pandemic is on track to kill another 115,000 Americans by the end of January, according to one statistical model, which claims that universal wearing of masks and a rapid vaccine rollout could save about 13,000 lives in the next four weeks.

As of Saturday, the total number of U.S. deaths in the pandemic was approaching 348,000, and since March more than 20 million Americans have been infected by the virus.

The sluggish and at times chaotic initial rollout of vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna has drawn sharp criticism from a range of political leaders, including President-elect Joe Biden and Republican Senator Mitt Romney.

Following current trends, the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projects that the death toll will hit 456,238 by January 31.

Following current trends, the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projects that the death toll will hit 456,238 by January 31

Rapid vaccine rollout would have the biggest impact starting in February, as the vaccines take weeks to take effect. The IHME's projections of daily deaths are seen above

Healthcare workers wheel a patient into a hospital in New York on New Year's Day. The total number of COVID-19 cases in the United States since March topped 20 million on Friday

The statistical model predicts that if everyone in the country wore a mask or face covering in public, January's death toll would drop by about 13,000.

A rapid vaccine rollout would only spare about 1,000 lives in January, according to the model. Since the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines both take several weeks to provide effective protection, their true impact would only be seen over a longer timeline.

As of Saturday, 3.49 million vaccine doses have been administered nationwide, according to a Bloomberg analysis. That accounts for just 28 percent of the vaccine doses that have been distributed top the states, and means that 1.1 percent of the total population has received a dose.

It was far short of the Trump administration's goal of vaccinating 20 million Americans with a first of two required doses by the end of 2020.

Senator Romney, a Utah Republican and frequent critic of President Donald Trump, issued an emotional statement on Friday urging the U.S. government to immediately enlist veterinarians, combat medics and others in a dramatic proposal to boost vaccination efforts.

Fire Chief Colin Stowell (left) receives the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at the San Diego Fire-Rescue Training Facility on Thursday

'That comprehensive vaccination plans have not been developed at the federal level and sent to the states as models is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable,' Romney said in a statement that was perhaps aimed as much at the incoming Biden administration as the outgoing Trump one.

'It was unrealistic to assume that the health care workers already overburdened with Covid care could take on a massive vaccination program,' Romney said.

Almost 350,000 Americans have succumbed to COVID-19

He called on the government to 'enlist every medical professional, retired or active, who is not currently engaged in the delivery of care' to be drafted into a crash program of government-run vaccination sites across the country.

'This could include veterinarians, combat medics and corpsmen, medical students, EMS professionals, first responders, and many others who could be easily trained to administer vaccines,' he proposed.

Romney also proposed a scheme to 'Schedule vaccinations according to a person's priority category and birthdate: e.g., people in group A with a January first birthday would be assigned a specific day to receive their vaccination.'

Referring to his experience overseeing the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, Romney also included what could be seen as a pitch to the Biden administration to offer his own assistance, saying: 'I have experience organizing a major logistical event,' though adding humbly that it was 'nothing on the scale of what is called for today.'

Hundreds wait in line to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in Fort Myers, Florida, on Thursday. Floridians over age 65 can get the vaccine on a first-come, first-served basis

Biden also took a swipe at the Trump administration's oversight in a tweet on Friday, writing: 'Let me be clear: The Biden-Harris Administration will spare no effort to make sure people are getting vaccinated.'

Biden has vowed to invoke the Defense Production Act and ensure that 100 million vaccines are administered in his first 100 days in office, though he has offered few concrete details on how this would be achieved.

Hospital doctors and nurses treat Covid-19 patients in a makeshift ICU wing on the West Oeste at Harbor UCLA Medical Center on Tuesday in Torrence, California

Funeral services are held for grandfather Gilberto Arreguin Camacho, who died due to Covid-19, at Continental Funeral Home on Wednesday in East Los Angeles, California

The leading U.S. infectious disease specialist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said on Wednesday he was confident of overcoming early glitches in the vaccine campaign, saying America could still achieve enough collective immunity through vaccinations to regain 'some semblance of normality' by autumn 2021.
Story of a thousand rupees View(s):

As the world is wrapped up in a pandemic and Ceylon Tea is facing issues, trade unions on the plantations are demanding that an increase of their wages be made to reach Rs.1000 at a time when most sectors are going through pay cuts and job losses.

The budget 2021 had also proposed a wage increase to Rs. 1,000 per day from this month.

Planters Association (PA) Media Spokesman and Hayleys Plantations Managing Director Roshan Rajadurai told the Business Times on Thursday that they were scheduled to have discussions in the New Year with the trade unions.

Time and again since January 2020 the PA has submitted to the authorities a new wage model that would ensure workers can receive a higher productivity-based wage.

Mr. Rajadurai said last year they had made losses to the tune of Rs.6 billion and that should they just increase the wages it would cause further losses as cost of production is high.

Even the trade unions must understand that if the industry collapses then workers collapse, Mr. Rajadurai explained.

He noted however that currently there is some degree of revenue sharing already taking place on the plantations of the RPCs.

Moreover, he pointed out that until October they were also able to control the coronavirus on the plantations as the plantation managers have been able to manage the situation.

However, since October when most from Colombo had moved to the plantations for holidays it had caused some spread of the pandemic.

Mr. Rajadurai queried the reason for demanding an increase when all other sectors were going through pay cuts and job losses. In fact, he insisted that this was not a time to make such demands and the tea industry itself was facing challenges.

On the home front itself the crop was facing a shortage of fertilizer, he said as there is some sort of hiccups similar to the issues confronted by others in the agriculture sector. (SD)
The Centre is developing an Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP)-based database of modus operandi various criminal gangs or individuals use to commit crimes to help police solve such cases faster as well as help them learn about the new methods adopted by criminals.

The Modus Operandi Bureau (MOB), the database, will have over 100 modus operandi or trademark of criminals/accused persons involved in crimes till date. It will be updated from time to time depending on new crimes, people familiar with the matter said.

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) is developing the database under the Union home ministrys supervision. It will be accessible to all 16,000 odd police stations across the country through Crime and Criminals Tracking Network Systems (CCTNS).

The criminals keep innovating on regular basis and adopt newer modus operandi. The list of modus operandi can never be exhaustive, but continues to become bigger and perhaps unwieldy. The police investigations will have technological solutions now where with the help of AI and NLP, they will be able to read the text in the FIRs [first information reports] of a large number of cases stored in the CCTNS system and categorize cases as per keywords related to modus operandi, said a ministry official, requesting anonymity.

Read more| Pvt firms, PSUs set to get access to crime database

NCRB is also working on voice analysis to identify the criminals issuing threats/ransom calls over the phone. A database of voice samples of arrested criminals is being created in the CCTNS for that, said a second official.

The second official added the MOB takes care of who the criminal may be and who committed a particular crime. But another aspect deals with the psychology of criminals and why the offender committed the crime and did what he did.

The second official referred to the November 2019 rape and murder of a Hyderabad woman and added why did the accused burn her body and that too in a particular way. And whether they would repeat the crime, had they not been shot dead? This relates to research with the help of psychologists based on interviews, family profile, socio-economic factors and so on for which the Bureau of Police Research and Development is currently engaged.

Police across states can read modus operandi and avert incidents, for instance, if there is a serial killer on the loose.

The first official said the modus operandi module will produce quality results only if police stations are careful and regular in feeding the FIRs and criminal data into the CCTNS.

Read more| Cyber crime cases went up during lockdown, shows Delhi police data

An Indian Police Service officer, who did not want to be named, said traditionally, when computers were not in much use, details of each criminal used to be kept on cards, which were stored modus operandi wise. Searching those cards for finding involvement of a possible criminal used to be manual and the investigating officers would visit local modus operandi bureau at the state level for relevant research. These MOBs were normally kept at district or state levels. With national digital MOB, an officer can check everything on his desktop or laptop.
Did you buy a Powerball ticket in Hedgesville? You might have won $50G
From Cool to Cringe: What's Happened to American Culture?

America had exported Cool to the world. Now it exported its cringey hallucinations, its racial paranoias, its porn and DJ Khaled
Every morning when 67-year-old Dwijapada Mahanty, a retired village school headmaster wakes up, he is greeted by the chirping of hundreds of birds, the sight of wild rabbits playing in the field near his house and the view of a lush green forest on three hillocks at a distance.

They all come from the forest, which we have developed on the hillocks, at a stones throw from our village. Earlier it was all rocky and barren. But now there is a lush green forest out there, inhabited by wild animals and birds. The villagers protect them, said Mahanty, a resident of Jharbagda, a remote village in West Bengals Purulia district, about 250 km northwest of Kolkata.

The situation was, however, starkly different even in the early 90s. Back then, years of deforestation had left the hillocks totally denuded and rocky. Villagers said that in one of the hillocks there was just one tree left  a palm tree.

While during the summer the temperature would soar to 47-48 degrees Celsius making life unbearable in the rocky terrain, during the monsoons streams of water would gush down the hillocks, through the gullies, eroding the land at the foothills and rendering the farmlands almost infertile, said Tapas Mahanty, a farmer in the village.

With hardly any forest land around, the villages women folk had to walk to a wooded area around five kilometers away to collect twigs and leaves for fuel. The ponds and tubewells in and around the village would all run dry in the summer and villagers had to walk about two kilometers to collect water in the scorching heat. The farmlands bore very little grains and vegetables.

It was around 1998 that the villagers decided to restore the greenery of the area with the hope that it would put an end to the drudgery. They approached a NGO, Tagore Society for Rural Development (TSRD), which was already engaged in greening projects in the area and in Jharkhand. Jharbagda is located close to the Bengal-Jharkhand border.

We had to start from scratch as the area was totally denuded. A detailed plan was made to restore the greenery, stop the water erosion, recharge the ground water and raise the ground water level without which the trees wouldnt survive for long. The villagers dived headlong with us and work started around 1999, said Nandalal Bakshi, coordinator of the TSRDs project in Jharbagda.

More than three lakh saplings of around 75 species were planted all across the hillocks that spread over 300 acres in the next five to six years. Villagers ensured that none of the saplings were damaged by any person or cattle. There are around 400425 households in the village.

On an average the district receives 1100 mm1500 mm of rain every year. But as the district has a very undulating terrain, run-off is very high and more than 50% of this water is wasted making large parts prone to droughts. Thus the district is called Ahalya Bhumi the land with a stony heart.

Gullies were plugged and staggered trenches were dug to stop the soil erosion and arrest the rain water during the monsoon. The saplings were also chosen carefully keeping in mind the soil condition and the slope. Four categories of saplings  timber, fuel, fodder and fruits  were planted, said Bakshi.

Once the saplings matured into trees, the water content of soil increased automatically and the erosion dropped. Farmers could now start intercropping and their farm produce also shot up. The ground water table started rising. The once barren fields were covered with lush green grass and plants which became suitable for cattle.

The women can now collect twigs and leaves for cooking from the hillocks which saves much of their time. The village ponds and tubewells also dont run dry in the summer, which means women need not walk for about two kilometers in the unbearable heat to collect water.

I own two bighas of land at the foothills of the hillocks. Earlier I used to get around 6-7 quintals of paddy. Now, I get around 910 quintals. The moisture content has increased. The two cows which I own can also graze on the village fields. Earlier they used to feed only on paddy straw, said Sujit Mahanty, a villager.

The villagers could notice yet another change. The lush green forest also acts like a natural air conditioner and has been able to bring down the summer temperature.

Earlier when the area had become denuded, the summers used to become unbearable. The land used to remain hot till around 9 pm in the night. Now we can feel the difference. The temperature doesnt shoot up to that extreme and it is at least 45 degrees cooler that before.

Villagers said that wild animals including wild boars, jackals, rabbits and many birds have made the forest their home. Every year a herd of around a dozen elephants also come and stay here for some months.

We found that during the summer the wild animals had to face severe scarcity of water and often used to come out of the forest in search of drinking water. With the help of villagers, we decided to dig a pond inside the forest so that there is no scarcity of water for them. The water is not used by the villagers. It is solely for the wild animals to drink, said Bakshi.

The area has now turned into a major area of interest for not just the locals but also for the Japanese agency which funded the greening project. They come and visit the area at least once every year.

The locals and the NGO have also named the hills Makino-Raghunath hill.
He was the American political heavyweight tipped to become the next President, she was the British starlet forging her way in Hollywood.

Now Dame Joan Collins has revealed how she once had to turn down the advances of Bobby Kennedy  reminding him that he was a married man.

In a candid interview over lunch with her friend Piers Morgan for The Mail on Sundays You magazine today, Dame Joan recalls how the brother of President John F. Kennedy made a pass at her but remains diplomatically tight-lipped about the details.

Dame Joan Collins tells all in a candid interview with her friend Piers Morgan in the Mail on Sundays You magazine

Ethel, his widow, is still alive so I really dont want to go into it too much because I wouldnt want to hurt her, she says.

That was one of the things I said to him, Im married, youre married. But he was so charismatic.

She recalls how Bobby Kennedy (pictured), the brother of President John F. Kennedy, once made a pass at her

The former US Attorney General had a reputation for womanising, with conquests including Kim Novak, Lee Remick and, reputedly, Marilyn Monroe.

Asked how he had taken her rejection, Dame Joan says simply: Hes a gentleman, thats all I can say.

Dame Joan, who this year celebrates her 70th year on screen, reveals how she wept at hearing news of his assassination in 1968, five years after the murder of his brother.

He would have been the most marvellous President, she says. I know he was hated by many but anybody whos brilliant and clever and charismatic is hated.

Five-times-married Dame Joan, 87, also recalls her two-year romance with a young Warren Beatty, who was so energetic between the sheets that the Beverly Wilshire hotel in Los Angeles had to replace the bed in his suite five times during the decade he stayed there.

LOVERS: The 87-year-old reveals details of two-year romance with a young Warren Beatty (pictured together) saying he wanted sex several times a day

I only knew him when he was a crass unknown of 22 but he was quite forceful in the feathers, says Dame Joan, who reveals he wanted sex several times a day.

I was horrified because it was really too much.

While her love life has inspired acres of newsprint, Dame Joan insists she was never a Hollywood bed-hopper.

I havent been to bed with that many men, she says. But if you look at my husbands, and boyfriends, they were all good-looking. Im not attracted to men unless theyre good-looking. You can call me frivolous but thats the truth.

Friends: Piers Morgan enjoys a socially distanced lunch with Dame Joan Collins at their favourite restaurant, Club 55, on Pampelonne beach in St Tropez in July this year

Ain't nothing like Dame Joan

By Piers Morgan for You magazine

Shes a legend, icon and our most enduring movie star of all time. As JOAN COLLINS celebrates 70 years in the business, her best friend Piers Morgan joins her for lunch. And, from sex (two times a day is too much, dahling) to rich men (mean and selfish), nothing is off limits

Dame Joan Collins elegantly speared a large piece of sea bass at Club 55, our mutual favourite St Tropez beach restaurant, and made a sudden dramatic, table-silencing announcement. This year is my 70th year in the movie business! she declared. Sorry, WHAT? I replied, astounded by what Id just heard. Youve been making films for 15 years longer than Ive been alive?

Dont sound so surprised, dahling, she chuckled theatrically. Ive been doing a lot of things for longer than youve been alive.

What was your first film?

Lady Godiva Rides Again [released name was Bikini Baby]. I played a beauty contestant.

Indeed, she did, in a cast that read like a Whos Who of British acting  Diana Dors, Sid James, Trevor Howard, George Cole, Dora Bryan, Stanley Holloway, Kay Kendall, Jean Marsh, Alastair Sim and, incredibly, Ruth Ellis, who four years later became the last person to be hanged in Britain.

Joan wears cape and gloves, Eliza Jane Howell. Earrings, Merola London. Dress, Deadly Is The Female

Blink and youd miss her, but Joans movie career was off and running, and its never stopped running. Shes now made 76 films in what has become one of the most durable and successful careers in Hollywood history. Full disclosure: I love Joan Collins. We dine out together many times a year and shes one of the sharpest, funniest, most glamorous people I know.

She doesnt suffer fools  never mind gladly, not at all!  and has a natural brutal honesty that means she wont hesitate to tell you if she thinks youre speaking utter nonsense.

And she has a deliciously Sicilian streak towards those who cross her. When former BBC newsreader Michael Buerk interviewed her for Radio Times and made a series of sly digs about her age, she retaliated with a stinging attack on him in the Daily Mail headlined: Buerk by name, Buerk by nature.

But what I love most about her is her boundless energy and zest for life.

She wont like me saying this, but the great Dame is now 87. Yet she radiates relentlessly high-octane joie de vivre, which shames people half her age.

Joans been married five times, in a lengthy pursuit of marital compatibility that finally led her to the arms of handsome Peruvian-born theatre producer Percy Gibson  her longest-lasting husband at 18 years and counting, and her final husband (I will never be with anyone else but Percy, she often tells me).

Percy, 55, is a great guy  as bright, witty and mischievous as his wife, and oozing old-school charm, manners and decency. His devotion to Joan is palpable, but so is hers to him.

I count them now as two of my very best friends. So it was with some trepidation that I agreed to interview Joan to mark the start of her 70th anniversary year.

After all, shes personally told me where a lot of her bodies are buried how far could I push her to repeat all the fabulous stories shes regaled us with over dinner?

Would I get the waspish Alexis Carrington Colby treatment if I overstepped the mark?

Hat, Ana Bella Millinery. Earrings, Merola London. Gloves, What Katie Did. Top, Deadly Is The Female. Picture director: Ester Malloy. Styling: Arabella Boyce. Make-up and hair: Alyn Waterman at alynmakeuphair.co.uk. Dresser: Chrissy Maddison.

There was only one way to find out

Piers: Are you ready for this?

Joan: Yes, oh Jesus. Please be kind.

Piers: Of course, kindness is my middle name. During your theatre tour, you shut down audience questions you didnt like by saying, Next! Will you be using the same strategy today?

Joan: Yes. Next!

Piers: You never say your age and you loathe interviewers who ask you how old you are, so let me phrase it a different way: why do you look younger than me, given youre 32 years older?

Joan: [laughs out loud] Its because of Percy, he makes me up my game.

Piers: Groucho Marx said youre only as old as the woman you feel. Are you only as old as the man you feel?

Joan: I do think that being with a younger person, whether youre female or male, does make you want to keep up with them. Luckily, Percys father and my father were born five years apart at the beginning of the 20th century, so we have had a lot of the same parental guidance and attitudes, slightly Victorian in many ways.

Piers: Percy is the same age as me, 55.

Joan: I know that and you both look very good for your age.

Piers: If he hadnt come along, and given that I am clearly your optimum preferred age, would I have stood a chance of becoming husband number five?

Joan: Well, youd have to calm down a bit but I do like your acid wit, and I think we could have quite a few sparring matches. So yes, I think you could have been a contender. I like you a lot.

Piers: Do you remember when we first met?

Joan: Yes, it was on the last-ever Concorde flight from New York to London. You threw a glass of water over Jeremy Clarkson in mid-air

Piers: No, Clarkson threw it over me.

Joan: He did? Oh dear. That was such a sad trip. I was crying by the time we arrived home. Such a wonderful step for mankind, now its gone.

Piers: You must have used Concorde all the time?

Joan: Only when somebody else was paying.

Piers: You were a Blitz baby in the Second World War. Did ducking bombs give you your extraordinary fearlessness?

Joan: It helped a lot. It wasnt just being in the air raid shelters. It was being evacuated nine times to different schools, and having to adjust, even though I was only six or seven. Kids of that age can be very cruel, mean, rude and snobbish and a new girl from London, arriving in Tewkesbury or Chichester or Ilfracombe or one of the many places, got a lot of flak. I think I developed my carapace of not letting things really bother me too much.

Piers: Does anything bother you?

Joan: Of course, some things do, particularly to do with my family, and Covid obviously, but you cant be upset about everything.

Piers: Im told the only person whos ever terrified you was Bette Davis on the set of The Virgin Queen?

Joan: Not the only person but she was a terrifying old actress who didnt like young pretty girls. I was one of her six ladies-in-waiting and we all banded together and hid in corners on the set to try to avoid catching her beady eye.

Piers: And if her beady eye caught you?

Joan: If we were giggling and not concentrating on our roles, shed scream: What makes you think youll ever be proper actresses!? She was pretty rude.

Piers: Did you ever stand up to her?

Joan: Yes, several years later at The Night of 100 Stars in New York. We were sharing a dressing room and I had on this amazing, very low-cut gold lame dress that the designer Nolan Miller had made me, and Bette said sarcastically, You almost have that dress on, my dear. She was smoking a cigarette and glaring at me. So I stood up and said, Yes, and it needs a bit of adjusting, would you mind pulling it down, Bette, my dear?

Piers: What did she do?

Joan: She pulled it down crossly and then the next day she called Nolan and said, How can you let that woman wear that disgustingly revealing dress? To which Nolan replied, Well, if youve got it, flaunt it!

Piers: Your father Joe was a tough cookie, but he gave you some excellent advice about what to do with predatory men

Joan: Knee them in the nether regions.

Piers: How many times have you done that?

Joan: A lot. I was in a generation where women were like dolls and some men thought of you as just an appendage, not to be taken seriously. But I managed to not fall into the pit of the casting couch. I avoided that many times.

Piers: How damaging was that to your career?

Joan: I think I lost Cleopatra. Both the head of the studio and the CEO of the studio promised it to me if I would be nice to them, and I wouldnt be nice to them.

Piers: Gutsy

Joan: Yes, but it gave me a reputation of being a bitch because being witty and hard was accepted in men like Noel Coward and Oscar Wilde but not in a young woman.

Piers: Your father also said that if you pursued a career as an actress, you would be washed up at 23.

Joan: He was right to be concerned  so many girls I knew were finished in the business at 24 or 25.

Piers: Would he have been stunned by how long-lasting your career has been?

Joan: Well, Daddy lived to be 86 so he saw quite a bit of my great success in Dynasty and I knew he was very, very proud of me, even though he liked to pretend he wasnt. I heard that he talked about me and Jackie [Joans late sister and bestselling novelist] all the time to other people, but he would never give us any praise to our faces. That was the way it was then: dont tell the children theyre special because theyll just get swelled heads.

Piers: Did he ever tell you that he loved you?

Joan: No. He stopped hugging me when Jackie was born and I was four-and-a-half. Neither of my parents were very affectionate. Im not very affectionate.

Piers: What was the best advice your mother gave you?

Joan: Always wear night cream. I was with some women yesterday at lunch, most of whom were younger than me, and I have to say, my skin looked a lot better than theirs because Ive totally protected it all my life, since I was 15.

Piers: When was the last time you sunbathed without a hat or scarf on your face?

Joan: When I was 20. I go in the sun from the neck down because I love it and when I get in the pool, I wear a baseball cap and sunglasses. The face is a very delicate area and I suppose I could say my face is my fortune and Id better protect it.

Piers: Did you want to be a star when you were young?

Joan: No. When I first went to Rada, I wanted to be an actress like Vivien Leigh, who I really adored. Then when I went into the movies I wanted to be more like Ava Gardner.

Piers: What is the difference between a star and an actress?

Joan: Ive never heard of half the people described as stars, and I consider myself to be quite knowledgeable about modern life. I read five newspapers a day and I watch the news and I know who people are. So stars twinkle for a little while and then they usually fade. I was a little star in the 50s and 60s, and a big star in the 80s, and a smaller star now

Piers: Id say youre still a big star now.

Joan: [pause] OK, I think youre right [laughs]. Yes, if I look at myself objectively, I see that Im considered to be, but I think of myself as a jobbing actor or rather, a jobbing actress.

Piers: Whos been the greatest star of them all?

Joan: Marlon Brando. First, he was a brilliant actor. Second, he was incredibly original in his work and did some amazingly wonderful films like On the Waterfront and A Streetcar Named Desire. And third, he had a very colourful private life. Most of the biggest stars have very colourful private lives. The media like that, so they big you up and then the public buy it.

Piers: Theres a very dark side to fame, too. Weve recently been reminded of that in December with the 40th anniversary of John Lennons murder by a crazed fan.

Joan: Oh god, I knew John, I was really upset when he died. Though I think the person that I was most upset about when they died, other than my mother, father and sister, was Princess Diana.

Piers: Did you know her?

Joan: Yes. I really liked her. She had to face such a barrage of media attention from the time she was 19. I remember going to an event in Palm Beach and there were hundreds of photographers there and she said to me, Oh my god, is it always like this? I dont think Ill ever get used to it. And I said, Yes, it always is like this, and you will get used to it. She wrote me the most adorable letter when I sent her a book of mine and I thought she was hugely inspirational. Nolan Miller and I used to trawl through pictures of her in fashion magazines and copy things she wore for me to wear in Dynasty, and sometimes she copied things Id worn.

Piers: I heard that when she died, you cried for three days?

Joan: Yes, I was in the South of France and a friend of mine called me at 6.30am to tell me and I just couldnt believe it. I was terribly upset. I love the monarchy  but she was such a breath of fresh air. Now we have Catherine who is also a great breath of fresh air.

Piers: And we also have Meghan.

Joan: Oh, you can have her!

Piers: No, Ive been rejected, thrown on the dust heap of her former friends, not required on her social-climbing ladder!

Joan: Yes, and we are never allowed to forget it

Piers: What do you think about cancel culture?

Joan: Its hateful. I think people should be allowed to have their opinions without people cancelling them, particularly at schools and universities. I stopped saying anything political on social media, because I got so much hate mail when I mentioned Id gone to an event for Nigel Farage, and I thought, Oh my god, this isnt worth it. So I will keep my political opinions to myself and my friends.

Piers: Tom Ford says proper lovemaking, with foreplay, burns 400 calories. Have you tested that theory?

Joan: What are you talking about  just kissing and fondling?

Piers: No, were talking the full shebang.

Joan: Oh, screwing? [laughs]

Piers: Yes.

Getty Images, Rex features, Alpha, MirrorPix, David M Benett, MoviePix, Eddie Sanderson Archive, Terry ONeill, Donaldson Collection, Bettmann Archive

Getty Images, Rex features, Alpha, MirrorPix, David M Benett, MoviePix, Eddie Sanderson Archive, Terry ONeill, Donaldson Collection, Bettmann Archive

Joan: In that case, yes. Im not really a calorie counter, but if Tom Ford says it, it must be true.

Piers: Your walls are covered with pictures of you with all types of world leaders  royal, political, religious. Who has made the biggest impression?

Joan: Mrs Thatcher and the Queen.

Piers: Why?

Joan: The Queen, because I think shes an incredible example of somebody whos totally dedicated to their work. When she became Queen at 25, she said, I declare before you all that my whole life shall be devoted to your service. I was a teenager at the time and thought it was very inspirational, and, of course, she has done that. As for Mrs Thatcher, she was Prime Minister at the time I was playing Alexis in Dynasty and she was being called the Iron Lady when I was being called the Iron Maiden. I know she was hated for a lot of things, but I admired her. I went to her 80th birthday party, where sadly she was not at all well. I think she fried her brains because she only slept for four hours a night, which is terrible. She worked constantly, 20 hours a day.

Piers: Where does Boris Johnson rank on your list of most impressive leaders?

Joan: [laughs] Next!

Piers: We may have slept in the same bed. I had your one-time fiance Warren Beattys old suite at the Beverly Wilshire hotel in Los Angeles for a few years.

Joan: Did they change the box springs?

Piers: I was told he went through five of them in the decade he spent there. I didnt establish if that was entirely down to you

Joan: I only knew him when he was a crass unknown of 22 but he was quite forceful in the feathers!

Piers: Is it true your friend Joanne Woodward said to keep Warren happy, he would need sex several times a day?

Joan: Yes, absolutely. I was horrified because it was really too much, and I felt like an oyster in a slot machine.

Cape, Eliza Jane Howell. Earrings, Merola London

Piers: It was all too exhausting?

Joan: Yes, it was. Im boring. Im sorry, you ask most women if they want to have sex two or three times a day, theyre lying if they say they want to.

Piers: Whos the most famous star whose advances you rejected?

Joan: Bobby Kennedy.

Piers: Really?

Joan: Yes.

Piers: Wow.

Joan: I know.

Piers: I need some more meat on that bone  what happened?

Joan: Well, Ethel [his widow] is still alive, so I really dont want to go into it too much because I wouldnt want to hurt her. That was one of the things I said to him: Im married, youre married. But he was so charismatic. The first time we met, I was wearing black point desprit and he said, Ive always loved a woman in point desprit.

Piers: Is that a dress?

Joan: Its a French lace.

Piers: How did he take your rejection?

Joan: Hes a gentleman, thats all I can say. He was another person whose death made me cry. He would have been the most marvellous president. I know he was hated by many but anybody whos brilliant and clever and charismatic is hated.

Piers: Yes, we are. Did Donald Trump ever try it on with you?

Joan: No, but he did try to get me and Percy to buy an apartment in New York.

Piers: What happened?

Joan: It was shortly after we were first married, and we were looking for apartments. We saw Trump at a premiere and he told us we had to come and buy one of his places. So we went to see it and it was a nightmare  tiny, no closets and opposite the United Nations.

Piers: What do you think of Trump?

Joan: Next!

Piers: Do you like rich men?

Joan: No. Because theyre very selfish, usually incredibly ugly, treat women like chattels and many of them are incredibly mean. The only rich man Ive ever been out with was [American film producer] Arthur Loew Jr for about nine or ten months, and he was very tight, always counting the pennies.

Piers: Have you ever had sex with an ugly man?

Joan: No.

Piers: Really, youve maintained a nine-decade bar of aesthetic quality?

Joan: Yes, absolutely.

Piers: Thats incredible.

Joan: No, I cant think of one. Mind you, I havent been to bed with that many men, but if you look at my husbands, and boyfriends, they were all good looking.

Piers: Youve literally never had sex with an ugly person?

Joan: No. Try to find one on Google  you wont be able to. Basically, it boils down to never going to bed with somebody I wasnt attracted to, and Im not attracted to men unless theyre good looking. You can call me frivolous or decadent or whatever but thats the truth.

Piers: Theres nothing wrong with having a high-aesthetic bar. My wife Celia has one, too. Whats the worst lie anyone has ever told you?

Joan: That Im a terrible actress.

Piers: Who said that?

Joan: Another student at Rada who was a bit jealous of me.

Piers: How did you respond?

Joan: I ghosted him as they would say today.

Piers: What happened to him?

Joan: I think he died.

Piers: Did he ever make it as an actor?

Joan: No. It was pretty hurtful, but I got a lot of horrible reviews in the early days, all saying I was just pretty and luscious and glamorous, not an actress. It dented my self-confidence quite a lot.

Piers: Conversely, whats the nicest thing anyones said about you?

Joan: Nigel Hawthorne, the best actor Ive ever worked with, was very, very complimentary to me and said that I had had a rum deal from critics because of my looks. That meant so much coming from him. I remember playing cards once with Vivien Leigh and she said she wasnt taken seriously as an actress until she started to lose her looks, which I thought was interesting because she was very beautiful.

Piers: But youve never lost your looks

Joan: I know, its true, isnt it [chuckles]

Piers: Were you drunk as a skunk filming the orgy scene in The Stud?

Joan: Absolutely, yes. We were all out of our minds.

Piers: Susanna Reid [Pierss Good Morning Britain co-host] always says that ageing is a blessing. Do you agree with that?

Joan: No, but as Maurice Chevalier said, its better than the alternative.

Piers: Why has Percy been your longest-surviving husband?

Joan: Oh, come on, Ive talked about this a million times, its quarter to one and Ive got a manicure in half an hour.

Piers: Calm down, Alexis. Some of us have done three hours work already this morning. Just give me three reasons why Percy has been the best husband?

Joan: OK. Hes my best friend, hes incredibly kind and hes marvellous looking.

Piers: Who was the worst husband?

Joan: Peter Holm, the Swede.

Piers: Do you still keep his engagement ring with all the others?

Joan: Actually, I just kept the diamond part of it. Zsa Zsa Gabor told me to do that Give back the ring dahling, keep the stone.

Piers: Other than separate bedrooms, what do you think is the secret of a successful marriage?

Joan: Being very good friends, feeling able to talk about everything and still keeping the slight bit of mystery about oneself, if thats possible despite being together 24/7.

Piers: Is it true that when one boyfriend called you a f***ing bore, you replied, Well, youre a boring f***?

Joan: Thats absolutely true.

Piers: How did he take it?

Joan: We broke up.

Piers: Do you remember your first Rada audition?

Joan: Oh, brilliantly, yes. My mother took me, and I was so nervous. When I walked inside, I found a group of people including John Gielgud sitting there staring at me.

Piers: Incredible.

Joan: I thought I would die. Anyway, I got in.

Piers: Whats the trick to great acting?

Joan: Being as free as you can, not thinking about acting. And as Spencer Tracy used to say, hit the marks and know your lines. My favourite story about acting involves Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman in The Marathon Man. Dustin had to be very out of breath for a scene, so he ran around the set three times and came back pouring with sweat and said, OK, Im ready now to play being exhausted. And Olivier replied: Dear boy, why dont you try acting? I love that story.

Piers: How many of your leading men did you end up in bed with?

Joan: Only one. Sydney Chaplin [Charlie Chaplins son, who co-starred with Joan in Land of the Pharaohs].

Piers: How did you resist the others?

Joan: Most of them, I didnt particularly like. Paul Newman and I adored each other but he was married to one of my best friends [Joanne Woodward] and I wasnt about to steal somebodys husband. I did that once and that was enough.

Piers: Whos the most handsome man in Hollywood history?

Joan: Clark Gable. He was the definitive movie star.

Piers: Worst chat-up line anyone has ever tried on you?

Joan: Did anyone ever tell you youre a very pretty girl?

Piers: Has it ever worked?

Joan: No.

Piers: Whats the nearest you have come to death?

Joan: I was doing a frightful movie called Empire of the Ants in the Florida swamps. It was very windy and the driver of this ancient old Buick or Cadillac, one of those really heavy American cars, opened the door to me and when I got out, the full force of the wind sent the door right on to my face and knocked me out. It could have killed me. I came to, lying on the floor in the field.

Piers: Wow.

Joan: Yes, they were standing by me saying, Is she alive? I had a huge egg-shaped thing on my head and sent a Polaroid to my kids saying, This is what your mother has to do to pay for your school fees. I was so, so, so lucky that I didnt have lasting brain damage.

Piers: If you could be trapped on a desert island for the rest of your life with Meghan Markle, Madonna or Michael Buerk, who would you choose?

Joan: Oh Jesus Christ erm Meghan. I think she would be easier to get along with. I cant stand Michael Buerk.

Piers: And Madonna would just be a pain in the a***

Joan: Shes a bit of a diva, isnt she? I think Meghan and I could get along OK.

Piers: How long do you give Harry and Meghans marriage?

Joan: Next!

Piers: Who is the greatest fashion designer ever and whats been your favourite dress?

Joan: Yves Saint Laurent, and my favourite dress was one Valentino made for me that I wore to my Damehood party that had a huge pink bow on the shoulder.

Piers: You and Brigitte Bardot are the most famous stars associated with St Tropez. Have you ever met?

Joan: Yes, once, in the early 60s in a hotel in Rome. I was sitting talking to four young men on a bar on the roof, and Brigitte arrived, wearing a pink and white gingham frock, and came over to the bar. Three of the four men zoomed straight over to sit with her. She was extremely sexy. All I got was a brief hello.

Piers: Best book youve ever read?

Joan: Perfume [the cult bestselling novel by Patrick Suskind]. Its incredibly evocative.

Piers: Your favourite hotel?

Dress, Gina Bacconi. Cape, Eliza Jane Howell. Earrings, Lara Heems. Necklace, Pebble London. Gloves, Miscreants. Cuffs, Simon Harrison. Tights, Wolford. Sandals, Joans own

Joan: Claridges. Its elegant and sophisticated, has the best decor and food and the most wonderful staff.

Piers: Youre allergic to fat people

Joan: No, Im not allergic to them, I worry about them

Piers: You keep ordering Celia to get me to lose weight.

Joan: I do not! Did she tell you that? I just mentioned it en passant.

Piers: Youre not wrong, but it does suggest you have a problem with fat people.

Joan: Youre not fat, youre just a little chubby.

Piers: When was the last time you cried?

Joan: Last week. I was watching Sleepless in Seattle and when Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan finally meet at the Empire State Building and walk off together, I cried.

Piers: Are you quite emotional?

Joan: Yes, I am not violently so, but somewhat.

Piers: Your best and worst movies?

Joan: The best movie in terms of my performance was Steven Berkoffs Decadence in which I played two roles.

Piers: And the one you dare not mention in civilised circles?

Joan: The one I mentioned earlier, the Empire of the Ants, which unfortunately was incredibly popular.

Piers: What is the best life lesson youve learnt?

Joan: Dont sweat the small stuff.

Piers: If you could only have dinner with six famous friends every night for the rest of your life, who would they be?

Joan: Noel Coward, Oscar Wilde, Dorothy Parker, Oscar Levant, Coco Chanel and Margaret Thatcher.

Piers: I was waiting with bated breath then to see if I got the nod, given I must have had more meals with you this year than anyone other than Percy.

Joan: [laughs] OK, Ill put you in, too. I thought you meant dead.

Piers: Biggest mistake youve ever made, apart from doing this interview?

Joan: Do you think this is a mistake?

Piers: No, I think its brilliant.

Joan: All right, marrying Peter Holm. That was a huge mistake.

Piers: Robert Wagner told you that being rich meant having f***-you money. By that criterion, are you rich?

Joan: Well, before Covid, I might have said yes, but not any more. Its been very slow. I havent had any paying work for ten months.

Piers: You once blew cocaine over Sammy Davis Jr. Did he mind?

Joan: Yes, he was p***ed off. He said, Youve ruined my burgundy velvet jacket, and I said Id brush it off.

Piers: I dont think that was quite what he wanted to do with the cocaine

Joan: No.

Piers: Your sister Jackie was one of my favourite people. What was her greatest quality?

Joan: Her dedication to her work, which started when she was ten years old when she would write these amazing stories, in beautiful handwriting. She remained so dedicated to writing that even after she knew she had cancer and was told she only had two or three years to live, she wrote another three books. Jackie was a great person, I miss her all the time.

Piers: Do you think she watches over you?

Joan: Yes, definitely, shes my guardian angel.

Piers: In what way?

Joan: Theres this little tiny fly that appeared shortly after Jackie died and now comes around a lot, even when its very cold. It buzzes around me and I just have a feeling of her being there whenever it appears. Im going to get mocked for that, but I dont care.

Piers: Whos the rudest person youve ever met?

Joan: Michael Buerk! No, actually, it was some dreadful presenter in Australia. I dont know his name and I dont want to give him any oxygen of publicity, but Ive never met anybody ruder or nastier and more horrible to me.

Joan and Piers out on the town

Piers: Do you now own more or less shoes than Imelda Marcos?

Joan: Less, nobody could have more than her.

Piers: How many do you have?

Joan: Fifty pairs.

Piers: Being an actor usually involves rising above constant rejection. Whats the best way to deal with it?

Joan: Shrug it off and go and have a martini and a few cigarettes, although I dont smoke any more, so just the martini.

Piers: You recently starred opposite a cannibal in American Horror Story. If you had to eat human flesh to stay alive, whose would you eat?

Joan: I wouldnt.

Piers: Even to stay alive?

Joan: To stay alive? I dont know. I dont think I can answer that question, its horrible. Next!

Piers: If you only had two hours left to live, which restaurant would you go to and what would you eat?

Joan: I wouldnt go to a restaurant, Id stay at home with Percy and wed have a baked potato with Beluga caviar and sour cream, and lots and lots and lots of vodka.

Piers: You were a germophobe long before coronavirus. Do you feel vindicated?

Joan: Yes! I wore masks and gloves when I travelled long before this. When I left LA in early March, people were pointing at me and mocking me. Theyre not laughing now.

Piers: Have you ever changed a lightbulb?

Joan: Its so funny you say that! I asked Percy to change a lightbulb this morning, so the answer is no.

Piers: Youve said your only weakness is chocolate. Whats your favourite bar?

Joan: KitKat, because its not fattening.

Piers: In 1977, an astrologer told you that youd have huge fame and success in America. Given how accurate that was, do you still consult them?

Joan: No, but when Percy and I were considering getting married, an actress friend, Arlene Dahl, did our charts and it turned out that we knew each other in a previous life and are totally, totally compatible and perfect for each other.

Piers: Do you believe in life after death?

Joan: Thats a tricky one, Piers. Sometimes I do and sometimes I dont.

Piers: Do you pray?

Joan: No yes if somebody is ill, I pray for them to get better.

Piers: Final question. If you could write your own epitaph for your tombstone, what would it say?

Joan: She gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure.

Piers: I think that is completely true. Joan: Thank you.
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Bert Newton celebrated Christmas with his adoring family after he returned home from hospital following a mystery illness, late last year.

And on Friday, the 82-year-old TV icon was once again joined by his loved ones as he rung in the New Year.

Bert's doting wife Patti, 75, shared a sweet photo of him beaming while holding their four-month-old grandson Alby, who is their daughter Lauren's youngest child.

Celebrations: This week, Bert Newton, 82, celebrated the New Year with his family including his grandson Alby, four months, after returning home from hospital after a mystery health battle

The former Good Morning Australia host wore a festive yellow paper crown and proudly beamed as his grandson also smiled for the photo.

Patti, 75, wrote in the caption of her Instagram post: 'Wishing everyone a Happy New Year, hope it's a great one for everyone love Bert and my darling Alby xx.'

The doting grandparents recently celebrated Christmas with their daughter Lauren, her husband former competitive swimmer Matt Welsh, and their six children: Sam, 11, Eva, nine, Lola, six, Monty, three, Perla, two, and youngest Alby.

Family: It comes after Bert and his wife Patti recently celebrated Christmas at Crown Melbourne with their daughter Lauren, her husband Matt Welsh, and their six children: Sam, 11, Eva, nine, Lola, six, Monty, three, Perla, two, and youngest Alby

Patti shared a photo to Instagram of their celebrations, showing Bert seemingly smiling behind his face mask as they all spent time at Crown Melbourne.

'So wonderful to be out together, celebrating Christmas at Silks @crownmelbourne,' Patti, 75, wrote on Instagram.

Patti also shared sweet photo of Bert with his grandchildren and wrote in the caption: 'Thinking of all the families that can't be together, or are missing loved ones. Merry Christmas xx,' she added.

Doting grandfather: Patti also shared sweet photo of Bert with his grandchildren and wrote in the caption, 'Thinking of all the families that can't be together, or are missing loved ones. Merry Christmas xx'

Bert sparked fears for his health after Patti shared a photo on Instagram of the veteran entertainer wearing a mask while lying in his hospital bed, in November.

'Bert's been in hospital [but] all good. He's got a lot of living to do,' she captioned the picture.

Bert's health first became a concern in 2012 when he underwent a quadruple bypass.

Hospital: Bert sparked fears for his health after Patti shared a photo on Instagram of the veteran entertainer wearing a mask while lying in his hospital bed, in November. She wrote in the caption: 'Bert's been in hospital [but] all good. He's got a lot of living to do'

In the years following the surgery, he was hospitalised three times with pneumonia and was also diagnosed with Anemia.

Anemia can make a person feel tired or weak because there are not enough healthy red blood cells to carry adequate oxygen to the body's tissues.

The four-time Gold Logie winner told reporters outside hospital in 2017 that he was feeling better after being treated for pneumonia.

'I'm feeling better now. It took a while. I didn't realise until I copped it the first time, that pneumonia is such a serious thing, but I'm feeling better now,' he said at the time.
COVID-19 vaccine will be free across India, says Dr Harsh Vardhan

India

oi-Briti Roy Barman

New Delhi, Jan 02: As the country is witnessing mass dry run across all the states and UTs and gearing up for the world's largest immunisation drive, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Saturday that Covid-19 vaccine will be provided free of cost across the country.

Vaccines to be provided for free across India, says health min | Oneindia News

While reviewing preparations for vaccine dry run in Delhi the Minister said to reporters, "Not just in Delhi, it (vaccine) will be free across the country."

On COVID-19 vaccine, why India could catch up quickly

Dr Vardhan also urged the public not to pay heed to anti-vaccine rumours saying I want to appeal to people to not believe in any rumors. Our prime criteria in the vaccine trial is the safety and efficacy and nothing will be compromised... Different kinds of rumours were also spread during polio immunisation, but people took the vaccine and now India is polio-free."

Watch the video here:

#WATCH | Not just in Delhi, it will be free across the country: Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on being asked if COVID-19 vaccine will be provided free of cost pic.twitter.com/xuN7gmiF8S  ANI (@ANI) January 2, 2021

On asking about the vaccine drill he said, "feedbacks received after the dry run in 4 states were included in guidelines for vaccination and today's dry run in all states/UTs is being conducted as per new guidelines. Except for giving actual vaccine, every procedure is being followed during the drill."

A day after Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine got emergency use approval by the Subject Expert Committee (SEC), the mass dry run is being conducted in all states and union territories to test the linkages between planning and implementation as India prepares to roll out the vaccine for Phase 1 immunisation in the coming days.

Serum Institute of India (SII) is manufacturing the Oxford-AztraZeneca vaccine doses for India and other countries while Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech had applied for emergency use authorisation for its Covaxin shot.

The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has asked Bharat Biotech to expedite volunteer recruitment for the ongoing clinical trial and recommended it may conduct interim efficacy analysis for further consideration of restricted emergency use approval for Covaxin.
By Ray McGovern

January 01, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - Can the FBI be trusted? You decide, but only after you learn about the Bureaus most recently revealed fraud on the court.

Establishment media are ignoring the latest FBI flip-flop (surprise, surprise); they are reporting instead that incoming president Joe Biden wants Christopher Wray to stay on as FBI director? Whats that all about?

Again, you decide after reading what follows. The latest known FBI caper involves hiding materials regarding the neuralgic, (dont-even-think-about-it) issue of why the Democratic National Committee 27 year-old insider, Seth Rich, was murdered on July 10, 2016.

Media coverage of LAffaire Rich has been so scant in recent years that some background seems needed to grasp the facts, their relevance, and the implications for the ever-increasing immunity enjoyed by the Security (aka Deep) State. Those generally aware of some of the detail may find this background a helpful refresher. Those who wish to can scroll down for a discussion of the most recent episode of FBI malfeasance.

Context

 On June 12, 2016, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced he had emails related to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication. Those emails had been copied in late May 2016 onto an external storage device (probably a thumb drive) and given to WikiLeaks.

 On July 10, 2016, Seth Rich was shot and killed. The motive was said to be robbery, but nothing is known to have been taken from him.

 On July 22, 2016, three days before the Democratic National Convention began, WikiLeaks published the DNC emails.

There was speculation at the time that Seth Rich was involved in the leak of the damaging emails (which showed how the DNC had stacked the deck against Bernie Sanders), and that perhaps the leaker had been identified by DNC cyber-sleuths.

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Adding fuel to the fire, on August 9 2016, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange publicly implied that Rich may have been a WikiLeaks source. ( See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G21u6YnLoA ) That same day, WikiLeaks announced a $20,000 reward for information leading to conviction for the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich. (See: https://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-20000-seth-rich-dnc-2016-8 )

An Insider, Not Russia

On Dec. 12, 2016, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) formally ruled out, on technical grounds, the possibility that the Russians hacked those DNC emails. Drawing on the expertise of former technical directors at NSA, material revealed by Edward Snowden, and applying the principles of physics, VIPS concluded that:

 the emails were leaked by an insider  as was the case with Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. Such an insider could be anyone  with access to NSA databases, or perhaps someone within the DNC. (See: https://consortiumnews.com/2016/12/12/us-intel-vets-dispute-russia-hacking-claims/ )

A year later on Dec. 5, 2017, Shawn Henry, the head of the cyber-security firm CrowdStrike hired by the DNC (and highly touted by then-FBI Director James Comey) to do the forensics, testified under oath that there was no concrete evidence the emails were hacked  by the Russians or by anyone else.) (See: https://consortiumnews.com/2020/05/09/ray-mcgovern-new-house-documents-sow-further-doubt-that-russia-hacked-the-dnc/ )

AND

( https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/sh21.pdf ). The supplementary circumstantial evidence that Mr. Henry adduced to blame Russia could not pass a smell test by anyone with a nose in working order.

But House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff did not release Henrys testimony until May 7, 2020. Establishment media picked up where Schiff left off and have been hiding Henrys testimony since May 7.

Seth Rich

By almost all accounts, Seth Rich had excellent access to DNC computers. But the possibility that he played a role in leaking the DNC emails to WikiLeaks, and then paid for it with his life, proved too much for Official Washington to handle. Besides, the Russian hack canard was not only a handy way to attribute Mrs. Clintons loss to Russian interference and to prove Donald Trump wrong on Russia.

It also proved a convenient way to divert attention from the fate that befell Rich. What would happen to the Russia-did-it story that media hacks were pushing, if it became widely known that there was a simpler way to explain how the DNC emails got to WikiLeaks. (Julian Assange had denied strongly that any state actor was involved.)

Oddly, President Obama himself was not fully persuaded by the rump, misnomered Intelligence Community Assessment (written by hand-picked analysts from FBI, CIA, and NSA), that pinned the hack on Russia. At his last press conference, less than two weeks after being fully briefed on the Assessments high-confidence findings, Obama pointed out that one of its conclusions  how the DNC emails reached WikiLeaks  was inconclusive. ( See: https://consortiumnews.com/2017/01/20/obama-admits-gap-in-russian-hack-case/ ).

As to the killing of Rich, there was no official investigation worthy of the name  despite a host of anomalies and unanswered questions. Those who did try to look into it, and were willing to raise speculative hypotheses anathema to the official narrative, were branded conspiracy theorists. The same thing happened to highly experienced scientists who applied the principles of physics and took advantage of highly relevant information revealed by Edward Snowden. Heres one telling example of swords drawn by pundit mercenaries enlisted to promote the Establishment narrative  the (Democratic) party line, if you will  on Russias 2016 hack.

Risen on Rising

Erstwhile investigative journalist James Risen, now apparently a self-styled expert on the forensics of hacking, brought up Seth Rich during an interview on Rising on Aug. 5, 2019. Risen charged that VIPSs widely respected former NSA Technical Director Bill Binney (primary author of the Dec. 12, 2016 VIPS Memo) had gone into conspiracy theory mode.

The charitable explanation is that Risen had not performed due diligence by doing his homework before the interview. Had he taken the trouble to read the December 12, 2016 VIPS Memo (with its revealing embedded charts from Edward Snowden), Risen would have known that it is not a matter of what Binney and the other NSA alumni in VIPS believe, it is what theyproved in writing four years ago  proved, as in QED. (See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OxZEhN9RBY

(The relevant part of Risens remarks runs from minutes 2:34 to 4:00.) Risen, by the way, is still at it ( See: https://theintercept.com/2020/12/23/assange-snowden-whistleblower-pardons-espionage/ AND https://theintercept.com/2020/10/21/trump-presidency-summary/ ).

Question Most Awkward: If It Wasnt the Russians 

By late last year, Seth Richs family was suing just about anyone who wrote or implied that Seth might have played a role in leaking the DNC emails. As VIPS kept reporting new technical evidence that the culprit was not Russia, the avoid-at-any-cost, awkward question kept raising its ugly head. If it wasnt the Russians, then who gave those emails to WikiLeaks? There was only one known insider candidate, but mentioning his name could get you sued by a family with seemingly unlimited funds to pay lawyers close to the Democratic party.

There were even  dare I say conspiracy theorists?  like an erstwhile British investigative reporter in the mold of the latter-day James Risen, who implied that we were  whether witting, or duped  agents of the Kremlin. And so began a witch hunt into the computers of those VIPS members most directly involved. In the fall of 2019, several VIPS members were served highly intrusive subpoenas on the Russian hacking issue.

I shall confess that, for a couple of months I had a touch of subpoena envy. Then, alas, I was served  not once but twice. In my initial response last December to the first subpoena, I took some pains to lay out, as concisely as I could, what VIPS had proven and why. And I added enough links to help anyone seriously interested in learning the longer story. Readers may wish to skim through my response to the first subpoena. ( See: https://raymcgovern.com/?s=subpoena.)

FBI Comes Clean  John Ehrlichman-Style

The expression modified limited hangout coined by Nixon adviser John Ehrlichman seems an apt description for what the FBI did two weeks ago when it blithely reversed an earlier sworn FBI Declaration that it had no records on Seth Rich. Readers of the barren Establishment media will be surprised to learn that, after three years of denial  the last two under Director Christopher Wray  the FBI has now admitted that it does, after all, have thousands of records relating to Seth Rich. Its initial search has identified approximately 50 cross-reference serials, with attachments totaling over 20,000 pages, in which Seth Rich is mentioned, as well as leads that indicate additional potential records that require further searching.

The FBI also admitted to having custody of Seth Richs long-gone-missing laptop. These confessions came in an unapologetic Dec. 9, 2020 letter to attorney Ty Clevenger (See: Clevengers informative blog post, FBI changes story, finally admits it has thousands of pages of documents about Seth Rich at https://lawflog.com/?p=2410.)

In admitting to having thousands of records relating to Rich, the FBI ipso facto conceded that its Oct. 3, 2018 Declaration, sworn under penalty of perjury, was  at best  misleading. The FBI fall guy is David M. Hardy, who swore that he could find no records on Rich. (See: https://lawflog.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Hardy-Declaration.pdf .) Hardy was FBI Section Chief, Record/Information Dissemination Section, Information Management Division. Those working for Hardy  the Hardy Boys & Girls, if you will  number in the hundreds; they appear well trained in how not to find information responsive to Freedom of Information Act requests, when zero results are the objective.

Ty Clevengers client, Brian Huddleston, had filed an FOIA request on April 9, 2020 for information regarding Seth Rich and Seths brother Aaron but initially was stiff-armed by the FBI. Now, eight months later, thousands of records are to be made available. But wait.

Still Slow-Rolling: FBI Wants 3 More Months

Cant wait to find out what those magically appearing records on Seth Rich reveal, you may be saying to yourself.

Not so fast, says the FBI which explained in its letter to Clevenger how it intends to proceed:

At this time, FBI anticipates processing only the pages where Seth Rich is mentioned, along with perhaps another page or two in each situation to provide context. The issue right now with this batch of documents is the amount of labor required to ingest all of the material so that the responsive pages will, first, be in a page format, secondly, can be identified from among the thousands of non-responsive pages, and finally, be processed. The FBI is also currently working on getting the files from Seth Richs personal laptop into a format to be reviewed. As you can imagine, there are thousands of files of many types.

Pouring more cold water on eager anticipation, the FBI letter added, Unfortunately, these efforts are hampered by FBI FOIA offices reduction to a 50% staffing posture due to Covid.

And here is an additional wet blanket for those still waiting:

In light of the status of this search and the work left to be done, we propose an additional three months [Emphasis added] to complete the tasks described above. At that time, we will propose a production schedule and briefing schedule. If that were not enough to dampen spirits, the FBI adds that it will continue to evaluate the responsiveness of these files under the FOIA.

And one can certainly anticipate copious redactions of any politically/bureaucratically/embarrassing material.

Waiting for Godot 

Director Wray seems to have ordered the Hardy Boys & Girls to continue dragging their feet. Lets see; three months will take us well into the Biden administration with the Democrats calling the shots. If, as has been reported, Joe Biden lets Christopher Wray remain as FBI director, well, Godot is likely to arrive before any significant material on Seth Rich.

 and for John Durham

In his blog entry ( See: https://lawflog.com/?p=2410 ), Ty Clevenger includes a link to an important October 12, 2020 letter ( See: https://lawflog.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2020.10.12-Letter-to-Barr-Durham-redacted-v.1.pdf ) he sent to Attorney General William Barr, US Attorney John Durham (who for the past year and a half has been investigating the FBI inquiry into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia), and Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Clevenger writes that he has learned that Durham will not be investigating whether former Democratic National Committee employee Seth Rich provided DNC emails to WikiLeaks in 2016. [Emphasis added.]

Mr. Clevenger says former FBI agent John Eckenrode explained to him that inquiry into a possible internal, non-Russian, source for the emails leaked to WikiLeaks does not have a direct bearing on Mr. Durhams investigation. Clevenger registered strong dissent, pointing out that Robert Mueller himself acknowledged the possibility that the DNC emails were not transmitted remotely by email to Wikileaks, but were provided by hand delivery from someone originating in the United States.

In his letter Clevenger notes: Shawn Henry of Crowdstrike has testified under oath that Crowdstrike did not observe any exfiltration of emails from the DNC, but that had observed preparation for exfiltration, which would be consistent with a local download to a DNC user. Taking the gloves off, Clevenger claims that the failure of the relevant agencies to investigate thoroughly the possibility of an internal source is an indication of the type of result-driven, error-ridden and highly damaging investigative work identified by Inspector General Horowitz in his review of various FISA abuses.

Seymour Hersh Deposed

In his indictment of the Justice Departments lackadaisical approach to the Seth Rich issue, Clevenger cites what Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh asserted in a deposition in a pending court case. Hersh stated that it was absolutely true that his source told him that Seth Rich transmitted emails to Wikileaks and requested payment. Hersh described his source as very, very knowledgeable, someone senior in the intelligence community, and a person Hersh had known for over 30 years.

The information provided by Hershs source cries out for either confirmation or denial. Such could readily come from the National Security Agency which collects everything on the Internet. Has NSA not been asked?

Hersh said during his deposition that he had not been contacted by anyone from Robert Muellers team, nor from Durhams team, nor from the Attorney Generals office. Clevenger added the following footnote, which speaks for itself:

Likewise, no one from the Office of Special Counsel made any attempt to interview Julian Assange, even though Assange had hinted that Seth Rich might have been a source for the DNC emails: As far as I can determine, nobody from Mr. Durhams team, the FBI, nor the Justice Department has made any attempt to interview Mr. Assange  even though Mr. Assange would know better than anyone else how and from whom he obtained the emails. VIPS called attention to this strange anomaly as soon as the Mueller report was released ( See:

VIPS Fault Mueller Probe, Criticize Refusal to Interview Assange, https://consortiumnews.com/2019/04/16/vips-fault-mueller-probe-criticize-refusal-to-interview-assange/ ).

Attorney General William Barr, who jumped ship on Dec. 23, has left John Durham to an unenviable, uncertain future. ( See: https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2020/12/04/barr-kicks-durham-can-down-the-street/ .)

So, Were the Investigations a Sham?

Seems so, from the looks of it. By all appearances, the top officials at the Justice Department, the FBI, and intelligence agencies who  for political purposes  conjured up the Russian hack, emasculated Trump, and led the U.S. into a new Cold War with Russia will walk free. Section Chief David Hardy may get a slap on the wrist or a letter of reprimand in his personnel file. And it is a safe bet that FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who committed an earlier fraud on the court, by altering a consequential email relating to a FISA application, is not likely to face much, if any, jail time.

Presumably, many senior law enforcement and intelligence officials eagerly await the arrival of President Joe Biden, who has zero incentive to hold them accountable for what they did over the last four years. (As if any president would be courageous or foolish enough to try to hold them accountable, in any case).

Biden has been on the Washington scene for so many years that he does not need Sen. Chuck Schumer to warn him  as Schumer warned President-elect Donald Trump indirectly via Rachel Maddow on Jan. 3, 2017  not to get crosswise with the intelligence community, noting that it has six ways to Sunday to get back at you. (See: https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/schumer-trump-being-really-dumb-to-fight-with-intel-agencies-847022147815 .)

President Donald Trumps weird combination of arrogance, ineptitude, and naivete made him an easy target. As the years went by, it became clearer and clearer that the president was not really in charge. The Security State is riding higher than ever. And thats not good.

Ray McGovern. Former longtime CIA officer, who served as chief of the CIAs Soviet analysts division, chaired National Intelligence Estimates, and prepared the Presidents Daily Brief. He is also the co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. https://raymcgovern.com/
The world hit a few more pandemic milestones this week with the distribution of the coronavirus vaccines developed by Moderna and by Pfizer and BioNTech; the advancement of trials studying other experimental shots; and the approval or authorization of coronavirus vaccines in several countries. The welcome news comes as the number of known infections worldwide rises toward 83 million.

Britain announced on Wednesday that it had granted emergency authorization to the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. The vaccine is less expensive than others  $3 to $4 a dose  and can be stored in a normal refrigerator, unlike some of its freezer-bound counterparts, making it easier to transport and administer. The vaccine is meant to be given in two doses four weeks apart, but Britain plans to wait up to 12 weeks to give the second shot, freeing up more doses for first injections. Some early evidence suggests the delay might boost the vaccines ability to protect people from Covid-19, though experts have repeatedly cautioned that more data is needed.

The state-owned Chinese company Sinopharm announced that one of its experimental vaccines, developed by the Beijing Institute of Biological Products, had an efficacy rate of 79 percent based on an interim analysis of Phase 3 trials, spurring the Chinese government to grant the shot full approval. The vaccine has also been approved in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The company has yet to publish the detailed results of its late-stage clinical trials.

Novavax, based in Maryland, announced on Monday the start of a late-stage clinical trial that will enroll about 30,000 people in the United States and Mexico. Two-thirds of the volunteers in the study will receive the companys vaccine; the other 10,000 will get a shot of a saline solution as a placebo. Like many other vaccines, Novavaxs vaccine requires two doses. The vaccine can be kept stable in a normal refrigerator.
A Fingal Labour TD has welcomed the arrival of the National Forensic Mental Health Service Hospital at the former home of St Ita's, Portrane as an opportunity for people on the peninsula to care for those with mental health difficulties in the community.

Deputy Duncan Smith was speaking in the Dail recently, when the Central Mental Hospital (Relocation) Bill was introduced to the House.

The Central Mental Hospital currently operates from a facility in Dundrum and is set to be relocated to the St Ita's campus, Portrane in 2021.

Legislation is now needed to move to the new Central Mental Hospital site.

Deputy Smith said: 'The Labour Party welcomes this Bill and will be supporting it.

'In 2014, a public meeting was held in Donabate, which is located near Portrane and on the same peninsula, to discuss this building. It was fascinating to be there that night. There were a number of questions from the floor about the building and the impact it would have on traffic on the Donabate peninsula.

'I recall that one individual mentioned the relocation of the Central Mental Hospital as being a negative. It was unbelievable to see the room rise up to a man and a woman and announce that the community welcomed it and that it had a long tradition of caring for people with mental health issues through the St Ita's Hospital.'

Deputy Smith added: 'The meeting that night was not about nimbyism or people not wanting the hospital in their area. It was about welcoming the investment and the hospital and the opportunity to care for people again on the peninsula.

'From the 1980s onwards, St. Ita's went into a state of decline as we moved to de-institutionalisation and, thankfully, people began to develop a more enlightened approach to those with mental health issues. Therapies improved and the whole medical fraternity improved its care for people with such issues.'

Deputy Smith said it was most welcome that investment will come back to Portrane and to the peninsula, and that those people will again be at the vanguard of an improved and ever more caring approach to mental health.

For the people of North County Dublin and the peninsula and Portrane in particular, Deputy Smith said, this was 'a proud time' when 'the centre of their community is coming back to them.'

Fingal Independent
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In 2020, a year that saw so much chaos and racial upheaval in the midst of a pandemic that has plagued the world, one New Jersey woman formed an initiative to hopefully cause a great shift in a nation that sorely needs positive change.

The initiative, White Can Not Exist Without Black, is the mission statement formed by Jill Jones, a Jersey City advocate for change and St. Anthonys High School and Rutgers University alumna who was inspired by some of her own personal experiences and what she has observed in the world in the last year. Her goal: to challenge society to see people beyond race and to bring about unity among all races, particularly among Blacks and whites.

You cant have white without black, Jones said. You have a white newspaper, but its nothing without black ink. You can have a book with white pages, but it needs black printed words on the white pages. You have the white lines on the street, but they are nothing without the black tar. Black is an absorbent of all colors.

Inspired by the peaceful protests of the Black Lives Matter movement, Jones decided to be intentional with her thoughts and actions, birthing The Jill Jones Statement. An experiment in diversity and immersion, the statement encourages partnerships with cities, states and municipalities to infuse five pillars -- cultural competency training; anti-racism training; diversity and immersion; educational advancement; and financial literacy -- into their continuing education journeys while supporting families and children through equitable access to resources.

It started during a recent Black Lives Matter discussion when Jones said she was enlightened about several things.

I started feeling that there was nothing that leveled the playing field for both extremes, Jones said.

Jones herself is biracial. Her father is from England while her mother is from the Cayman Islands.

As a child, I wasnt in tune to colorism since it wasnt taught in our household, Jones said.

However, an incident at a department store in Downtown Jersey City when she was a little girl would later be a catalyst in the movement she is starting now.

My mom, who is very dark, and ... brother were in this store and my brother was crying for an item that my mom refused to buy for him,' she recalled. A police officer assumed she was our nanny and thought she was trying to kidnap us so she was taken into custody and my dad had to come and get her. But I was only about 4 at the time so I didnt understand what was going on. So it wasnt until years later when I was older and I asked my mom about the incident that I began to put the race factor into it.

Later, she faced difficulties being accepted.

In the Black world, I was called a white girl, she said. In the white world, they didnt know what to make of me so they would give me confused looks. Some Spanish people even thought I was Spanish.

In light of the COVID-19 crisis, Jones will be using virtual and social media platforms to inform and educate people about the White Can Not Exist Without Black movement, but once the crisis passes, she intends to host public rallies and meetings.

Shes also developed clothing and other merchandise with the statement thats available at Secure Men on Grove Street.

The movement is about cultural change and leveling the playing field, Jones said.

Civilization began in Africa,' she said. You can manipulate light, but you cant manipulate darkness. You cant have day without night. You can have all the crayons, but you will still need the black crayon. We need each other to exist.

For more information about the White Can Not Exist Without Black initiative, go to thejilljonesstatement.com or thejilljonesstatment on Facebook and Instagram. Merchandise can be found at Secur Men, 291 Grove St., Jersey City.
Unemployment has remained a great concern in India over time, and parents forced their children, irrespective of their aptitudes, to become doctors or engineers or to get management degrees because of the fear that if their children did not join any of those professions, they were certain to be failures.

Mr. Bajaj, who studied engineering and management at Indian colleges, is a product of that era, when parents sold land and jewelry and depleted their savings to send their children to engineering and medical colleges. At any school of medicine in the Soviet Union, and later in Russia and Central Asia, you would find a bunch of Indian students.

Tens of thousands of those engineers and doctors have no jobs now. Hundreds of engineering colleges are shutting down in India. Substandard private colleges in small towns and villages mushroomed to meet the demand and produced a generation of unskilled, unemployable engineers and doctors.

So far, Indias children have been spared from being thrown under the wheels of the education industry juggernaut. Although the Indian economy has gone into a recession in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, in the past several years American and Chinese investors put millions of dollars in businesses that are in a rush to scale up. In this ambitious sweep, previously untrod territories  like fantasy cricket apps, online casinos and businesses such as WhiteHat Jr. that challenge conventional norms about childhood and education  are not taboo anymore.

Relentless advertising campaigns are telling Indian parents that coding is critical because making children code will develop their cognitive skills. Storytelling does all that too. And singing songs. And asking questions or being offered choices or visiting interesting places. Vaidehi chose to become a storyteller like me when she was 3, storming into my studio one afternoon when I was recording. Her story about the monkey and the black dress he wanted from his mama  which she made up as she went along  was logical and had a beginning, middle and end.

Aggressive campaigns pushing Indian parents and schools to embrace coding might help meet corporate targets, but they are creating a fear that a generation of children will lose out if their parents dont sign them up for these coding programs. Parents struggle to resist these shrewdly framed campaigns.

In 2019, I showed the first tentative signs of my mutiny when I asked Vaidehis teacher at a parents-teacher meeting, Why cant a giraffe be multicolored? The question did not get a satisfactory reply, but it was a moment of a clash between the childhood and education that we had envisioned for our daughter and the one that her education system was giving her.
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While most couples in Bollywood were crystal clear about where and who they are spending New Year's Eve with, there were two rumored couples, in particular, think Vicky Kaushal and Katrina Kaif as well as Siddharth Malhotra and Kiara Advani who wanted to keep their fans speculating.

But now fans are convinced that Vicky Kaushal and Katrina Kaif were in Alibaug together whereas Kiara Advani and Siddharth Malhotra welcomed 2021 in the Maldives.

Vicky Kaushal and Katrina Kaif / Indiatimes

The speculations began after Vicky Kaushal posted a photo with his brother Sunny Kaushal near a pool. Even Katrina Kaif posted a picture with her sister Isabelle Kaif, away from the house in front of the same pool.

The secret was finally out when Isabelle went on to post an Instagram story from (almost) the same spot where Vicky and Sunny posed. Fans noticed the same background and in no time, they guessed that rumoured couple Katrina and Vicky were indeed partying together.

So Katrina Vicky Isa and Sunny they all spent the New Years together  and we got no content 

This is so unfair pic.twitter.com/wntZ23iqEK   (@Quruxda_Melanin) January 1, 2021

When it comes to Kiara Advani and Siddharth Malhotra, there was no speculating because both were spotted at the Mumbai airport arriving together to board their flight to the Maldives.

Even if it's a secret. at least love is blooming and that's all we need for 2021.
2020 was a year marked by hardships and challenges, but the Fauquier community has proven resilient. The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you for your continued support, wed like to offer all our subscribers -- new or returning --

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We are dedicated to providing the reliable, local journalism you have come to expect. We are committed to serving you with renewed energy and growing resources. Let the Fauquier Times be your community companion throughout 2021, and for many years to come.
Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 58F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 58F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph.
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On Dec. 14, Margin Walker, the largest independent live-music promoter in Texas, announced that it was permanently shutting down.

A business that booked more than 3,500 shows in Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio over the past four years had collapsed.

It collapsed under the weight of a COVID-19 pandemic that has taken one of the great joys of life  experiencing live music with a crowd of fellow enthusiasts  away from us and driven countless club owners to (or past) the edge of financial ruin.

On Dec. 21, Congress passed a $900 billion COVID-relief bill that included the Save Our Stages Act, a $15 billion life raft for this countrys independent venues. Six days later, President Donald Trump signed it into law.

As Margin Walker painfully demonstrated, when it comes to music clubs and promoters, the condition is critical and the need is urgent. The Save Our Stages Act wont be a miracle cure, but it can buy some much-needed time until this country turns the corner on the coronavirus.

Blayne Tucker, a San Antonio attorney and co-owner of The Mix, played a pivotal role in getting the legislation passed.

Tucker helped lead the Texas lobbying effort for the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), a 3,000-member organization which formed in April to represent the interests of music venues.

From the beginning, it was an arduous process, because a lot of it was educating various Congress people, calling up every one of them, Tucker said.

Tucker found a receptive audience with the staff members of U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. He explained to them that the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which had been crafted to provide loans to small businesses hurt by the pandemic, didnt serve the needs of music venues.

Under PPP, loans are fully forgiven only if businesses use at least 60 percent of the funds for payroll.

For a business thats completely shuttered, to base a forgivable loan on payroll, when you have no work to provide people, that program wasnt going to be effective, Tucker said.

Cornyn and U.S. Rep. Roger Williams, a fellow Texas Republican, agreed to lend their names to a letter calling for targeted legislative action to combat the unprecedented crisis afflicting independent venues.

In July, Cornyn and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, filed the Save Our Stages Act, a bill which proposed $10 billion in Small Business Administration grants for independent venues. (That figure subsequently got a $5 billion funding bump when small movie theaters and community museums were added to the bill.)

With NIVAs encouragement, music-loving constituents across the country sent 2.1 million emails to their senators and representatives. More than 1,200 artists  including Foo Fighters, Miley Cyrus and The Roots  advocated for the legislation through letters, social-media posts or donations of proceeds to the cause.

Tuckers lobbying effort for NIVA was shrewd, because it was rooted in bipartisanship. He and his NIVA colleagues worked on the assumption that the cultural and economic impact of live venues was something that members of both major parties could appreciate. That assumption proved correct.

What I found that resonated, at least on the Republican side, was this idea that these are small businesses that were mandated by government to shut down and ought to be entitled to some form of just compensation, Tucker said. Kind of analogizing it to the Takings Clause under the Fifth Amendment.

I think that constitutional argument was palatable to a lot of folks on the Republican side, where is wasnt as much couching things as handouts or assistance or bailouts.

For Democratic lawmakers, the argument was pretty clear. An overwhelming number of music venues are located in metropolitan areas, which tend to lean Democratic. Those elected officials have had a front-row ticket to the devastation that COVID-19 wreaked on music clubs.

Hundreds have had to close, Tucker said. Its a slow and steady bleed with every week that goes by, right up until funding comes about.

Folks are exhausting their savings, taking out loans, reaching out to family members. Its a matter of holding on, but nobody can hold on like this without some kind of relief. Because its not like the bills go away.

To help with the administration of the Save Our Stages Act, NIVA has created a task force which will provide policy recommendations for federal regulators.

All we can do is make recommendations, Tucker said. Its a new grant program and regulators themselves arent familiar with the business.

Its kind of educating them in order to distinguish between places that are more or less a restaurant and those that are intended to be helped by the bill.

Itll probably be a couple of months before independent venues start receiving funding help. It cant come soon enough.

ggarcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @gilgamesh470
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on Friday said transaction through Unified Payment Interface platform would continue to be free. Reports that UPI transactions will be charged from January 1, 2021 are incorrect, NPCI said in a statement.

Presently, no charges are levied on transaction done through UPI. NPCI continues to perform uninterrupted and convenient UPI transactions, it said.

Set up in 2008, NPCI is an umbrella organisation for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India.
Princess Mary and Princess Marie's official events have been clashing

Marie and her family have moved to France much to sister-in-law's dislike

'It is not always us who decide' she told a journalist in a bombshell interview

Mary was also absent when Marie's husband Joachim suffered a clot in his brain

Royals experts have suggested the two princesses are extremely different

Tensions are believed to be growing between Australian-born Princess Mary and her sister-in-law Princess Marie in a simmering feud threatening to tear the Danish royal family apart.

The relationship between Mary - who married Prince Frederik of Denmark in 2004 - and her sister-in-law is believed to have gone rapidly downhill in recent months.

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The frosty attitude towards each other is thought to have begun when French-born Marie - the wife of Frederik's younger brother Prince Joachim - aired her complaints about having to move her family to Paris permanently this year.

Joachim suffered a life-threatening health scare in July while studying at a military school in France when doctors found a deadly blood clot on his brain.

But eyebrows were raised after Frederik visited his brother at his French residence Chateau de Cayx with Mary nowhere to be seen.

Tensions have grown between Crown Princess Mary (pictured second from right with husband Frederik) and Princess Marie (left with husband Joachim)

Princess Mary meanwhile celebrated Christmas with just her husband and children - with royals suggesting the decision had little to do with COVID-19 rules on small gatherings.

The recent tensions follow speculation first reported by Daily Mail Australia in 2015 that Princess Mary had become estranged from her own family back Down Under.

A Danish Royal House spokesman at the time denied any rift had taken place.

Prince Joachim's family temporarily moved to Paris at the start of 2019 as the royal took part in the highly intensive six-day-a-week military training program.

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He was due to return to Denmark by the end of 2020 but after his health scare he decided to stay on and took up the role of defence attache at the Danish embassy in Paris.

Princess Marie said in July the decision to stay in France wasn't entirely theirs.

'No. It is not always us who decide. I think that's important to know,' the French princess told Danish magazine See and Hear.

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'I loved living in Denmark. Denmark is just such a wonderful country to be in. Everything works well and there are not many problems.'

Princess Marie's comments have since been likened to Meghan Markle's bombshell interview in South Africa when she said she was not coping with royal life.

The relationship is believed to have gone downhill after Princess Marie, who is married to Prince Joachim, aired her complaints about having to move her family to Paris (pictured Princess Mary, and Princess Marie with Queen Margrethe of Denmark and children)

The Hobart-born princess married Prince Frederik, the next in line for the Danish throne, in 2004 after a chance encounter at a Sydney pub in 2000

Marie, who is French, became Joachim's second wife in 2008

Sister-in-laws in arms: Princess Marie and Crown Princess Mary at Copenhagen Fahion Week in January 2013

Danish businesswoman and royal commentator Anna Thygesen told the Daily Telegraph the two princesses had little in common.

'They are very different people, one is European and not only European, she is French, where Mary is the Princess of Denmark and this makes her number one,' she said.

More questions were raised after the two princesses were seen at clashing events in recent months.

Princess Marie returned to Denmark in September for a charity opening in Copenhagen.

Just two hours earlier, her sister-in-law had been in the city to present the annual DI Prize to a company that had made sustainable and eco-friendly construction panels.

The pair have also been spotted several times in outfits that are near identical to ones the other had earlier worn.

Because Joachim is Prince Frederik's younger brother he will not take the throne - meaning unlike Mary, Marie will never be queen.

Red hot: Mary turned heads in this layered gown for a water pageant in 2013

Seeing double: Marie wore a similar dress for a dinner at Amalienborg Palace in 2014

Bringing in the New Year: Mary first wore her red velvet gown to a New Year's banquet in 2014

Frills and fuchsia: Marie had worn a similar dress a year earlier to a New Year's banquet in 2013

Princess Mary married Frederik in 2004 and the pair have four children together.

Speculation arose of a rift between Mary and her family after a series of posts that appeared to be written by her brother John Donaldson surfaced in 2015.

A spokesperson for the Danish Royal House suggested the posts referring to Mary as 'she who shall not be named' were false.

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'We believe that this is a case of obvious abuse,' Royal House press officer Lene Balleby told Danish publication BT.dk.

Princess Mary is seen with her four children and husband Frederik. Frederik is the next in line to the Danish throne

Crown Princess Mary of Denmark as a patron of DRC Danish Refugee Council in marking the one-year anniversary of the Global Refugee Forum in December 2020

'It is all too easy to make false profile pages, and in this case it is [Mary's] brother's identity that has been misused.'

Speculation about a family feud between Mary and the Donaldson family were aired in weekly magazine New Idea, which highlighted a Facebook post from August 2014 on a profile belonging to a John Stuart Donaldson.

'Holiday with the sisters in Rome. Not sure if I'll be keeping the scruff this way... Happy to see my sisters again, having a great time,' the post read, alongside a photo of John Donaldson, 45, in colourful holiday wear.

In a comment below the picture, a Facebook profile belonging to 'John Dalgleish Donaldson', the name of Princess Mary's father, remarked: 'I hope the 3 of you have a great time. Take lots of pictures. Enjoy it, you've deserved it. Lots of love from Susan and I.

Princess Marie Of Denmark is pictured stepping out of a car in Germany in 2011

'She who shall not be named': A Facebook post from 2014 on a profile appearing to belong to John Stuart Donaldson sparked the speculation - but the royal family has suggested it is fake

They added: 'Has she who shall not be named refuse to go with you or you did not extend her the offer [sic]?'

'Did not bother to ask, dad. Trish isn't speaking to her right now and we wanted to enjoy ourselves. Will do on everything else!' was the reply.

While it is unclear who the woman the Facebook users are referring to is, it was speculated that they were discussing Crown Princess Mary, and that 'Trish' refers to their sister Patricia Bailey.

The posts were eventually made private or removed from the Facebook profile.

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Mr Donaldson, Mrs Bailey and their sister Jane Stephens grew up very close to Mary, with Mr Donaldson, as godfather of Mary's son Prince Vincent, attending his christening in 2011.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 22:28:31|Editor: huaxia

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DAMASCUS, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Israel carried out a total of 39 attacks on Syrian military sites in 2020, a war monitor reported on Saturday.

The strikes killed 217 Syrian soldiers and pro-Iran fighters, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The latest Israeli attack took place on Wednesday when Israeli missiles targeted a military base in the Zabadani suburb west of Damascus, resulting in the death of one soldier and the injury of three others. The observatory said the targeted attack was aimed at pro-Iran weapon depots. Enditem
The Centre should ensure that poor people in Maharashtra get Covid-19 vaccine free of cost, state Health Minister Rajesh Tope said on Saturday.

When asked whether the Maharashtra government would provide free vaccine to the poor if the Centre fails to do so, the health minister said, We wont leave the poor in the lurch.

I heard that Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has declared that the governmentwould give Covid-19 vaccine free of cost to health workers and frontline workers. I would request him to give the vaccine free to poor people too in Maharashtra, Tope said.

Tope was in Jalna, his home district, to review the ongoing Covid-19 vaccination dry run.

The mock drill was conducted in four districts, including Jalna, in Maharashtra during the day.

Earlier in the day, Harsh Vardhan sain in Delhi that free vaccine would be provided in the first phase of inoculation to the most prioritised beneficiaries, including one crore healthcare and two crore frontline workers.

Though the Central government has stopped providing aid to the Maharashtra government since September last year, we wont fall short in providing health facilities to the people in the state. The government is financially sound, he added.

In Jalna, the dry run was conducted at the district civil hospital in the city, and at the government hospital at Ambad and the primary health centre at Shelgaon, said district civil surgeon Archana Bhosale.

We had enrolled 25 beneficiaries for each centre for the mock drill. As per procedure, SMSes were sent to them. No actual vaccine was administered, but we conducted the mock drill as per the guidelines.

We arranged a waiting room, a vaccination room and a monitoring room at each health centre, as required under the guidelines, Bhosale told reporters.
The country's rabi foodgrains production including wheat in the ongoing 2020-21 crop year is expected to be better than the previous year's record of 153.27 million tonne, according to Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar.

Sowing of rabi (winter) crops is underway. The rabi sowing begins from October immediately after the harvest of kharif (summer) crops. Wheat and mustard are major rabi crops. The crop year runs from July to June.

Speaking to PTI, Tomar said the country's agriculture sector performed well during 2020 as foodgrains production rose to a record in the kharif season with farmers working hard despite the COVID-19 pandemic and proving their relevance.

"This year, we hope better foodgrain production in the rabi season than last year (same season)," he said.

For the 2020-21 crop year, the Centre has set a target of a record foodgrains output of 301 million tonne, out of which it expects 151.65 million tonne to come from the rabi season.

Further, the minister said progress to be made in the recent government initiatives including two new farm laws on marketing, formation of 10,000 FPOs (Farmer Producers Organisations ), Rs 1 lakh crore Agriculture Infrastructure Fund, will also benefit farmers and boost the sector.

"I hope farmers' hard work and the Modi government's pro-farmer policies will strengthen the agriculture sector. New reforms will also benefit the sector," he added.

According to the official data, wheat sowing area has increased by 4 per cent so far this rabi season to 325.35 lakh hectare, while pulses acreage grew 5 per cent to 154.80 lakh hectare on better monsoon rains.

The paddy coverage was down marginally to 14.83 lakh hectare so far this rabi season from 15.47 lakh hectare in the corresponding period of the previous year.

The area under coarse cereals was down so far this rabi season at 45.12 lakh hectare as compared to 49.90 lakh hectare in the year-ago period. However, the sowing area for oilseeds was up at 80.61 lakh hectare from 75.93 lakh hectare a year ago.

Total sowing under various rabi crops has increased to 620.71 lakh hectare from 603.15 lakh hectare, the data showed.

In the 2019-20 crop year, the country's overall foodgrains production stood at a record 296.65 million tonne, as per the government's fourth advance estimate.

Also Read: Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine Covishield may get emergency use approval today

Also Read: 'COVID-19 vaccine will be free across the country,' says Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan
PULWAMA: At least seven civilians were injured after unidentified terrorists hurled a grenade at security forces in Tral area of Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday (January 3).

According to police, all the injured were immediately shifted to a nearby hospital for medical treatment. A police official said the health condition of all the injured is stable.

Following the grenade attack, security forces immediately cordoned off the entire area and launched a search operation to nab the attackers.
Francesca Packer Barham was spotted out and about in Sydney on Saturday, dripping in designer.

The 26-year-old heiress wore a $62,000 outfit to get her hair done at a ritzy salon in Double Bay.

Francesca, who is James Packer's niece, toted a Hermes crocodile handbag, believed to be worth around $60,000, and wore a figure-hugging black dress, that appeared to be a Balmain which retails around $2,000.

Out and about: On Saturday, heiress Francesca Packer Barham, 26, was dripping in designer and wore a $62,000 outfit as she joined her new Pilates instructor boyfriend Adam Cooper to get her hair done in Sydney's Double Bay

She teamed the long sleeve frock, which featured a high neck and gold buttons, with sheer black stockings and black high heeled boots.

Francesca wore an array of diamond rings on her fingers and finished her look with a chic pair of black cat-eye sunglasses.

She had her long dark locks out and over her shoulders and natural-looking makeup.

That's some bling! Francesca wore an array of diamond rings on her fingers and finished her look with a chic pair of black cat-eye sunglasses

Dolled up: She teamed the long sleeve frock, which featured a high neck and gold buttons, with sheer black stockings and black high heeled boots

Not exactly small change! Francesca, who is James Packer's niece, toted a Hermes crocodile handbag, believed to be worth around $60,000

BFFs: Francesca got her hair done by her hairdresser friend, Jacki Mann, who escorted her from the salon

Francesca got her hair done by her hairdresser friend, Jacki Mann, who escorted her from the salon.

Also making an appearance at the salon was her new Pilates instructor boyfriend, Adam Cooper.

Last month, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Francesca confirmed her new relationship.

'Adam is a really great guy. We've been dating for a while,' Francesca told the publication.

Adam is the Head of Training at Performance Vive Active, which has studios in Double Bay and Brookvale.

New man: Also making an appearance at the salon was her new Pilates instructor boyfriend, Adam Cooper

Confirmation: Last month, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Francesca confirmed her new relationship

'Adam is a really great guy. We've been dating for a while,' Francesca said

He is also a Pilates reformer trainer and personal trainer, as well as a member of the North Bondi Surf Life Saving Club.

Over the years the heiress has had relationships with Van Hoorn guitarist Joshua Mullane and Melbourne property developer Kelli Holland.

Francesca reportedly recently split from Sam Zacharia, the personal trainer son of celebrity plastic surgeon Michael Zacharia, who she was believed to to have been dating since last year.

Love life: Over the years the heiress has had relationships with Van Hoorn guitarist Joshua Mullane and Melbourne property developer Kelli Holland

Romance: He is also a Pilates reformer trainer and personal trainer, as well as a member of the North Bondi Surf Life Saving Club

However she told Private Sydney: 'We're just good friends, in fact he is a very old friend of mine. I promise you there is nothing to announce.'

After the alleged split, the brunette is said to have spent a whopping $9,000 on a cavoodle puppy (Cavalier King Charles Spaniel cross poodle), according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

The grandaughter of the late Kerry Packer and daughter of Gretel Packer and her ex-husband, English financier Nick Barham, was born in Sydney but spent the first five years of her life in Surrey, England.
Greta Thunberg has said she 'doesn't care' about the jet-setting exploits of celebrities who preach about the environment in an interview ahead of her 18th birthday.

The teenage activist became the face of the youth climate movement after launching a solo 'school strike' outside the Swedish parliament aged just 15.

Since then, Miss Thunberg - who will turn 18 on Sunday - has spoken at the United Nations climate summit, been nominated for a Nobel peace prize and was dubbed Time magazine's 2019 person of the year.

But she said her global superstardom won't last forever so is trying to 'use her position' to get as much done as possible 'in this limited amount of time'.

Speaking in an interview with The Times, the 17-year-old was asked how she feels about celebrities who travel the world in gas-guzzling planes while preaching about climate change.

She simply replied: 'I don't care.'

Greta Thunberg (pictured) has said she 'doesn't care' about the jet-setting exploits of celebrities who preach about the environment in an interview ahead of her 18th birthday

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were criticised for using private jets in 2019 - including four trips in just 11 days in August - despite their eco credentials.

Miss Thunberg said: 'I'm not telling anyone else what to do, but there is a risk when you are vocal about these things and don't practise as you preach, then you will become criticised for that and what you are saying won't be taken seriously.'

The teenager - who has Asperger's syndrome - was critical of Boris Johnson's ten-point 'green industrial revolution'.

The Prime Minister launched a 12billion plan for the environment last year, saying it could create 250,000 jobs and significantly slash the country's carbon emissions.

Among the ambitious proposals are plans to ban new sales of petrol and diesel cars by 2030, install thousands of offshore wind turbines and plant 75,000 acres of trees per year.

Miss Thunberg - who will turn 18 on Sunday - has spoken at the United Nations climate summit, been nominated for a Nobel peace prize and was dubbed Time magazine's 2019 person of the year (pictured)

But Miss Thunberg (pictured) said her global superstardom won't last forever so she is trying to 'use her position' to get as much done as possible 'in this limited amount of time'

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (pictured) were criticised for using private jets in 2019 - including four trips in just 11 days in August - despite their eco credentials

Miss Thunberg said that while the proposals were seen as better than the Government doing nothing - she pointed out that scientists have criticised it for not doing enough to tackle climate change.

In the interview, the activist also said that she doesn't mull over criticism levied at her from world leaders.

In 2019, Miss Thunberg shouted 'How dare you?' during the UN General Assembly - claiming that country heads were failing the younger generation.

US President Donald Trump sarcastically said of her UN Speech: 'She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see.'

Last December, President Trump told Miss Thunberg to 'work on her anger management problem' and 'get a good old-fashioned movie with a friend' after she became the youngest person to be awarded with Time magazine's Person Of The Year accolade.

After she was named Person Of The Year by Time Magazine, President Trump said Thunberg needed to 'chill' and 'work on her anger management problem'

The teenage activist mocked the president and changed her Twitter bio using his words

The 17-year-old mimicked a tweet the President had directed at her last year and told him to 'chill' and 'work on his anger management problem'

In his tweet last year the President wrote: 'So ridiculous. Greta must work on her anger management problem, then go to a good old-fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, chill!'

In November, Miss Thunberg threw the criticism back at him.

Taking to Twitter to reply to the President's calls to 'stop the count', the teenager wrote: 'So ridiculous. Donald must work on his anger management problem, then go to a good old-fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Donald, Chill!'

Last month, the activist said she was celebrating being back in school but accused nations of ignoring climate experts, despite the pandemic showing the importance of following science.

Miss Thunberg took a gap year from 2019 in a bid to force leaders from around the world to take action on climate change.

The schoolgirl was seen at the UN headquarters last year with an enraged expression on her face as President Trump walked in

As her studies get back under way she told novelist Margaret Atwood during her guest editorship of BBC Radio 4's Today programme the coronavirus crisis has 'shone a light' on how 'we cannot make it without science'.

And she accused the world of listening to 'one type' of scientist, and ignoring others warning of climate change.

When asked if the pandemic's impact on people's appreciation of science could have an effect on climate information the teenager said: 'It could definitely have.

'I think this pandemic has shone a light on how ... we are depending on science and that we cannot make it without science.

'But of course, we are only listening to one type of scientist, or some types of scientists, and, for example, we are not listening to climate scientists, we're not listening to scientists who work on biodiversity.

'That of course needs to change.'

Earlier she had shared a picture of herself on a bike with her school rucksack over her shoulder as she celebrated returning to education.

But the environmental campaigner expressed scepticism when questioned about nations' pledges to reduce their carbon emissions, such as China which has committed to reach a net zero target by 2060.

She said: 'That would be very nice if they actually meant something.

'We can't just keep talking about future, hypothetical, vague, distant dates and pledges. We need to do things now. And also net zero ... that is a very big loophole, you can fit a lot in that word net.'

But she praised the election of Joe Biden as US president who has pledged to rejoin the Paris climate accord on the first day of his presidency.

Miss Thunberg added: 'It could be a good start of something new.

'Let's hope that it is like that, and let's push for it to become like that.'
STOUGHTON  A Boston man was killed after he got out of his crashed car on Route 24 in Stoughton and was hit by a passing vehicle about 11:30 p.m. Thursday.

Massachusetts State Police said Brandon Rose, 24, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Investigators said preliminary information indicates Rose apparently lost control of his 2020 Nissan Altima and crashed into a guardrail in the southbound lane of Route 24 near Exit 20 in Stoughton. After hitting the guardrail, Roses car also struck a 2020 Honda Accord.

Rose suffered minor injuries in the initial crash and got out of his car but was then struck and killed by a passing Jeep Cherokee operated by a Milton man, police said. The operators of the Honda and the Jeep were not injured.

The incident remains under investigation by Troop H, the State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section, Crime Scene Services, State Police detectives attached to the Norfolk District Attorneys Office and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
REDDING, Calif. - The Shasta County District Attorney's (D.A.) office said on the last day of Dec. 2020, a registered sex offender from Redding was sentenced for several cases. Sebastian Schneible was sentenced to spend eight years and eight months in state prison.

According to the D.A.'s office the sentence was for two separate cases.

They said Schneible pleaded to charges based on the sexual abuse of two teenage girls that he had befriended. At the time he was on probation for sexual assault of another minor female. His sentence to state prison includes time for violating probation ordered by a judge for the prior conviction, said the D.A's office on Thursday.

Another prior case involved Schneible working at the Spirit Halloween store. According to the Shasta County District Attorney's Officea a mother made a complaint after leaving the store concerned about Schneible's behavior toward her child.

Schneible will be required to register as a sex offender upon his release from state prison, authorities said.

The case was investigated by Redding Police Department investigator Nick Weaver and Redding Police Department officer Joshua Tracy.

Schneible was prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Kacie Johnson, and the victims were assisted by Victim Witness Advocate Lindsay Schurig.

Action News Now covered the arrest of Schneible and others on Halloween 2018 by Shasta County law enforcement for violating conditions of their release. The annual visit to sex offenders in Shasta County on Halloween is called Operation Boo! Registered sex offenders are not allowed to wear costumes on Halloween, are not allowed to pass out candy, and are not permitted to leave their outside lights on during the time children go door-to-door on Halloween night.
Turkish police officers wearing masks and visors wait for passengers at the passport control, at Antalya International airport in Antalya in southern Turkey on June 19, 2020. (Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images)

Turkey Finds 15 People Carrying New UK CCP Virus Variant

ISTANBULTurkeys health minister says the country has identified 15 people who carry a highly contagious coronavirus variant that was discovered in the United Kingdom.

In a statement Friday, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said the strain was found in travelers arriving from the UK. He said they were in quarantine, along with people they had been in contact with. He said the strain was not identified in passengers from elsewhere.

Turkey suspended flights with the UK along with other countries in late December upon discovery of the new strains spread and quarantined at least 4,603 passengers. Turkey also began to require a negative PCR test result for all international arrivals last week.

Turkey has among the worst infection rates in the world but official statistics show the seven-day average of daily infections has dropped to around 15,000 from above 30,000 since evening curfews and weekend lockdowns were instituted in early December.

The official death toll is 21,093, according to ministry statistics, but critics have accused the government of deliberately downplaying the extent of the countys outbreak.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, have we become a nation of wimps?

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She recently finished shooting the anticipated movie Jurassic World: Dominion in the UK  the sixth film in the hugely successful franchise.

And Laura Dern was spotted enjoying some family time on Friday, as she stepped out with her daughter Jaya, 16, for a stroll on the beach in California's Pacific Palisades.

The 53-year-old actress wrapped up in a black quilted coat as she and her daughter went for the leisurely walk, which culminated in them watching the first sunset of 2021 on the breathtaking coastline.

New Year's Day stroll: Laura Dern was spotted enjoying some family time on Friday, as she stepped out with her daughter Jaya, 16, for a stroll on the beach in California's Pacific Palisades

Rounding out her casual ensemble with a black tracksuit bottoms and a pair of matching mid-top Allbirds sneakers, the star adhered to local COVID-19 safety measures by donning a protective face mask.

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Meanwhile, Jaya also stepped out in casually cool style, donning baggy taupe hoodie, which she teamed with patterned black bottoms and white plimsolls.

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Laura shares her daughter with musician ex-husband Ben Harper, to whom she was married between 2005 and 2013. They are also the parents of son Ellery Walker, 19.

Her upcoming film Jurassic World: Dominion wrapped shooting at England's Pinewood Studios in November, after adopting rigorous health and safety measures worth around 6 million.

Wrapping up: The 53-year-old actress wrapped up in a black quilted coat as she and her daughter went for the leisurely walk

Safety first: Rounding out her casual ensemble with a black tracksuit bottoms and a pair of matching mid-top Allbirds sneakers, the star donned a protective face mask

First sunset: The walk culminated in them watching the first sunset of 2021 on the coastline

The sixth film in the Jurassic Park franchise became the first major movie to resume production amid the COVID-19 crisis, as lockdown restrictions began to ease over the summer.

In order to do so, cast and crew had to isolate together for months, without being able to see their families, and a total of 40,000 novel coronavirus tests were carried out in the process.

According to Deadline, the Jurassic World set was equipped with a 'Greenzone', which saw staff temperature-checked daily, a slew of medical staff on hand and isolation booths at the ready.

Pinewood plastered 1,800 COVID-related signs around the studios and added 150 hand sanitiser stations as well as 60 more sinks for hand-washing. At the end of each day, all communal areas were antiviral fogged.

Former husband: Laura shares her daughter with musician ex-husband Ben Harper, to whom she was married between 2005 and 2013. Pictured in 2012

Family: Laura and Ben are also the parents of son Ellery Walker, 19. Pictured with Jaya in 2019

As a result of the strict measures, only an estimated 100 COVID-19 tests returned positive - some of which were false positives.

One positive case forced production to halt temporarily last month, but this was a minor spanner in the works and shooting soon resumed.

Director Colin Trevorrow said: 'Im not sure I can put it into words. It has been remarkable. Our crew and our cast has been so resilient. All producers have worked around the clock to make it the best it can be. It has been inspiring.'

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Likening the process of returning to work amid a pandemic as being part of a family, he added: 'Ive never been as immersed in a filmmaking process.

'Because of the protocols, the actors didnt go far from set. The distance was stripped away. There was a lot of laughter at a time when it has been hard to find things to laugh about.'

Film: Laura's film Jurassic World: Dominion wrapped shooting at England's Pinewood Studios in November, after adopting rigorous health and safety measures worth around 6 million

Sequel: The sixth film in the Jurassic Park franchise became the first major movie to resume production amid the COVID-19 crisis, as lockdown restrictions began to ease over the summer

The director - who also co-wrote the sequel - marked the end of filming this weekend by posting a snap with some of the cast to Instagram, captioning it: 'Wrap on Jurassic World Dominion. Always hard to say goodbye to family.'

The film continues the Jurassic Park saga, picking up where 2018's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom left off, with a collection of dinosaurs - including a Tyrannosaurus Rex and a Velocirapter - loose on mainland America.

And Trevorrow mused on this theme, and how well-suited it is to current times.

'This movie is about the need to co-exist and survive together. If this pandemic has taught us anything its that we need the different generations to protect each other. It was the right movie to be making at this moment,' he added.

The film features Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, but brings back Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, who starred in 1993 original Jurassic Park.

Director Colin Trevorrow [second left] - who also co-wrote the sequel - marked the end of filming this weekend by posting a snap with some of the cast to Instagram

Returning to the saga: The film brings back Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, who starred in 1993 original Jurassic Park. Pictured on the set in October

While all three have since appeared in the franchise again [Neill and Dern in 2001's Jurassic Park III, Goldblum in 1997's The Lost World and 2018's Fallen Kingdom] this will be the first time the trio are on set again together.

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The movie also sees the return of recurring cast B D Wong, Justice Smith, Isabella Sermon, Omar Sy and Daniella Pineda, and adds Mamoudou Athie and DeWanda Wise to the roster.

While the film was slated to be the end of the Jurassic World trilogy, producer Frank Marshall told Collider earlier this year that it will likely not be the end of the Jurassic Park franchise.

'Its the start of a new era,' he said. 'The dinosaurs are now on the mainland amongst us, and they will be for quite some time, I hope.'

As a result of the pandemic, Jurassic World: Dominion's release date has been pushed back a year, to June 10 2022.

Continuation: Picking up where 2018's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom left off, Dominion sees a collection of dinosaurs - including a Tyrannosaurus Rex and a Velocirapter - loose in the US
Information Technology Assistant, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Organization: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Country: United Arab Emirates

City: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Office: FAO Representation in United Arab Emirates

Closing date: Thursday, 14 January 2021

CALL FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST - VACANCY ANNOUNCEMENT : 2002968

Information Technology Assistant

Job Posting: 24/Dec/2020

Closure Date: 14/Jan/2021, 10:59:00 PM

Organizational Unit : SNG

Job Type: Staff position

Type of Requisition : General Service

Grade Level : G-5

Primary Location: United Arab Emirates-Abu Dhabi

Duration : Fixed term: one year with possibility of extension

Post Number : 2008237

Staff in the General Service category are recruited locally from the Primary Location area, which is where the office is located

FAO is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender and nationality

People with disabilities are protected from any type of discrimination during any stage of employment, including the recruitment phase

All applications will be treated with the strictest confidentiality

Organizational Setting

The position is located in the Sub-Regional Office for the Gulf Cooperation Council States and Yemen (SNG).

Main Purpose

The Information Technology Assistant coordinates and performs the full range of Information Technology (IT) support functions. He /she ensures quality, transparency and consistency of IT service delivery in line with established IT procedures and Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

Supervision Received/Exercised

The Information Technology Assistant reports to the Sub-Regional Coordinator of SNG and follows technical standards and procedures established by the IT Division. The incumbent operates independently and takes decisions on work priorities. Supervision received is focused on divisional/ departmental IT priorities, in particular the meeting of timelines and the quality of support given to clients.

Working Relationships

The incumbent has frequent interaction with staff at all levels within the work unit to resolve routine and non-routine IT-related problems and coordinate IT service delivery. He /she works closely with the IT Division to ensure problem resolution and service delivery.

Key Functions/Results

Receive and log all requests from users relating to IT services in the Service Desk System;

Provide first and second level * (*see below) support for divisional/ departmental users to resolve issues regarding the full range of computer applications as well as standard and non-standard hardware, software and peripherals (CD-writers, scanners, USB-drives, etc); act as liaison between users and the IT Division for resolution of more complex or persistent issues that cannot be solved directly; monitor progress and ensure problem resolution;

Assist in more complex tasks related to web publishing and media production and provide support on how to make most effective use of information technology;

Deploy and configure hardware and software, including non-standard equipment that has been cleared for use as per established policies and procedures; assist in implementing procedures for data backups;

Ensure user access to the corporate/ divisional/ departmental IT infrastructure: set up network services according to established policies and procedures (e.g. e-mail accounts and user access profiles, file share security); manage divisional/ departmental shared drives and public e-mail folders;

Operate and troubleshoot a variety of office equipment, such as personal computers, printers, photocopiers, PDAs and smartphones, and maintain IT stationery supplies;

Provide user guidance and training on IT equipment and services and contribute to the IT knowledge base;

Provide hands-on assistance to users in organizing presentations and setting up audio-visual equipment;

Advise divisional or departmental staff on the selection of both standard and non-standard IT hardware and software, carry out market research on availability and pricing and liaise with external suppliers as appropriate;

Assist in the planning and procurement of IT-equipment and software, based on established equipment life cycle processes: provide specifications for the purchase of hardware, software and peripherals and assist users in the preparation of IT-related Purchase Requisitions, Low Value Orders and Local Orders in Oracle for hardware, software and peripherals; liaise with the IT Division for clearance of non-standard equipment and software

Manage the divisional/ departmental pool of IT equipment and local stock of IT supplies and materials: maintain the inventory and assets in the Service Desk System and GRMS fixed assets; ensure that software licenses are legally acquired and formally recorded;

Process separation clearance as per established procedures;

Perform other related duties as required.

Impact Of Work

The incumbent plays a lead role in the overall provision of FAO information technology services. He/ she plays a lead role in the provision of information technology support services for successful achievement of the organizational units mandate.

CANDIDATES WILL BE ASSESSED AGAINST THE FOLLOWING

Minimum Requirements

Education: Secondary School Education

Experience: Four years of relevant experience in IT-support work

Languages: Working knowledge (Level C) of English and either Arabic or French

IT Skills:

Very good knowledge of the MS Office applications and Microsoft O365, systems installation and configuration, Internet and office technology equipment;

Networking and IT Equipment support;

Basic UNDSS IT Security Awareness or equivalent;

At least MD-100 exam of the Microsoft Modern Desktop Administrator Associate certification

Competencies

Results Focus

Tags computer applications continuous improvement information technology knowledge sharing market research media production oracle procurement support services transparency undss

Teamwork

Communication

Building Effective Relationships

Knowledge Sharing and Continuous Improvement

Technical Skills

Very good understanding of the IT infrastructure

Very good knowledge of IT governance policies and procedures

Very good problem solving skills related to IT issues

Desirable Qualifications and Skills

Extent of knowledge of FAOs corporate systems and data base, or knowledge of other IT modules or applications relevant to IT procedures or management would be considered an asset

Work experience within United Nations System or an international organization is an asset

Assessment

Evaluation of qualified applicants may include an assessment exercise and a technical / competency-based interview.

FAO staff are expected to adhere to FAO Values of Commitment to FAO,

Respect for All and Integrity and Transparency

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

FAO does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process (application, interview, processing)

Please note that FAO only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU) / United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed at http://www.whed.net/

The length of the appointment for internal FAO candidates will be established in accordance with applicable policies pertaining to extension of appointments

Selected candidates need to reside within commuting distance from the FAO office. "Commuting distance" means the distance within which staff members can travel daily between their place of work and their residence.

No international benefits will be payable as selected candidates are recruited locally and paid in the local currency of the office location

Other similar positions may be filled from this vacancy notice

For additional information visit the FAO employment website: http://www.fao.org/employment/home/en/

REMUNERATION A competitive compensation and benefits package is offered. For information on UN salaries, allowances and benefits, click on the following link: http://www.un.org/Depts/OHRM/salaries allowances/salary.htm

HOW TO APPLY

To apply, visit the recruitment website at Jobs at FAO and complete your online profile. Once completed, please apply and submit your application, with language certificates as attachments. Only language proficiency certificates from UN accredited external providers and/or FAO language official examinations (LPE, ILE, LRT) will be accepted as proof of the level of knowledge of languages indicated in the online applications. FAO reserves the right to request candidates to undertake a language test in the future, as appropriate

Incomplete applications will not be considered

Only applications received through the recruitment portal will be considered

If you need assistance please contact: Careers@fao.org
Syracuse, N.Y.  Syracuse police have identified the man fatally shot Thursday morning on the Bear Street bridge over Interstate 81 on the citys North Side.

Police said Joel Saldana, 27, of Syracuse, was shot in the back near the corner of North Clinton and Bear streets around 10:45 a.m. that morning.

Officers responded to the scene after a 911 caller reported seeing the driver of a car fire a gun at another vehicle near that intersection, according to police scanner reports.

A few minutes later, a man, later identified as Saldana, arrived at St. Josephs Hospital Health Center with what police described as a serious gunshot wound to the back.

Saldana died later that day.

Crime scene tape fences off the Bear Street bridge over Interstate 81as Syracuse police officers investigate gunshots fired in the area on New Year's Eve, Dec. 31, 2020.Samantha House | shouse@syracuse.com

Saldana is Syracuses 31st homicide victim of 2020, matching 2016 for the most in the citys history.

Syracuse police ask anyone with information about the incident to contact them at (315) 442-5222.

Contact Jacob Pucci at jpucci@syracuse.com or find him on Twitter at @JacobPucci.

Lin Wood, a staunch ally of Donald Trump, suggested Vice President Mike Pence should 'face execution by firing squad' for 'treason'

Wood wants Pence to overturn the results of the election during a session of Congress next Wednesday when the Electoral College votes are ratified

Pence, as president of the Senate, will oversee Wednesday's session and declare the winner of the White House race

Wood along with others have urged Pence to interfere in the process despite not having any authority to alter the outcome of the congressional session

Trump and his allies have filed roughly 50 lawsuits challenging election results, and nearly all have been dismissed or dropped

A conspiracy theory touting lawyer who has championed Donald Trump's election fraud claims is stirring controversy by suggesting Vice President Mike Pence should 'face execution by firing squad' for 'treason'.

Lawyer Lin Wood appears to be continuing his campaign against the 2020 election results.

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'If Pence is arrested, @SecPompeo will save the election. Pence will be in jail awaiting trial for treason. He will face execution by firing squad. He is a coward & will sing like a bird & confess ALL,' he tweeted on Friday.

Lin Wood, a staunch ally of Donald Trump, suggested Vice President Mike Pence could 'face execution by firing squad' for 'treason' for refusing to overturn the election results in Congress

Wood tweeted how he wanted Pence to overturn the results of the election during a session of Congress next Wednesday when the Electoral College votes are ratified

Wood went on to claim that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is a 'truth-giver' on the side of Trump.

Wood went on to claim that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is a 'truth-giver' on the side of Trump.

'Secretary of State Mike Pompeo @SecPompeo is a truth-giver. When Sec. Pompeo speaks, listen carefully.' he tweeted shortly after his call for Pence's arrest.

Pence is to oversee the ratification of Electoral College votes on January 6.

The process will certify President-elect Joe Biden's victory.

Pence, as president of the Senate, will oversee Wednesday's session and declare the winner of the White House race. The Electoral College last month cemented Biden's 306-232 victory, and multiple legal efforts by President Donald Trump's campaign to challenge the results have failed.

Vice President Mike Pence is to oversee the ratification of Electoral College votes on January 6

Click here to resize this module

Wood along with others have urged Pence to interfere in the process despite not having any authority to alter the outcome of the congressional session.

On Thursday, the Justice Department managed to push the District Court for the Eastern District of Texas to throw out Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert's lawsuit.

The suit named Pence, who has a largely ceremonial role in next week's proceedings, as the defendant and asked the court to throw out the 1887 law that spells out how Congress handles the vote counting. It asserted that the vice president 'may exercise the exclusive authority and sole discretion in determining which electoral votes to count for a given State.'

Rep. Louie Gohmert and Arizona's slate of Republican 'electors' have sued Vice President Mike Pence in an effort to get a Texas-base federal judge to give Pence the right to choose which electoral votes count. The suit has since been thrown out

Vice President Mike Pence refused to sign on to a plan that would have him choose to read the votes cast by President Donald Trump's 'electors' in states that President-elect Joe Biden won when he presides over a Congressional session to finalize the election on January 6

In dismissing the lawsuit filed by Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and a group of Republican electors from Arizona, Texas U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, wrote that the plaintiffs 'allege an injury that is not fairly traceable' to Pence, 'and is unlikely to be redressed by the requested relief.'

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The Justice Department represented Pence in a case that aimed to find a way to keep his boss, President Donald Trump, in power. In a court filing in Texas on Thursday, the department said the plaintiffs 'have sued the wrong defendant' - if, in fact, any of those suing actually have 'a judicially cognizable claim.'

The department said, in effect, that the suit objects to long-standing procedures laid out in law, 'not any actions that Vice President Pence has taken,' so he should not be the target of the suit.

Jenna Ellis, an attorney for the Trump campaign, declared in a tweet late Friday: 'I do not support the statements from Attorney Lin Wood. I support the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.'

'A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction,' the department argued.

Lin Wood's remarks on Friday have drawn a backlash with some questioning his mental health following his call for Pence's arrest.

Wood has previously suggested that Pence is Trump's enemy and shared a blog post suggesting the politician was planning to make a play for the White House by removing the head of state from power using the 25h Amendment.

Jenna Ellis, an attorney for the Trump campaign, declared in a tweet late Friday: 'I do not support the statements from Attorney Lin Wood. I support the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.'

Wood is believed to be a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory and has appeared alongside fellow lawyer and Trump loyalist Sidney Powell.

Wood has also suggested that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, pictured, should be arrested

He recently called on Georgians to boycott the upcoming runoff elections - which will determine which party controls the Senate and alleged the state's Republican Governor Brian Kemp is a 'Republican in name only' and complicit in the massive voter fraud alleged by Mr Trump.

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Trump, the first president to lose a reelection bid in almost 30 years, has attributed his defeat to widespread voter fraud. But a range of nonpartisan election officials and Republicans has confirmed there was no fraud in the November contest that would change the results of the election. That includes former Attorney General William Barr, who said he saw no reason to appoint a special counsel to look into the president's claims about the 2020 election. He resigned from his post last week.

Trump and his allies have filed roughly 50 lawsuits challenging election results, and nearly all have been dismissed or dropped. He's also lost twice at the Supreme Court.

Democratic President-elect Joe Biden won the presidential election by more than 7 million votes and earned 306 Electoral College votes, compared to Trump's 232.

The December 14 meeting of the Electoral College cemented that count.

Then, on January 6, Pence will preside over what's usually a ceremonial meeting of Congress to count the votes.

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House members and senators are allowed to object to states' counts - and Gohmert said he still plans to engage in that effort.
The spin comes from the site's founder, who goes by the alias "Ann Jackson," citing safety concerns. Jackson is an ex-Mormon who claims to have worked in the LDS church's "temple clothing division." (LDS church spokesman Eric Hawkins would neither deny nor confirm the existence of a special church division devoted to temple garments.) Jackson says that each new member of the church is given a set of the special underwear once found worthy by the church. The garments resemble long underwear and are made of specific cotton polyester blends. They feature special stitching and are embroidered with Masonic symbols.
A Chinese public health official on Friday assured that the new strain of COVID-19 virus discovered in the United Kingdom will have no effect on the immune response of the vaccine approved by the country recently. A Chinese CDC official, while speaking to the state-owned television, said there is no sign yet to prove that the new variant of the virus can impact the immune response generated by the COVID-19 vaccine approved recently. According to The Guardian, China approved the Sinopharm's CoronaVac vaccine for public use on Thursday.

Read: China Rejects Taiwan's Offer For 'meaningful' Talks, Calls It A 'cheap Trick'

This comes a day after the new variant of the virus was detected in China, in a woman who had recently arrived in the country from Britain. The woman reportedly arrived in China on December 14 and was isolated immediately upon reaching Shanghai. Two days later, the woman tested positive for COVID-19 and it was confirmed that she carried a similar variant detected in the United Kingdom earlier last month. According to virologists, the new strain of the virus spreads faster than all other variants previously detected.

Read: Taiwan President Maintains Cross-strait Tensions With China A Matter Of Global Concern

China locks down Beijing

China recently reported a cluster of new COVID-19 cases in Beijing, following which it locked down several parts of the capital as a precautionary measure to block the spread of the virus. China also cancelled sporting events and temple fairs ahead of the Lunar New year celebrations as a measure to stop people from gathering in large numbers. The lockdown in Beijing is the first since July 2020, when the authorities decided to impose strict restrictions in the capital after the emergence of several domestic cases.

Read: China Grants Conditional Approval To Sinopharm's COVID-19 Vaccine With 79% Efficacy

China on Thursday approved the COVID-19 vaccine after manufacturers claimed the efficacy of the treatment to be well above the standard set by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Sinopharm, which is a state-owned pharmaceutical firm, said trial results showed its vaccine is 79 percent effective. The approval by the national health commission of China followed trials conducted in the United Arab Emirates reporting over 80 percent efficacy earlier in December.

Read: China's Xi Jinping, Top EU Officials Hold Meeting On Long-awaited Investment Deal


Russia on January 1 announced the launch of at least 30 civilian and commercial spacecraft in 2021 under its Federal Space Program, sources in Russia's space and rocket industry told Sputnik, according to ANI. The nonmilitary launches will lift off from the cosmodromes of Baikonur, Plesetsk, and Vostochny, as well as from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana, sources revealed. "In 2021, about 30 Russian space launches as part of the Federal Space Program and commercial projects are expected," ANI quoted the Russian official as saying.

According to a Russian Space web release, the country will lift off a Soyuz-2-1a rocket to launch the Progress MS-16 cargo ship from Baikonur's Site 31 to the International Space Station, ISS around February. the spacecraft is expected to fly a two-day profile in the orbit and dock at the aft port of the Zvezda Service Module, part of the ISS' Russian Segment. As per the ISS flight manifest drafted by Roskosmos at the end of August 2020, the task of discarding Pirs was allocated to Russia's Progress MS-15, which aims to conclude the mission in mid-March 2021, just 96 days into orbit. Russia also plans to launch Galileo navigation satellites from the ELS facility near Kourou, French Guiana. the launch of the Soyuz-ST/Fregat rocket was postponed to 2021 from December 15, 2020.

Read: Russia: Former Energy Exec Convicted Of Spying For Moldova

Read: Official: Stats Suggest Russia Virus Toll May Be Higher

Several 'Russian' missions lined up

In April, meanwhile, Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky, Petr Dubrov, and NASA astronaut Mark T. Vande Hei are expected to visit the ISS in ISS mission 64S from Baikonur. The Soyuz MS-18 will dock at the MIM1 Rassvet module, a part of the station's Russian Segment in the non-military mission. Another spacecraft owned by Roskosmos, the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft which was slated for September 13, 2021, will launch this year carrying three Russian cosmonauts, namely Anton Shkaplerov, Sergei Babkin, and Mukhtar Aimakhanov, members of the 66th long-duration expedition to the ISS, according to Russia's Space web release. In a televised report, Russian television broadcaster Channel I had also discussed sending a Russian actress onboard ISS with Soyuz MS-19 to shoot for a sci-fi movie, according to several reports.

(with inputs from ANI)

Read: Russian President Putin Hopes Russia And India Would Continue To Work Towards Stepping Up Cooperation In 2021

Read: COVID-19: Russia To Supply Over 1 Million Sputnik V Doses Across Country By 2020 End
The examining body for next weekend's transfer test has confirmed that almost 8,000 Primary 7 pupils will sit the test as planned.

The first transfer test, run by AQE, is scheduled for Saturday, January 9, with two further papers to be taken by pupils hoping to attend grammar schools in Northern Ireland to follow on January 16 and January 23.

A statement from the exams body echoes what Education Minster Peter Weir said on Thursday, that there would be no change to the transfer tests schedule despite primary school pupils moving to remote learning from next Monday after the return to school after the Christmas holidays was delayed by a week.

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"Having considered the minister's statement and the letter issued to schools, the board has decided to offer all three assessment sessions on the planned dates (9th, 16th and 23rd January 2021) to provide as many candidates as possible, whose parents have chosen to register with AQE, the opportunity to sit at least two papers," it said.

"Parents may want to consider whether it is appropriate for their child to sit two papers only, but will be welcome to sit a third paper if they choose to, and are in a position to do so.

"Candidates who sit at least two papers will be awarded an age standardised score, the 'AQE Standardised Score (based on the results of two papers)'.

"For those candidates who are only able to sit one paper, AQE Limited will also provide an age standardised score, the 'Single Standardised Score (based on the result of one paper only)'."

AQE added: "The health and wellbeing of the candidates and staff are AQE Limited's first priority during the pandemic and we want to reassure parents and candidates that AQE Limited, in conjunction with our member schools, will follow all relevant and current health and safety guidance from the Public Health Agency/department of education and all of our centres will be required to risk assess the hosting of the common entrance assessment."

But the AQE further advised parents to check the grammar school admissions criteria as a child who sits only one test may have to apply on the basis of "special circumstances".

This will also be the case if a child entered for the tests was not able to sit any of them.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that post-primary pupils will have to wear masks in class when they return to school. It is part of new safety measures detailed in a letter sent by the Department of Education to schools.

Download the Belfast Telegraph App Get quick and easy access to the latest Northern Ireland news, sport, business and opinion with the Belfast Telegraph App.

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Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 19:37:12|Editor: huaxia

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-- The Chinese side hopes that the next U.S. administration will return to a sensible approach, resume dialogue with China, restore normalcy to the bilateral relations and restart cooperation, said Wang.

-- Looking ahead to China's diplomacy in 2021, Wang noted that China will further upgrade opening-up and cooperation, expressing the readiness to share with the world China's "development dividends".

-- "We are confident that through concerted efforts, the people in China and across the world will prevail over the virus, end the crisis and win an ultimate victory."

BEIJING, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi reiterated China's firm resolve to safeguard national interests, while stressing the Chinese side is obliged to speak up for justice when faced with power politics and bullying.

Wang clarified the stance in a recent interview with Xinhua News Agency and China Media Group on the international situation and China's diplomacy in 2020.

"In 2020, we in the foreign service have forged ahead and tackled the challenges head on," Wang said, noting China's diplomacy has worked tirelessly in fighting the coronavirus and the "political virus" at the same time.

HOPES NEXT U.S. ADMINISTRATION WILL RESTORE NORMALCY TO TIES

"We accord friends with hospitality and partners with cooperation. But we also have to stand our ground when dealing with those who are not so friendly. We are happy to take well-intentioned criticism and go with helpful suggestions. But we have to respond to defamations and attacks," he said.

Noting that in 2020 China has made more friends in the world, Wang stressed China has been firm in safeguarding national interests.

"We have responded resolutely and rationally to unjustified moves by the United States. We have handled issues relating to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet with justified, strong and proportionate countermeasures and won one fierce battle after another in international organizations, vigorously safeguarding China's sovereignty, dignity and development interests," he said.

Photo taken on Dec. 14, 2020 shows the White House in the rain in Washington, D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

The Chinese side hopes that the next U.S. administration will return to a sensible approach, resume dialogue with China, restore normalcy to the bilateral relations and restart cooperation, said Wang.

"China-U.S. relations have come to a new crossroads, and a new window of hope is opening," he said.

He said in recent years, China-U.S. relations have run into unprecedented difficulties. Fundamentally, it all comes down to the serious misconceptions of U.S. policymakers about China.

"We know that some in the United States are uneasy about China's rapid development. However, the best way to keep one's lead is through constant self-improvement, not by blocking others' development," he said, adding that the Chinese side believes that as long as the United States can draw lessons from the past and work with China in the same direction, the two countries are capable of resolving differences through dialogue and expanding converging interests by cooperation.

READINESS TO SHARE CHINA'S DEVELOPMENT DIVIDENDS

Looking ahead to China's diplomacy in 2021, Wang noted that China will further upgrade opening-up and cooperation, expressing the readiness to share with the world China's "development dividends".

"We will advance high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, tap into the strength of China's enormous market and its potential of domestic demand, boost global recovery with our own growth," he said.

In 2020, China has signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and concluded negotiations on a China-EU investment agreement.

Workers load a container onto a train at Urumqi China-Europe Railway Express Hub in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, March 12, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Fei)

China also has vigorously advanced high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. The China-Europe Railway Express has completed more than 10,000 services, transporting more freight in the first 10 months of 2020 than the whole of 2019. The Silk Road in the Air has enabled shipments of over 1,700 tonnes of medical supplies from China, opening up a lifeline in the air. In the first three quarters of 2020, China's non-financial direct investment in countries along the Belt and Road reached 13 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of nearly 30 percent year-on-year.

"More and more members of the international community now choose solidarity over division, openness over isolation and cooperation over confrontation," he said, stressing that China will work for steady progress in relations with major countries, cement solidarity and friendship with neighbors and other developing countries, and further deepen international and regional cooperation.

Wang said the year 2021 is a year of special importance for China-Russia relations, as both countries will enter a new development stage.

"In developing China-Russia strategic cooperation, we see no limit, no forbidden zone and no ceiling to how far this cooperation can go," he said.

On China-EU relations, he said China and the EU are comprehensive strategic partners, not systemic rivals, adding that China will remain a supporter of European integration, greater strategic autonomy of the EU, and a bigger role of the EU in international affairs.

"China is prepared to enhance coordination with the EU to keep our relations on the right track," he said.

China and ASEAN will celebrate the 30th anniversary of their dialogue relations in 2021. Wang said China looks forward to the new opportunities it will bring for enhancing China-ASEAN ties and stands ready to work with ASEAN to further enrich the partnership and usher in a new era of peace, development and cooperation for the region.

Experts of the Chinese medical team and local medical staff pose for a photo amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of the Congo, May 26, 2020. (Xinhua)

In 2021, China and Africa will have the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) meetings in Senegal. He said in this context, China will work with Africa on the three priority areas of vaccine cooperation, economic recovery and transformative development to build new consensus on solidarity, break new ground for cooperation, and deliver new benefits to the people.

TO PROACTIVELY ENGAGE IN GLOBAL GOVERNANCE REFORM

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the once-in-a-century transformation in an increasingly fluid and changing world. The virus, economic recession and governance difficulties are clear challenges, and unilateralism, protectionism and power politics are standing in the way of international cooperation.

"Unswerving in advocating multilateralism, China has supported international cooperation on climate change. We have announced our ambitious goal to peak carbon dioxide emissions and achieve carbon neutrality in the upgraded Nationally Determined Contributions. We have put forward a Global Initiative on Data Security to advance the reform of the global governance system," Wang said.

Chinese medical supplies for Belgium are unloaded at the Liege Airport in Liege, Belgium, on March 16, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhang Cheng)

With regard to China's role in global responses to COVID-19, Wang said that China provided assistance to over 150 countries and 10 international organizations, sent 36 medical teams to 34 countries in need, provided funding to WHO and other relevant UN agencies, and provided countries around the world with over 220 billion masks, 2.25 billion protective suits and over 1 billion testing kits.

"We were the first to pledge to make vaccines a global public good, bearing in mind the greater good of humanity," he said.

A staff member checks the packaging quality of COVID-19 inactivated vaccine products at a packaging plant of the Beijing Biological Products Institute Co., Ltd. in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 25, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhang Yuwei)

"People across the world have increasingly come to see that all countries share a common stake and need to stand together in the face of difficulties," he said.

Noting the year 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the restoration of China's lawful seat at the UN and the 20th anniversary of its accession to the WTO, Wang said China will continue to practice multilateralism, host a successful UN Biodiversity Conference, meet global challenges in partnership with others, and promote a more equitable and sound global governance system.

"We are confident that through concerted efforts, the people in China and across the world will prevail over the virus, end the crisis and win an ultimate victory. China, on course toward national rejuvenation, is generating global opportunities and embracing openness and cooperation," he said. 
The UK's Foreign Office has updated their guidance on restrictions to passenger travel to Spain in the wake on the ongoing worldwide coronavirus pandemic.

An update was issued on 1 January after Spain announced they will be extending their restrictions on passenger travel from the UK (by air and sea) for a further two weeks until 19 January - with the exception of Spanish nationals and those legally resident in Spain. This includes flights from the UK to the Balearic Islands and Canary Islands.

The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office travel advice warns that, If you are resident in Spain, you should carry your residence document (the green paper EU residence certificate or the new TIE), as well as your valid passport when you travel. The Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed that whilst these restrictions are in place only those residents who can prove their status as residents through the green paper EU residence certificate or the TIE card may enter Spain.

Additionally, all passengers (excluding children under the age of 6 years old) travelling to Spanish airports from risk countries, as determined by the European Centre for Disease Prevention & Control are required to present a negative PCR, TNA or LAMP test taken within no more than 72 hours prior to arrival, in order to enter the country.

The updated advice continues, While TMA and LAMP tests are not currently widely available in the UK, you should refer to testing facilities directly for information on the types of tests available to you, prior to booking an appointment. The UK is currently on the risk countries list and passengers arriving from the UK are therefore subject to this requirement.

Test

You should not use the NHS testing service to get a test in order to facilitate your travel to another country. You should arrange to take a private test and should confirm with the testing facility the type of tests available prior to booking an appointment.

You will also be subject to the additional three requirements at the point of entry. It is mandatory for all passengers travelling by air or sea to Spain to fill out and sign an online Health Control Form 48 hours prior to travel, providing the Spanish Ministry of Health with:

 Contact information

 Details of any known history of exposure to COVID-19, and

 Confirmation that you are able to provide evidence (electronically or hardcopy) that you have undertaken a PCR, TMA or LAMP test taken no more than 72 hours prior to arrival and have tested negative for COVID-19.

You can do this on the Spanish government website. On completion, you will be issued a personal and non-transferable QR code which you must show (electronically or hardcopy) at airport health controls on arrival.

 Temperature check

 Undergo a visual health assessment

Overland travellers to Spain are exempt from the above mentioned entry requirements and are therefore not currently required to present a PCR, TMA or LAMP test, or Health Control Form on entry by road or rail.
After a civil court in Mumbai dismissed an application filed by Kangana Ranaut last week and observed violation of the sanctioned plan while merging her three flats, the Bollywood actor has hit back at the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), denying the charge. She took to Twitter and gave a scathing reply to the civic body and accused it of 'harassing' her. She confirmed that she will move a higher court.

"Fake propaganda by Mahavinashkari government, I haven't joined any flats, whole building is built the same way, one apartment each floor, that's how I purchased it, BMC is only harassing me in the entire building. Will fight in higher court," she wrote.

READ | Kangana Ranaut Committed Violation While Merging Mumbai Flats: Court Rejects Actor's Plea

A civil court had earlier dismissed an application filed by the actor for which the full order has now come out. Judge LS Chavan noted that Ranaut, who owns three flats on the fifth floor of a 16-storey building in Khar, merged them into one. In doing so, she covered the sunk area, duct area, common passage and converted free Floor Space Index (FSI) into the habitable area, the judge observed.

READ | Kangana Ranaut Ditches New Year Plans To Clean Wardrobe, Says 'enter 2021 Like A Queen'

In March 2018, the BMC had issued a notice to Ranaut for alleged unauthorized constructions at her Khar flats. Another notice demanded the restoration of the structure to its original position, warning that otherwise the unauthorized portion would be demolished. Kangana Ranaut had challenged the notice and requested the court to restrain the Mumbai civic body from carrying out the demolition.

READ | Kangana Ranaut 'reimagines' Her Mumbai House With Interior Designer Shabnam Gupta

Kangana Ranaut's office was demolished in September

On September 9, a portion of Kanganas home-cum-office of her production house Manikarnika Films at Pali Hill in Bandra was demolished by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation under controversial circumstances. The actor had been on her way from Manali when the drama unfolded after the BMC pasted a 24-hour stop-work notice citing illegal alterations and going ahead with the demolition moments before she reached. A legal battle over the matter is ongoing.

READ | Kangana Ranaut Reminisces Memories Of Mexico Vacation; Says 'it Was Unpredictable'

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.
A NSW couple accused of running from officers at Melbourne Airport after being told they would need to quarantine for 14 days have defended their actions.

Terry and Debbie Elford were found in regional New South Wales and are each facing a fine of more than $19,000.

In a statement released on Saturday afternoon, the couple disputed Victorian authorities' allegations they ran from officers after arriving into Melbourne on a flight from Canberra, but said they were "really sorry" over the ordeal.

Police say Debbie and Terry Elford got off the flight from Canberra just before 11am on Friday.

"Like hundreds of others on 1 January, 2021, we got caught up with the confusion when the rules about entering Victoria changed," the Elfords said in their statement.
A WOMAN who ran her own business for 30 years has decided to pursue her passion for animals by starting a dog grooming service, writes Luke Adams.

Debbie Walker, of Kentons Lane, Upper Culham, founded Get Smart Promotions, which specialises in marketing tourist attractions.

When the travel industry was hit by the coronavirus outbreak, she decided to take the opportunity to get her qualification in dog grooming and open a salon at her home.

Her business, called Henley Barkbers, was created by converting an old tack room, which is used to store saddles and other horse equipment.

Mrs Walker, who has two horses, Patjo and Lucy, and a miniature Shetland pony called Harriet, has been grooming friends dogs for the last six months and only started trading officially at the start of December.

She said: I had been doing marketing for tourist attractions and then covid put a bit of a halt to all that. When all the flights stopped in March it meant I could pursue my passion for dogs  I am a huge animal lover.

I have always been interested in dog grooming and I have done it on the side for a while but I got my qualification in it this year. Thankfully, the academy that does all of that was still able to continue through lockdown and I could finish what was required.

Ive already had lots of bookings and I think it is something I will really enjoy rather than coming home from work and feeling stressed. Hopefully, it will make a big difference to my own wellbeing.

It is amazing to see how much support I have had through Facebook and from friends. I think it is going to be a big success.

Mrs Walker, 52, who is married to Nick, 47, who works in human resources, and has four children, moved to the area from Bedfordshire four years ago.

She said: I loved the area and I had always come down every year for the regatta and the festival and my sister lives in Beaconsfield.

She has handed over responsibility for Get Smart to two employees and hopes it will be able to make a comeback next year.

She said I still feel really passionate about that as well. It has supported me and my family for so long and while the children were growing up. I am happy that it is carrying on but I am looking forward to this new challenge. I am really excited.

I want to let everybody out there know that I am here for them, whatever they need. I offer a full service and I want to reach as many customers as I can.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  They hid from their pasts beneath dilapidated porches and atop thin rooftops of crumbling homes. One even squeezed into a laundry dryer.

Some moved away and changed their names. Others used family, neighbors and strangers to try to elude capture.

Few got away.

A task force, run by the U.S. Marshals Service in Cleveland, is closing in on 50,000 fugitive arrests since it formed in 2003. State and federal officials have lauded it as one of the nations most successful units in catching suspects on the run.

Erik McRae of Cleveland, wanted on a burglary charge out of Lorain County, was the first to be picked up. Since then, officers have arrested 1,687 for murder, 3,063 for sex crimes and 4,160 for robbery through Dec. 21.

They have seized nearly $4.4 million in illicit cash, 2,178 weapons and 1,962 pounds of narcotics.

They have made a science out of catching fugitives, said Robin Lees, Youngstowns police chief. They are a great help to us. They go after the most dangerous and the most difficult to find.

Take Dewayne Taylor.

The task force tracked him across the country before it found him on Dec. 11. He was a fugitive from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, wanted on a burglary charge. The unit stopped him in a Walmart parking lot in Steelyard Commons. As officers approached, he pulled a gun, authorities said. They opened fire, and he suffered a gunshot wound in the left shoulder.

Lees department called the unit to find Robert Shelton, accused of killing three people in February during a shooting spree at a Youngstown bar. Officers found him hiding in an apartment outside the city days later.

U.S. Marshal Peter Elliott formed the Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force soon after being appointed in March 2003 by then-President George W. Bush. Initially, a few departments signed on.

As the arrests grew, more departments began offering officers. Today, more than 350 men and women from 125 departments work on the unit. They chase fugitives whom local departments lack the time  or resources  to find on their own.

The goal at the beginning was to make us equal partners in law enforcement, Elliott said. That has happened. Its because these officers are out there every day, chasing the worst of the worst.

The task force has teams in Canton, Mansfield, Toledo, Akron, Lorain, Cleveland and Youngstown. Lake and Geauga counties also have a team. The unit also has a cold-case section.

Departments, based on the availability of workers, offer assistance that lasts from weeks to much longer.

The emphasis is far different than when Elliott joined the Marshals Service as a deputy in 1987. He often drove his car on his own time to track down fugitives.

This unit has a real desire to find fugitives, said Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge John Russo. [Its officers] would come to me to sign search warrants, and the paperwork they provided was really good.

There is hardly ever a time when I ask a question that they dont know the answer. And if they dont know it, theyll go find it and come back to me. Having that task force in place is a real benefit to Cuyahoga County.

Michael OMalley, the county prosecutor, agreed: When there are critical issues involving people who are very violent, the first call I make is to the marshals. I have found that they are extremely effective in tracking, locating and apprehending fugitives.

While the task force has made its mark chasing suspected killers and rapists, one of its biggest cases involved a white-collar swindler.

In October 2012, the task force found John Donald Cody in Portland, Oregon. Cody, using the name Bobby Thompson, fleeced donors across the country out of tens of millions of dollars through a fake charity for veterans. State officials said he siphoned about $1.5 million from Ohioans.

He had been on the run for two years. He was convicted in Cuyahoga County in 2013 and sentenced to 27 years in prison.

Thompson wasnt alone. Officers tracked Frank Freshwaters to a Florida trailer in 2015, 56 years after he bolted from an Ohio prison for killing a man in a traffic accident. He had been living under a fake name.

While many are like Cody and Freshwaters flee the region, others remain in their own homes, literally hiding under toddler beds and in cluttered garages.

The group has apprehended more than 49,200 fugitives through Dec. 21. It is likely to pass 50,000 in February.

I get calls from families, people in tears, thanking us for bringing some closure to their lives, Elliott said. They say they can finally relax knowing that their mothers killer or their brothers killer has been picked up.
A newly resurfaced tax form has revealed Hilaria Baldwin took two attempts to get her name right, while she spent years faking her Spanish roots and toying between her birth name and the adopted Spanish version.

The wife of SNL star Alec Baldwin appeared to have even confused herself over her identity and whether she is indeed Hilaria or Hillary as both the first name and last name of the 2009 W-4 document are scribbled out.

The document shows she finally decided on Hillary L. Hayward-Thomas - the name she was born with - on her second attempt.

The apparent uncertainty over her name comes after Hilaria was accused of faking her accent and lying about her Spanish heritage.

She was pictured for the first time since she was forced to confess she had been born in Boston and not the Spanish island of Majorca as she stepped out for a stroll with her kids and husband in the Hamptons on Saturday.

A newly resurfaced tax form has revealed Hilaria Baldwin took two attempts to get her name right while she spent years her Spanish roots and toying between her birth name and the adopted Spanish version

Both the first name and last name of a 2009 W-4 document are scribbled out. The document shows she finally decided on Hillary L. Hayward-Thomas - the name she was born with

Hilaria was pictured for the first time since since she was forced to confess she had been born in Boston and not the Spanish island of Majorca as she stepped out for a stroll with her kids and husband Alec Baldwin in the Hamptons on Saturday

It is not clear what name Hilaria initially wrote on the federal tax form, which was handed over during a 2013 lawsuit against her Manhattan yoga studio by a customer who smashed his leg through a window, reported Page Six.

Spencer Wolff, 39, filed a suit against Hilaria and Yoga Vida in Manhattan after he needed more than 40 stitches due to the accident during a class she instructed.

The novelist was unable to speak publicly on the matter due to a NDA as part of the settlement, which was reached in 2014, but his friend Zev Starr-Tambor told Page Six Hilaria and husband Alec showed a lack of empathy for Wolff.

He told the outlet Wolff smashed his leg through a window in the sixth-floor studio while doing a handstand in a crowded class on January 15 2013.

The studio did not have breakaway glass despite yoga studios being required to, he said.

But the Baldwins allegedly refused to help with Wolff's medical bills and Alec tweeted at the time that 'the class was, IN NO WAY, 'dangerously crowded.'

Court documents from the suit also detail the studio's code of conduct which states that 'misleading others for personal interest conflict with truthfulness'.

A former student at the class told the Post Hilaria would teach in a Spanish accent.

Starr-Tambor said Hilaria later confronted Wolff about the suit when they bumped into each other in the Hamptons sometime after it was settled.

'Hilaria recognized him and proceeded to rant about how he traumatized her,' he said.

Hilaria revealed the truth about her upbringing in a rambling Instagram video on Sunday, saying: 'Yes, I am a white girl. I am a white girl. Let's be very clear that Europe has a lot of white people in there and my family is white. Ethnically, I am a mix of many, many, many things. Culturally, I grew up with two cultures so it's really as simple as that'

'Spencer said, 'But I was the one who was hurt. I'm the one with the leg that still hurts.' She went on, 'But yes you traumatized me, the experience was so terrible.'

'It was a similar doubling down to what she's doing now,' he added.

The surfacing of the tax form comes as the saga over Hilaria's identity rumbles on and as she was spotted out walking with her brood, two nannies and husband Alec near their luxury home in the Hamptons.

She sported head to toe black in a potential hope to stay incognito in the wake of the huge storm that has erupted about her 'fake' Spanish heritage claims.

Alec came to join the group soon after, scaling a fence in just a t-shirt despite the chilly temperatures.

At one point, he put a protective arm around his wife as she leaned in to speak to him.

Alec put a protective arm around his wife as she carried their youngest child in a sling for the walk

The couple appeared serious during the exchange after the intense week where Hilaria's false claims were exposed

Hilaria carried the couple's youngest child, three-month-old Eduardo 'Edu' Pao Lucas, in a sling as she left their home in Amagansett for the woodland walk

Alec was seen clambering over a wooden fence post as he joined his family for the woodland walk

Alec climbed over the fence to join his brood after he has leaped to defend his wife over the saga this week

The couple appeared serious during the exchange but Hilaria managed to flash a smile at one point on the outing as she looked at her phone.

The family enjoyed the fresh air for about an hour before retreating once again to their home where Hilaria has been holed up ever since she was forced to confess she had been born in Boston and not the Spanish island of Majorca despite previously claiming to have first come to America at the age of 19.

The online frenzy over Hilaria's heritage was sparked on December 21 when a woman tweeted: 'You have to admire Hilaria Baldwin's commitment to her decade long grift where she impersonates a Spanish person.'

In the next few days several videos of Hilaria's past TV appearances resurfaced showing her commitment to a Spanish accent, including one where she seemingly forgot the English word for 'cucumber'.

Yet Hilaria appeared to slip out of the accent last week when she took to Instagram Live to react to a prank post from comedian Amy Schumer.

Several former classmates came forward to confirm that Hilaria was in fact raised in Weston, Massachusetts, by American parents without a hint of a foreign accent.

'I went to high school with her. Genuinely lovely person, I recall, but fully a white girl from Cambridge,' one wrote.

Another added: 'I went to high school with her. She was perfectly nice and serious about ballroom dancing. Her name was indeed Hillary Hayward-Thomas and she did not have her current accent.'

Hilaria managed to flash a smile at one point as she looked at her phone and walked with her daughter Carmen Gabriela, 7, who like all their children was given a Spanish name

Baldwin cradles one of his sons before giving the boy a ride on his shoulders as they enjoy the fresh air

Alec has defended his wife over the scandal lashing out at a critic Monday night who called his wife Hilaria a 'fraud'

Hilaria was joined by at least three of their other children and two nannies before Alec caught up with the group

Class ratios at the Cambridge School of Weston are six students to one teacher.

The exclusive school lists Hillary Hayward-Thomas among its notable alumni, alongside Lion King screenwriter Jonathan Roberts (1973) and American Pie actress Jennifer Coolidge (1979).

Internet sleuths were quick to uncover details about Hilaria's parents, Dr Kathryn Hayward and David Thomas, who lived and worked in the US for years before retiring to Majorca in 2011, according to Page Six.

While Hilaria has long described her mother as Spanish, records revealed that Hayward is in fact a fourth-generation Massachusetts resident who spent most of her career practicing medicine in Longmeadow.

Kathryn went on to become an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. She have birth to Hillary in January 1984 in Boston.

Dr Hayward's father and Hilaria's grandfather, Charles 'Chuck' Hayward, was born and raised in Massachusetts, as was his late wife Irene.

Hilaria's father's family has even deeper ties to the US, having lived here since before the American Revolution. He was an active volunteer for the Beacon Hill Civic Association during his '37 years living in Boston,' The New York Post reports.

Her parents also co-founded International Integrators in Boston.

Hilaria finally came clean about her upbringing on Sunday telling fans she spent 'some of' her childhood in Spain and 'some' of it in Massachusetts.

'There was a lot of back and forth my entire life,' the Mom Brain podcaster explained.

After the accusations she 'faked' her Spanish heritage, Hilaria Baldwin confessed that her real name is Hillary and she was actually born in Boston, not Majorca

Internet sleuths were quick to uncover details about Hilaria's parents, Dr Kathryn Hayward and David Thomas, pictured, who worked in the US for years before retiring to Majorca in 2011

CAN'T KEEP TRACK OF HER OWN STORY: HILARIA'S LATEST CONTRADICTIONS How she met Alec: Hilaria claimed that she told husband Alec from the off that she was from Boston despite his now infamous 2013 Letterman interview in which he claimed she is Spanish. 'My wife is from Spain,' the 62-year-old had said. 'I walked by him,' Hilaria told the Times of meeting Alec in a vegan restaurant in 2011. 'He said, "Where are you from?" And I said, "Im from Boston." That was the first thing I said, that has always been my narrative.' Yet, two years later, Alec was on Letterman saying she was from Spain, which she did not give an explaination for. Why her Spanish accent changes: Hilaria says that despite being raised in Boston, she speaks in English with a Spanish accent depending on her emotions at the time. The Today Show incident: The 36-year-old also claimed she was confused about the word for cucumber on the 'Today Show' because she was nervous to be on live TV for one of the first times. Yet she is clearly heard asking for the word in English. How much time she has spent in Spain: Hilaria now says that she was born in Boston but started to visit Spain annually as a baby, implying she only vacationed in the country. She has previously only spoken about the Spanish island Mallorca where her parents and older brother like but not claims to have spent most of their family vacation time on mainland Spain in Madrid, Seville and Valencia. She told the Times that Spain 'was part of my childhood' but could not say how much time she had spent there in total. Claim she went to school in Spain: 'Sometimes there was school involved. Sometimes it was vacation. It was such a mix, mishmash, is that the right word? Like a mix of different things.' In the interview, Hilaria suggested that she went to school in Spain but there is not evidence of this. Her move to NYC: The story she told the New York Times leaves ambiguity on whether she moved to New York from Spain as she has previously said or whether she moved from another part of the US. 'I was born in Boston. I spent time in Boston and in Spain. My family now lives in Spain. I moved to New York when I was 19 years old and I have lived here ever since,' she told the Times. 'For me, I feel like I have spent 10 years sharing that story over and over again. And now it seems like it's not enough.' Yet Hilaria had previously said she moved from Spain. Profiles stating she was born in Spain: Hilaria alleges that she did not know that magazine Hola! had written that she is Spanish as she does not read pieces about herself. And claims that talent organization Creative Artists Agency must have pulled their bio that states she was born in Mallorca, Spain, from the internet without fact checking. Advertisement

'And I'm really lucky that I grew up speaking two different languages and I'm trying to raise my kids, so they speak two languages too. And that's something very important to me especially having my family abroad.'

Hilaria added: 'Yeah I'm a different kind of Bostonian but that's who I am, and you kind of can't change your background - nor would I want to - I'm really, really proud of who I am.'

She also noted that '44 people from Spain' attended her 2012 wedding to Oscar nominee Alec Baldwin, but she hasn't seen her family since September 2019 because of 'the pandemic'.

The NYU alum and her 62-year-old husband gave all five of their children Spanish names - daughter Carmen Gabriela, 7; son Rafael Thomas, 5; son Leonardo Angel, 4; son Romeo Alejandro, 2; and son Eduardo 'Edu' Pao Lucas, 3 months.

As for her name, Hilaria said she'd use Hillary in the States and Hilaria in Spain.

'My whole family call me Hilaria. It always kind of bothered me that neither name sounds good in the other language. So I would use one or the other one,' she said.

Her video sparked a flurry of memes with some jokingly comparing her to Rachel Dolezal and Jessica Krug.

Krug, a professor of African American history at George Washington University, pretended to be black her entire career. Dolezal, a former NAACP leader, was unmasked as a white woman in 2015.

Despite claiming Majorca was her birthplace and that she only arrived into the US at the age of 19, DailyMail.com revealed that Hilaria grew up in a 100-year-old $4million house in the heart of the most desirable district in Boston.

Records show her parents bought the five-bed, five-bath house on Pinckney Street in June 1987 when their daughter was just three years old. They didn't move out till she had turned 28.

DailyMail.com also discovered the only property her parents currently own on the island of Majorca in their names are two apartments dating from the 1960s in the center of Inca which they purchased last summer.

Hilaria gave an 80-minute cringe-worthy interview with the New York Times this week to 'clarify' her story where she blamed the media for 'misrepresenting' her as Spanish and said that was why people are now 'confused' about her heritage.

The influencer said she 'hid' her Boston upbringing so as to protect her parents from media scrutiny after she began dating Baldwin - who she said has always known she is from New England.

And she also attempted to explain away the now infamous Today cooking segment where she 'forgot' the word for cucumber and claimed it was because she was nervous on live TV.

She denied she is guilty of cultural appropriation and that she ever tried to pretend she was Spanish at any time.

Alec has defended his wife over the scandal lashing out at a critic Monday night who called his wife Hilaria a 'fraud'.

The SNL actor launched his latest attack on Monday night in the comments of an Instagram photo he posted in reference to the scandal, which featured the famous Mark Twain quote: 'A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.'

A commenter quipped: 'Like your wife being Spanish when she lived in Massachusetts her entire life. I take it her accent is fake as well? FRAUDS!'

Alec's reply was scathingly succinct: 'Go f**k yourself.'

He took a more subdued swipe at another critic via Twitter just before the Instagram spat, in response to a post about an opinion essay for People entitled: 'Why the Hilaria Baldwin Scandal Is Painful for Immigrants  Including Me.'

The essay by Ale Russian slammed Hilaria for the 'exaggerated' accent she 'appropriated as an adult'.

Alec replied: 'Fake? Exaggerated? Appropriated an accent as an adult? She lived in Spain for many years as a child. She lived both places.'

This came after he first leaped to her defence in a social media video on Sunday.

Alec Baldwin took to Instagram on Sunday - not to address the allegations, but rather to blast outlets like TMZ and the New York Post for printing claims he called 'spectacularly false'

Without addressing the allegations directly, the SNL star said Twitter is 'a lot of s**t'.

'You have to kind of hack your way through the debris of Twitter. Twitter is just a vast orchard of cr**,' he continued.

'There's things that have been said lately about people that I love, that I care about deeply, which are ridiculous. I mean, just ridiculous.

'They've said it about people I love - false things. Untrue things.

'And as much as that hurts, the only thing I can do is talk to that half of the public or that portion of the public who understands what I mean when I say: "Consider the source. When you love somebody you want to defend them.'

On Monday he posted a quote seemingly about the incident to his Instagram page which read: 'A lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is lacing up its shoes.'

A video of Alec on The Late Show in 2013 emerged Monday in which he impersonated his wife's 'Spanish' accent, telling David Letterman: 'My wife is from Spain.'
Argentina has become the largest South American nation to legalise abortion after massive demonstrations across the country by pro-abortion activists, who had seen several bills about the issue rejected until now. December 30 saw one of the most important moments in Argentinas history when after more than 12 hours of debate, the Catholic church influenced government passed the law, which legalises abortion allowing terminations up to 14 weeks of pregnancy.

We managed to break the prejudice, and the discussion became a lot less dramatic. Society at large started to understand the debate in more moderate, less fanatic terms, Lucila Crexell, a senator, was quoted by the New York Times.

Argentina is a country where the Catholic church has long held sway in government decisions, therefore the topic of abortion was always shunned. Only two years ago, the government rejected a bill that sought to legalise abortion, a decision that felt like a heartbreaking defeat for the organisers and demonstrators of a stirring womens movement.

However, the fight for legalising abortion had started in the 1980s, when feminists took up the cause. The issue gained little to no traction at the time, owing to a time when democracy seemed weak since the country had just come out of a military dictatorship and religious conservatism ruled public debate.

In 2005, the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion was formed and the fight for legal abortion had formally begun. The first bill was introduced in 2008 but it was shunned due to lawmakers who did not want to be associated and the Catholic church lobbying. Many said they agreed, but refused to put their signature on the bill, said Julia Martino, one of the activists in that effort as quoted by New York Times.

What really kicked off the movement was the brutal murders of women in 2015, including a 14-year-old pregnant girl, and led to the creation of the Ni Una Menos (Not One Woman Less) movement, which began highlighting the struggle Argentine women faced in getting underground abortions.

The efforts of the movement brought Argentinian women together, participating in massive street demonstrations and protests, and shedding light on the issues like sexism, gender parity and womens rights. Their demonstrations were so effective and outreaching that several other Latin American nations took notice and followed in their footsteps.

In 2017, abortion rights activists called for a demonstration to support legalisation and the turnout was unlike anyone had expected. What happened with the movement is that it started increasing in number and gaining different voices, said Claudia Pineiro, a writer and abortion-rights activist. Slogans were shouted at the massive rallies, of which the most popular was, Down with the patriarchy, which is going to fall! Its going to fall! Long live feminism, which will triumph! It will triumph! One of the activists of the issues in the 1980s and a government sociologist, Dora Barrancos, said that the new generation had an insurrection that is infectious.

The Ni Una Menos movement had rocketed the issue of womens rights into the countrys political discourse and has had a significant impact on government decisions surrounding the issue. In 2017, the country passed a law expanding the quota system which women to attain full parity in national politics.

The foundation stone for such decisions was also laid by female lawmakers who, despite having political differences, found themselves united on this particular front who planned out their strategies on WhatsApp groups. We realised how powerful we are as women when we act in a coordinated fashion, Silvia Lospennato, an ally of the former president Mauricio Macri who was against abortion, was quoted as saying by New York Times. We all contributed, in a way of doing politics that is very anomalous and is completely different from the way men do politics, she added.

Several women lawmakers sought to legalise abortion in 2018 but the government, after intense lobbying by the Catholic church, rejected the bill. Several senators who voted against the bill then, voted for it this time around as well. President Alberto Fernandez, elected in 2019, promised to make the issue a legislative priority in his campaigns.

The movement had eventually garnered the support of all kinds of people. It had started out with young women but they were joined by older women, men, blue-collar workers and over time, the demonstrations had taken the shape of a national movement. Rural campaigners had also joined in with the urban base.

This is not the first time that street activism has succeeded in ushering in progressive laws in the country. In 2010, Argentina approved same-sex marriage and 2012 saw them approving one of the worlds most progressive gender identity laws. Both had gained importance and traction through street demonstrations.

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The Bay Areas intensive care unit availability dipped to 5.1%  its lowest figure yet  on the second day of the new year, even as the state braces for a further surge from Christmas and New Years celebrations.

The situation has gotten so difficult in Santa Clara County that some ambulances are sitting outside emergency rooms for up to seven hours waiting for a bed to open up for the patients they are carrying, county health officials said.

The delays  which mean the waiting ambulances cannot respond to other calls  have caused the San Jose Fire Department to transport people to emergency rooms at least a half-dozen times in the past week, the county officials said.

Its a problem thats already well known to the hard-hit Los Angeles area, where ambulances have waited for up to eight hours outside a hospital before patients could be moved inside, according to the Associated Press. In some cases, doctors started treating cases inside the vehicles.

Across the state, the outlook remained bleak, with a record 4,531 coronavirus patients in California intensive care units on Friday and the number of cases continuing to rise. The state recorded 53,341 new coronavirus cases on Friday, the second highest single-day figure, and another 386 deaths.

Available intensive care unit capacity in the Greater Sacramento region dropped sharply on Saturday, from 11.5% on Friday to 6.9%. The region, which includes the California side of Lake Tahoe, remains under a stay-home order, as do the Bay Area, the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. The latter two regions are drawing heavily on hospital surge capacity, since their regular ICUs have zero availability.

Experts fear its unlikely to get better anytime soon, because its still too early for hospitals to see the effects from a Christmas surge.

Admission to the ICU is often 10 to 12 days after exposure, said Dr. Robert Siegel, a Stanford virologist. The number of deaths may continue to increase for another week or more.

Siegel also expects spikes from Christmas gatherings will merge with, and contribute to surges from New Years gatherings.

The ambulance wait times in Santa Clara County could be an alarming sign of things to come. The county saw a record number of COVID-19 deaths Friday  38.

Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, who co-chairs the Health and Hospital Committee at the Board of Supervisors, said wait times for ambulances are not uncommon during busy times of the week or during holidays. But they typically last no more than an hour  not seven.

Whatever the period of time is, its always a concern because by definition you have folks you want to have admitted as soon as possible, and you want to have an ambulance crew on the road as quickly as possible, Simitian said.

The combination of New Years Eve and COVID may have added stress on the countys emergency system, he said.

When you put together New Year's Eve compounded by the COVID crisis, there are going to be some outliers that are troubling, he said. My understanding is they were relatively few in number  but obviously thats cold comfort if youre the one waiting for an ambulance.

James Williams, the Santa Clara County counsel, said the county's hospital system has been "teetering on the edge," since a post-Thanksgiving surge in virus hospitalizations. He fears that another, similar surge, would greatly exacerbate what is already a problem with wait times at hospitals.

"If we have another surge now, anything like what we had after Thanksgiving  its going to cause collapse," Williams said. Unlike March, the county cannot just make room by transporting patients to other facilities in California or another state. Santa Clara County has contingency plans for how to provide "some level of support" to those who may need it during a potential surge. But, Williams warned, those contingency plans would not be "providing everyone with the level of medical care that we take for granted in the United States."

The virus continued its indiscriminate path through the population, infecting the young, old, famous and infamous. Talk show host Larry King, 87, was hospitalized with the virus, according to reports Saturday, while Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann on Gilligans Island, died Wednesday. And at least one person was hospitalized after a New York Republican clubs Christmas party featuring an unmasked conga line.

Between pandemic fatigue and the holidays, the current surge will probably continue well into January, with hospitals, funeral homes and nursing homes continuing to see the fallout. State prisons also continued to see a surge, with 6,510 reported cases in the last two weeks  a sizable portion of the 40,985 incarcerated people who have had COVID-19 at some point.

Across Southern California, where the virus has hit the hardest, mortuaries have had to turn away families due to lack of space for all the bodies  and with funeral homes filling up, theres a backup of bodies at hospitals, Los Angeles County Director of Health and Human Services Dr. Christina Ghaly told the Associated Press. The county medical examiner is looking for alternatives to store the bodies, she said.

Although thousands of California front-line workers have received vaccines, there is no impact yet on case counts. But the idea of a vaccine may be having something of behavioral impact, for good or for bad, according to Stanfords Siegel.

Some people have increased their precautions with the realization that it would be tragic to be infected when their turn to be vaccinated may be just around the corner, he said. Other people have increased their risk behavior knowing they will soon be protected or knowing that other people around them are vaccinated.

Chronicle staff writer Michael Williams contributed to this report.

Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker
"I would not exclude the possibility that we have other transmission that we haven't spotted," he said. "The sooner we can identify those, the better we will be and we have work to do to run this through, but at this point in time we have made a strong start. "Let's be clear, we have work to do to make sure we get to the full range and depth of this outbreak. The job for all of us within the health services as well as across the state is to maintain that momentum over the next few days." There were 18,337 COVID-19 tests completed on Friday. Victoria closed its border to all of NSW from 11.59pm on Friday, with the whole of NSW becoming a "red zone", meaning residents cannot enter Victoria and will not be allowed to enter hotel quarantine unless they have exceptional circumstances. The ban now applies to people across regional NSW. Those who have been to Greater Sydney, Wollongong and the Blue Mountains had already been barred from entering Victoria.

Mr Foley said the state made no apologies for closing its border to NSW though he acknowledged the move had caused significant disruption for returning Victorians and border communities. "We need to make sure that we stay ahead of this cluster and we take all the necessary measures we can to make sure that we bring it under control as soon as possible," he said. "We've been quite consistent for some time now, in fact for two weeks, that the deteriorating position in NSW was of significant concern ... We make no apologies for closing the border." He said people could still travel in cross-border communities for education and medical needs by using their driver's licences.

Mr Foley said he was confident Victoria could get on top of the outbreak, but with almost 30 active cases, the problem had become serious for the state. "Now that we are seeing a total number of some 29 active cases across all of Victoria, including in hotel quarantine, this is a very significant issue for Victoria as we head into 2021," he said. Long queues have formed at Victoria's testing sites and Mr Foley said staff were being recalled to provide additional capacity. Mr Weimar apologised for the delays at the testing sites and encouraged people to still get tested even as several locations were turning people away.

"They will be busy again today, we have had people queueing up from 7am this morning," he said, adding Victorias testing capacity increased by 20 to 50 per cent on Friday. Loading People were being turned away from the Northern Hospital just minutes after it opened at 8am. Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital was also at capacity at 9.30. There are now 220 close contacts of the 29 active cases in Victoria, but Mr Weimar said he was "positive" that all the new cases have been linked to the current cluster. Many of the cases were connected to the infection incident at the Smile Buffalo Thai restaurant in Black Rock on December 21. There are now 18 cases connected to the cluster.
(CNN)  On January 2, 2020, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted that the following 12 months would amount to a "fantastic year for Britain." Instead, a global pandemic and the political turmoil of Brexit have stretched the social fabric of the United Kingdom to ripping point.

The politics and constitutional arrangements between the four nations that make up the United Kingdom are a constant source of pain to any leader trying to reconcile their substantively different political and societal priorities.

But the two biggest peacetime crises faced by Britain -- one anticipated, and one that came out of thin air -- have combined to create a perfect storm of dissatisfaction with the status quo.

Finally, after years of drawn-out political debate and tortuous negotiations, Britain left the EU's regulatory and trading universe on January 1, but with a myriad of unpredictable strains on the UK's political union that could lead the British Prime Minister into choppy constitutional waters. Simultaneously, the Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare how much political distance there is between the devolved governments -- in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast -- and London.

The independence movement in Scotland has grown since the country's referendum in 2014, where Scots voted by 55% to remain in the Union. According to a recent poll in the Scotsman newspaper, independence is currently 16 points ahead.

Much of that support is attributed to Scotland's objection to Brexit. Even as Johnson celebrated securing a trade deal with the EU, Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted that "there is no deal that will ever make up for what Brexit takes away from us. It's time to chart our own future as an independent, European nation."

In Northern Ireland, nationalist politicians that spoke to CNN admitted they have never been so confident that, should a vote be called, the north could be reunited with the Republic of Ireland.

While there is not a strong independence movement in Wales, the support for business-as-usual has become untenable, as nationalists become increasingly hostile towards the Conservative government in Westminster.

And in England, the largest, richest and most conservative of the four, resentment of a status quo that can easily be characterized as London sending money to fund its poorer relatives in the other three nations is growing.

All of which presents a problem for Boris Johnson, who is not only leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party, but also the self-appointed Minister for the Union. Indeed, ever since he took office, Johnson has painted himself as a defender of the Union and talked at length about strengthening ties between the four nations.

But Unionists within his own party are skeptical as to how much the PM really cares about three countries where a majority of the electorate don't vote Conservative, and where his personal popularity ratings are poor.

Worse for Johnson, 2021 is a battlefield of trip wires and landmines that he's about to wade onto with -- his Unionist allies fear -- the parlous tread of a hyperactive elephant.

The most dangerous of these landmines is May's Scottish parliamentary election.

The Scottish National Party has dominated the nation's politics since the independence vote in 2014. Though they lost the poll, by 45% to 55%, the SNP went on to win 56 of Scotland's 59 Westminster seats in 2015.

Barely a year later, they were handed another propaganda victory, when 62% of Scottish voters backed remaining in the EU against the 52% across the UK that voted to leave. Ever since, the message that Scotland is being dragged out of Europe against its will has been powerful.

"The support for independence has definitely been boosted by Brexit," says Nicola McEwan, professor of territorial politics at the University of Edinburgh. "You can expect that sentiment to grow if the Conservatives' Brexit policy leads to food shortages, an economic crash and a dwindling of the UK's status in the world."

Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has also been praised by many Scots for her handling of the pandemic, even though her policies and their efficacy have seldom differed dramatically from Johnson's.

McEwan thinks that this is mostly down to the fact that Sturgeon "has fronted her government's response, giving a press conference nearly every day, whereas Boris Johnson has not been as visible."

It's not hard to see why the SNP's platform -- leaving the UK and re-joining the EU under the leadership of Sturgeon -- is so appealing to many north of the border. And Conservatives in England are seriously worried that Johnson doesn't have either the energy or passion needed to combat it.

"There is genuine fear that Scotland could go under this government and that there is no energy going into addressing that," says one MP on the government's payroll. "We've struggled to make an emotional case for the Union. Partly that's because our focus is on our heartlands in England, but we are going to need to make a positive case beyond the economic benefits to Scotland."

If the SNP does win May's elections with independence at the core of its campaign, Johnson has two options: Carry on ignoring calls for a referendum, or try and fight the SNP. Neither option is attractive, since the only effective way to counter the SNP is to fight on their terms.

"We need to make the case that Scotland's ability to govern differently only works because of the overarching economic structure of the UK," says Eddie Barnes, former director of communications for the Scottish Conservatives. "We need to end the perception that devolution is a slow drift from the Union."

Equally fraught, if less immediate a threat, is the rise in confidence among Northern Irish Republicans. Northern Ireland has long been the most likely casualty of Brexit.

The province, which is part of the UK, shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland, which is in the European Union.

The prospect of a customs border separating the two has raised all sorts of concerns, ranging from the flow of goods to a return of the sectarian violence of the 1970s and 80s.

In order to prevent that border, the UK government agreed with the EU to something called the Northern Ireland Protocol, which, Unionists in Northern Ireland fear, ties them to follow the EU's customs and regulatory rules rather than the UK's.

"In practical terms, it has put Northern Ireland in a different position to the rest of the UK. So, the more now Britain shifts from the EU, the more in common Northern Ireland has with the EU, and thus the Republic of Ireland," says Katy Hayward, professor of political sociology at Queen's University Belfast.

The issue of the north becoming closer to the Republic has put a spring in the step of those who dream of reunification.

"Soft-nationalists who were pro-European -- and even some soft-Unionists -- have been forced to seriously rethink what Northern Ireland is and should be," says Matthew O'Toole, a Northern Irish lawmaker for the pro-reunification Social Democratic and Labour Party.

"People who identified as Irish had made their peace with Northern Ireland's status, in part thanks to the Good Friday Agreement," he explains. "Brexit has dragged up issues that had felt settled here and put them to the top of our agenda."

The pandemic has also highlighted the political differences in the governance of Northern Ireland. The country has a power-sharing arrangement to ensure that Unionists and Republicans have an equal say in how things are run. Naturally, some have preferred that Northern Ireland follows the measures in the Republic, while others wanted to remain in lockstep with Britain.

"We've had unhappy compromise after unhappy compromise, which probably summarises the politics of Northern Ireland," says Hayward. "No one has got exactly what they want. It's exacerbated tensions that were always there and it's unlikely to stop being so fraught in 2021."

2021 was supposed to be the year in which Northern Ireland celebrated its centenary. Instead, its citizens are likely to be more divided than they have been for years.

Mercifully for Johnson, the situation is less perilous in Wales, where there isn't a serious separatist movement. However, since Johnson faces the prospect of fighting in Scotland and Northern Ireland, he risks overlooking Wales.

"Covid has highlighted what devolution actually means, in terms of Welsh politicians being able to make independent policy that directly affects Welsh people," says Roger Awan-Scully, professor of politics at Cardiff University.

One error Johnson could make is that, in order to appeal to his base in England, he goes on the offensive against political leaders who are anti-Conservative -- meaning Wales's hostile Labour leadership could be a target.

"If Conservatives take a more aggressive line against devolution and pro-centralised control from London, it risks emboldening the anti-Westminster movement in Wales," Awan-Scully adds.

The final piece in this puzzle, of course, is Johnson's base in England.

The Conservatives won a majority in 2019 by taking a string of Brexit-supporting Labour seats in the north of England. The party's heartlands in the south also voted heavily in favor of Brexit.

"When we eventually leave the EU proper, this government will need a new enemy, and the obvious choice is Scotland and to a lesser extent Wales," says Rob Ford, professor of politics at the University of Manchester. "Many English Conservatives don't really care about the Union. They see the other countries as annoyances that are bankrolled by England."

2021 is going to be a difficult year for all four nations of the UK.

And the Prime Minister, who likes to wrap himself in the Union flag, might be tempted to keep his head down and ignore the separatist screams.

But if Johnson is unable to make leaving the EU look like a success and he alienates the public in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, it's inevitable that more and more voters will wonder if the grass is greener outside of the United Kingdom.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "2020 stretched the social fabric of the United Kingdom. 2021 could rip it to pieces."
Emergency services at the scene of the accident in May 2018.

The cause of the dangerous driving which led to the death of a young woman and left her mother seriously injured will never be known.

The Circuit Court heard that motorist Karl Forster from Church Road in Ballindaggin drifted into the wrong lane near the Blackstoops roundabout in Enniscorthy.

The result was a horrendous crash which claimed the life of Aisling Dolan from New Ross and left Breda Dolan with long term injuries.

Forster pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death and serious bodily harm before Judge Martin Nolan.

A summary of the evidence of what happened on the old N11 road on May 22 in 2018 was provided by Garda Pat O'Doherty in the presence of members of the Dolan family.

The accused was at the wheel of his Toyota Hilux jeep, coming from the Ferns direction and approaching Donohoe's garage.

He had been in Hacketstown on business and was heading for Enniscorthy town, where he ran the Antique Tavern and Stamp's pubs.

Instead of following the bend in the road, the jeep drifted into the right-hand lane where it clipped the oncoming Volkswagen van driven by Tony Byrne.

After ricocheting off the van, it then collided with the northbound Peugeot 207 of Breda Dolan.

Her daughter Aisling, who was in the passenger seat, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Her mother, Breda, was airlifted to Tallaght Hospital where she was treated for serious leg and chest injuries with long term consequences.

Garda O'Doherty confirmed that all three vehicles involved appeared to have been in good order prior to the accident.

The investigation into the matter uncovered nothing which could explain why the Toyota strayed into the wrong lane.

The phones of all those involved were seized but provided no evidence relevant to the enquiry.

The accused was later formally arrested and he made a statement, telling gardai he had no memory of the collision.

There was no issue with drink or drugs and Forster appeared to have had sufficient sleep the previous night.

The Volkswagen driver, Tony Byrne, made a statement in which he recalled that the driver of the jeep told him at the scene that he blacked out.

However, an examination by a doctor offered no possible medical reason for the dangerous driving.

In court, defence counsel Colman Cody could only suggest that some momentary lapse on the part of his client had led to the devastating loss and injury.

He quoted a letter written by Forster to the Dolan family: 'I have caused more pain and suffering than can ever be repaired.'

The offending motorist, a father of two, was described as a hard working family man.

The court heard that he has lost his business in the wake of the crash. He used to run the two pubs in Enniscorthy and one in Kilmuckridge but was now employed as a pub manager in Kilkenny.

Testimonials from a sub-aqua club, Enniscorthy Rugby Club and the town's chamber of commerce were handed in.

A matter of seconds had caused great tragedy, concluded Mr Cody.

Judge Nolan noted the dignified and reasonable tone of the victim impact statements submitted by the Dolan family.

They were suffering the catastrophic results of Forster's loss of concentration on the day in question.

A sentence of three-and-a-half years was handed down, suspended in full, with a five-year ban from driving.

New Ross Standard
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Gohmert on Lawsuit Dismissal: If I Dont Have Standing to Do That, Nobody Does

Planning appeal to late Jan. 1 ruling

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said late Friday, after a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit he and others filed against Vice President Mike Pence, that the ruling was wrong, and that he plans to appeal.

District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump nominee, alleged Gohmert didnt have sufficient standing to bring the legal action.

Gohmert alleges at most an institutional injury to the House of Representatives, Kernodle wrote. Under well-settled Supreme Court authority, that is insufficient to support standing.

Reacting during a virtual appearance on Newsmax, Gohmert said, If I dont have standing to do that, nobody does.

Gohmert is one of roughly 40 Republicans who plan to object to electors during the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress, asserting some states electors are illegitimate because of alleged election fraud.

In a written statement, Gohmert added, When no one ever has standing, what good is a court system?

Vice President Mike Pence waves as he walks off the stage after speaking at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Dec. 22, 2020. (Lynne Sladky/AP Photo)

Kernodle also ruled that the other plaintiffs, Arizonas Republican electors, claimed an injury that is not fairly traceable to Pence, the vice president. Gohmert said he also took issue with that aspect of the dismissal.

The bottom line is, the court is saying, were not going to touch this, you have no remedy. Basically, in effect, the ruling would be that you got to go to the streets and be as violent as an Antifa and BLM, he added, referring to the far-left, anarcho-communist network and Black Lives Matter, which fueled violent riots over the summer.

Gohmert said lawyers representing the plaintiffs plan on appealing to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

There are some incredible judges on that court, he said. And so were very hopeful that they will say, you know what, if our courts are not going to be useful in this dispute, and the litigant here is not going to have standing, and the defenders not appropriate, and the jurisdiction is not there, then we have no business having courtswere worthless.

Gohmert and others sued Pence after failing to reach an agreement with his lawyers on whether the vice president has the exclusive authority to throw out electors from contested states. They argued that Section 15 of the Electoral Count Act is unconstitutional because provisions about dealing with competing electors violate the U.S. Constitution.

President Donald Trump (L) and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in file photographs. (AP Photo; Getty Images)

Both Pence and the House of Representatives asked the judge to reject the suit. Lawyers representing Pence argued he wasnt the right defendant.

The Vice Presidentthe only defendant in this caseis ironically the very person whose power they seek to promote. The Senate and the House, not the Vice President, have legal interests that are sufficiently adverse to plaintiffs to ground a case or controversy under Article III. Defendant respectfully request denial of plaintiffs emergency motion because the relief that plaintiffs request does not properly lie against the Vice President, they wrote in a filing.

House lawyers said the plaintiffs were trying to overturn Congresss centuries-old role in counting electoral votes and resolving disputes about them.

The flurry of action doesnt impact the planned objections to electoral votes. According to an Epoch Times tally, 40 representatives and representatives-elect plan to object, along with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).

U.S. code outlines how to approach contests. Objections must be written and have the support from one member of each chamber. If they meet the requirements, an objection triggers a withdrawal from the joint session and a two-hour debate. To uphold an objection, each chamber must vote in the majority.
Egypt will charge an immediate fine of EGP 50 (approximately $3.16) on those not wearing face masks in public starting Sunday. The move is meant to stem the spread of the coronavirus in the overpopulous country during the second wave of the pandemic.

Restaurants and coffee shops not abiding by the coronavirus restrictions, which include a limited occupancy rate of 50 percent, will be closed for a week and fined EGP 4,000 ($252.5).

A fine of EGP 50 will be imposed in metro and railway stations nationwide on people not wearing face masks.

Egypt banned New Years Eve celebrations in an effort to curb the spread of the virus amid rising daily infections.

The country has been seeing a second wave of the pandemic since the last week of December, recording double the number of infections daily.

Egypt has so far registered 139,471 cases of COVID-19 since mid-February, including 112,826 recoveries and 7,687 fatalities.

Egypt has warned of a spike in COVID-19 cases since November, as the general public have been showing a relaxed enforcement of the preventive measures since a drop in confirmed cases has been recorded in the past months.

Officials said they will exercise zero tolerance against people who fail to adhere to preventive measures against the pandemic.

Egypt has made wearing face masks in public places mandatory since 30 May, with violators facing hefty fines of up to EGP 4,000.

However, most people in the country have not been adhering to the mask regulations, especially with the decline in reported infections over the past months.

Egypt began the move towards a gradual reopening of its economy in June, easing pandemic-related restrictions, including lifting a night-time curfew, reopening restaurants and places of worship, and resuming regular international flights as part of its plans to coexist with the virus.

Short link:


Too early to speculate on whether President Xi would attend BRICS summit in India

As President Xis efforts in Nepal flop, China to continue covert ops in Himalayan nation

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Jan 02: The efforts by China to broker peace in Nepal have failed, but President Xi Jinping continues with covert ops to ensure that normalcy in the political circles in Kathmandu returns.

The Chinese team led by Vice Minister of the International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Guo Yezhou was not able to pacify the warring factions. However China has now sent a team of three comprising -Zekun Lai, Dongme Huang and Yonglin Zhong to Nepal to pacify the warring factions.

The three are the Chinese Communist Party's point persons who have cultivated Nepal political leaders for long.

Ready to forget everything if PM KP Sharma Oli accepts mistakes: Madhav Kumar Nepal at protest rally

The team led by Guo had met with Prime Minister, K P Sharma Oli and persuaded him to roll back the decision to dissolve parliament. He had also tried persuading the warring factions to fight the elections jointly. Finally, he had also tried to get the Supreme Court rolling back the presidential order of dissolving Parliament.

Sources tell OneIndia, President Xi will continue to make efforts to get Nepal back on track. While the team led by Guo returned to China on Wednesday, the three member team which had travelled secretly will continue to make efforts to persuade the Nepal leaders.

Guo on the first day of his visit met with President Bidya Devi Bhandari and Oli. He then met with three former PMs from the rival camp-Prachanda, Madhav Nepal and Jhananath Khanal.

During Gou's meeting with Oli the latter declined a suggestion that his Cabinet should rescind the recommendation on the dissolution of Parliament. This has left the Chinese team with no other option to back his rival faction. There would be attempts to dent Oli's credibility.

Nepal plunged into a political crisis last Sunday after Prime Minister Oli, known for his pro-Beijing leanings, in a surprise move, recommended dissolving the 275-member House.

Acting on the prime minister's recommendation, Nepal's President Bidya Devi Bhandari dissolved the House the same day and announced fresh elections on April 30 and May 10, sparking protests from a large section of the NCP led by Prachanda, also a co-chair of the ruling party.

Asked whether Guo's visit was aimed at bringing about a political reconciliation between the two groups within the NCP, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a media briefing that China has noted the "developments in Nepal's political situation".

China appeals to warring factions in Nepal to handle political crisis properly

Vaccines to be provided for free across India, says health min | Oneindia News

"As a friend and close neighbour, we sincerely hope that all sides in Nepal will bear in mind the nation's interest and the overall picture and properly handle internal disputes and strive to achieve political stability and national development," Zhao said.

"The CPC upholds the principle of inter-party relation featuring independence, complete equality, mutual respect and non-interference," he said.

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Story first published: Saturday, January 2, 2021, 13:44 [IST]
January 02 : Finally bidding adieu to one of the most troublesome year 2020, everyone has welcomed 2021 with new hopes and aspirations. People have new resolutions, new plans for the year 2021. Actor Harshvardhan Rane also has some special plans for the year which he shares with his fans!

Sharing a photo of him performing a yoga pose, he wrote, "Health upgrade karengey iss saal #2021"

The actor is already seen flaunting his chiselled and fit body through his social media posts and looks like he is going to continue with it in the year 2021.

The actor started his career in 2010 with a Telugu film but it was in 2016 he made his bollywood debut with the film Sanam Teri Kasam. Year 2020 proved a good one for him as his film 'Taish' showed him in an all new avatar which was loved by everyone. His role as 'Pali' has become one of his finest performances till date.

On the work front, 2021 seems to be a busy year for the actor as he has three releases. He will be seen in Vinil Mathew's 'Haseen Dilruba' which is a mystery thriller film. The film has been produced by Anand L Rai and Himanshu Sharma. It also stars Taapsee Pannu and Vikrant Massey.

He will also be seen in ' Kun Faya Kun' which stars Sanjeeda Shaikh with him. He also has a Telugu film 'Brundavanamadi Andaridi' which will also be released this year.
Student Seif Bedour wanted to support his friend, a witness in a high-profile rape case, by accompanying her to a Cairo police station when she was brought in by officers on August 28 after offering to testify on behalf of the victim, his sister says.

At the station, Bedour was detained and has been held in jail for four months on morality charges, relatives and activists say, even though the then 14-year-old had no connection to alleged rape and was not at the scene when it occurred at Cairo's Fairmont Nile City Hotel in 2014.

Three sources close to Bedour said he was accused of drug abuse and debauchery. His lawyer could not be reached for comment. The public prosecution department was not available for comment and the state press centre did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

In addition to Bedour, two others who had come forward to testify in support of the rape victim - party organizer Ahmed Ganzoury and Nazly Karim, ex-wife of one of the defendants in the rape case - have also been detained and are being held in prison on the same drug and debauchery charges, sources close to them said. Their lawyer could not be reached.

Three other witnesses who also wanted to testify in support of the victim, including Bedour's friend, have been released after also being arrested.

The case against Bedour and the witnesses is running alongside that of those suspected of committing the rape.

Of nine men accused of the rape, five are under arrest and four are outside the country.

Some human rights activists say the arrests of the witnesses are part of a tendency by authorities to prioritise traditional social morality at the expense of womens rights.

They say authorities are trying to counter a growing movement against exposing sexual abuse in Egypt that drew comparisons with the international #MeToo campaign and helped encourage witnesses to testify about the alleged rape at the Fairmont in April 2014.

ROOFTOP PARTY

In the Fairmont case, a rooftop party took place at the hotel and later the same evening a woman was allegedly gang-raped at an after-party there.

Encouraged by the #MeToo movement, the alleged Fairmont victim posted an anonymous account online before filing a formal complaint in July saying she had been drugged and gang raped.

In a statement on August 31, Egypts public prosecutors said Bedour, now aged 21, and the five witnesses were being interrogated in connection with ongoing investigations in the Fairmont case, without specifying charges.

They said Bedour and the witnesses were tested for drug use, and two were subjected to medical tests. In a report published in September, US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the tests were anal examinations.

Family and friends have pleaded for the release of Bedour and the two witnesses still being held, saying they did nothing wrong.

"Our lives have completely turned upside down," Bedour's sister, Nivan Bedour, said. The detainees' next hearing is on Jan. 2, when they could be released or kept in custody.

Ganzoury has been cooperating with prosecutors and sharing details of the party he has said he organised at the Fairmont on the evening of the alleged rape, which happened at an after-party later that night which he did not organise, according to a friend of his and a source close to the victim.

Karim, the ex-wife of one of the rape defendants, was falsely portrayed as the rape victim in an anonymous smear campaign on the web, her family says. Reuters has also seen that material.

Several friends and activists say Karim's mental state has deteriorated in prison.

Her mother, actress Noha al-Amrousy, wrote on the Free Nazly Facebook page: Nazly shifted from being a courageous girl who would never back down from telling the truth to a cowardly, scared girl ... Is that what you want this generation to be like? To silence them so that they dont say the truth?
CARROLLTON  Greene County will not be without an engineer while the county seeks a replacement for longtime engineer David Marth, who has resigned.

Marths resignation is effective Thursday.

The county board has hired a company to search for Marths replacement but also has an agreement with Collinsville-based engineering company Volkert Inc. to oversee county projects in the meantime.

Board President Mark Strang said the board entered into the agreement this week to make sure state requirements are met on a bridge replacement project that requires nearly weekly signatures from a licensed engineer.

David (Marth) took a new job after being with the county for 22 years, Strang said. We hate for him to go.

Marth, the countys engineer for more than two decades, was overseeing the bridge replacement project and several others in the county.

Greene County office manager Diane Hendricks has been named interim county engineer and can sign some things, the state requires a project like the bridge project, which has state funding, to have a licensed engineers signature, Strang said.

Despite his resignation, Marth may not be done in the county just yet, Strang said. His new job is with Volkert, the company hired to oversee county projects until Marths replacement is hired.

There is an agreement with (Marth) and his new firm, where well have an engineer to document the project and sign off weekly, whether anything is done on the project or not, Strang said. The board felt there was no one better suited, more knowledgeable, than him, to handle this until we hire someone.

The search for a new county engineer already is under way.

The board hired Gruen Search Consultants earlier this month to help find a qualified replacement. The board wants to find someone with an engineering license who has experience working with the types of projects typical in Greene County, Strang said.

Once the county finds a replacement, the Illinois Department of Transportation must approve or deny the choice before the county can officially hire that person.

We want someone that is able to do the things (Marth) did, Strang said.
Tuition classes still not given the green light by the Health Ministry View(s):

More than 500,000 tuition teachers around the country have been hit by the Governments decision to not allow the conducting of tuition classes, the All Island Professional Lecturers Association said recently.

We are not requesting permission to conduct mass classes, but group classes with a maximum of ten students, said All Island Professional Lecturers Association Spokesman Nihal Liyanage.

He said discussions had been held with top Government officials seeking permission to operate classes with a limited number of students.

A majority of our lecturers are opting for online classes. But we have noticed a drastic reduction of students, mainly from low income backgrounds, attending online classes. Some students in the Ordinary Level and Advanced Level classes do not even own a phone, he said.

Mr. Liyanage also said the use of technological means such as Zoom was beneficial to students from rural areas because they have the opportunity to learn from the best lecturers based in cities. But the country needs to be more technologically advanced, as some students had said they cannot even afford to purchase a laptop or a smartphone, he added.

All tuition teachers are not Government school teachers. Some are professionals who have lost their jobs and are totally depending on conducting classes for their income, Mr. Liyanage said.

Last week, Education Minister G.L. Peiris said the Health Ministry approved the re-opening of schools this month, aside from schools in the Western Province and isolated areas. The Minister also said the Health Ministry did not give permission for tuition classes to operate.

-NF
NORTH CHARLESTON  South Carolina's oldest nonprofit continues to meet the needs of Charleston area families centuries after its founding, even amid a pandemic that has impacted the organization's funding.

This year marks the 230th anniversary for the Carolina Youth Development Center, established in 1790 as the Charleston Orphan House. The group has survived wars, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes and now weathers the ongoing coronavirus as it aims to be a refuge for families in need.

"Through it all, our doors have remained open," said Beverly Hardin, the center's CEO.

The organization has continued to expand its services and today offers safe housing for children, educational support and career readiness services. The family services organization reaches over 900 children and their families each year.

The center recently opened a new facility in North Charleston that will provide individual and family-based therapies, as well as community-based prevention services.

The Family Support Center, in the George Williams Building on the organization's North Charleston campus, was sparked by the group's desire to help restore broken families.

"This building will serve as a safe space and a place for healing for our community for years to come," Hardin said.

At an October ribbon cutting, North Charleston Councilwoman Rhonda Jerome applauded the organization in reaching its milestone. She noted the group home is of personal significance. Jerome volunteered at the center as a Girl Scout leader many years ago.

"I know for a fact it's been here a long time," Jerome said.

Part of the reason it was important for the organization to push forward with the new support center was the protests against social unrest that unraveled across the Lowcountry over the summer, Hardin said.

The demonstrations took an emotional toll on many families, she said, and the center will help people dealing with such burdens.

Like many nonprofits, the center saw a decline in donations after being forced to call off fundraisers due to the coronavirus.

But two "coronavirus angels" contributed large gifts, of $150,000 and $90,000, to enable the organization to break even by the end of the year.

It just allowed us to breathe a little bit," Hardin said.

In addition, dozens of Lowe's employees helped render $50,000 worth of renovation work on the building that would serve as the family center.

Another company, Cummins Inc., provided $55,000 to help establish the new facility. The company, which has a North Charleston site, focuses its corporate responsibilities on three priorities it feels are important to healthy communities: environment, education and equality of opportunity.

CYDC and Cummins have worked together for many years. Cummins supports the center with its automotive lab, where young people pull apart old cars and put them back together.

"We believe an organization like CYDC is critical to our community," said Cummins Inc. employee Anthony Parrish, who serves on the center's board of directors.

The pandemic and new legislation have caused a drop in the number of children being housed at the North Charleston nonprofit.

The Family First Prevention Services Act will force the center to become a facility that serves higher-needs children. Additionally, school closures forced by COVID-19 has led to a dip in the number of youths at the group home, as most of the organization's referrals come from teachers.

Normally, the group home would have about 40 youths. It now houses 24.

Those who want to give and support the center can do so online at cydc.org.
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Planned Parenthood Pres. Alexis McGill Johnson: 'We are a proud abortion provider'

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The president of Planned Parenthood embraced her organizations reputation as the nation's largest abortion provider, suggesting that describing abortion as a small part of what the business does is stigmatizing.

Speaking to The Washington Post in an interview published Tuesday, Alexis McGill Johnson, who was appointed president of the abortion provider last year, was asked how she felt about the fact that abortion was the first thing that came to many peoples minds when they think of Planned Parenthood.

I think abortion is health care. And so, if the first thing they think about is health care when they think about Planned Parenthood, I think thats fine, she replied.

Planned Parenthood proudly serves all forms of sexual and reproductive health care, including abortion, and I think when we try to exclude it, were excluding a critical part of and a critical option for health care.

While The Washington Post claimed in its reporting that abortion is a "small part of all the things Planned Parenthood does," pro-life groups have long shown that abortion makes up some 95% of the company's services.

The Susan B. Anthony List and Charlotte Lozier Institute found that "in 2018-'19, abortions made up 95% of Planned Parenthoods pregnancy resolution services, while prenatal services, miscarriage care, and adoption referrals accounted for only 2.7% (9,798), 0.6% (2,236) and 1.2% (4,279), respectively."

"Planned Parenthood performed 345,672 abortions in 2018-19  an increase of nearly 13,000 from the previous year  and more than 3.3 million abortions (3,302,184) 11 over the past 10 reported years (2009-19)," the SBA List noted.

I think when we say, Its a small part of what we do, what were doing is actually stigmatizing it, McGill Johnson told The Washington Post, insisting that the suggestion that its really not a big deal that Planned Parenthood does this constitutes an attempt to shame the abortion business.

We are a proud abortion provider. We believe that abortion is health care, and we believe, fundamentally, that self-determination begins with being able to control your own body and freedom begins with being able to control your own body. So I dont like to marginalize it in that way, she stressed.

In a previous interview with The Christian Post, Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood clinic director, said that although Planned Parenthood claims that only 3% of its overall revenue comes from abortion services that abortion actually accounts for over 50% of Planned Parenthood's revenue.

Johnson told CP that Planned Parenthood uses "creative accounting" and "stealthy bundling" to disguise the fact that abortion is their biggest revenue generator.

"All of it boils down to how they bill for services," she said. "For example: an annual exam, Pap smear, gonorrhea and chlamydia tests, and seven packs of birth control account for one visit and are billed as 10 services. But they unbundle for abortion, and count all services provided as one. We don't really know what the true numbers are because of the bundling and unbundling."

"They really are creative accountants. We know their abortion budget makes up 50%. We also know that when states pass laws regulating abortion clinics, like in Texas, instead of meeting basic health and safety standards for abortion clinics, they choose to shut down. If abortion was only 3% of revenue, they would be able to sustain themselves," Johnson added.

McGill Johnson was appointed acting president of Planned Parenthood in 2019 following the termination of Dr. Leana Wen, who had a disagreement with the board about the organization's priorities. According to Wen, the priority of the board was to double down on abortion advocacy while she preferred to focus on providing healthcare to underserved women.

McGill Johnson has extensive experience in abortion advocacy and statistics show that abortion is a sizable proportion of Planned Parenthoods day-to-day operations. According to the pro-life group Live Action, Planned Parenthood accounts for 40% of all abortions performed in the U.S. The number of abortions performed by Planned Parenthood has nearly doubled since 2000, when the organization terminated 197,070 pregnancies.

As the number of abortions performed by Planned Parenthood nearly doubled over the past two decades, the government funding received by the abortion provider has more than tripled. In 2000, Planned Parenthood received $202.7 million in taxpayer money. By 2018, that figure had skyrocketed to $616.8 million.

Government funding for Planned Parenthood has been a point of political contention at both the state and the federal level. Republicans and pro-life groups have long called for the organization to lose federal funding because of its involvement with abortions while Democrats and Planned Parenthood have sought to minimize the companys performance of abortions when arguing that the organization needs taxpayer funding to provide other services for low-income women.

In August 2019, Planned Parenthood announced that it was leaving the Title X program, which grants millions of dollars a year to healthcare clinics nationwide so they can provide contraceptives, cancer screenings, STD testing and other services to low-income patients. Planned Parenthoods decision followed the implementation of a Trump administration rule forbidding clinics that receive Title X funds from referring patients for abortions.

Last fall, Planned Parenthood and dozens of other pro-abortion organizations released a list of First Priorities for the Blueprint for Sexual and Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice, building upon a document released in 2019. The document outlines a list of demands for the next presidential administration, including the elimination of the Hyde Amendment, which prevents the use of taxpayer dollars to fund abortions.

After networks called the 2020 presidential election for the Democratic ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, McGill Johnson expressed joy that America will be in the hands of leaders who are committed to advancing and expanding reproductive rights, adding that she was thrilled to see them elected and will be ready to work with them on day one.

Ahead of the 2020 election, Planned Parenthood committed to spending $45 million on behalf of Democrats.
For Mr. Chen, 67, 2020 was a year of tough calls, even as he has pulled off a virus response that would be the envy of any public health official on the planet.

In a recent opinion poll, Mr. Chen, a dentist by training, received a higher approval rating than any other top official, including his boss, President Tsai Ing-wen. He is being talked about as a potential candidate for mayor of Taipei, the islands capital. His cool, unflappable mien at the governments epidemic news briefings has won him an odd kind of celebrity. It is not every middle-aged health minister who is photographed clad in Gucci for the local edition of GQ.

Yet in Mr. Chens telling, his decisions since the outbreak started have upset certain people at almost every turn. Like when he barred medical workers from leaving the island in February. Or when he announced in March that the island was forbidding entry by nearly all nonresidents.

Many of the Taiwanese governments ideas about dealing with the virus came from feeling around in the dark, Mr. Chen said.

For instance, when a cluster of infections appeared on the Diamond Princess cruise liner in February, officials in Japan, where the boat had docked, allowed many passengers who tested negative to walk free. Some of them later tested positive. Taiwan took note.

By then it became very clear to us, Mr. Chen said. After you test, you have to quarantine both the positives and the negatives.
STAMFORD  Millions of Americans are spending much more time at home due to the coronavirus crisis  and many are willing to spend to upgrade their interior space.

The rise of at-home working and learning has contributed to a surge in demand for furniture, with Stamford-based Lovesac ranking as one of the biggest beneficiaries. Its sales have spiked in recent months, with online business driving the increases. Now, the company is looking to turn that momentum into long-term growth to become an industry powerhouse.

A simple way to put it is everything worked, Lovesac founder and CEO Shawn Nelson said in an interview. We had a number of tactics  from discounts, to introduction of new products, to merchandising efforts  that all went really well and delivered results that were really proud of.

Major growth

In the wake of factory shutdowns in China and Vietnam, many home-furnishing firms have scrambled to build up inventory.

Furniture retailers saw their sales for Nov. 27 to Nov. 30  from Black Friday to Cyber Monday  grow an average of 30 percent year over year, according to a survey conducted by the Home Furnishings Association and investment bank and institutional-securities firm Piper Sandler.

There was such pent-up demand for product, said Home Furnishings Association CEO Mark Schumacher. Its going to take a number of months for the supply chain to catch up.

But such issues have not hampered Lovesac, according to Nelson.

We feel really good on the supply side, he said. Weve done a good job of preparing and not overextending ourselves.

A signature line of couches  which are known as Sactionals  account for about 85 percent of sales, the company estimates. The seating arrangements can be reconfigured, the covers are washable, and the covers and seat filling are changeable.

The prices depend on their size. One seat and side sells for $770, while 10 seats and 12 sides go for $8,155, according to the companys website.

Another mainstay are Sacs, which are beanbag seats filled with Durafoam and the source of the companys name.

Lovesac has sought to build customer awareness with television and digital media marketing campaigns. Its Instagram account, for instance, has about 477,000 followers. The target audience is older members of the millennial generation who are in their 30s.

The growing customer base translated into a 44 percent sales increase in the quarter ending Nov. 1, for a total of $75 million. In the same period, it recorded a $2.5 million profit.

Ned Gerard / Hearst Connecticut Media

Spurring the growth, Lovesacs internet sales jumped 125 percent in the past quarter.

Most of our sales are effectively internet sales  just consummated at retail locations, Nelson said. Customers have done their research online and understand generally what theyre looking for.

The results have encouraged investors in Lovesac, which became a publicly traded company in June 2018. Its shares closed Thursday at about $43, in line with a 52-week high of around $46.

Facing challenges

But pandemic-sparked store closings have been the companys greatest challenge this year. To adhere with local and state regulations, Lovesac temporarily closed all of its showrooms in March and in April announced it was enacting a major cost-cutting plan.

The changes included a reduction in workforce of about 445 part-time employees, who represented 57 percent of the companys headcount. In addition, it cut the cash compensation by 20 percent for Nelson, as well as for its chief operating officer and chief financial officer.

Since then, we have already been hiring back aggressively and a significant portion of the part-time positions have been filled again, Nelson said.

By the end of the past quarter, most showrooms had fully reopened for walk-in customers.

In the past quarter, comparable showroom sales increased 26 percent year over year, although the temporary closings resulted in a 14 percent decrease for the past nine months.

Within Connecticut, Lovesac has showrooms in downtown Greenwich, downtown Westport, at Danbury Fair mall and in Blue Back Square in West Hartford. The company operates 107 showrooms in total, compared with 84 a year ago.

It has further broadened its reach through partnerships with Macys and Costco. In November, the company announced its launch on BestBuy.com, complementing shop-in-shops in Best Buy stores that opened in 2019.

We know consumers still prefer to see, touch and feel the product, Nelson said. As COVID lets up, we expect to see and have seen sales return to the retail channel.

Ned Gerard / Hearst Connecticut Media

Optimistic outlook

Even as the coronavirus vaccines roll out, many employers are unlikely to soon abandon work-from-home arrangements  which industry experts see as an auspicious sign for furniture sales.

People looked around for the first time during this pandemic to their home environment, and as they tried to work in that environment, they realized there were a lot of things they needed to change, Schumacher said. The attention on home has never been more acute than now. I believe that is going to carry us for months ahead.

The jump in home sales in Connecticut and across the country offers another boost.

Buying homes furnished or including some of the furnishing is becoming more common, especially for larger properties where the homeowner is downsizing and no longer needs all their furniture, said Tammy Felenstein, managing director of sales for real estate brokerage Brown Harris Stevens Connecticut.

I cant stress how important staging is to the sale of a home. Most buyers have a hard time envisioning a beautiful setting if the home is poorly decorated or is vacant. Additionally, when buyers come across a gorgeously staged home, they envision themselves there. It appeals to their emotions, she said.

Lovesac is not alone in vying for the increased demand. Competitors that sell couches at similar prices include Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel and Restoration Hardware.

The upholstery category  the couch category  is a $30 billion category, in which we have between 1 percent and 2 percent market share, Nelson said. Yet in my humble opinion, we make the best product in the category. I believe that theres still significant growth to be gained through the Sactionals platform.

pschott@stamfordadvocate.com; twitter: @paulschott
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Nearly a quarter of Senate Republicans are officially preparing to challenge President-elect Joe Bidens Electoral College win on Jan. 6, a stunning development that demonstrates just how far some in the GOP will go to align themselves with President Donald Trumps flailing claims that the election was stolen from him.

Eleven more Republican senators announced Saturday they will challenge Bidens election victory next week when Congress gathers to certify the Electoral College vote. The movement is led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who circulated the idea among Senate Republicans of voting against certification of the election unless theres an election audit.

"We intend to vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not regularly given and lawfully certified,'" the senators said. "Unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed."

The 11 senators' efforts are separate from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who was the first senator to announce he would join with House Republicans to object to the certification of the election results. Hawley responded to the new objectors on Saturday, saying he hopes "many more will listen to their constituents and act."

The building support for efforts to vote against Biden's win in Congress has created a major rift in the GOP. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) was among the Republicans who punched back Saturday at the movement within his party, which in part centers around attacks on how the election was conducted in his own state. Toomey said the effort by Hawley and Cruz "directly undermines" the ability of people to elect their own leaders.

Late Saturday night, Hawley responded to what he called "shameless personal attacks" and said the debate over the election should occur on the Senate floor not in conference calls or press releases.

"We should avoid putting words into each others mouths and making unfounded claims about the intentions of our fellow senators. I never claim to speak for another senator, but I do speak for my constituents when they raise legitimate concerns about issues as important as the fairness of our elections," Hawley said in a Saturday evening message sent to the Senate GOP conference.

Story continues

The effort to vote against Biden's electoral win is opposed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), though the GOP leadership is not whipping against the effort to prevent the certification of Biden as president. In the House, as many as 140 Republicans have indicated they may vote against certifying Biden's Electoral College win.

Biden's win will be certified by majorities in the Democratic House and Republican Senate, however, as enough GOP senators have already said they will oppose efforts to object to the election results. The question, though, is how many might eventually sign on: Many Republican senators have not indicated yet how they will vote.

In a statement released Saturday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she would "vote to affirm the 2020 presidential election." Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) called the move "an egregious ploy" that "dangerously threatens our Democratic Republic."

And Toomey, who is retiring, said that "allegations of fraud by a losing campaign cannot justify overturning an election." He said Trump's loss in his state stemmed from Trump's narrower margins in rural Pennsylvania and Trump's decline in suburban support.

Hawley, in his response to Toomey, said the state's mail ballots had not been litigated sufficiently. The two have also been at odds over $2,000 stimulus checks, which Hawley supports and Toomey opposes.

"No one has mounted a substantive defense of the state law under which the November election was conducted. And contrary to Senator Toomeys claims, no court has ruled on the merits of this question. These are very serious irregularities, on a very large scale, in a presidential election," Hawley said in the message to the 52-member conference.

In a statement on Saturday afternoon, the 11 current and incoming GOP senators led by Cruz said they intended to reject the electors from states where they claimed unprecedented allegations of voter fraud, violations and lax enforcement of election law arose until a 10-day audit of the election results in each state has been completed.

Voter fraud has posed a persistent challenge in our elections, although its breadth and scope are disputed, the group said. By any measure, the allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes.

The group of Republicans insisted their effort wasnt an attempt to thwart Biden or overturn the election, but rather aimed to protect election integrity. Likewise, Hawley said he was not trying to overturn the election.

The new faction of GOP lawmakers includes Sens. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), Mike Braun (Ind.), Cruz (Texas), Steve Daines (Mont.), Ron Johnson (Wis.), John Kennedy (La.) and James Lankford (Okla.), as well as Sen.-elects Bill Hagerty (Tenn.), Cynthia Lummis (Wyo.), Roger Marshall (Kan.) and Tommy Tuberville (Ala.).

Lankford, Johnson and Kennedy are all up for reelection in 2022, and the vote will effectively become a wedge issue within the Republican Party. Republicans who vote against Trump and allow the certification of Bidens election could find themselves with primary challenges. Trump has already endorsed a primary challenge to Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.).

Trump signaled his approval of the senators' move in a series of tweets later Saturday. And Marc Short, Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff, said Vice President Mike Pence "welcomes the efforts of members of the House and Senate to use the authority they have under the law to raise objections and bring forward evidence."

But many Republicans say the effort to challenge the election results doesnt make a ton of sense.

Theres good constitutional and other legal grounds to say: You had your day in court, 60 different lawsuits in state courts, you had a chance to appeal those to the Supreme Court, and as I read the law once a state certifies its electoral vote its conclusive," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) in an interview on Friday.

But the 11 GOP senators said the courts should have examined the issue more closely: Ideally, the courts would have heard evidence and resolved these claims of serious election fraud. Twice, the Supreme Court had the opportunity to do so; twice, the Court declined.

Gabby Orr and Evan Semones contributed to this report.


India-UK flight services to resume from Jan 8: Minister

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Flight services between India and UK will resume from January 8, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Friday.

Last month, these services were suspended to stop the spread of a mutant Covid-19 starin which was recently discovered in the UK.

In a tweet, the minister said: "It has been decided that flights between India & UK will resume from 8 Jan 2021."

"Operations till 23 Jan will be restricted to 15 flights per week each for carriers of the two countries to & from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru & Hyderabad only. @DGCAIndia will issue the details shortly."

Several countries, including India, had suspended flight services to the UK in the wake of the new mutant Covid-19 strain.

The suspension commenced with effect from 11.59 p.m. on December 22.

Initial decision was to suspend flights till December 31. However, in the wake of increasing cases of the new strain, it was decided to extend the temporary suspension of flights to & from the UK till January 7.

Prior to the suspension, over 60 flights per week were being operated between UK and India.

Airlines like Vistara, Air India, Virgin Atlantic and British Airways were operating flights between the two countries.

Disclaimer: Information, facts or opinions expressed in this news article are presented as sourced from IANS and do not reflect views of Moneylife and hence Moneylife is not responsible or liable for the same. As a source and news provider, IANS is responsible for accuracy, completeness, suitability and validity of any information in this article.
Additionally, a reference has been made to Urgency Decree No. 110-2020 , published on September 10, 2020 in EL Peruano official gazette.
Xiaomi spun-off POCO as an independent brand earlier this year. POCO X2 was the companys first device as a separate independent entity. Soon after the launch, POCO India confirmed that the smartphone will receive Android 11 update, but the POCO X2 users are yet to receive the first Android platform upgrade.

The update shouldnt take much time since the company has already released Android 11 based MIUI Beta update for Redmi K30 4G in China. To those unaware, POCO X2 is the rebranded version of Redmi K30 4G which was launched last year in China. If youre someone who is impatient to try Android 11 on your unit, custom ROMs are the way to go for. We recently tried Anroid 11 based NitrogenOS on our POCO X2, and here is our post to help you decide if you should flash it on your device.

Android 11 based NitrogenOS on POCO X2: Performance and Benchmarks

For those looking for numbers, POCO X2 running Android 11 based NitrogenOS scored 2382 points in the single-core test and 6196 points in the multi-core test in Geekbench 4. While, in Geekbench 5 test, it managed to get 526 points in the single-core test and 1569 points in the multi-core test.

Let us now talk about the real-life performance. We used POCO X2 with Android 11 based NitrogenOS for about 3 weeks. During our usage, we just came across a minor bug that the device sometimes didnt respond to the swipe up to go home gesture, a quick lock-unlock always fixed the issue for me though.

We would also like to mention that during this period, the device rebooted abruptly 2-3 times. We didnt encounter any major issues other than the aforementioned issue. Apart from these, NitrogenOS, based on Android 11, delivered a good, and smooth day-to-day performance.

Android 11 based NitrogenOS on POCO X2: Software, UI, and Apps

Android 11 based NitrogenOS offers a clean bloat-free experience with only a few essential Google apps pre-installed. Only a total of 12 apps pre-installed on the device, out of which most could be disabled, if needed. The stock launcher has an option to hide as well as lock installed apps. There is also an additional option to swipe down anywhere on the home screen to expand the quick settings panel.

NitrogenOS, based on Android 11, comes with a November Android security patch. The system occupies around 16gigs of storage out of 128GB storage. As a result, users get about 112GB of free storage. NitrogenOS doesnt support OTA updates as of now, and it has been a month since the maintainer rolled out an update for it.

NitrogenOS is no different from other AOSP based ROMs. You will find a very Pixel-inspired stock UI on Android 11 based NitrogenOS. Google introduced a new media player card in notification shade with Android 11, and the same is implemented on NitrogenOS as well.

Regular Android features such as Night Light, and Adaptive Brightness are all present on NitrogenOS. Additionally, it also offers users an option to choose between color profiles. NitrogenOS also has Tap to wake feature, which lets you wake up the device with a double-tap anywhere on the screen.

There are some customization options under Display settings. Users do have an option to customize Accent color, Icon shape, and Body font. NitrogenOS isnt as feature-rich as MIUI, and users coming from MIUI will certainly find it barebone. Take a look at the following screenshots to see what all features NitrogenOS offers.

Android 11 based NitrogenOS on POCO X2: Battery Life

The battery life on the NitrogenOS was good, no complaints there at all. The device will easily last for a day even with a 120Hz refresh rate. I even managed to get 2 days and over 6 hours of screen-on-time with 120Hz refresh rate on a single charge. So, you really should not worry about battery life on the NitrogenOS.

There are other usual battery-related features such as Battery Saver, and Battery Manager on Android 11 based NitrogenOS. The device also shows charging information such as temperature, current, and more on the lock screen while charging.

Android 11 based NitrogenOS on POCO X2: Fingerprint Sensor

During our usage, the fingerprint worked flawlessly on Android 11 based NitrogenOS. Though the fingerprint animation felt a bit slow similar to every other AOSP ROM resulting in a slower unlock experience compared to stock MIUI Global ROM, we found it accurate and reliable. Users can add up to five different fingerprints to unlock the phone.

You will also find the Face Unlock feature on NitrogenOS, based on Android 11. It worked pretty well during our usage, but we really cant be sure about how secure it will be compared to a password or a pin.

So should you try Android 11 based Nitrogen on your POCO X2?

Well, that depends on why you want to flash a custom ROM on your device. If youre someone who wants the latest version of Android on your phone without compromising on performance, or battery life, then yes, go ahead with NitrogenOS.

If youre someone who loves customization and is tired of AOSP ROMs trying to mimic the stock Pixel UI, look elsewhere.

Pros

Fast and Snappy performance

Clean and Minimal UI

Good battery life

PhonePe worked without Magisk

Cons

Smart devices control menu missing in the Power menu

Gesture related bug

Lacks Customization

Lacks basic features such as Long Screenshots

Requirements:

If you are on a Mac you need to

Extract the Android zip and place the folder on your Desktop.

Open Terminal

Type cd Desktop/Android

Enter ./ADB-Install-Mac.sh

How to flash Android 11 based NitrogenOS on POCO X2,

Switch off the phone and boot it into fastboot mode by long-pressing the Power and Volume down buttons simultaneously. Connect your phone to PC by a USB cable, open the command prompt on your PC, and navigate to the folder where you have saved Orangefox img file. Type fastboot devices in the command prompt window and check if the device is detected by the system. If the system detects the phone, type fastboot flash recovery_filename.img and hit enter, the process will be completed in seconds. Now long-press the Volume up and Power Button to boot the phone in recovery mode. It will ask to allow modifications, slide towards the right to allow Modifications. Select Wipe, click on Format Data, and type Yes. Go to Advanced Wipe, select Dalvik / ART Cache, System, Data, Cache, and then swipe towards the right to Wipe. Go back and click on Install, navigate to the location where you have stored the required zip files, its better to keep these zip files on SD Card or USB OTG drives. Select the Firmware zip, ROM zip, and NikGApps, and then swipe towards the right to flash. Click on Reboot and then System, within 10-15 minutes device will boot with NitrogenOS.

Credits: We would like to acknowledge the efforts of Max Popov towards developing NitrogenOS for POCO X2, Nikhil for the development of NikGApps, Mauronofrio for the development of TWRP Recovery for POCO X2, Arnova8G2 for the development of GCam.

Warning Disclaimer: Bootloader unlocking and flashing ROM may void the warranty of Xiaomi devices, FoneArena is not responsible for any damage or loss caused to your device.
Manitobas Court of Queens Bench has extended its suspension of all out-of-custody criminal trials for at least another month.

Manitobas Court of Queens Bench has extended its suspension of all out-of-custody criminal trials for at least another month.

"The ongoing and worrisome concerns that led to the government of Manitobas most recent and restrictive health orders remain in effect," Court of Queens Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal said in a recent practice direction posted on the Manitoba Courts website.

The trial suspension was to remain in effect until Jan. 8, but has been extended to at least Jan. 29.

With the exception of previously scheduled judge-alone criminal trials with an in-custody accused, all other trial matters will be adjourned to Jan. 29 for rescheduling.

"All other judicial services currently being offered by the Court of Queens Bench by video or audio conference in the areas of criminal and civil law will continue as before," Joyal said.

On the civil side, technological improvements will allow for civil trials to proceed by video conference "in a relatively normalized way," beginning Feb. 1, Joyal said.

"The willingness to explore and use technology in an innovative way during such unprecedented and challenging times, may be the difference between providing and not providing a meaningful access to justice for as many Manitobans as possible," he said.

In a notice issued Dec. 30, provincial court Chief Judge Margaret Wiebe confirmed the suspension of out-of-custody provincial court matters at "most of its centres" until Jan. 29, with limited operations in some circuit locations and virtual dockets in others.

In-custody matters and urgent applications will continue to be heard in all court centres (Winnipeg, Portage la Prairie, Brandon, Dauphin, The Pas and Thompson).

Months of stop-start-stop in the court system has it heading to an inevitable logjam that will just get more difficult to overcome the longer it goes on, says Winnipeg defence lawyer Scott Newman.

"The justice system is like a dam on a flowing river," Newman said. "If you are going to have new cases coming in continually, you have to be able to dispose of the ones you have in the system, because eventually if you dont, the dam is going to break."

The longer court cases are adjourned, the more pressing the need becomes for the courts to deal with the issue of delay. Under timelines established by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2016, provincial court cases must be resolved within 18 months of arrest; and superior court cases within 30 months, or risk being tossed out for delay.

"Everyone has the right to a trial in a reasonable time," Newman said. "While there is going to be accommodations for an unexpected event like COVID-19, if the court closures are continuous, at some point were going to have to say that this is no longer an unexpected event. The court has to adjust to the new normal and either adjust the number of new cases that are coming into the system or devote more resources to dealing with what is already in place."

Those adjustments could include diverting from the court system such matters as first-time arrests for non-violent offenders or probation breaches that would not attract a custodial sentence, "so we can focus on the cases that truly demand our attention," Newman said.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca
Naugatuck police are advising residents to avoid the Cross Street and Beacon Valley Road area and lock their car doors as it investigates an ongoing incident at Cross Point Plaza.

The department posted the warning on Facebook and Twitter Friday afternoon. Police were assisting partnering agencies investigate a shooting that happened earlier in Bridgeport, according to the updated post.

CN: 2100000042 01/01/2021 1547 hours 1740 hours ***UPDATE*** On 1/1/21 at shortly after 3:00 pm Naugatuck Police... Posted by Naugatuck Police Department on Friday, January 1, 2021

Officers responded to Route 63  near the Cross Street and New Haven Road area  where officials said they located a car wanted in connection to an earlier Bridgeport incident. Police found one of the cars occupants at Gs Burger on New Haven Road while canvassing the area, according to the post.

Naugatuck police turned over the suspect in custody to Bridgeport police and believe other suspects fled on foot, according to officials.

While officers apprehended the suspect, others were called to New Haven Road near High Street where a shooter in a gray sedan allegedly fired shots at someone in a white pickup truck.

Police believe the shooting happened on Oak Street, according to the post. According to police, there were no injuries reported and the investigation is ongoing as detectives process evidence.

Police are urging anyone who witnessed, has information regarding or has surveillance footage from 3:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the 0-100 block of Oak Street and the 0-400 block of High Street to contact the department at 203-729-5221 or its confidential tip line at 203-720-1010.
Mikel Arteta has declared Arsenal will not curtail the contract of outcast Mesut Ozil, but whether he returns to the Gunners squad depends on how the transfer window goes.

Attacking midfielder Ozil is on an eye-watering 350,000-a-week deal - expiring in six months - but was left out of the club's 25-man Premier League and Europa League squads back in October.

The 32-year-old German has not played a competitive second for Arsenal so far this season, and his prohibitive wages have so far proved a stumbling block for a transfer away.

Arsenal midfielder Mesut Ozil has not played one competitive match for the club this season

Asked whether Ozil, who has stated he wants to stay for the duration of his contract at the Emirates, would rejoin the squad in January, Arteta was non-committal.

He said: 'We will see what happens in the transfer window and we will assess at the end of that.

'You have to respect the players' contracts. You can just try to be open with them, tell them your intentions, the role that they have in the team and why that is.

Ozil's 350,000 a week wage ends in six months but boss Mikel Arteta will not cut it short

'Some would like to move because they are not playing and some would like to stay. That's something we cannot decide by ourselves.

'When a player doesn't play, it is really difficult to be happy.

'There are players that don't play at all, they know they are not going to have any chance. That is tough mentally for them, to maintain that motivation and positivity around the place for a lot of months. That's a big task.'

Arteta has already made plain his intention to sell or loan out players who are not part of his plans, with Sead Kolasinac to Schalke likely the first of many to leave the club in the January transfer window.

German attacking midfielder Ozil enjoyed success under Arsene Wenger (left) but has fallen out of favour and he was not named in Arsenal's 25-man Premier League squad this season

Sportsmail reported on New Year's Eve that Arsenal icon Liam Brady claimed Ozil was 'not a good guy' and fully supported Arteta for exiling him.

The Ozil conundrum has also hampered their potential incomings, with a reported move for Inter Milan's Christian Eriksen said to be dependent on the situation with the 92-cap international.

Arsenal travel to West Bromwich Albion on Saturday evening sat 13th in the league, as close to the relegation zone as they are to the top four Champions League spots.
Yes, along most or all of the coast

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No, people can continue swimming at their own risk

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...the widespread commercial use of the machines has developed far more slowly than many advocates expected. Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos once predicted that his company would use drones to deliver goods to customers' doorsteps within five years, but that prediction is already off by two years.

There have been several tests and limited uses. United Parcel Service said last year that it received approval to operate a nationwide fleet of drones and has already made hundreds of deliveries on a hospital campus in North Carolina.

Also last year, Google sister company Wing Aviation won FAA approval for commercial drone flights in a corner of Virginia.

And this past August, Amazon got similar FAA approval to deliver packages by drones. The company is still testing the service and hasn't said when shoppers will see deliveries.

This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire . The author of this post is Jeffrey Cawood The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Aviation Administration on Monday finalized new regulations that could potentially expedite the widespread commercial use of drones, allowing operators to fly small unmanned aerial vehicles over people and at night under certain conditions.FAA Administrator Steve Dickson said Previous restrictions did not permit drones to operate at night or over people without a waiver.For drones to operate over people when the new rules take effect, they must according to the new policies.Remote pilots conducting operations at night must fly uncrewed aircraftthe FAA said To mitigate risks posed by expanded operations, the agency will require the remote identification (Remote ID) of most unmanned aircraft using U.S. airspace to ensure public safety. The FAA said Remote ID could be described as a "digital license plate," calling the technologyThe technology will use radio frequencies to broadcast a drone's ID, location, and control station. National security experts and law enforcement pushed the policy. According to CNN, said U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao.A press release from the FAA says Some proponents of drone-based commerce have expressed frustration with the pace of the government's development of regulations.As The Associated Press reports According to the FAA, the new rules will be effective 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, which the agency expects to happen in January. Drone makers will have 18 months to start manufacturing machines with Remote ID, while operators will have an additional year to begin using drones equipped with the technology.
President Donald Trumps extraordinary challenge of his election defeat by President-elect Joe Biden is becoming a defining moment for the Republican Party before next weeks joint session of Congress to confirm the Electoral College results.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is urging Republicans not to try to overturn the election, but not everyone is heeding him. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri vows to join House Republicans in objecting to the state tallies. On the other side of the partys split, GOP Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska warns such challenges are a dangerous ploy threatening the nations civic norms.

Caught in the middle is Vice President Mike Pence, who faces growing pressure and a lawsuit from Trumps allies over his ceremonial role in presiding over the session Wednesday.

The days ahead are expected to do little to change the outcome. Biden is set to be inaugurated January 20 after winning the Electoral College vote 306-232. But the effort to subvert the will of voters is forcing Republicans to make choices that will set the contours of the post-Trump era and an evolving GOP.

I will not be participating in a project to overturn the election, Sasse wrote in a lengthy social media post.

Sasse, a potential 2024 presidential contender, said he was urging my colleagues also to reject this dangerous ploy.

Trump, the first president to lose a re-election bid in almost 30 years, has attributed his defeat to widespread voter fraud, despite the consensus of non partisan election officials that there wasnt any. Of the roughly 50 lawsuits the president and his allies have filed challenging election results, nearly all have been dismissed or dropped. Hes also lost twice at the US Supreme Court.

Still, the president has pushed Republican senators to pursue his unfounded charges even though the Electoral College has already cemented Bidens victory and all thats left is Congress formal recognition of the count before the new president is sworn in.

We are letting people vote their conscience, Sen. John Thune, the second-ranking Republican, told reporters at the Capitol.

Thunes remarks as the GOP whip in charge of rounding up votes show that Republican leadership is not putting its muscle behind Trumps demands, but allowing senators to choose their course. He noted the gravity of questioning the election outcome.

This is an issue thats incredibly consequential, incredibly rare historically and very precedent-setting, he said. This is a big vote. They are thinking about it.

Pence will be carefully watched as he presides over what is typically a routine vote count in Congress but is now heading toward a prolonged showdown that could extend into Wednesday night, depending on how many challenges Hawley and others mount.

The vice president is being sued by a group of Republicans who want Pence to have the power to overturn the election results by doing away with an 1887 law that spells out how Congress handles the vote count.

Trumps own Justice Department may have complicated what is already a highly improbable effort to upend the ritualistic count January 6. It asked a federal judge to dismiss the last-gasp lawsuit from Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and a group of Republican electors from Arizona who are seeking to force Pence to step outside mere ceremony and shape the outcome of the vote.

In a court filing in Texas, the department said they have have sued the wrong defendant and Pence should not be the target of the legal action.

A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction, the department argues.

A judge in Texas dismissed the Gohmert lawsuit Friday night. US District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, wrote that the plaintiffs allege an injury that is not fairly traceable to Pence, and is unlikely to be redressed by the requested relief.

To ward off a dramatic unraveling, McConnell convened a conference call with Republican senators Thursday specifically to address the coming joint session and logistics of tallying the vote, according to several Republicans granted anonymity to discuss the private call.

The Republican leader pointedly called on Hawley to answer questions about his challenge to Bidens victory, according to two of the Republicans.

But there was no response because Hawley was a no-show, the Republicans said.

His office did not respond to a request for comment.

Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., who has acknowledged Bidens victory and defended his states elections systems as valid and accurate, spoke up on the call, objecting to those challenging Pennsylvanias results and making clear he disagrees with Hawleys plan to contest the result, his office said in a statement.

McConnell had previously warned GOP senators not to participate in raising objections, saying it would be a terrible vote for colleagues. In essence, lawmakers would be forced to choose between the will of the outgoing president and that of the voters.

Several Republicans have indicated they are under pressure from constituents back home to show they are fighting for Trump in his baseless campaign to stay in office.

Hawley became the first GOP senator this week to announce he will raise objections when Congress meets to affirm Bidens victory in the election, forcing House and Senate votes that are likely to delay  but in no way alter  the final certification of Bidens win.

Other Republican senators are expected to join Hawley, wary of ceding the spotlight to him as they, too, try to emerge as leaders in a post-Trump era.

A number of Republicans in the Democratic-majority House have already said they will object on Trumps behalf. They only needed a single senator to go along with them to force votes in both chambers.

When Biden was vice president, he, too, presided over the session as the Electoral College presented the 2016 vote tally to Congress to confirm Trump the winner. The session was brief, despite objections from some Democrats.

Jen Psaki, speaking for the Biden transition team, dismissed Hawleys move as antics that will have no bearing on Biden being sworn in on January 20.
Britain is taking its first leap on its plan to conquer the moon by sending a small robotic spider in 2021 through London-based robotics firm Spacebit.

Space Focus reported that Spacebit CEO and founder Pavlo Tanasyuk thought of building rovers with legs instead of wheels while he was listening to David Bowie song "The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars."

The idea remained hidden until Tanasyuk visited a friend from the Japan Aerospace Agency whom he mentioned his spider robot idea to explore the Moon or Mars. His friend immediately mentioned about asagumo, a Japanese proverb about the morning spider who brings fortune. Soon, Spacebit will launch a walking rover to explore the moon.

British experts to send a robotic space spider to the moon

According to Telegraph, Spacebit is working with NASA for the British probe, dubbed as Asagumo, which is expected to begin on summer of 2021.

This will be the first time for a British rover to reach the Moon. For this mission, Spacebit engineers will develop legs instead of wheels, so it can make its way over the bumpy lunar surface as well as crawl through lava tubes to see if these underground locations could be habitable for humans. Lava tubes on the Moon can measure hundreds of feet wide like the one found in Marius Hills region, which is at least 1,000 yards tall and wide.

This is greatly helpful since the Moon is highly risky for astronauts because the surface is bombarded by micro-meteorites and solar radiation while temperatures at lunar night can drop to below -170C. The lava tube's rocky roof makes a great shield against radiation while heaters can be used to heat the tubes to a comfortable level and it could also be sealed to contain breathable air.

The first rover will board NASA's first Commercial Lunar Payload Services mission by late summer of 2021. It will be sent before the U.S. lunar mission Artemis, which would carry humans back to the Moon.

Spacebit is targeting the Schroter's Valley located in Moon's Oceanus Procellarum as the landing site because it is flat, free of rocks and craters as well as abundant of sunlight.

Meanwhile, the British company also looks forward to sending a second mission before the end of 2021, which will feature a wheeled rover while Spacebit also eyes having a walking robot onboard the wheeled rover unless the terrain is too difficult to conquer.

Read also: Japan's Hayabusa2 Spacecraft Retrieved Charcoal-Like Asteroid Chips

Robotic rover Asagumo has built-in Wi-Fi

Asagumo is only 10cm tall, so it should be able to glide over the lunar surface. To avoid sinking, the rover will have four spindly legs and a flat pad bottom, which is similar to ski poles.

Tanasyuk said Spacebit has future plans to return to the Moon, so they need to find a place to live. One of their options is to seal the entrance of a larva tube and utilize it as a shelter. He also believes Asagumo will play a role in exploring such possibility.

However, it is difficult to design a rover that can walk on the Moon since lunar surface is covered with regolith, a thick dusty layer, which could since the rover's legs or clog up working parts.

The rover launch will cost over $4.1 million, which could attract other companies to invest. It will carry instruments for measuring radiation while it can also mine precious minerals and metals in the future missions. Meanwhile, this rover will be the first that is connected to the lander by Wi-Fi while a built-in drone technology can fly it back to the lander in case it loses Wi-Fi signal.

Related article: NASA Receives Nearly $23.3B Funding for 2021 But Lunar Lander 2024 Will Be "More Difficult" to Achieve

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Written by CJ Robles

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Attempting a Happy New Year By Gamini Weerakoon Doublespeak View(s): View(s):

Ruminating in these lonely Covid days on those merry days of our youth, the lines of a favourite rhyme came to mind:

Kisses blown are kisses wasted

Kisses are not kisses, unless tasted

Kisses spread germs and diseases

But kiss me honey I am VACCINATED.

A knee-jerk reaction caused by this last line made us shatter our silence and cry out: Where the hell is the vaccine?

No. it was not the sudden urge to kiss  not in our dotage. Even in our toddling days, we didnt like kissing at all, we have been told. We were certainly not a Georgie Porgy who tried to kiss girls and made them cry. But right now, we want to be vaccinated soon and roam freely like in the pre-Covid days instead of being threatened by decorated policemen on TV of the consequences of breaking sacred Covid regulations.

Where the hell is this vaccine? we ask.

On state owned and privately owned TV, anchor women in breathless prose (no full stops) keep rattling away with pictures of old women, elderly statesmen, thugs in uniform, around the Globe being vaccinated. But in this paradise island, we are only told that the vaccines are Coming Soon  like blockbuster movies perhaps well into this year.

We are aggrieved. Being in that vulnerable age group (It should have been Venerable age group) we are entitled to be at the top of the queue. But no pompous authority on TV says on which day or even which month the vaccine will arrive

Minister Pavitra seems to have finished her task of tossing pots of water into rivers from bridges. And she with Minister Sudarshini and other tough-looking male state ministers, we hope have finished sipping the Dhammika Paniya on TV and got down to bringing in an effective vaccine be it: American, British, Russian , Chinese or of any other kind.

Perhaps an innovative go-getter like Nivard Cabraal, too, can help. He is a daring exhibitionist both in his thinking and action. Instead of only blaming Yahapalanaya guys for Lankas billion-dollar debt and trying to use it to prop up the Rajapaksas, he is quite cheerful and casts away the debt burden gloom. There are billions of Yuan in direct foreign investments in the pipeline for the Colombo City and Hambantota projects and it will be all hunky dory for Sri Lanka, he assures.

A cynical critic of the government, however, points out that the enthusiastic Cabraal is an economist and that An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why things he predicted yesterday did not happen. This is quite an unfair criticism. All politicians know well why the things they predicted before being elected failed to materialise afterwards.

If Cabraal is too busy with fluctuations in the global economic trends, why not deploy a top-ranking military man to expedite this all-important lifesaving task? Military men are reputed to think out of the box and perform miraculous things.

Nonetheless, the Rajapaksa government is in a precarious situation. Even though Cabraal and the Central Bank Governor, Colombo Universitys former Vice Chancellor Prof. W. D. Lakshman, have assured that despite the billion-dollar debt burden, the government can go ahead with its Visions of Prosperity on the basis that the United States, Japan and Singapore have much greater amounts in foreign debts than Lanka but are carrying on merrily, international credit agencies wont buy that. They keep giving grades such as A, B, C like our college masters did to their students. Recently we were downgraded by Fitch ratings from B to CCC.

Its no use berating these rating agencies because like in College, masters are believed by the headmaster and those above him, but not the students. Western governments will accept credit rating agencies recommendations but not Pohottuwa arguments that they won a two-thirds majority at the last election.

So, what can we do? Think out of the box like what Bhutan did in the 1970s and say that its not the GNP (Gross National Product that matters but the GNH (Gross National Happiness) as stated by King Jigme Singye Wangchuck. The basis of this philosophy is that economists, whose ultimate objective should be to achieve human happiness for the people, have shied away from this and instead the whole focus is on material progress as measured by the GNP. But if that argument is adopted, rich nations and lending institutions will point out that since money is not the creative factor for happiness, Lanka could be happy without monetary infusions. But the immediate need is finance, to pay our debts and buy vaccines to prevent our population lining up for crematoria.

One way to show the world that Lanka is happy or at least 50 percent or more are happy is to hold the impending provincial council elections. A clean sweep of all provinces by the Rajapaksa party is on the cards and that is why the government is keen to hold elections despite some influential monks calling for the abolition of provincial councils in their entirety.

But how sure can the ruling party be in sweeping the polls? With Ranil and Sajith still at each other it would be a repeat of the last parliamentary election, say pundits. But if they unite, what? That would depend on what Mahinda decides, says a closet pundit.

A clean sweep of all provincial councils will be positive proof to the world that Lankans are all happy with the Rajapaksas particularly if the first-past-the-post system decides the winner not the proportional representation system.

How about the North and East? Will the Peoples vote indicate that they are a happy and contended with the Rajapaksas? What of the Muslims?

A constitutional pundit says that at a democratic election, no single candidate or political party scores 100 percent of the registered votes. True, President Saddam Hussein polled more or less 90 percent of the total number of registered voters. There were no other contestants. President Hafez Assad of Syria and his son the current President Bashar al Assad, too, have polled over 90 percent without opposition candidates and last month in Ivory Coast President Alassane Outtara, president since 2010, was elected president for the third term with a majority of 95.95 votes  the Opposition parties boycotting the polls because the constitution permitted only two terms of presidency for an individual.

We conclude these comments as the year 2020 draws to a close.

Are we happy? We would have been, if a recognised vaccine was given to us and we could have confidently ventured out.

Dhammikas Paniya wont do. We will settle take the advice of that Persian sage Omar Khayyam and greet the New Year with a Loaf of Bread (Kurakkan), a jug of wine  and nothing else.

(The writer is former editor of The Sunday Island, The Island and former consultant editor of the Sunday Leader)
A judge on Friday rejected a lawsuit filed by a US lawmaker from Texas and other Republicans against Vice President Mike Pence who is set to preside Wednesday over a joint session of Congress to formalize the results of the 2020 presidential election.

US District Judge Jeremy D. Kernodle said Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas and the slate of Republican presidential electors for the state of Arizona who filed suit Sunday lack standing to bring the legal action seeking to overturn the election of President-elect Joe Biden.

A spokesman for President Donald Trump referred questions to Pences office. A spokesman for Pence declined to comment.

Trump has refused to concede defeat and has repeatedly falsely claimed the election was tainted by widespread fraud. He and his allies have lost dozens of court efforts seeking to reverse the election results.

Biden beat President Donald Trump by a 306-232 margin in the Electoral College and is set to be sworn in on Jan. 20.

Under the Electoral College system, electoral votes are allotted to states and the District of Columbia based on their congressional representation.

Some Republicans have said they plan to object to the count of presidential electors next week in Congress. Reuters reported this week the effort could trigger a lengthy debate in the Senate but has virtually no chance of overturning the results.

A Justice Department lawyer representing Pence on Thursday had urged Kernodle to dismiss the lawsuit saying they had sued the wrong person as they raised a host of weighty legal issues about the manner in which the electoral votes for president are to be counted.

The Senate and the House, not the Vice President, have legal interests that are sufficiently adverse to plaintiffs to ground a case or controversy, Pences filing said.
In the village of Kachreti, Gurjaani region of Georgia (Kakheti region), a car accident took place, as a result of which two minors died, the Imedo TV company informs.

According to eyewitnesses of the event, a car crashed into an electric column, as a result of which two 11th grade students died immediately. A 25-year-old young man and a minor girl with injures were taken to the hospital in Gurjaani.

The accident is under investigation, Sputnik Georgia reports.
Twenty partygoers were fined 200 each after an illegal lockdown party they were attending in a London restaurant basement was shut down by police.

Police raided the bash in Haverstock Hill, northwest London around 8.30pm on December 27 after receiving reports of multiple people entering the venue.

A video of the raid, taken from police bodycam footage, shows officers descending into the basement to discover the revellers gathered inside.

A party of twenty revellers in a restaurant basement was shut down after a police raid in Haverstock Hill, northwest London on December 27

The clip shows tables covered with bottles of beer and other drinks such as red bull while police take details from the people attending.

Officers found ten men and ten woman attending the bash and all attendees were issued a Fixed Penalty Notice of 200 for breaching tier 4 restrictions.

The Metropolitan Police slammed the partygoers as 'selfish' and 'thoughtless' for breaking Covid rules as case numbers rise.

Police bodycam footage from the raid shows officers descending into the basement to discover the partygoers gathered inside with tables covered with bottles of beer

Inspector Alex Hope-Rollinson said: 'To date, over 70,000 people in the UK have been lost to coronavirus.

'Breaches of coronavirus regulations such as these are selfish, thoughtless and ultimately put the safety and health of our community at serious risk.

'I implore individuals to make themselves familiar with the Tier 4 rules and absolutely avoid attending any gatherings which are in breach of those rule  it is vital that we work together to avoid overwhelming our NHS in the coming months.'

Officers found ten men and ten woman attending the bash and all attendees were issued a Fixed Penalty Notice of 200 for breaching tier 4 restrictions

It comes as police handed out hundreds of fines and broke up illegal raves across the country as people defied lockdown rules to celebrate the end of 2020.

A woman who organised a house party attended by 100 people in Sewardstonebury, Essex, that involved a fire dancer and an entertainer, was fined 10,000.

The maximum fine for breaking coronavirus restrictions is 10,000 for the most egregious breaches.




Haiti - News : Zapping...





Port-de-Paix : The transformers have arrived

EDH transformers have just arrived at the site of the new 10 Mw hybrid power plant (Diesel / solar) in Port-de-Paix. An important step for the 24-hour electrification of the communes of : Pointe des Palmistes, Anse-a-Foleur, St Louis du Nord, Chansolme and Bassin Bleu.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-32460-haiti-news-zapping.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31326-haiti-flash-moise-gives-details-on-his-project-to-electrify-the-country.html



Messages 217th anniversary of independence :

Haiti :

Friday, January 1, accompanied by representatives of the State Powers, President of the Republic, His Excellency President Jovenel Moise laid a wreath at the foot of the monument to the heroes of independence (Champs-de-Mars) to salute the memory of the Founding Fathers of the Fatherland.



Qatar :

The Embassy of Haiti in Qatar would like to wish everyone a very happy new year 2021. We take this opportunity to wish all Haitians a very happy 217th independence day.



Ecuador :

Flower offering, Place de la Republique d'Haiti in Quito (Ecuador) by Ambassador of Haiti Lesly David in honor of the Heroes of Independence. Due to the state of emergency declared in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, participation in the ceremony this year was very limited.



Montreal, Quebec (CA) :

Message on the occasion of the 217th anniversary of the independence of Haiti "January 1, 2021 marks the 217th anniversary of the proclamation of the independence of the First Nation formed by rebellious slaves. This achievement has served as a catalyst for the emancipation struggles of many peoples of the world. On this occasion, the Consul General joins the staff of the Mission to invite all members of the Haitian community in Quebec in general and in Montreal in particular to remember and celebrate this gesture which characterizes our courage as well as our pride as a people. free and independent. Let us unite again to honor the courage of the heroes of independence and to move our nation forward," Consulate General of the Republic of Haiti in Montreal.



Wishes 2021

Paris : Consul of Haiti Wedlyne Francois Pierre

"Ms. Wedlyne Francois Pierre, Consul General of Haiti in Paris joins forces with the entire Consulate team to wish the valiant Haitian community a happy New Year with wishes of happiness, health, prosperity and success for the 'year 2021 and Happy Independence Day."



National Ambulance Center :

The Management of the National Ambulance Center (CAN) wishes everyone a 2021 year in peace, in health and with concern for the common good. For our part at CAN, we renew our commitment to provide assistance to the population for their pre-hospital emergency needs. Happy New Year 2021!



Nicolas Duvalier :

"The past year has been fraught with pitfalls. May this New Year be better, may it bring you health, peace, the courage to face the challenges of life. Let us unite to face it together. I wish you my best wishes for 2021," Nicolas Duvalier



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Ruling party candidate and former minister Mohamed Bazoum won the first round of Niger's presidential vote, the electoral commission announced on Saturday with a runoff set for next month.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) said the close ally of outgoing President Mahamadou Issoufou garnered 39.33 percent of the votes at last weekend's election.

Bazoum will face former president Mahamane Ousmane, who won 16.99 percent, for the February 20 runoff in the West African country fighting a bloody jihadist insurgency.

Former prime ministers Seini Oumarou and Albade Abouba respectively came third and fourth with 8.95 percent and 7.07 percent of the ballots.

Turnout reached 69.67 percent or 5.2 million of the 7.4 million registered voters, CENI said.

The 60-year-old Bazoum, who has been both interior and foreign minister, campaigned on promises of improved security and education and had hoped to clinch victory in the first round.

Bazoum's ruling Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism (PNDS) is also leading in the legislative vote held at the same time with 80 of the 165 seats and five diaspora seats remaining to be decided.

The former French colony is also hoping to see a first peaceful handover between elected presidents.

However, insecurity overshadowed campaigning, with Niger battered by jihadists on its southwestern border with Mali as well as the southeastern frontier with Nigeria.

Five years of violence have cost hundreds of lives with many more displaced.

Issoufou, who was elected in 2011 after the country's last coup in 2010, is voluntarily stepping down after two five-year terms.

In a New Year radio address he hailed the election as "a new, successful page in our country's democratic history".

Niger has been unstable since gaining independence 60 years ago and is ranked the world's poorest country in the UN's Human Development Index.

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TUPELO  During the brief time that Timothy Holt declared himself a candidate for mayor of Tupelo, he used some unconventional campaign tactics:
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UPDATE January 2, 2021 1:04 p.m.

Fall River police now say the male victims condition has been upgraded to stable.

A Fall River man was transported to Rhode Island Hospital in critical condition Friday night after he was shot in the groin in an apparent drive-by shooting, police said.

Fall River Police Department spokesman Lt. Jay D. Huard said in a statement that the male victim was discovered by police after reported gunfire near 227 Lawrence St. at about 8:45 p.m. Friday.

Huard called the victims wounds life-threatening.

Investigators said they found evidence that at least 10 shots were fired from a vehicle that then fled the scene.

The incident remains under investigation by Fall River police.
In its most recent exercise of liberal democracy, the state senate of Massachusetts voted 32-8 to override Gov. Charlie Baker's veto of what is called the Roe Act.

One day earlier, Monday, the state house had voted to override.

The Roe Act is now law in the Bay State. And what does it say?

Drafted and adopted to protect a woman's right to an abortion, should Roe vs. Wade be overturned by the Supreme Court, it guarantees 16-year-old girls the right to abort their unborn children, without their parents' consent, through the first 24 weeks of pregnancy.

At 24 weeks, an unborn baby has a 60% to 70% chance of survival.

But the Roe Act covers this problem as well. If the "mental health" of the teenager is imperiled, she can still get an abortion.

Valerie Richardson of The Washington Times quotes the reaction of the state's Catholic Action League. This measure "will reduce the age of parental or judicial consent for minors seeking abortions, remove born alive protections for infants who survived abortion, lower the medical criteria for late term abortions, and make abortions more dangerous for women by allowing [midwives] and nurse practitioners to perform them."

The ACLU, NARAL and Planned Parenthood hailed this as a victory for women's rights.

Speaking for the Catholic Action League, executive director C. J. Doyle blamed Catholic religious officials and Catholic organizations for their failure to rebuke lawmakers who routinely vote for abortion rights.

"None of the Catholics who voted for this life-ending measure will suffer a word of rebuke from any priest or prelate in Massachusetts. ... There will be no articles or editorials critical of them in the Catholic press. No one will be denied Holy Communion. No one will be expelled from the Knights of Columbus."

This silence, said Doyle, "equals consent." And given this silence, "no rational person can reasonably be expected to take seriously Catholic opposition to the killing of the unborn in Massachusetts."

Former New England Patriots' star, Benjamin Watson, a pro-lifer, described the absurdity of what the legislature did. A teenage girl still needs her parents' permission to get a Tylenol from the school nurse, but she doesn't need permission to have an abortion and kill their grandchild.

What the Bay State did, again in an exercise of democracy, raises questions that go beyond normal arguments among Americans on this most divisive of social issues since slavery.

In the 1950s, abortion was regarded as shameful, even criminal, mandating excommunication from the Catholic Church. Abortionists were social outcasts, often prosecuted and punished.

Now, within the span of a lifetime, abortion has been raised, in what was once "God's Country," into a constitutional and a human right.

To be accepted as a "progressive" today, it is almost an imperative to support a woman's right to terminate the life of her unborn child.

Even "devout Catholic" Joe Biden has come around.

He now favors repeal of the Hyde Amendment he had supported in the past, which bars the use of federal funds to pay for abortion except to save the life of the woman or if the pregnancy arises from rape or incest.

Something comparable has happened with homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Also once regarded as shameful, this, too, is now a civil and constitutional right and the LGBT flag flies atop U.S. embassies during Gay Pride Month.

As abortion and homosexuality have become new constitutional rights, the old rights of the First Amendment have taken on new meaning.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" has been interpreted to mean that God, the Bible, the Cross, prayer and Christian symbols all have no place in the schools that educate America's children.

"Freedom of speech" now protects blasphemy and the burning of the American flag.

"Freedom of the press" now protects dissemination of what used to be criminalized as pornography.

In brief, using democratic methods and means, and normal legal and judicial procedures, what was once immoral and even criminal has come to be officially declared both constitutional and morally correct.

Scores of millions in the "silent majority" may yet embrace the old beliefs about right and wrong and good and evil, and what is pro-American and what is not, but the nation has changed.

And it raises an even broader question.

Can moral truth be altered? Can the killing of unborn children, unjust and immoral in Christian teaching and Natural Law, be made right, and moral, if a legislature uses democratic processes to declare it so?

If right and wrong can be changed by plebiscites and political votes what do we do with those who refuse to go along?

Before we go to war again to defend "American values," ought we not be told exactly for what values our soldiers are fighting?

For if "democracy" inevitably produces the consequences we see in America today, what is the argument for killing people to persuade them to embrace it?

COPYRIGHT 2020 CREATORS.COM
Come along as I take the first steps down the path of getting commission army painted.

This has been a long, hard year for many people. Not just our hobby, but for millions of people around the world experiencing the effects of the pandemic. While some of you might know me for my writing of strategy articles, I want to bring you something slightly different from my usual and into something a bit more personal. This will be the start of the 4-part series of my journey through getting an entire army commissioned.

Behold, the power of directional lighting.

I am one of the lucky ones that was not as adversely affected by the pandemic that affected many others. Since I was able to work from home, I was not only lucky enough to keep my job, but save throughout the year to buy myself in the hopes of buying a new computer. My gaming computer has needed an upgrade for quite some time now and I committed myself at the start of the year to save up and buy a new one. However, just as new-gen offerings were coming online, the global stock for some of these items have been completed wiped out. With most of the parts from my computer unavailable, I knew my chances for getting a new gaming rig was slim.

Gaming, and more specifically Tabletop has been a very important thing to me growing up. It is a chance for me to get together with friends, socialize and enjoy a fantasy world where I can think of other things outside of school, work and general hardship. While I can go on about the mental effects of quarantine and prolonged social distancing, it is still one of our best defenses against a global pandemic. However, this meant that I havent been able to play a single game of 9th Ed. 40K as most of the launch parties in my areas were canceled, and most of my friends share the same mindset of staying at home to protect their families. Most of the tabletop clubs in my areas have been closed for months now with little signs of reopening. While some players have tried going online with Tabletop Simulator, I can tell you right now that its just not the same. Nothing beats interacting in-person and talking smack with your best mates over beer and pretzels.

With tabletop taking a backseat in my life, it was out of complete chance that I stumbled upon an army being sold on Facebook. My jaw dropped. Not just a little, but to the floor.

The Magnificence of Tzeentch

Even without looking at the price, I couldnt help but notice that this wasnt your regular Tzeentch army. There was no vibrant blues or outlandish greens, no crazy saturation of colors or shocking hues. Instead, this army was painted in a way that Ive never seen Tzeentch interpreted before. It was painted with dark grey with subtle shades of other colors that are dull at first, if not for the burning representation of Tzeentchs sacred pink fire. However, on closer inspection, even the fire looked.. different. These werent just layers of paint that have been masterfully airbrushed, but rather the representation of fire and flame given life through directional lighting. The colors themselves demonstrated that light and temperature shared a mutual respect, not that Tzeentch cares about such mortal constraints. This wasnt just a beautifully painted army, this was artistic expression and to have such signature colors work in contrast with the darker vision of what Tzeentch is was nothing less than sublime. Forget (a harsher word was used) the gaming computer I thought to myself, I needed this piece of history in my life. In the 20 years that Ive been in this hobby, I dont think Ive ever acted this hastily.

Gaunt Summoner on Disk

I immediately contacted the artist and asked about the army. Unfortunately for me, I was not the first and I can only imagine the bid the army eventually went for. Part of me was insanely jealous imagining the delight of the person who won it, but another part of me was happy that the army went to a happy home. However, I was unsatisfied with the outcome and loss and was thirsty to know more about the artist. I needed to ask about his other works and other opportunities if there were any. To my surprise, the artist was quick to respond and after some friendly banter, was able to talk to me more about the Tzeentch army he just sold and what techniques he used to achieve such magnificent results. When talking with the artist, he defines the technique he employs as the Grimdark style of painting Warhammer. While we all know Grimdark to be the tagline of Warhammers lore and universe, I never thought it was captured in the painting in terms of both look and atmosphere. The artist describes the method as Dark realism with fantastical elements. When expressed artistically, it is in the form of darker greys with vigorous displays of color that accents each models significance. Emotionally, it is the sound of eerie silence playing harmoniously with Viking Death Metal. That is truly something I can get behind.

Necron Doomstalker

After a few nights of back and forth conversation, I discovered more and more about the artist. I found out that the artist sold the army to help fund his new commission paint studio lovingly called Gravehammer Miniatures to represent his style of painting. His name is Teemu Sihvonen and he wanted to turn his hobby into a new career. I also found out that Teemu wanted this change after working on the frontlines as a nurse in Finland when COVID hit. He was one the first to respond and care for the sick like many of the first responders around the world. After months of mentally and physically exhausting work; treating those dying of the disease with minimal PPE while having a scarcity of supplies, it started to wear on him. He wanted to work on something that was more uplifting, and what was a great hobby of his. While I greatly admire this mans dedication and devotion to the heathcare of many, Im also wondering if this grim experience in life is what gives him so much power and emotion behind his painted miniatures. After all, art is just another expression of ones self.

Teemu Sihvonen, Owner of Gravehammer Miniatures.

This year, like I said when I opened has been difficult for many. However, Teemu has remained positive throughout all that he experienced and started building an online portfolio based on his love to paint as a form of escape. It helped him de-stress with work, just like I have with gaming, and like many of you who share in this great hobby together. He set goals, and every day, he painted something just to improve on his technique and mastery over the grimdark style of painting, as well as OSL (Object Source Lighting), color dissonance, and other advanced skills. Over time, this gave him the confidence to take on a few commissions and even managed to win Best Painted at his local shop for his Nurgle army before the pandemic got too real.

Chaos Lord on Karkadrak

Needless to say, hard work does pay off. After I browsed through more of his work, and after I wiped off the drool from my mouth, I was sold. We talked for a few more nights (well, for me in California vs. his morning in Finland) and I decided that the gaming computer can wait indefinitely. I wanted to personally work with Teemu on creating an army that would take advantage of my strategic mind and list building prowess, and have him bring it to life with his grimdark style of masterful painting. We struck up a deal and in my next article, we will dive into the army that I have chosen, the details behind the commission itself (painting grades..etc) and some tutorial videos from Teemu himself on how to paint in the Grimdark style. For a teaser of whats to come, the army I chose can be played in both 40K and AOS.

We would be thrilled for you all to join us in this adventure together. Until next time!

For more updates of Teemus work, his tutorials, or for any commission questions, please follow him on:

Instagram & Facebook

Miniatures images courtesy of Gravehammer Miniatures
Gerry McGovern is not a man given to hyperbole so when the long serving GAA official warns of the consequences facing clubs and county boards, it is wise to pay heed to his words as the Cloone man warns of a potential disaster facing the organisation he has served for so long.

A sombre financial outlook at this years Leitrim GAA County Board Convention prompted the current Connacht GAA President and former Leitrim County Board chairman to chat to the Observer about the crisis facing the GAA at every level.

While Dublin celebrate their historic six in a row, the wider GAA fraternity face a financial crisis, Gerry told the Observer, As this is the time, when Clubs plan their programmes for the year ahead, a time when they appoint their team management and backroom teams, it is vital that we take cognisance of their financial situation.

They say that money is the root of all evil, unfortunately for the GAA it is the lack of finance that is going to be the biggest headache for our National organisation at all levels. The ravages of Covid 19 have a trail of financial disaster for GAA at Club, County Provincial and National level.

Big headlines about organisations losing millions and revenues being lost give you the big picture but Gerry worries about the impact at a much lower level, the impact on clubs struggling to survive!

The financial consequences of the Covid pandemic has denied GAA clubs, and indeed County Boards of all avenues of fundraising, whether it be gate receipts, the weekly lotto draw, the sale of yearly tickets or any of the various novelty fundraising that have kept GAA club afloat in the past.

Quite a number of GAA Clubs will have difficulty in finding the necessary funds to affiliate their respective teams in the present situation, warns the long serving official.

And it is not a situation Gerry sees improving in the short term: With the present Covid restrictions, and the possibility of further restrictions, GAA clubs or County Boards cannot realistically expect the same level of sponsorship that they have enjoyed in the past.

During the early stages of Covid 19 restrictions in 2020, all GAA activity came to a halt, and there was serious doubt about whether we would have any GAA activity at all in 2020. Were it not for Government funding, we would certainly not have an All-Ireland Series, and doubts would be cast over the running of internal County competitions as well.

While this Government funding has been a life blood to the GAA activities, we certainly cannot be guaranteed that this funding will be available for the year ahead, and if it is not available, it will put question marks over whether we can have any form of GAA activity at all.

The financial impact on Croke Park means that clubs and counties cannot expect GAA headquarters to bail them out: Expectations of funding from Croke Park is ill advised because the projected losses for the Association for 2020 is in the region of 35 million and if the restrictions continue, which they are likely to, losses to the National association could be even greater.

The GAA nationally is not in a position to fund any developments at any level and this in effect will have huge complications for all GAA activities throughout the Country.

The Provincial President also called on the Government to continue their funding but warned that the Association face a bleak future if funding does not become available: Government and GAA funding kept the pulse beating during 2020 and if this is not available in the year ahead, we are looking at a very bleak future for the association in the year ahead.

The provision of Gaelic games is so vitality important to the fabric of rural Ireland, and we all saw that during the recent lockdown, so it is now more important that Government funding is made available so we can all enjoy our Calendar of Gaelic games at all levels.

McGovern concludes by urging clubs and County Boards to ensure that all aspects of expenditure is examined to ensure that they are not spending money they simply do not have: Never before do we need to scrutinise our expenditure in the minutest detail.

Like never before, all aspects of expenditure on GAA activities need to carefully scrutinised and vigilantly applied only to what is vitally necessary, because if you spend what you havent got or likely to get you will accumulate a financial crisis further down the road that nobody will want to be associated with, and this will have major consequence for our great organisation.

Wise words and words to act on now.
US: 1,100 pounds of methamphetamine found in watermelons

Tesla owners will be paid $ 16,000 each due to slow charging

Advisor to Armenia Prosecutor General provides details about incident with Armenian soldier killed in Verin Shorzha

Banksy's painting of punk Lenin sold at auction in Hong Kong for $ 960,000

CSTO Deputy Secretary-General: Escalation on Armenia-Azerbaijan border requires undertaking of urgent measures

Catholicos of All Armenians receives newly appointed Ambassador of Japan

Australia closing its embassy in Kabul for security reasons

Biden to discuss issues related to Belarus and Ukraine with Putin

Armenian acting FM meets with ambassadors of CSTO member states accredited to Armenia

Armenia Ombudsman presents human rights protection in post-war period to CoE Programmes Directorate General

Germany is investigating Google's position in market

France: Sanctions against Belarus will continue

Armenia opposition party MP: Azerbaijan is a terrorist state, negotiations can't be led with such a country

US to reopen its Consulate General in Jerusalem

EU expects to receive over 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine by end of September

Armenian MFA strongly condemns Azerbaijan's blatant armed encroachment on Armenia's sovereign territory

UN still awaits strong evidence that Dubai ruler's daughter is alive

Opposition Bright Armenia Party urges Government to immediately address UN Security Council

Armen Sarkissian receives Russia Ambassador to Armenia

Armenia President, France Ambassador discuss situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border

Overchuk: We hope unblocking of links between Armenia and Azerbaijan is a success

Armenia police officer commits suicide, criminal case launched

Armenia Environmental Protection and Mining Inspection Body has new deputy heads

Zarif, Aliyev discuss railway routes connecting Iran, Azerbaijan and Armenia

EU leaders agree to donate at least 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to poor countries

Armenian serviceman Mher Hovhannisyan fires gunshot at his head, criminal case launched

Soldier who died in Armenia's Verin Shorzha was son of ARF-D member, father of 2

Blinken promises to continue close consultations with Israel on Iran

Armen Sarkissian: Armenia's relevant state institutions need to take the tightest measures

Armenian soldier commits suicide, opposition speaks on tense situation on border, 25.05.21 digest

Yerevan man's body found at Tatul Krpeyan Park

Armenia MOD: Reports about Armenian soldiers being injured in Sisian section of border not confirmed

EU summit calls for rarly implementation of vaccination certificates

Parliament of the Netherlands adopts resolution, EU must demand that Azerbaijan pull out troops from Armenia

Kremlin: Russian and US presidents to meet in Geneva on June 16

Spokesperson of community council of Armenia's Sisian: Men got enlisted and climbed to military posts

Bright Armenia Party: We are not satisfied with CSTO response

EU leaders urge council to review internal border guidelines by mid-June

Armenia MOD: Fixed-term serviceman receives lethal firearm injury in head area

Dollar still stable in Armenia

Armenian Catholic Catholicos-Patriarch passes away

Kathimerini: US seeks to increase military presence in Greece due to doubts about Turkey's reliability

US Congress members call on Biden to suspend all military assistance to Azerbaijan

Armenia acting economy minister receives Montenegro's newly appointed Ambassador

Armenia MOD: Soldier killed during shootings from Azerbaijani side in Verin Shorzha

Russian MP: Azerbaijani leadership interested in Armenia acting PM's victory in snap elections

Armenia MOD reports shooting from Azerbaijani side in Verin Shorzha border section

Armenia opposition MP: Authorities promised to separate business from politics, but they're failing to fulfill promise

There will be post-election processes if authorities try to rig voting, says Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan

CNN: Putin and Biden will meet on June 15-16 in Geneva

Latin America has the highest poverty rate in 20 years

Ex-President Kocharyan on Armenia applying to CSTO: No one will help you if you do nothing to solve your problems

Armenia ruling Civil Contract Party presents list of first 10 candidates ahead of snap parliamentary elections

Armenia acting justice minister discusses broad range of cooperation issues with top CoE official

Armenia former President Kocharyan: This guilt, this criminal article is on these authorities

Man survives after spending 17 days in desert

Azerbaijan continues course towards systematic extermination of Armenian heritage in Shushi

Armenia Syunik Province ex-governor: Azerbaijani soldiers advanced along length of border two days ago

Newly appointed Ambassador of Montenegro presents Letters of Credence to Armenia President

Its about bringing Karabakh issue back to right to self-determination, says Armenia ex-President Kocharyan

Iran FM to arrive in Armenia

Ara Aivazian and Austrian counterpart hold phone talks, focus on Azeri army's infiltration into Armenia's territory

Kocharyan: Elect todays political team if you are ready to live squatting

Jean-Michel Basquiat's painting sold at auction in Hong Kong for $ 30 million

2nd President Kocharyan on Armenia Security Council chief: Do you take that person seriously?

"Key" to settlement of Karabakh conflict cant be in one place, says Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan

Texas may permit carrying of pistols without special permission

Ex-President Kocharyan on Armenia acting PM Pashinyan's high popularity rating: We will wear it down to the root

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Election bloc format must be workable in some logical sense

Attorney: Political persecution against Robert Kocharyan is becoming more noticeable during election campaign

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: We must do everything so that our domestic politics is not dictated by Azerbaijan

Armenian acting defense minister meets Russian peacekeeping mission chief

Congress predicts US nuclear spending to reach $ 634 billion by 2030

Russian MP: The effectiveness of military cooperation with Armenia depends on Yerevan as well

Delimitation now may create some problems in Karabakh negotiation process, says Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan on relations with 3rd President Sargsyan: We go our own way they go their own

Judge adjourns hearing over case of Armenia 2nd President and ex-Deputy PM for 3 weeks

Court hearing over case of Armenia 2nd President and ex-Deputy PM

2nd President Kocharyan: Armenia must show that it will not be subjected to such pressures

Kocharyan: You may find yourself in stupid situations if you come to negotiations without any baggage

Armenia Investigative Committee: Criminal case opened into soldiers death

157 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

EU helps UN World Food Programme provide humanitarian assistance for conflict-affected people in Armenia

Yerevan municipal council convenes regular session

Armenia legislature speaker on situation at Syunik Province: CSTO still has procedures

Blinken arrives on his first official visit to Israel

World oil prices going up

Provincial hall issues statement on Tavush section of Armenia border with Azerbaijan

MFA statement: Azerbaijan continues to use Armenian POWs as political hostages

Newspaper: There are last-minute changes on Armenia ruling party electoral list

Armenia parliament starts regular sessions

Newspaper: Armenia 3rd President Sargsyan intensively engaged in election campaign

EU leaders call for ban on Belarus airlines flights to their countries

Quake hits Georgia, also felt in Armenia

2nd President Kocharyan: Process of obtaining Armenia citizenship shall be simplified, shall take only few months

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A federal judge in Texas has dismissed a long-shot lawsuit by Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, that sought to overturn the presidential election, saying neither the congressman nor his allies have legal standing to pursue the case.

The judge's Friday night ruling tosses out what many election law experts considered a far-fetched theory to challenge the formal mechanism by which President-elect Joe Biden will be affirmed as the winner of the race for president.

U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle issued an order dismissing the case because, he found, neither Gohmert nor his fellow plaintiffs have a sufficient legal stake in the process to justify the lawsuit. Kernodle was nominated to the federal bench by President Donald Trump.

The judge's ruling comes less than 12 hours after lawyers for Gohmert filed court papers arguing that Vice President Mike Pence has far more power than the government claims to alter the outcome of the presidential election. It was not immediately clear if Gohmert's legal team plans to appeal the decision.

Kernodle wrote that previous court cases make clear that an individual member of Congress cannot sue for a harm supposedly done to the larger legislature. Additionally, the judge found, Gohmert's claim of harm is a series of hypothetical scenarios stacked on top of each other, further undercutting any authority for the court to intervene.

"Plaintiffs presuppose what the Vice President will do on January 6, which electoral votes the Vice President will count or reject from contested states, whether a Representative and a Senator will object under Section 15 of the Electoral Count Act, how each member of the House and Senate will vote on any such objections, and how each state delegation in the House would potentially vote under the Twelfth Amendment absent a majority electoral vote. All that makes Congressman Gohmert's alleged injury far too uncertain to support standing," the judge wrote.

In response to a Justice Department request to reject the suit, the Friday filing by Gohmert's legal team accused the government of trying to "hide behind procedural arguments." Gohmert's lawyers contended that arguments made by the Justice Department and Congress - that the suit upends long-established procedures and that Pence is an inappropriate target for the suit - are unfounded.

"They say that the Vice President, the glorified envelope-opener in chief, has no authority to preside over anything else or to decide anything of substance or to even count the votes in those weighty envelopes. He is only the envelope-opener," Gohmert's filing states.

Gohmert claimed the vice president has the power to effectively pick the next president during the formal recording of electoral college votes by Congress on Wednesday. Pence oversees that ceremony and, as president of the Senate, has the power to declare Biden electors in a handful of key states invalid and instead recognize electors supporting President Trump, the filing contends.

Pence "may count elector votes certified by a state's executive, or he can prefer a competing slate of duly qualified electors. He may ignore all electors from a certain state. That is the power bestowed upon him by the Constitution," the filing states.

Gohmert and a number of Republicans in Arizona filed the suit in Texas, arguing that an 1887 law governing how Congress certifies presidential elections is unconstitutional. They argue that the Constitution gives the vice president discretion to determine which states' electors are valid for choosing the president of the United States.

While experts agree that 19th century law is vague and confusing, it has never before been challenged; it has been accepted by officials in both parties for more than 130 years as establishing a process in which voters choose electors who choose the president. This past year, 81 million voters supported Biden, earning him 306 electoral college votes to Trump's 232.

In a Thursday night filing, a Justice Department lawyer wrote on Pence's behalf that the case is "a walking legal contradiction," because Gohmert has sued Pence seeking to give Pence more power. If Gohmert and his allies want to make such a claim, the Justice Department argued, they should sue Congress, not Pence.

Lawyers for the House of Representatives also asked the judge to reject the Gohmert suit, arguing that it called for "a radical departure from our constitutional procedures and consistent legislative practices" and would "authorize the Vice President to ignore the will of the Nation's voters."

While the court ruling short-circuits for the time being the legal challenge to next week's joint session, the political drama within the Republican party is likely to intensify in the coming days.

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., called the effort to use the congressional process to reverse Biden's electoral college victory a "dangerous ploy," underscoring the challenge Trump faces in persuading even members of his own party to join it.

Sasse wrote to his constituents that there is no evidence of outcome-altering voter fraud and said he has urged his colleagues to reject "a project to overturn the election."

"All the clever arguments and rhetorical gymnastics in the world won't change the fact that this January 6th effort is designed to disenfranchise millions of Americans simply because they voted for someone in a different party," Sasse wrote on Facebook. "We ought to be better than that."

Sasse has been far more willing to criticize Trump than most of his GOP colleagues, but even so, his staunch opposition highlights the nearly certain futility of the president's efforts to hang on to power.

On the other side of the GOP, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., announced he will object next week when Congress convenes to certify the electoral college vote, a move that would force a contentious floor debate that top Senate Republicans had hoped to avoid.

Trump has repeatedly and falsely suggested that the ceremonial milestone offers a last-ditch way to reverse the election results and is urging Republicans to join such efforts.

But to succeed, Trump would not only have to prevail in the Republican-led Senate but also in the House, which is controlled by Democrats.

The objections would come during a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. According to the Constitution, Pence will read aloud electoral college votes cast in each state in December.

Any member of the House, joined by a senator, can object to a state's electoral college votes, prompting two hours of debate in each chamber, followed by a vote on the challenge.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and other leading Republicans have discouraged members of their caucus from challenging the electoral college vote, conceding that the move would fail but could drag out the process through lengthy debate and force Republicans to take an awkward vote.

A number of other Senate Republicans have acknowledged Biden's victory, and several - including Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania and Mitt Romney of Utah - said this week they plan to oppose any challenge to the electoral college vote.

Hawley, meanwhile, who is believed to be contemplating a run for president in 2024 and is eager to garner support among Trump's base, began citing his plans in fundraising appeals for his campaign committee Thursday.

More Republicans are expected to sign on to challenges in the House, but their relatively small numbers there mean the effort will likely amount to little more than a show of loyalty to Trump.

Seven House Republicans from Pennsylvania on Thursday issued a joint statement indicating they plan to contest the results from their own state, blaming the Democratic governor, secretary of state and a "rogue Pennsylvania Supreme Court" for Biden winning more votes.

They did not allege fraud but complained about several issues involving the administration of the state's elections. Similar complaints have already been litigated in state and federal courts in Pennsylvania, and the Republican-led legislature declined to interfere with the certified results, which showed that Biden defeated Trump by more than 81,000 votes in the state.
Five teens and two young men were involved in a 'serious and frightening' public order incident where a male teen was attacked, kicked and dragged to the ground in a fast food restaurant, it has been alleged, at Balbriggan District Court.

Frank Carbraley (19) is accused of being the main instigator of the public order incident which resulted in customers and young children fleeing the scene into the restaurant's toilets.

It is alleged a fight broke out at McDonalds in Balbriggan, Co Dublin and the injured party was 'attacked by a number of males, dragged to the ground and had his wallet stolen,' Balbriggan District Court heard.

Carbraley, of Cardy Rock Square in Balbriggan, is charged with assault causing harm to Pelumi Adedokum and affray at McDonalds at Millfield Shopping Centre on June 8, 2019.

The six other accused - Jason Cerfas (18) of Clonuske Park, Mount Rochford in Balbriggan, Sean Forde (19) of Bath Road, Balbriggan, Dare Olabode (19) of Chapel Grove in Balbriggan, David Opako (19) of Cardy Rock, Balbriggan, Milik Gazal (20) of Ashfield Rise, Balbriggan and Bill Sosso (20) of Cardy Rock in Balbriggan are all charged with affray on the same date.

Sergeant Patricia McGarrity outlined the alleged facts of the case for Judge Dermot Dempsey to consider jurisdiction of the case.

Sgt McGarrity said it is alleged that one the date gardai were dispatched to McDonalds following a report of a fight breaking out.

'The injured party was allegedly attacked by a number of males and allegedly dragged to the ground and allegedly had his wallet stolen,' said Sgt McGarrity.

'Frank Carbraley is alleged to have been the main instigator,' the Sergeant said, adding that it is alleged a number of customers and young children ran from the scene into the toilets.

Sgt McGarrity said a medical report shows the alleged injured party received a 1cm laceration to his lower leg, a 5cm laceration to his ear and soft tissue injuries.

'It is alleged it was a very serious and frightening event,' said Sgt McGarrity.

On hearing the alleged facts, Judge Dempsey accepted jurisdiction of the case and remanded the seven accused on continuing bail until February 11 next for a plea or a date for the hearing of the case to be fixed.

Fingal Independent
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The Pallister government made the right call this week, reversing plans to hold back doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Opinion

The Pallister government made the right call this week, reversing plans to hold back doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Manitoba will administer most doses as they come in, and rely on future shipments for follow-up boosters, Premier Brian Pallister said Wednesday.

The decision was part of a growing consensus in Canada that using a just-in-time supply strategy to get as many needles into arms as possible will save more lives. Like most provinces, Manitoba was holding back half its doses for the required second shot (some three to four weeks later).

New research emerged last week that found the benefits of frontloading vaccine deployment outweighed the risks of not having enough supply for follow-up immunizations. Between that, a statement from the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (that provinces should make their own decisions on it), and a firming up of vaccine supply, the decision to change course became more obvious.

Like most aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, time was of the essence. Ontario made the switch Monday; Manitoba two days later; Quebec followed suit Thursday.

British Columbia chose frontloading from Day 1.

Under Manitobas new plan, the province plans to keep a one-week supply to guard against short-term shipment delays. Its a prudent move.

Given the circumstances, accelerating the roll-out seems to be the smartest way to proceed. It could make the difference between immunizing thousands of at-risk people early, or leaving them vulnerable to serious illness and death.

There are risks: a significant breakdown in the supply chain could mean a delay in administering second doses.

Theres little available data on what impact such an issue would have, especially if the delay is only a week or two. It could have little or no effect on efficacy; its a risk, but a calculated one.

The bigger risk seems to be the opportunity cost of not vaccinating more people early. Thats something senior officials in government, including Pallister, were keenly aware of when they made this latest decision.

Imagine having thousands of doses sitting in a freezer for three to four weeks while people are dying of COVID-19 in personal care homes?

Theres little doubt political pressure played a role in the reversal; this wasn't solely a public health decision.

On Tuesday, acting deputy chief provincial public health officer Dr. Jazz Atwal said the province had no plans to change its roll-out policy. The next day, Pallister announced the reversal.

As much as public health officials like to pretend they make decisions independent of political considerations, it doesnt work that way. Final approval for any major decision rests with the premier and cabinet (as it should), whether its deciding what pandemic restrictions to impose or when to lift them.

The premier takes the hit when things go sour, and gets credit when they dont; hes not about to divorce himself from the decision-making process. Cabinet members were elected to make decisions on behalf of Manitobans and are expected to apply their judgement.

In this case, questions were rightly raised about why Manitoba wasnt following the path of Ontario and B.C., given the new research. Manitoba already has the second-highest COVID-19 deaths per capita in the country. It needs to do a better job of protecting its most vulnerable.

While reported cases of COVID-19 have come down in recent weeks, hospital numbers have declined only modestly. There were still 111 patients in intensive care units as of Thursday morning (37 were COVID-19 cases), not far off from a peak of just over 120 a few weeks ago.

With an expected surge in cases after Christmas and New Years Eve, Manitoba isnt exactly entering the post-holiday season in a position of strength; ergo the need to get vaccinations rolling as quickly as possible.

Manitobans will be well-served by this decision.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca
New Delhi:

Defying the separatists bandh call, nearly 800 Kashmiri youths on Sunday appeared in the Armys common entrance exam in the Valley, which has been hit by fresh protests following the killing of Hizbul militant Sabzar Bhat.

Curfew-like restrictions were imposed in many parts of the Valley to maintain law and order in the wake of violence sparked by Bhats killing and the two-day shutdown called by separatist conglomerate the Hurriyat Conference.

Major General AK Singh said 799 candidates appeared on Sunday in the common entrance examination for selection of junior commissioned officers and other ranks held at Pattan and Srinagar.

J&K: 799/815 selected candidates appeared in Common Entrance Exam for Indian Army Junior Commissioned Officrs&other ranks at Srinagar&Pattan pic.twitter.com/vac1MdeMS7  ANI (@ANI_news) May 28, 2017

It is a clear rejection of regressive bandh calls for choosing a brighter future, the official said.

Kashmiri youths appeared in exam with enthusiasm.I'm hopeful,with our efforts,we'll be able to guide thm in right direction-Maj Gen AK Singh pic.twitter.com/SntocNBaFv  ANI (@ANI_news) May 28, 2017

He said 16 of the 815 candidates, who had passed the physical and medicals tests held earlier, did not turn up for the written exam.

Several parts of the Kashmir Valley were on the boil after security forces inflicted heavy damage on militants, killing eight of them, including Bhat, who had succeeded Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani following his killing last July.

Violence erupted yesterday at more than 50 places in the Valley including in Srinagar and Tral as stone-pelting youths were out on streets attacking security forces.

Also Read | 2016 holds highest record of Kashmiri youths who joined militancy, infiltration tripled: Hansraj Ahir

Wanis killing had sparked a long spell of unrest in the Valley last year.

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The covid-19 pandemic has disrupted nearly every aspect of human existence. Lifestyle changes during the lockdown made some happier, others not so much. The latest YouGov-Mint-CPR Millennial Survey found that family relationships improved largely, yet many are no longer excited about working from home. Stress levels and anxiety shot up for youngsters and a majority longed to meet friends or go on holidays.

The survey, held in October and November, asked a range of questions about life during the lockdown to nearly 10,000 respondents across 203 cities and towns of the country. Income, age and gender had a significant role in how Indians reacted to some of the shocks of the pandemic, the survey found.

First, the positives. A majority of respondents (62%) felt that their relations with family members had improved since the lockdown. Engagement with nature increased for most and so did concern for personal health. Post-millennial respondents were more likely to report an improvement on these two counts, the survey data showed.

Nostalgia for the pre-covid life was clear among urban Indians. Nearly everyone said they had missed some aspect of social life during the lockdown. Meeting with friends and family topped this list, but more than 40% respondents also reported missing going to work or college. The older generation, or pre-millennials, were more likely than post-millennials to miss social gatherings with friends and family. This generation was also more likely to miss travel and going on vacations.

The survey was conducted jointly by the Indian arm of the global market research firm YouGov, Mint, and the Delhi-based think tank Centre for Policy Research (CPR). Roughly half of the respondents were millennials (aged 24-39). The rest were post-millennials (aged 18-23) and pre-millennials (above 39). This was the fifth of a series of bi-annual surveys aimed at examining the aspirations, anxieties and attitudes of Indias digital natives.

While social life stopped during the lockdown, work did not. The remote-work reality has led to far-reaching changes in organizational strategies, some of which may outlive the current crisis.

Out of the 5,842 respondents who were employed, more than half were still working from home at the time of the survey. This was true for most sectors, but particularly so for workers in the information technology, media, and education spaces. Sectors such as retail, healthcare, automobile, and utilities were exceptions to this trend.

Women were more likely than men to be still continuing with remote work arrangements. While 23% of the male respondents had returned to full-time physical office, this share was 15% for women.

However, the experience of working from home was not particularly positive for everyone.

Fewer than half (45%) want the practice to continue. The household environment indeed made work safer for most people, but also led to greater office workload (81%), with 60% reporting difficulty in striking a balance with household chores.

No sector-wise trends were evident to suggest that dissatisfaction was exclusive to any specific kinds of jobs. There were no income-related patterns either. Nearly all classes felt similarly burdened.

View Full Image Source: YouGov-Mint-CPR Millenial Survey, Oct-Nov 2020

However, there was one noticeable trend. Those still working from home felt better about remote work than those who were back to the office full time. This indicates that the choice may have been voluntary after the lockdowns were lifted and those who disliked the experience have returned to normal workday routines.

Post-millennials had a worse experience on nearly all fronts of remote work than pre-millennials. Men were nearly as likely as women (around 40%) to agree that work-from-home had brought them new ways of digital harassment. Age was an important factor here. Post-millennial men (45%) were far more likely to have felt such virtual harassment than older men (29%). However, for women, the responses were similar across age groups.

Globally, these new experiences at work and in personal life have raised anxiety levels since the lockdown. The survey confirmed this trend among urban Indians, too. Eight in 10 respondents felt some form of increased anxiety. The worry was financial in nature for more than 60%, while loneliness crept in for 46% of the respondents. More than half the respondents reported feeling anxious in general.

Respondents who earn less reported greater worry about money or employment. Loneliness, though, was more a function of age. Post-millennials were nearly 10 percentage points more likely to feel lonely as compared to pre-millennials.

The anxiety has shown in how people feel about their mental health. More than a quarter (28%) of the respondents felt it had worsened in the pandemic period. There was some age-wise difference here, as the figure varied from 25% for pre-millennials to 29% for post-millennials. Among those who felt more lonely or more worried, this figure was as high as 40%. Across age and gender groups, post-millennial women were most likely to report a deterioration in mental health.

View Full Image Source: YouGov-Mint-CPR Millenial Survey, Oct-Nov 2020

However, only 30% of the respondents who found themselves in poorer mental health sought some form of trained professional help such as counselling. This figure was remarkably stable across regions, genders, and age groups. The often-ignored but widespread mental health fallout of the pandemic has highlighted the abysmal lack of awareness and access to trained professionals.

Socio-cultural changes of the covid-era can have far-reaching consequences. Architectural designs of office and home spaces, and technological shifts in how we communicate, are already underway to ensure efficiency and health safety. As the new year begins, its clear that many of the effects could continue spilling over to the family space, office relations, and social life.

This is the third of a five-part data journalism series on how the pandemic has impacted Indias digital natives. The first part looked at the unequal impact of job and income losses in urban India, and the second part looked at how Indians are tackling financial insecurity.

The authors are based at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi.

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The Emoji Story

As a little Chinese American girl growing up in New York City, my parents taught me Mandarin characters, handwritten with thick black marker on white index cards. These characters were drilled into me before I learned my ABCsor even became aware there even were ABCs.

The kids level of Chinese characters mapped the simple concepts to the physical world that I was still exploring as a child. Mom and dad taught me  (kou) means mouth, wide open like ready to swallow something. And  (huo) means fire, with flames licking upwards.  (mu) means wood, because it looks like a tree. And then you combine them and get new meanings. Two trees are a forest, or  (lin). Combining the characters for sun, (ri) , and moon,  (yue), together make  (ming), which means bright.

As we got slightly older, we were sent to Chinese school on Saturday mornings (so many hours of morning cartoons lost to classroom time!). Without encountering gender theory, or before I even knew there was a word gender, my 6-year-old mind quickly grasped that all was not right with the way women were treated by Chinese characters.

Female, or  (nu), is one of the first and most useful characters you learn in Chinese. It looks like a woman curtsying, legs elegantly crossed. I spent a long time, pencil in grubby hand, trying to get all the angles and proportions just right, because it is embedded all over the characters.

One of the most used characters in Chinese is  (hao). It is female with a child,  (zi), specifically a boy child. One would think this could mean mother, or maybe family.

But no,  means good. Hard-coded into everyday Chinese language is that the benchmark for that which is good is a woman who has a young son.

There is  (an), a female underneath a roof. One would think it means home, or family, or even wife. But no. The character  means peace or tranquil.

In other words, subliminally we are taught, as we learn our characters, that things are at peace when a woman is at home. The word for home or family is actually a  (jia), a pig underneath a roof. In other words, home and family is where you keep your pigs.

Story continues

By the time my critical theory vocabulary and feminist sensibilities matured, I grew more horrified at the way that sexism was perniciously woven into Chinese characters. Three female characters together () mean evila misguided notion that spans from ancient China, to the witches in Shakespeares Macbeth, to modern-day Mean Girls. The characters for greedy (), jealousy (), and slave () all incorporate the female radical, .

This was my framework of how language subliminally shaped perception when I dove into emoji for the first time in 2015, indignant that the organization that sets the standards for emoji was a nonprofit organization dominated by large U.S. multinational tech companiesthe Unicode Consortium. The decision-makers at Unicode, as I observed looking at their website, skewed more male, older, whiter, and more engineer-y than the population that was using this curated visual global language.

How Porn Stars Are Dealing With Facebook and Instagrams Sexual Emoji Crackdown

The shortcomings of the decision-making infrastructure seeped into emoji, I was convinced. For example, there were many jobs and occupations for men in the emoji keyboardpolice officers, detectives, Buckingham Palace guards, or even Santa Claus. But as of 2015, the only four roles that women had were Dancer, Bride, Princess, and Playboy Bunny. The original Unicode emoji was cobbled together from sets designed by the Japanese telecommunications companies, and this was the way women were expressed in Japanese culture.

This gender constraint on women in emoji generated a great deal of public frustration, captured by a New York Times op-ed and a viral commercial from Always featuring teenage girls confused by the dearth of female role models.

But the emoji-loving community has since mobilized. A team at Google rapidly shepherded the proposal for additional female (and male) professional roles, leading to icons that could represent farmers, teachers, doctors, judges, pilots, and astronauts that arrived in 2016. A designer at Adobe, Paul Hunt, pushed for non-gender binary emoji, which have now arrived on our devices in force (including Mx. Claus and merperson!). And Houston mother and entrepreneur, Katrina Parrott, was originally the catalyst for the addition of five-skin tones to emojis, inspired by her daughter who wanted emoji that looked like her.

We also created Emojination, a grassroots group with the motto emoji by the people, for the people and a mission to advocate for more representative and inclusive emoji. As such, we helped a 15-year-old Saudi Arabian girl, Rayouf Alhumedhi, lead the charge for a hijab emoji, which arrived on devices worldwide in 2017. Then a Palo Alto, California-based mother of three girls (now four), Florie Hutchinson, contacted us, indignant that all the womens shoe emojieven the boot and sandalshad heels. As a woman who had spent much of the recent years of her life pregnant and in flats, she wanted a shoe that represented her footwear experience. She drove that and the one-piece bathing suit.

One of the trickiest emoji issues about gender advocacy has been around menstruation. A number of proposalsacross companies, advocacy groups, and private citizenshave landed in Unicodes inbox pressing on how a dedicated emoji could reduce the stigma around menstruation around the world. Their proposed images included bloody underwear, tampons, and bloat. In the end, Unicode passed a single blood drop, an atomic character which, in combination with other characters, could get the meaning across.

Saudi teen Rayouf Alhumedhi in The Emoji Story The Emoji Story

Why are so many people so passionate about the representation on the emoji set? There is a lot of attention paid to diversity on the Big Screen of Hollywood movies and Netflix television shows. Intuitively, people understand that attention needs to be paid to representation on the small screen on our devices, that to be represented on the emoji keyboard is to feel seen. One of our Emojination members, a Black American woman married to an Indian man, said she cried when she saw the interracial couple emoji arrive on her keyboard because it was an official recognition of her relationship and love.

And unlike the complexity of Hollywoods studios and greenlighting process, the process around emoji is less expensive, open to public submissions, but also bureaucratic in its own technical way. It is a process thatup to a certain extentcan be navigated. Though there are hurdles that remain, especially with flags of non-countries.

What motivates me is seeing my friends children grow up wholly digitally nativea generation of kids who are learning to read and write in emoji before they can read and write in their own native language. Yes, they are often just sending hearts, rainbows, flowers, and unicorns to grandma and grandpa. But having the panoply of emoji images at the tips of their chubby fingers signals to them that the concepts are important, that they matter even if they are not ones they immediately understand as a 4-year-old. That hijabs matter, that interracial couples matter, that non-gender binary matter.

Jennifer 8. Lee is the producer of The Emoji Story, a documentary about the regulatory world of emoji and the co-author of the upcoming Hanmoji book from MIT Kids Press, on how Chinese and emoji relate to each other. She is also a vice-chair of the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee.

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In route news this week, the U.S. might soon require all arriving travelers to get a negative COVID test result  something Canada and Turkey are doing as well; a new website helps travelers locate COVID testing facilities worldwide; JetBlue will add two domestic routes from San Francisco in the weeks ahead, and one route to Mexico from Sacramento; Alaska Airlines plans to ban emotional support animals from its aircraft; the first 737 Max planes are back in the air, with more to come; XpresSpa partners with Hawaiian Airlines for more airport COVID testing; Aer Lingus is added to the American Airlines-British Airways joint venture; and Emirates brings a premium economy cabin to its long-haul aircraft.

In COVID news for travelers, the U.S. is reportedly considering new regulations that would require all international travelers coming into the U.S.  including U.S. citizens  to obtain a negative coronavirus test result before they fly here. That would be a dramatic expansion of the mandatory testing rule that the U.S. implemented this week for individuals coming from the U.K. following the recent discovery of a highly contagious variety of the COVID-19 virus there. According to Reuters, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and other federal agencies discussed the possibility of an expanded testing requirement with major U.S. airlines this week.

Airlines told government agenciesany new testing requirements should be phased in by country and it must be determined if there is enough testing capacity and a willingness to allocate those tests to facilitate international travel before expanding requirements, Reuters reported.

Canada is already working on a similar requirement. Under current rules, only a few very narrow categories of Americans are allowed to travel into Canada, and now the restrictions are getting even tougher. Canadas government said this week that it plans to require airline passengers coming into the country to get a negative result on a COVID PCR test no more than 72 hours in advance of arrival  and even with that, they still face a mandatory 14-day quarantine. The new testing rule seems to be aimed mainly at Canadians who travel outside the country, which the government wants to discourage. During mid-December, the number of inbound air travelers entering Canada was down about 90% from the same time a year ago.

The government of Turkey this week also started demanding negative COVID PCR test results from air travelers coming into the country, and Turkish Airlines said it would no longer board passengers who couldnt produce one. The test must be taken no more than 72 hours before the arriving passengers flight; the requirement applies to everyone over age 6 and will remain in place at least through February.

With more and more countries (and even U.S. states) requiring negative COVID test results from visitors and returning citizens, some travelers might wonder where they can find a testing facility before their flight. Now theres a website for that, called Test for Travel (www.testfortravel.com). Users simply input the city where they need a test and the site will list local labs and testing facilities, locating them on a map and identifying the types of COVID tests they offer and how long a customer would have to wait for results. (Governments usually require that tests be administered no more than 72 hours in advance of travel.) The sites coverage is worldwide.

As JetBlue continues to add routes that dont involve its hubs or focus cities (New York JFK, Boston, Ft. Lauderdale and, increasingly, Los Angeles), Northern California will be the beneficiary of some new service in the first quarter of 2021. The airline said it will begin daily flights from San Francisco International to Austin on Feb. 11, followed by daily service from SFO to Raleigh-Durham starting March 4 and up to three flights a week from Sacramento to Cancun, also beginning March 4. JetBlue will be the only carrier operating SFO-RDU non-stops, but it faces competition from United and Alaska Airlines between SFO and Austin.

JetBlues first quarter plans also include new daily flights from Los Angeles International to Jacksonville and from Las Vegas to Raleigh-Durham, as well as up to three flights a week from Las Vegas to Cancun, all starting March 4.

Since the Dept. of Transportation recently ruled that airlines are no longer required to allow so-called emotional support animals on board, Alaska Airlines has become the first large carrier to announce a new policy. The company said that starting Jan. 11, passengers will only be allowed to bring along service dogs, defined as those that are specially trained to perform tasks for the benefit of a qualified individual with a disability. That includes psychiatric service dogs, Alaska said, but passengers with dogs must fill out a form on the airlines website verifying that the service dog is trained, vaccinated and well-behaved. Alaska will continue to accept emotional support animals under its current policy for reservations booked prior to Jan. 11, 2021, for flights on or before Feb. 28, 2021, the airline said. No emotional support animals will be accepted for travel after Feb. 28, 2021.

Would you fly on Boeings 737 Max now that the Federal Aviation Administration has given it the green light to start flying again after airlines implement mandatory software fixes and pilot retraining? American Airlines this week became the first U.S. carrier to put the Max back into commercial service with an uneventful flight from Miami to New York LaGuardia. But two Latin American airlines  GOL and Aeromexico  started flying their Max aircraft even before American, operating a couple of hundred flights in December. American plans to keep phasing in more of its Max fleet in the weeks ahead, soon to be followed by United, Southwest and Alaska Airlines. Panamas Copa Airlines, which recently revived service between Panama City and San Francisco, is expected to start using 737 Max aircraft on flights to the U.S. Jan. 4, most likely on its SFO and Los Angeles routes.

Thats not to say the public is clamoring for the chance to fly on a 737 Max. A new Reuters/Ipsos consumer survey released this week found that when potential travelers are reminded of the planes safety problems, 57% said they would not travel on the aircraft in spite of the new FAA approval; 37% said they would, but only after it has been flying for six months without incident.

A couple of weeks ago, we reported that XpresSpa and United Airlines had entered into an agreement calling for the formers XpresCheck airport facilities to provide COVID testing for the airlines customers, starting at Newark and Denver International. This week, XpresSpa announced a similar agreement with Hawaiian Airlines and the State of Hawaii. The company said it will provide COVID-19 rapid molecular testing (with results provided while you wait) for Hawaiians passengers traveling out of New York JFK, Boston Logan and Phoenix Sky Harbor.

The U.S. Dept. of Transportation has given final approval for Irelands Aer Lingus to become part of the transatlantic joint venture that includes American Airlines, British Airways, Iberia and Finnair. (Aer Lingus is a subsidiary of the International Airlines Group, along with BA and Iberia.) U.S. approval of the joint venture confers antitrust immunity on all its member airlines for purposes of planning routes and setting fares. The addition of Aer Lingus Dublin hub and its complementary network will significantly enhance customers travel options and add new European destinations not currently served by any other trans-Atlantic joint business, American said. Aer Lingus customers will also obtain access to more than 200 new U.S. destinations via the (joint venture) network.

Dubai-based Emirates is the latest international carrier to add a premium economy section to its long-haul aircraft. The company just took delivery of a new Airbus A380 equipped with the cabin, which will also be installed on five more new A380s to be delivered over the next two years. Emirates premium economy seats will also be installed on some of its Boeing 777X aircraft which are only due to join the fleet in 2023. Emirates is considering plans to retrofit its existing A380 fleet, a spokesperson said. The new A380 cabin has 56 premium economy seats in a 2-4-2 configuration, offering seat width of 19.5 inches, pitch up to 40 inches, 8-inch recline, and 13.3-inch video screens. On the A380, the section is located at the front of the main deck. Until we have a viable number of seats in our inventory to bring to market, we plan to offer the Emirates Premium Economy experience as a complimentary upgrade to valued customers, the spokesperson noted.

Jim Glab is a freelance travel writer.
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The administration of US President Donald Trump has extended the freeze on H-1B visas and other work visas by three months, in view of the covid-19 situation in the US. The decision will impact Indian IT professionals, tech companies, foreign workers, and employers relying on the H-1B programme.

The suspension also applies to H-2B, H-4, and L-1, as well as certain categories of J-1 visas.

The initial freeze on various categories of work visas was ordered by Trump through two proclamations on 22 April and 22 June 2019. Hours before the orders were to expire on 31 December, Trump issued a fresh proclamation extending it. Consequently, the entry of immigrants on such work visas will be prohibited till 31 March.

Also Read | Investing during all-time highs can be good strategy

The 2019 novel coronavirus continues to disrupt Americans livelihoods. While the November overall unemployment rate in the US of 6.7% reflects a marked decline from its April high, there were still 9,834,000 fewer seasonally adjusted non-farm jobs in November than in February of 2020," the proclamation states.

While this visa freeze will end when Biden becomes President on 20 January, the H-1B visa will still be in for a bumpy ride as policymakers face immense pressure to grapple with rising unemployment. Indians should look for alternative immigration pathways such as the EB5 Immigrant Investor Visa and the E-2 Treaty Investor Visa, which were not suspended by Trump and garner bipartisan support because they bring jobs and investment to America," said Mark Davies, global chairman, Davies and Associates, a New York-headquartered law firm focussing on immigration.

The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa allowing US companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertize. The Trump administrations efforts to tighten the visa guidelines intensified in recent months, especially as more than 40 million Americans were affected by the job losses that resulted from the outbreak. Several studies have demonstrated that the H-1B programme plays an essential role in helping US enterprises secure skill sets that they cannot find locally, and these high-skilled foreign employees provide tremendous benefit to their employers and the US economy as a whole. Even at the height of the unemployment spike during the pandemic in 2019, unemployment in the IT sector remained low from 3% in January to 3.5% in September 2020.

The government issues 85,000 H-1B visas each year, with Indian nationals accounting for more than 70% of them. Indian IT firms, such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, and Wipro had said earlier that they have reduced their dependence on H-1B visas to a large extent. However, a reduction in the overall quota of H-1B visa workers would still mean that they would either have to shell out more money to hire local talent or pay more to existing H-1B work visa holders.

Travel is anyway down to near zero and on-site numbers have been kept to the bare minimum requiring on-site presence. So, I dont see a three-month delay for fresh H-1Bs making that much of a difference. If, however, this impacts renewals for Indian IT workers on-site in the US with H-1B visas, that will affect ongoing projects. This should see pushback from American corporations depending on such projects, as business picks up again in 2021. While its just another three months to a de-freeze, there would be pressure on the Biden administration to find a way to reverse this extension, given that it has anyway made clear its intent of a more relaxed work visa regime," says public policy consultant Prasanto K. Roy.

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Home Search ICH Question Everything! Purpose and Intent of this website: Why Russia Must Be Demonized By Ray McGovern January 01, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - I had a chance to devote the first 7 minutes of an interview to explaining why the MICIMATT (including Wall St., Silicon Valley, & the Democratic Party) have all joined together to portray Russia (and now also China) as the enemies it desperately needs in order to justify spending more than half of the discretionary budget on defense. It is necessary, of course, to be able to explain  defense against what? Ray on Critical Hour 12/29/2020 Is there any hope that Biden will extend an olive branch to President Putin? He could, but  unlike Trump  he knows quite well that the war machine would eat him alive. Should a U.S. president wish to reduce tensions and make war less likely, that president must be able to move adroitly, step-by-step, sometimes in secret  as President Kennedy demonstrated. And look what happened to him. I believe all successor presidents are quite aware of what happened to JFK, and why. (The best book on this is James Douglasss JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters.) No Advertising - No Government Grants - No Algorithm - This Is Independent Media Get Our Free Newsletter The Security State (SS), with the FBI, CIA, & NSA in the lead, has just won big, even as the danger of exposure seemed to loom large. ( See: https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2020/12/04/barr-kicks-durham-can-down-the-street/ and https://www.opednews.com/articles/1/FBI-Another-Fraud-on-the-by-Ray-McGovern-Assange_Fraud_Media_Russia-201230-938.html .) The SS functions as enforcer for the MICIMATT (Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank) complex. Improved ties with Russia are to be thwarted at all, repeat all, costs. If extending genuine olive branches is out of the question, will Biden, during his proverbial honeymoon period, at least be able to extend the New START treaty limiting strategic arms? Will even this small step be thwarted, lest it lead to a step-by-step relaxation in U.S.-Russia tensions? The treaty expires on Feb. 5, 2021, so were likely to know soon enough. In the full (13 min) interview I gave yesterday, I had time to do a short tutorial, citing a number of not well known flat facts  very unlike those to be found on the pages of the the Washington Post. Ray McGovern. Former longtime CIA officer, who served as chief of the CIAs Soviet analysts division, chaired National Intelligence Estimates, and prepared the Presidents Daily Brief. He is also the co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. https://raymcgovern.com/ Post your comment below Registration is necessary to post comments. We ask only that you do not use obscene or offensive language. Please be respectful of others. See also Stephen F. Cohen on Russia's democratization and how US meddling undermines it Search Information Clearing House The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. Click Here To Support Information Clearing House Your support has kept ICH free on the Web since 2002. Click for Spanish , German , Dutch , Danish , French , translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load.
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MAGA fans have taken to the streets in Oregon and California to show their support for President Trump and to protest lockdown orders put in place amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hundreds of anti-lockdown protesters were seen in Salem, Oregon on Thursday afternoon, many of whom were waving Trump flags as they urged officials to reopen businesses.

Police declared the event unlawful and dispersed protesters with impact munitions and flash bang grenades after the group refused to leave downtown.

Several protesters became angered by that move and were pictured facing off with officer clad in riot gear.

Others launched their own smoke grenades and 'several people were arrested', according to local police.

Meanwhile, other protesters assembled outside the gated mansion of Governor Kate Brown, claiming that the Democrat's lockdown orders were a violation of their liberties.

To the south, in Pasadena, California, MAGA fans showed their support for President Trump as he continues to cry foul about the results of the presidential election.

Hundreds of anti-lockdown protesters were seen in Salem, Oregon on Thursday afternoon, many of whom were waving Trump flags

Police declared the event unlawful and dispersed protesters with impact munitions and flash bang grenades after the group refused to leave downtown

Members of the far-right face off with police in front of the governor's mansion during a protest against COVID-19 restrictions at the state capitol

Some protesters launched their own smoke grenades after the rally was declared unlawful by police

Several protesters became angered after the protest was shut down and were pictured facing off with officer clad in riot gear.

Police try to keep far-right and far-left protesters from clashing during a far-right march to protest against COVID related lockdowns

Salem officers are seen wearing riot gear as the policed the protests in the city on New Year's Day

Meanwhile, in Pasadena, California, Trump fans staged a car parade to show their support for the President.

Many are still refusing to concede that Trump lost the election and will be out of the White House in less than three weeks.

The group of MAGA fans waved Trump 2020 flags and beeped their car horns as they made their way down the city's Rose Parade route.

While Trump may be leaving office, Republicans are clinging to hope that they can maintain control of the Senate.

That all hinges on two Senate run-off races in Georgia.

If Democrat candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff win both races, the Senate will flip blue, giving Democrats control of the Presidency and both chambers of Congress from late this month.

It would spell disaster for President Trump's legacy as he prepares to leave the White House on January 20.

Clearly concerned about what is at stake, he challenged the legitimacy of the run-off races in a series of angry tweets.

He described the run-off races as illegal and invalid because of 'hasty' changes made to the 'unconstitutional' voting process in the state prior to the election

Meanwhile, in Pasadena, California, Trump fans staged a car parade to show their support for the President

The group of MAGA fans waved Trump 2020 flags and beeped their car horns as they made their way down the city's Rose Parade route

Many are still refusing to concede that Trump lost the election and will be out of the White House in less than three weeks

While Trump may be leaving office, Republicans are clinging to hope that they can maintain control of the Senate

He wrote: 'Before even discussing the massive corruption which took place in the 2020 Election, which gives us far more votes than is necessary to win all of the Swing States (only need three), it must be noted that the State Legislatures were not in any way responsible for the massive changes made to the voting process, rules and regulations, many made hastily before the election, and therefore the whole State Election is not legal or Constitutional.

'Additionally, the Georgia Consent Decree is Unconstitutional & the State 2020 Presidential Election is therefore both illegal and invalid, and that would include the two current Senatorial Elections.'

Election officials have declared Joe Biden won Georgia by a razor thing margin.

The president elect garnered 49.5 percent of the vote in comparison to Trump's 49.3 percent.

President Trump says the two Georgia Senate run-off races are illegal and invalid because of 'hasty' changes made to the 'unconstitutional' voting process in the state prior to the election

Clearly concerned that the Senate may flip Democrat following the Georgia run-off races, Trump challenged their legitimacy in a series of angry tweets

The state's two Senate races have advanced to run-offs, with Georgians already voting early.

A new report has revealed that Democrats hold an edge in early, in-person voting in the run-off races, leaving Republicans looking for a big Election Day boost next Tuesday, January 5.

Fox News Channel reported Thursday that 2.8 million Georgians had already cast a ballot, with black voters making up a larger percentage of voters than in the November general election, which could be good news for Democrats Ossoff and Warnock.

Additionally, there's been higher turnout in Democratic Congressional districts than Republican ones.

The amount counts for more than a third of the 4.9 million Georgians who voted in the November 3 general election.

Ossoff and Warnock are challenging GOP Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, respectively.

Perdue announced Thursday he was in quarantine after being exposed to COVID-19 by a staff member.

If Democrats pick up both seats the party will have 50 members of the Senate - and with the help of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, a majority.

There's been higher turnout in Democratic Congressional districts versus Republicans ones and a higher percentage of black voters than in the fall, which could be good news for Democratic Senate hopefuls Jon Ossoff (left) and Rev. Raphael Warnock

Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler (left) and David Perdue (right) will have to make up any voting deficit on Election Day Tuesday. Perdue announced Thursday he was in quarantine after being exposed to COVID-19 by a staff member

Harris will return to the state Sunday to campaign, while President-elect Joe Biden will be in Atlanta Monday.

President Donald Trump will also hold a rally in Dalton, Georgia Monday, which will be one of his few public appearances since Election Day.

Georgia-based GOP consultant Chip Lake told Fox News that 'the early-voting numbers are certainly a little more favorable to Democrats than the early-voting data that we had in November.'

'Republicans need to have a strong Election Day turnout on Tuesday. Election Day votes count the exact same as early votes. We had just under a million people vote on Election Day on Nov. 3,' Lake continued.

'For Republicans to win these runoff races, I think its crucial that we need to have Election Day turnout at 800,000 votes or higher on Tuesday.'

Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's top strategist who's running the Georgia Republicans fundraising apparatus, wrote in a memo earlier this week, 'the combined total number of votes cast so far by absentee mail-in and in-person early voting is a couple points more Democratic than it was in the fall,' Fox reported.

In November, Biden won the state, flipping it to red for the first time since Bill Clinton in 1992.

Both Ossoff and Warnock did well enough to squeak out a run-off, which occurs when neither Senate candidate reach a 50 per cent threshold.

Election Day is Tuesday, January 5.
Bexar County commissioners rang in the new year with a historic ceremony: swearing in the courts first woman of color.

Not only that, but this is the first time in 20 years that a woman has served on the commission.

Rebeca Clay-Flores, 45, who is Black and Latina, was formally sworn in as the commissioner for Precinct 1 during a noon ceremony Friday. That was followed by the swearing-in of Trish DeBerry, 55, for the Precinct 3 seat.

I was, frankly, disgusted that there were no women on the board and only two women in 100 years and never a woman of color, Clay-Flores said. My hope is that the work that I am about to embark upon ensures that I may be the first, but not the last; but that I may be only the first of many more to follow.

On ExpressNews.com: A woman hasnt been a Bexar County commissioner for two decades. Soon there will be two.

I think diversity really brings more robust thinking and solutions to the table, DeBerry said. But at the end of the day, I dont want to be known for being a woman on the court, I want to be known for being a great commissioner and bringing a small-business wheelhouse to the table to really get things done and jump-start the economy.

There have been only two other women to serve on the Bexar County Commissioners Court: former County Judge Cyndi Taylor Krier and the late former Precinct 4 Commissioner Helen Dutmer.

Dutmer was the first woman elected to the court, in 1991, serving as the Precinct 4 commissioner until 1994, when the Democrat lost her re-election campaign.

Krier joined Dutmer after becoming the first woman elected county judge, in 1992. Krier, a Republican, did not seek another term in 2000.

Clay-Flores official swearing-in came about 12 hours early: Former County Commissioner Robert Tejeda administered the oath at the midnight ceremony. At the noon event, she was sworn in by Roland Gutierrez, who won the Texas Senate District 19 seat. He complimented her on her choice of face mask for the ceremony: a Mexican flag, a nod to her Hispanic heritage.

She replaced former Commissioner Sergio Chico Rodriguez, who served for 16 years, defeating him in the Democratic primary in July. She then beat Republican candidate Gabriel Lara in November. Clay-Flores most recently was a special projects manager at the city of San Antonios Metropolitan Health District.

During her remarks Friday, Clay-Flores reflected on a night she will never forget that pushed her to run for office.

It was only three blocks from here  that I vividly remember being kicked out of a run-down hotel at night with my family at the age of 4 as we endured homelessness and poverty, Clay-Flores said. It is these experiences that continue to fuel me to fight for a better life for the constituents of Bexar County.

Many in our community experience injustice daily and have not had adequate representation in the body of elected officials who serve, she added.

Her brother, Jose Clay-Flores, called the newly sworn-in commissioner a voice for the voiceless during his speech.

On ExpressNews.com: DeBerry, Clay-Flores win Bexar commissioner races

DeBerry was sworn in by Judge Bert Richardson of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

She won the seat left empty when former Precinct 3 Commissioner Kevin Wolff did not seek re-election for a fourth term. DeBerry ran against retired Judge Tom Rickhoff in the Republican primary and then defeated Democrat Christine Hortick in November.

DeBerry is the CEO of a public relations firm and a former television journalist with KENS-TV. In 2001, she managed Ed Garzas successful mayoral campaign and later ran for mayor, losing to Julian Castro in 2009.

One of DeBerrys main priorities as commissioner will be to help small businesses that were decimated during the pandemic.

We need to do whatever we can to try to help those folks, keep the doors open, DeBerry said. There are a lot of people who have been furloughed or laid off, and Im going to bring that small-business experience to the table and really jump-start the economy and bring people back to work.

Precinct 2 Commissioner Justin Rodriguez was in attendance Friday to witness the ceremonies.

This is the start of a new era in county government, Rodriguez said. I think its going to bring a different perspective, and I think everybodys ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work.

The first Commissioners Court meeting of the year will be held Jan. 12.
After a long and difficult coronavirus-interrupted year that saw Victorians living under a second-wave of lockdown restrictions for 111 days, it was finally time to get on the beers.

And one Australian family did just that with a Daniel Andrews themed New Years Eve extravaganza complete with a purple backdrop, black-framed glasses and an ill-fitting North Face jacket.

They partied into the New Year and posted a clip of their gathering on TikTok where it has received more than 200,000 views in just over 24 hours.

A Victorian family has celebrated the New Year with Dan Andrews themed party

The group paid homage the Premier's signature purple backdrop he stood in front of at Covid media conferences

Social media users loved the video and heaped praise on the viral sensation which featured the hit song Get on the Beers.

The creators of that now iconic Australian track Mashd N Kutcher were among those who commented on the hilarious video.

'OMG. This is unreal,' the dance music duo said.

Others on the social media platform used the premier's own vocabulary to express their views: 'This is awesome I can't be any clearer than that,' one person wrote.

Mr Andrews lengthy daily press conferences where he answered questions about who was responsible for the catastrophic hotel quarantine blunder that led to Victoria's crippling second wave of Covid infections became synonymous with the troubled year.

Australia first went into nationwide lockdown in March and slowly began to reopen six weeks later.

Members of the group cut out purple squares of paper to create the signature backdrop

They partied into the New Year and posted a clip of their shindig on TikTok where it has received more than 200,000 views in just over 24 hours

At the time the premier sent out a warning to all Victorians in the face of the deadly contagion which would go on to claim the lives of over 800 people in the state, infecting more than 20,000.

'You won't be able to go to the pub because the pub is shut. That doesn't mean you can have all your mates around to (your) home and get on the beers, that's not appropriate. It's not essential, it's not needed, and all it will do is spread the virus,' he said.

In the months that followed the serious warning would be turned into a satirical anthem of the pandemic.

Victoria kept the first round of restrictions in place for much longer than the rest of the country, but eventually the state's lockdown measures were lifted in June.

But just a few short weeks later on July 7, Mr Andrews, in front of the purple backdrop, announced there were 191 new cases in the state and that Metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire would re-enter lockdown.

'OMG. This is unreal': The creators of the now iconic Australian track Get on the Beers, Mashd N kutcher, said about the hilarious video

Mr Andrews lengthy daily Covid press conferences became synonymous with the troubled year

It was supposed to last for six weeks but the draconian measures dragged on for another four months until November 8, and also impacted the rest of the state.

Some lauded Mr Andrews for keeping Victorians safe and standing firm of the issue.

Others labelled him 'Dictator Dan' and said the prolonged lockdown was a violation of civil rights.

While there was widespread disagreement across the political spectrum it seems neither side of the aisle has lost their sense of humour.

'I love that Victorians all have the same warped sense of humour post lockdown,' one TikTok user wrote.

Others said: 'You guys win New Year's Eve 2020' and '2020 will be remembered for getting on the beers'.
Michelle Keegan and Mark Wright had their 1.3 million Essex home demolished over the summer, in order to start building their dream home.

And in an unseen home video, Mark got behind the controls of an excavator himself to rip apart part of the property.

Sharing memories from 2020 on New Year's Day, the TOWIE star was seen in safety gear, sat inside the machine, carefully steering its giant claw to pull part of the house to pieces.

Ripped apart: Michelle Keegan and Mark Wright had their 1.3 million Essex home demolished over the summer, in order to start building their dream home

'Started demolition on our house! Yes, that's me in the machine!' he captioned the short video.

The bulldozer sat on the pair's Essex driveway, with Mark navigating the claw to tear off some of the roofing.

Back in July, diggers were drafted in to demolish the four-bedroom farmhouse - leaving just a mass of rubble.

Snaps taken above the home saw the property lines boarded up with temporary fences, a full skip and a rocky ditch where the house once stood.

Throwback: And in an unseen home video, Mark got behind the controls of an excavator himself to rip apart part of the property

This is to pave the way for the new home - which will feature a huge swimming pool, a bar and a make-up room.

Floor plans posted on the Epping Council website showed that the couple's blueprints also feature a playroom for any future children.

The project is being designed by Essex-based company MP Architects.

The duo, both aged 33, bought the home for 1.3 million in October 2019 and it was revealed in January 2020 that they planned to rip it down to create the sensationally lavish new house with 'classical design'.

Smashed it! Sharing memories from 2020 on New Year's Day, the TOWIE star was seen in safety gear, sat inside the machine, carefully steering its giant claw to pull part of the house to pieces

They submitted plans to knock down their home and replace it with a sprawling Georgian-style mansion - details of which can be seen online.

While the couple had no objections from neighbours, they withdrew requests for 'demolition of an existing stable building' to build a 'one-bedroom annexe'.

Images of the ground floor show the home is set to give a nod to both their love of work and play, with a gym and bar placed either side of the huge kitchen.

The hub of the home is certainly the kitchen, which runs the entire length of the back of the house and includes a living area and island.

The first floor meanwhile shows an equally impressive plan, with a balcony extending from the master bedroom, which includes a dressing room and make-up room.

Plans: The duo, both aged 33, bought the home for 1.3 million in October 2019 and it was revealed in January 2020 that they planned to rip it down to create the sensationally lavish new house with 'classical design'

Every bedroom features an en suite while cupboards are littered through the floor. The first floor features three bedrooms.

Second floor plans show two more bedrooms and further en suites.

Set on sprawling grounds, the rear of the house boasts a swimming pool plan while the vast drive is set to accommodate a plethora of cars.

Their planning agent previously said: 'This new house has been carefully designed so that it is similar in area and volume to what is currently on the site.

'The new house will sit further back on the site and will create a much more functional family dwelling for our clients.

'The existing house has been extended several times and is not functional, therefore a new house would be a better use of the site.'
PARIS (Reuters) - Several hundred French police on Saturday shut down an illegal rave party in northwestern France that had been underway since New Year's Eve in defiance of a curfew and coronavirus restrictions on large gatherings, officials said.

About 2,500 revellers from across France and abroad attended the rave in a disused warehouse in Lieuron, near Rennes, and some clashed with police soon after the party kicked off on Thursday, injuring several officers and damaging police cars.

The clashes prompted police to wait for reinforcements to be deployed before moving in to put an end to the party, Emmanuel Berthier, head of the Ille-et-Vilaine prefecture, told reporters.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Twitter that more than 1,200 party-goers had been issued with penalty notices as they left the site, adding that the event's organisers were being identified and would be prosecuted.

About 800 of the revellers were sanctioned for attending an illegal party, breaking curfew and not wearing masks, and the rest were mostly issued notices for using illegal drugs, Berthier said.

Prosecutors in Rennes have opened a probe into the illegal organisation of a musical event and violence against persons of authority, the prefecture said, while local health authorities urged party-goers to self-isolate for seven days.

With the highest number of COVID-19 cases in western Europe, France is stepping up coronavirus restrictions, imposing an earlier curfew in 15 northeastern and southeastern departments from Saturday, starting at 6 p.m. instead of 8 p.m..

In neighbouring Spain, police broke up a smaller warehouse rave near Barcelona that had also been going for more than 40 hours.

About 200 people attended the New Year's Eve rave in the village of Llinars del Valles, and dozens continued to party on Saturday - some refusing to leave and shouting abuse when police arrived at the scene.

The event's three organisers were arrested, Catalan's Mossos d'Esquadra police force said on Twitter, adding that the three and those who attended the party would be charged and faced fines of between 3,000 and 600,000 euros.

(Reporting by Marc Angrand, Leigh Thomas and Jessica Jones; Editing by Mark Potter and Helen Popper)
UPDATE: Stephanie Kyle has been found safe.

EARLIER: Authorities are asking for the publics help in finding a woman missing in Birmingham.

Stephanie Kyle, 37, was last seen Thursday, Dec. 31, about 10 a.m. in the 1700 block of McMillon Avenue S.W. Officer Truman Fitzgerald said Kyle suffers from medical conditions which after her judgment and behavior.

Kyle is described as 5-feet, 7-inches tall and weighing 370 pounds. She was last seen wearing blue jeans, black high-top shoes and a burgundy shirt.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Birmingham Police Departments Special Victims Unit at 205-29708485 or 911. Tipsters can also call Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777.
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This is an opinion column.

Its just how he was raised.

David Lyvers takes two hours to get out of bed each morning. He takes two hours to get out of bed each morning because in 2018 his right leg was amputated just below the knee.

His right leg was amputated just below the knee, he alleges in a lawsuit filed in August 2020, because on Aug. 26, 2018, Lyversthen a salesman for American Standardwent to the emergency room at the Medical West Health Center complaining of pain and swelling in his ankle, was diagnosed with arthritis and released with pain medication, according to the suit.

And because on Aug. 31, five days later, he returned to Medical West with the same complaints and was prescribed an antibiotic and released, the suit alleges.

He returned to Medical West on Sept. 28, 2018, with the same complaints of pain and swelling and was prescribed another antibiotic and released, according to the suit.

Medical West filed a motion to dismiss Lyvers lawsuit, noting, in part, Complaint fails to state a claim for which relief can be granted and a lack of necessary specificity in the claims.

These allegations are extremely vague and do not describe any act of omission with the specificity required to put Medical West on notice as to what breach of the standard of care is actually alleging, says the motion. Its scheduled to be heard virtually by Circuit Court Judge David Hobdy on March 16, 2021.

For eight months following that third visit, Lyvers still got around. Lyvers and his cane. And crutches. He traversed a 250-mile radius around Birmingham hawking walk-in showers and tubs for people with mobility issues all week, returning home on the weekends to Nectar in Blount County, Alabama. He did it until he could not do it anymore. Until the pain became too great.

Until he walked into the emergency room at UAB Hospital-Highlands and, well, they didnt want him to leave. They took X-rays, stuck a needle into his now grotesquely swollen ankle, pulled out a bunch of yellow stuff, conducted a biopsy and a few days later shared the diagnosis: osteomyelitis, a life-threatening bone infection.

It was a blessing I didnt go into septic shock, he told me, and that it didnt kill me.

A few days later, they cut off his leg below the knee.

Now, Im a guy stuck in a wheelchair, he says. In many ways, though, I am blessed.

Its how he was raised.

Lyvers, 62, is also a widower. David and Dawn were married for 32 years, together two years more. They moved to Alabama from Chicago a few years ago to help take care of her mother, who lived in Lakeview, about an hour south of Nectar. Dawn was a survivor of ovarian and breast cancer and later underwent an ostomy that needed to be reversed. After a few days in the hospital, she came home.

On September 4, David says, she went to the store, returned home, and entered her bedroom to take a nap. Lyvers and his wheelchair cant fit through the door, so after a couple of hours, he called out her name. Dawn didnt answer. I thought she was just tired, Lyvers recalls,

That evening, Dawn still had not stirred. Lyvers made her a plate of food, left it in the microwave, and went to bed. That wasnt unusual because he was the better cook; he can even joke about it. I wouldnt let her cook, he says jovially. Shed cook a pork chop that could be used to re-sole a shoe. Sorry honey!

The morning, he awoke and noticed Sadietheir fifth rescue dog, a 6-year-old terrier mixhad not been outside. Dawn usually let her out around 8:30 a.m. Lyvers called her cellphone. No answer. After the couple of hours it takes him to get out of bed and into the wheelchair, he rolled as close to her door as he could get and called her name. No answer.

Sorry, shes gone, is what the paramedics told him after they arrived and examined Dawn. They said she still looked as if she was still sleeping. They said the cause was respiratory failure and that she didnt suffer.

Lyvers doesnt know if Dawn died from COVID-19. Maybe she had it, maybe she didnt. Maybe her body just decided it had had enough.

He donated Dawns clothes to The Hope House in Oneonta. She wanted to be cremated, Lyvers says. He has her ashes. Maybe someday theyll be able to test the ashes to see whether she had [COVID-19].

Life is precious, he says. People everywhere are fighting hard to stay alive.

Lyvers signs his emails as Crazy Dave on Wet Cat Road. Its how he was raised. Lyvers and two younger siblings, by three generations who taught him to see the glass being half full, not half empty.

During his youth, his family sponsored about 70 families immigrating from Germany, he says. He recalls being five or six years old and helping to organize wakes for families struggling through the transition. Helping people deal with loss; you may not get used to it, but you learn to appreciate life, he says.

American Standard kept Lyvers job for him for six months, even offered to retrofit his car so he could utilize his left foot. Dawns illness stymied those plans. He found work with another walk-in tub company, setting appointments for sales folks in the field. Then COVID-19 happened.

They wouldnt let guys in the house, Lyvers says.

He persuaded the company he could sell over the telephone. They said it would never happen; I sold five [units] in the first week, he laughs. Then they took my program and gave it to their guys.

Nobody in the world wants to hire a one-legged guy in a wheelchair, he says, though without even a scent of self-pity. He wanted to obtain a license to sell life and health insurance over the telephone, but the state shut down testing until 2021, he says, because of concerns about spreading the virus.

On the day I spoke with him, Lyvers said he had like $38 in the bank. Hed been on unemployment since July and was waiting for national leaders to get themselves together and create a stimulus package extending benefits for him and millions of other Americans before they expired.

Lyvers is opinionated. As much as, by now, youd expect him to be. Like many Americans, hes irate at how the global pandemic has (or, rather, has not) been addressed and especially its economic aftermath.

When the real truths come out  and we may be years away from that  when we look back at how many people died alone, how many millions couldnt feed their children, how many didnt have medical insurance, when we look back on all the unnecessary suffering, he says, what will they think about the people we elected? What will they say: What was the matter with those people?

If Lyvers wants to leave the house, he has to call the local fire department. Before losing his leg, Lyvers says he was six-foot-four, 280 pounds. Hes shed 40 pounds since then, but they have to send six people to get him to the car that has yet to be retrofitted.

Still, he was grateful. Grateful that a woman his wife met at the grocery store brings food (for him and Sadie) and keeps me supplied in my vices, Lyvers laughs, cigarettes and beer. Grateful that Renethe mail ladybrings his postal deliveries up to the front door rather than leave them in or beside the mailbox out by the road.

When I see what other people are going through, he says. I read articles about them every day and it breaks my heart. I dont consider myself handicapped in any way, shape, or form.

Its just how he was raised.

Id like to think history has not lost track of this moment in time, he says, not just because of how the virus was handled, but because of how its affecting millions of Americans who are close to having nothing have nothing. Ive gotten almost to the point where I dont turn the TV on as much I as used to.

What gets me through days now is my faith and a hope that at some point things will get back on track here [in the U.S.], he says, not just for me.

Lyvers is navigating the byzantine healthcare and insurance industries as best he can in an effort to obtain a prosthetic. Until that happens, a wry, ribald and seemingly indefatigable sense of humor will no doubt get Lyvers through, too.

His doctor calls weekly. I told him, If I was down to my last ten dollars, Ill get a cheap bottle of whiskey and head for the nearest brick wall.

He pauses. He said, What?! I said, Man, Id never do that.

Thats just not how I was raised. When shit happens you either figure it out or pull the covers over your head.

In 2021, may we all act as if we were raised like Crazy Dave. May we emerge from beneath the covers of a debilitating year and just figure it out.

Unafraid to start uncomfortable conversations, Roy is a voice for whats right and wrong in Birmingham, Alabama (and beyond). His column and profiles of intriguing Alabamians, appear 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
The Guv promises to continue her effort for healthcare access in what will certainly be a tougher climate for progressive policy change.



Read more . . .

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly will push again this year to expand Medicaid in Kansas even though top Republicans in the GOP-controlled Legislature are less receptive to the idea than they were last year. "I will never stop fighting for Medicaid expansion," she said during a recent Associated Press interview.
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South Carolina public schools were left with more vacancies and fewer new hires than last year, according to the 2020 Educator Supply and Demand Report by the Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement (CERRA).

About 700 teaching or service positions were vacant at the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year, a 26% increase compared to last year, according to CERRA's report. According to its website, CERRA is the oldest teacher recruitment program in the United States.

On Dec. 17, state superintendent Molly Spearman released a statement saying the pandemic has intensified a statewide teacher crisis.

If there has been any good to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is that South Carolinians have a newfound appreciation for the tremendous job that teachers have in educating our students, Spearman said in the release. However, the pandemic has intensified the teacher crisis in our state as evidenced by the (CERRA) report."

Literacy, mathematics, business/marketing/computer technology and art had the largest spikes in vacancies, according to the report. CERRA notes that districts were asked to include interventionist positions with literacy and math, so that may explain some of the increased vacancy numbers.

Special education has the most vacant teaching positions, which is typical, according to CERRA. A total of 20% of all vacant teaching jobs were in special education this year.

CERRA reported more early-career resignations this year, with 36% of first-year teachers not returning to jobs in the same school district, up from 28% last year.

However, school districts reported 10% fewer departures overall among teachers compared to last year. The reason for leaving is unknown for about 30% of the departures, but 32% of the teachers said they left for personal or family reasons.

In the report, CERRA notes that the pandemic may have led to more teacher departures after the survey was complete. The organization plans to survey districts again in early 2021 to assess the impact of COVID-19, according to the report.

To address the teacher shortage, Spearman and the S.C. Department of Education have called for several actions, according to the release.

These actions include retroactively funding the annual step increase for 2020-2021, providing a salary increase of at least 2% for teachers in the next fiscal year, providing for step salary increases through 28 years of service, increasing the teacher supply supplement and streamlining the teacher evaluation process. Spearman is also calling for "protected unencumbered planning time to dedicate to non-instructional tasks," according to the release.

"Now is the time for state and local leaders to come together for current and future educators by supporting financial incentives, policies and programs that will help ensure we have a strong, high quality teacher workforce serving our students for years to come, Spearman said in the release.

Aiken County

The lack of an annual pay raise, called a step increase, for the 2020-2021 school year in South Carolina has been a topic of discussion in the Aiken County Public School District.

In October, the Aiken County Board of Education voted to provide a "Christmas and loyalty bonus" to employees in the school district, with increased bonuses for employees with several years of school district work behind them.

The bonus was meant to offset the lack of a step increase, school district chief officer of finance Tray Traxler explained at the Oct. 28 meeting.

Keith Liner, then the chairman of the school board, moved to have members of the salary committee "meet with the legislative delegation before the January session begins to discuss the problem with delaying the step increase until the 2021-2022 budget."

This may be a fruitless effort, Liner said on Oct. 28, but I think its incumbent on us to go and try to plead our case to the delegation so that our employees wont go another year or multiple years without a step increase, if they dont take some action on it early in the session.

CERRA's annual supply and demand report is available online, along with archived reports from previous years. Visit cerra.org/supply-and-demand.html to view the reports.
No one was injured when a roof of a house collapsed around midnight Saturday in the South Chicago neighborhood, Chicago police said.
Auburn, IN (46706)

Today

Partly cloudy skies early then becoming cloudy with periods of rain late. Low 64F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early then becoming cloudy with periods of rain late. Low 64F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 00:05:47|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

According to the central government's plan, a complete 10-year fishing ban now applies in pivotal waters of the Yangtze, China's longest river, starting on Friday.

In recent years, the provincial-level regions along the river have stepped up efforts to protect the "mother river" of the Chinese nation.

While strictly implementing the fishing ban policy, the regions have already rolled out a slew of measures to take care of the fishermen's welfare.

BEIJING, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- A launch ceremony of the fishing ban in key waters of the Yangtze River took place in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, on Thursday.

According to the central government's plan, a complete 10-year fishing ban now applies in pivotal waters of the Yangtze, China's longest river, starting on Friday.

Law enforcement ships are seen at a dock in southwest China's Chongqing on Dec. 31, 2020. A parallel ceremony on launching the 10-year fishing ban was held in Chongqing on Thursday. Key areas of the Yangtze River in Chongqing will enter a 10-year fishing ban period, starting from Jan. 1, 2021. (Xinhua/Tang Yi)

Ma Xinglin, a former fisherman, aged 49, in southwest China's Sichuan Province, has witnessed a massive change in fishermen's lives along the Jinsha River, the upper section of the Yangtze.

"In the 1980s, you could easily catch 10 kg of fish with a fishing net at a shoal. But by around 2000, it was hard to make a living through fishing with fewer fish in the river," Ma said.

For decades, urbanization and shipping along the Yangtze River have led to the reduction or disappearance of aquatic habitats. Agricultural fertilizers and pesticides have also led to the river's pollution, said Wei Qiwei, a researcher from the Yangtze River fisheries research institute under the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences.

In recent years, the provincial-level regions along the river have stepped up efforts to protect the "mother river" of the Chinese nation. In 2019, Jiangxi Province, located in the river's middle reaches, set up its first cross-region environmental resources court at the national reserve of Poyang Lake. It is the country's biggest freshwater lake in the Yangtze River basin.

"We found the number of Coilia nasus in the lake has multiplied compared to that of the previous year in 2020," said Gao Xiaoping, deputy director of the aquatic science research institute of Jiujiang City in Jiangxi.

A finless porpoise is seen in the Yangtze River in Yichang, central China's Hubei Province, Aug. 3, 2020. (Photo by Lei Yong/Xinhua)

Hunan Province, also located in the river's middle reaches, has closed and dismantled all 39 illegal wharves along the Yangtze River mainstream while restoring the ecological environment there. The province has also planted over 1,300 hectares of forest along the river.

In 2019, the average concentration of total phosphorus in the area of Dongting Lake, China's second-largest freshwater lake in the river's basin, dropped by 41 percent compared with that in 2015. With improving water quality, the lake also saw more than 246,000 wintering waterbirds in the year. It is the highest number in the past ten years.

While strictly implementing the fishing ban policy, the regions have already rolled out a slew of measures to take care of the fishermen's welfare. In Hunan, the government helped more than 16,000 fishermen change jobs, over 97 percent of the total who had the intention of employment. All the fishermen who meet the conditions in the province have been included in the old-age insurance system.

Law enforcement ships sail on the Wuhan section of the Yangtze River in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, on Dec. 31, 2020. A ceremony on launching the 10-year fishing ban was held in Wuhan on Thursday. Key areas of the Yangtze River will enter a 10-year fishing ban period, starting from Jan. 1, 2021. (Xinhua/Cheng Min)

A third-party assessment agency came to conduct the on-site assessment of fishermen's boats and nets. A unified compensation fund will ensure their interests, said Wang Yuanbao, an official with the provincial agriculture department.

Shi Zhongfang, a former fisherman in the city of Yuanjiang, now runs a restaurant featuring traditional fishermen cuisine. "The future generations will benefit from what we are doing now," he said.

"We can find jobs in other places although we cannot fish in the Poyang Lake," said Ye Xin, a fisherman in the township of Wucheng, Jiangxi. "Now the township is promoting tourism, which will bring us more job opportunities."

"With the fishing ban, I don't have to worry about my husband's safety anymore. He was still fishing two years ago, and whenever the wind picked up, I had my heart in the mouth," said the 66-year-old Li Qiying, who lives in Zhicheng Township, Hubei.

Li Qiying used to fish in the Yangtze River with her husband. In 1985, her 1.5-year-old son accidentally fell into the river and drowned during a fishing trip. Since then, she quit fishing and took care of the family onshore.

"It's not hard for us to find jobs near home," said Liu Zekui, a former fisherman. He added that there are many factories in the township, and the government has also organized several rounds of skills training and job fairs.

In Baishuigang village, several exhibition rooms are established to display various fishing tools, such as hooks, brushes, and nets in memory of their 100-year-old fishing culture.

"We should not forget our roots although we don't fish anymore," said Li Chunmei, Party chief of the village. 
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DecisionDatabases added the latest report with a global perspective on the Outdoor Security Cameras Market studied under different segments, including type, application, and regions. The report is treated with size, trends, growth, share, and forecast till 2025. Besides, the research report studied the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on overall growth at the global level. This report also offers a lucrative area of the industry at the regional and country level.

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The global Outdoor Security Cameras market report presents a complete research-based study of the industry including details such as company shares, forecast data, in-depth analysis and an outlook of the market on a worldwide platform. The report further highlights the market drivers, restraints and the top manufacturers at the global and regional levels. For a thorough understanding, the report also offers market segmentation and regional analysis for the forecast period from 2020 to 2025.

Click here to get a Sample PDF Copy of the Outdoor Security Cameras Market Research Report @ https://www.decisiondatabases.com/contact/download-sample-30046

According to this study, over the next five years, the Outdoor Security Cameras market will register an xx% CAGR in terms of revenue, the global market size will reach $ xx million by 2025, from $ xx million in 2020. In particular, this report presents the global market share (sales and revenue) of key companies in the Outdoor Security Cameras business, shared in Chapter 3.

This Outdoor Security Cameras market report also splits the market by regions: Americas (United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil), APAC (China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, India, Australia), Europe (Germany, France, UK, Italy, Russia, Spain), Middle East & Africa (Egypt, South Africa, Israel, Turkey, GCC Countries).

This report presents a comprehensive overview, market shares, and growth opportunities of the Outdoor Security Cameras market by type, application, key manufacturers, key regions, and countries.

The key manufacturers covered in this report: Breakdown data in Chapter 3.

Ezviz

Vivint

Abode

D-Link

Amcrest

Deep Sentinel

Wyze

Ring

Canary

SimShine(SimCam)

Wansview

Eufy

Amazon(Blink Home)

Foscam

Zmodo

Lorex

Others

To inquire about report customization, feel free to reach out to our team of expert analysts @ https://www.decisiondatabases.com/contact/ask-questions-30046

This study considers the Outdoor Security Cameras value and volume generated from the sales of the following segments:

Segmentation by type: breakdown data from 2015 to 2020, in Section 2.3; and forecast to 2025 in section 11.7.

Bullet

Dome

Others

Segmentation by application: breakdown data from 2015 to 2020, in Section 2.4; and forecast to 2025 in section 11.8.

Household

Commercial

Industrial

In addition, this report discusses the key drivers influencing market growth, opportunities, challenges, and the risks faced by key manufacturers and the market as a whole. It also analyzes key emerging trends and their impact on present and future development.

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Research Objectives

To study and analyze the global Outdoor Security Cameras consumption (value & volume) by key regions/countries, type and application, history data from 2015 to 2019, and forecast to 2025.

To understand the structure of the Outdoor Security Cameras market by identifying its various subsegments.

Focuses on the key global Outdoor Security Cameras manufacturers, to define, describe, and analyze the sales volume, value, market share, market competition landscape, SWOT analysis and development plans in the next few years.

To analyze the Outdoor Security Cameras with respect to individual growth trends, future prospects, and their contribution to the total market.

To share detailed information about the key factors influencing the growth of the market (growth potential, opportunities, drivers, industry-specific challenges and risks).

To project the consumption of Outdoor Security Cameras submarkets, with respect to key regions (along with their respective key countries).

To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.

To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.

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DecisionDatabases.com is a global business research report provider, enriching decision makers and strategists with qualitative statistics. DecisionDatabases.com is proficient in providing syndicated research reports, customized research reports, company profiles and industry databases across multiple domains.

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Reference Source:

https://www.topnewscorner.com/outdoor-security-cameras-market-size-share-growth-outlook-forecast-research-report-till-2025/
A man's unusual proposal on the edge of a mountain cliff in Austria turned into a dangerous eventuality as his girlfriend slipped off the peak shortly after accepting the proposal. According to Daily Mail, the woman toppled from nearly 650-foot cliff immediately after she said yes to her boyfriend. The 27-year-old had wanted to surprise the woman and make the proposal special as he took her atop Alps peaks, Carinthia in the southern Austrian region. However, in a shocking incident, the 32-year-old woman ended up falling from the Falkert mountain. The woman, however, survived as she miraculously landed on the thick blanket of snow, after her boyfriend failed to hold her and pull her back up.

According to Austrian broadcasters, the womans boyfriend, who attempted to hold her as she slipped, also lost footing in the process and fell from a 50 feet height. He managed to hold the cliff edge and dangled for life for several hours. The emergency rescue team was called in to save the woman after a passerby spotted the woman lying motionless in the snow. Her boyfriend was rescued by a helicopter from the cliff he had been hanging by the officers in a rescue effort. The Austrian police informed the sources of the UKs Daily Mail that the couple was extremely lucky to have survived such a dangerous fall. Had it not been for snow, things would have turned out very differently, an officer reportedly said. The man sustained some injuries, including a vertebrate fracture, the woman is reportedly doing well.

Read: New Year 2021: Netizens Share Hilarious Version Of Their Plans With Rib-tickling Memes

Read: 'Mysterious' Monolith Spotted In A Park In Ahmedabad For The First Time, Netizens Baffled

'Aspiring groom's' proposal fail

In a similar incident earlier, a memorable wedding proposal of a man dangling on the edge of a boat in the middle of the lake had gone horribly wrong as the boat went out of control throwing the couple into the lake. In a footage that emerged online, the man efficiently managed to trail on the metal fitted stern after halting his paramours boat in the lake to delivers a 'once in a lifetime' proposal. However, as fate would have had it, the woman excitedly accepts the offers but in an attempt to embrace the man who was dangling on the boat rear, she toppled backward kicking her boyfriends face and sending him flying off in the air.

Read: NASA Shares Rare Cloud-free View Of Elephant Island, Netizens In Awe Of Gorgeous Pic

Read: DMRC Shares 'How It Started Vs How It Ended' Meme, Netizens Can Relate

(image credit: Alpin-1/facebook)

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Those able to raise a glass or two during the festive season might spare a thought for the hundreds of Defence Forces personnel who have missed celebrations at home with their families as they're abroad on peacekeeping missions around the globe.

Ireland has a proud record of being the only country in the world to have a continuous presence on global peacekeeping missions since 1958, mainly with the United Nations.

It hasn't come without a cost, as 85 people have lost their lives.

The first peacekeeper to lose his life was Company Sergeant Felix Grant DSM (distinguished service medal), who died in the Congo on October 3, 1960. In total, 26 people died in operations in the Congo between then and 1963.

Nine men lost their lives while serving in Cyprus between 1965 and 1971.

Our biggest peacekeeping role has been in Lebanon, where our troops remain today. In total, 46 have lost their lives there. Four died in one day  February 14, 2000.

UNSTO - Comdt James Sharkey, Observer Group Lebanon (OGL)

Commandant Conor King, general secretary of the Defence Forces' officers' representatives association RACO, said we have a proud and unbroken six decades of service in UN missions.

Our personnel are the physical embodiment and projection of Irelands foreign policy in far-flung corners of the globe, said Comdt King.

"At all ranks, they are trained to the highest levels, as they're often required to conduct full-scale military action, peacekeeping operations and humanitarian aid within a short space of time and in a small area of operations.

He said Defence Forces personnel love overseas service, despite the inherent risk and danger associated with it, and the strain it can place on family life.

However, he added that well-documented retention issues will have to be tackled, as defence minister Simon Coveney acknowledges, before we can seriously think about expanding our global military footprint.

The Defence Forces have completed over 70,000 individual tours of [overseas] duty, but every one person deploying means one less person to do the work at home, said Comdt King.

"We need to improve the offer in order to retain people and seriously review the organisational structures at home to allow for an adequate overseas establishment, which accounts for the 600 personnel deployed away from their home station at any one time."

He said shortages of specialists and middle-ranking officers have seen increasing instances of mandatory selection for his members, where they are selected to deploy despite not being a volunteer.

This can have serious implications for morale, family life and ultimately retention, said Comdt King.

UNIFIL

Lebanon

Senior Irish officer  Lt Col Fred ODonovan

UNIFIL Defence Forces personnel overseas at Christmas.

This represents the Defence Forces largest overseas deployment. Currently, the 117th Irish/Polish Battalion is made up of personnel from both countries, plus troops from Hungary. The Irish contingent (IRCON) comprises both Irish and some Maltese personnel.

Our unit for 117 IRCON is the 28th Infantry Battalion based in Finner Camp, Co Donegal. Of the 351 personnel currently stationed, there are 26 women.

It is currently conducting an average of 28 operations daily, with almost 20% of mobile ops conducted in close co-ordination with the Lebanese Armed Forces.

Lt Col O'Donovan said that half of operational activities are conducted in darkness and the unit provides a patrolling presence throughout its area of responsibility on a 24/7 basis.

Patrols include counter rocket-launch operations, foot patrols, vehicle checkpoints and patrols of the Blue Line  the UN line of demarcation between Lebanon and Israel.

"At all times the battalion operates two forward outposts along this Blue Line, which constantly monitor the area and report back to our headquarters," he said.

"These outposts provide constant feedback, which is vital to the credibility and success of the UN mission in Lebanon

Due to the impact of Covid-19, our patrolling personnel are not given the opportunities Irish troops have ordinarily had in the past to engage with the local population.

"Our routine market walks, which have taken place in recent years on weekends, throughout the local towns and villages have been postponed during the pandemic to protect both our troops and the local population."

This has put on hold the engagement with the local population, which has been such a central part of Irish peacekeeping in south Lebanon for over 30 years.

"However, the Irish battalion still engages as much as possible with local representatives and leaders through use of text services and phone calls to ensure that, when we finally come through the pandemic, the close links Irish units have with the local population will have been strongly maintained," he said.

UNDOF

Syria

Senior Irish officer  Commanding Lt Col Kieran Carey

UNDOF

In addition, at force headquarters, Brig Gen Maureen OBrien is deputy force commander.

On May 31, 1974, the UN adopted a Security Council Resolution to establish a UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF). Its mandate is to watch over the Golan Heights and maintain the ceasefire between Israel and Syria.

On July 16, 2013, the Defence Forces were ordered to deploy with UNDOF. That role is currently carried out by 62nd Infantry Group. It contains 129 personnel, of which 11 are women.

Between them, personnel of the 62nd Infantry Group have a combined total of over 265 previous overseas tours, with Company Sergeant Paul OMara having completed the most tours with 16.

He's currently serving there alongside his son, Corporal David OMara.

The 62nd Infantry Groups primary responsibility is to act as the Force Reserve Company (FRC), under the direct command of the UNDOF force commander.

The FRC's responsibility is to maintain a Quick Reaction Force (QRF) and also a Reserve Force within Camp Faouar at all times.

The QRF is a small, highly mobile and flexible force that can respond to any request within 15 minutes. They can range from evacuation of UN personnel for various emergency reasons to routine patrols.

In the last number of weeks, the 62nd Infantry Group has conducted over 75 patrols and contingency plan exercises in conjunction with unarmed military observers.

Two weeks prior to deployment last October, their personnel began a quarantine period in Kilworth Camp, Co Cork.

They were the first group to trial 'Covid watches', which measure distance from soldier to soldier and vibrate to inform personnel if they had been within 2m of another soldier for more than two minutes.

The watches provided information to a central computer that would instantly track and trace if there was a positive Covid case detected in the camp. This gave personnel a heightened sense of awareness of the dangers and risks associated with being in close contact with others.

Unfortunately, the group will be the first six-month mission with no leave due to the pandemic. As a result, the mental health and wellbeing of personnel has been a top priority.

A number of guest speakers have spoken to personnel via video link on topics such as gambling, addiction, and depression.

MINUSMA

Mali

Senior Irish officer  Comdt Andy Brady

Eagle Minusma.

The UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) was established by a UN Security Council resolution in April 2013 to support political peace processes in the war-torn country and carry out a number of security-related tasks to aid the population.

The current mandate is in place until June 30, 2021, with a focus on security reform, protection of civilians, constitutional reform, implementation of a peace agreement, and the participation of women across all elements of society.

Ireland first deployed to the mission in September 2019 and currently has 14 personnel with MINUSMA in Mali. These include members of the elite Army Ranger Wing (ARW).

There are two staff officers deployed at the force headquarters and 12 supporting operations across the wider mission area.

EUTM

Mali

Senior Irish officer  Lt Col Joe Mullins

Comdt Mark Brogan in Mali.

The Irish unit currently operating with the EU Training Mission Mali (EUTM), a multi-country operation, is 16 IRCON. It's based at two locations: Mission Force Headquarters in Bamako, the capital, and at a training camp at Koulikoro, 57km away.

Currently, 20 Irish troops provide military advice, education, and training to the Malian ministry of defence and Malian armed forces.

The impact of Covid-19 has been significant as the headquarters is in lockdown due to the number of positive cases. However, the operational need continues, with decentralised training activities ongoing.

MINURSO

Western Sahara

The UN mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) was established by a Security Council resolution in 1991 in accordance with settlement proposals by warring Morocco and the Frente Popular para la Liberacion de Saguia el-Hamra y de Rio de Oro (Frente POLISARIO).

A UN-approved plan provides for a transitional period for the preparation of a referendum in which the people of Western Sahara would choose between independence and integration with Morocco.

While to date, the organisation of the referendum hasn't been possible, other requirements of the mandate have been pursued successfully. Defence Forces officers monitor the ceasefire through air and ground patrols and assist in the reduction of the threat from mines etc.

Despite a recent resumption of hostilities, MINURSO remains present throughout the territory, monitoring the situation whilst communicating with all parties the need to take all necessary steps to defuse tensions and to remove all obstacles to the resumption of the political process.

Ireland's deployment with MINURSO commenced on September 20, 1991, and Defence Forces personnel continue to serve with the mission, with a contingent of two serving on a six-month tour.

UN Truce Supervision Organisation (UNTSO)

Middle East

Senior Irish officer  Lt Col Damian Carroll

UNTSO - Comdt Ian KILBRIDE and Comdt Donnach REILLY Observer Group Golan, Tiberias (Israel).

UN military observers (UNMOs) are unarmed and are trained to observe and report violations of the agreements of ceasefire, disengagement, etc.

All military observers are seasoned officers in the rank of captain or major. In total, 27 nations contribute to UNTSO with a total of 153 military personnel.

UNTSO currently provides military observers to two UN missions in the area: Observer Group Lebanon (OGL), which supports UNIFIL in south Lebanon; and Observer Group Golan (OGG), supporting UNDOF in the Golan.

OGG maintains its headquarters co-located with UNDOF HQ and is split into two outstations: Observer Group Golan  Damascus (OGG-D) and Observer Group Golan  Tiberias (OGG-T), based in those respective areas. In total, 11 Irish are posted in many roles across UNTSO in the region.

KFOR

Kosovo

Senior Irish officer  Col Mark Brownen

The Defence Forces has been serving with Kosovo Force (KFOR) since August 1999 and currently has 13 personnel at Camp Film City in Pristina.

As members of KFORs headquarters staff, they're instrumental in the planning and execution of all support activities performed by KFOR, with the aim of providing a safe and secure environment with freedom of movement for all communities in the region.

Col Bowen said KFOR has faced a number of challenges in 2020, primarily due to Covid-19.

"The unconventional threats posed by Covid-19 have required KFOR to develop methods to ensure the operational capability is maintained throughout and Irish personnel have been critical in the success of finding new ways to adapt," he said.

The Irish contingent have people serving with the headquarter support group on air operations, logistics and it's PR branch.

Five members of the Irish contingent hold key appointments within this unit, including commander, site manager and fund manager.

MONUSCO

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

Senior Irish officer  Comdt Aine Flynn

The UN Organization Stabilisation Mission in the DRC, MONUSCO, was established under a Security Council Resolution in May 2010.

It took over from an earlier UN peacekeeping operation that was deployed in 1999 after civil war in the DRC and fighting between the army of the president, Mobutu Sese Seko, and rebel forces led by Laurent Kabila, aided by the intervention of other neighbouring states.

The UN's initial mandate was to plan for the observation of the ceasefire and disengagement of forces and maintain liaison with all parties to the ceasefire agreement.

The new mission (MONUSCO) reflected the new environment in the DRC, which included the countrys first free and fair elections in 2006.

MONUSCO was authorised to use all necessary means to carry out its mandate to protect civilians, humanitarian personnel and human rights organisations under imminent threat of physical violence and to support the government of the DRC in its stabilisation and peace consolidation efforts.

This was extended to include an intervention brigade tasked with carrying out offensive operations to neutralise and disarm armed groups in certain parts of the country.

Ireland has contributed troops to various peacekeeping missions in the DRC since 1958. We first began deploying personnel to MONUC in June 2001 and have contributed to MONUSCO since its inception.

There are three Irish personnel currently attached to MONUSCO employed in various roles in the force headquarters in Goma.

EUFOR OP ALTHEA

BOSNIA

The EU operation ALTHEA in Bosnia and Herzegovina was launched in December 2004.

It monitors the region and maintains close liaison with local security forces. At local level, EUFOR is present through small teams of soldiers living in communities across the country.

The EUFOR Multinational Battalion (MNBN), based in Camp Butmir, is deployable by land and air, and is equipped and trained to respond to different kinds of situations if required.

Bosnia and Herzegovina still have large stockpiles of weapons, ammunition and mines left over from the war (1992-1995), many of which become more dangerous over time.

EUFOR provides essential expertise, support, monitoring and mentoring to complete the safe disposal and storage of ammunition, weapons and explosives.

The Defence Forces currently has five personnel involved in Operation ALTHEA and has contributed to the mission since 2005.
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Jeremy Corbyn's brother Piers was arrested for the second time in 2021 at an anti-lockdown protest in London's Hyde Park.

Corbyn, 73, was among 17 people who were arrested for breaching Health Protection Regulations at the demonstration at Speaker's Corner, in Hyde Park, on January 2.

A crowd of between 200 and 300 people gathered to protest against lockdown restrictions and their civil liberties being curtailed.

It came after Corbyn was fined and arrested on New Year's Day after leading a New Year's Eve anti-lockdown protest near the London Eye, in the centre of the capital.

Corbyn, brother of the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, posted a video of what was dubbed the 'NYE Party of Parties' on his Twitter feed, proclaiming: 'TOTAL SUCCESS! #NYEPartyofParties by London Eye.

'Over 1000 defied all threats +chanted #LetLondonLive! & #Corbyn4London after I announced I will stand for Mayor! Thank you +well done all!'

The conspiracy theorist has now been arrested at least five times since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and has received fines totalling more than 10,000.

Piers Corbyn, 73, (pictured) was among 17 people who were arrested for breaching Health Protection Regulations at the demonstration at Speaker's Corner on January 2

Pictured wearing a black woolly hat and a pair of handcuffs, the brother of the former Labour leader stood beside officers

At the protest on Saturday, some were holding placards and banners including slogans like 'freedom over fear'.

Pictured wearing a black woolly hat and a pair of handcuffs, the brother of the former Labour leader stood beside officers.

The Metropolitan Police tweeted: 'Officers continue to engage with groups of people who have gathered in the Hyde Park area.

'A number of people have been arrested under health protection regulations and taken into custody.

Piers Corbyn was fined by police after leading a New Year's Eve anti-lockdown protest in Central London

'We urge those in the area to leave immediately.'

More than two people are generally not allowed to gather in public under Tier 4 rules.

The Metropolitan Police added: 'Officers will take enforcement action where we see clear breaches of the Tier 4 rules.

'It's up to all of us to make the right choices + slow the spread of the virus.'

A group called The People's Lockdown, Stand For Your Human Rights, had said it was going to hold a event at Hyde Park on Saturday afternoon.

Corbyn bragged that around 1,000 people took part in the protest but in the video, barely two dozen are visible

It called on people to "stand with your loved ones" in an online post.

Corbyn has become one of the country's leading anti-lockdown campaigners.

He has found himself involved in multiple legal battles over his opposition to lockdown measures, claiming they are an attack on civil liberties.

Corbyn bragged that around 1,000 people took part in the previous protest yesterday but in the video, barely two dozen were visible.

He could be seen leading a group of protestors chanting 'Freedom' as they approached a line of police.

Seconds later, he was confronted by officers and appeared to be having a conversation with them before the fixed penalty notice of 200 was believed to have been issued.
They are drawn partly by the prospect of bringing a little normalcy to their lives in a place where coronavirus restrictions have been more relaxed than at home, even as cases of Covid-19 shatter records. Some of them are staying, at least for a while, and taking advantage of the six-month tourist visa Americans are granted on arrival.

I have no interest in going back, Mr. George said.

But while coming to this country may be a relief for many foreigners, particularly those fleeing colder weather, some Mexicans find the move irresponsible amid a pandemic, especially as the virus overwhelms Mexico City and its hospitals. Others say the problem lies with Mexican authorities, who waited too long to enact strict lockdown measures, making places like Mexico City enticing to outsiders.

If it was less attractive, fewer people would come, said Xavier Tello, a Mexico City health policy analyst. But what were creating is a vicious cycle, where were receiving more people, who are potentially infectious or infected from elsewhere, and they keep mixing with people that are potentially infectious or infected here in Mexico City.

In November, more than half a million Americans came to Mexico  of those, almost 50,000 arrived at Mexico Citys airport, according to official figures, less than half the number of U.S. visitors who arrived in November last year, but a surge from the paltry 4,000 that came in April, when much of Mexico was shut down. Since then, numbers have ticked up steadily: between June and August, U.S. visitors more than doubled.
Of the four candidates in Georgias twin Senate elections, only one of them is known for his skills on the stump. Jon Ossoff, who is taking on Republican Senator David Perdue, has acquired a reputation as a fiercely smart and sharp-tongued campaigner  and he hasnt even held elected office before.

Jon Ossoff, a 33-year-old former congressional staffer and investigative journalist, was not a dead cert to make it through the first round of this years Senate election. But on 3 November, he polled only 88,000 votes behind Mr Perdue, who fell 0.27 points short of the 50 per cent threshold he needed to meet to avoid a runoff.

Since then, the two races underway in Georgia have been under intense national pressure. They will decide which party controls the Senate, and by the same token how Joe Biden will govern the country for at least his first two years in power.

Read more: When will we know Georgia Senate runoff election results?

Under that microscope, Mr Ossoff has operated in the same blunt style he deployed against Mr Perdue in the first round  and he hasnt let up on the other Republican, Kelly Loeffler.

Asked by a Fox News reporter just days before the vote whether he had any concerns that allegations of wrongdoing against his counterpart Raphael Warnock might be a drag on the Democratic ticket, Mr Ossoff seized his chance to strike.

None whatsoever. Reverend Warnock addressed this issue a year ago, and heres the bottom line: Kelly Loeffler has been campaigning with a Klansman. He paused, staring the reporter in the eye.

Kelly Loeffler has been campaigning with a Klansman. And so shes stooping to these vicious personal attacks to distract from the fact that shes been campaigning with a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. I mean, we deserve better than that here in Georgia.

The pause-and-repeat-for-effect move is a powerful one, part of the rhetorical confidence he has deployed throughout both his campaigns.

In the mould of fellow thirtysomething Pete Buttigieg, who put in a strong showing in the Democratic primary with a far thinner resume than his rivals, Mr Ossoffs persona is steady and calm  but he has a knack for lethally weaponising his opponents weaknesses that few Democrats have lately displayed, and he is prepared to go further than many of them ever would.

Read more: How many electoral votes does Georgia have?

It helps, perhaps, that Mr Ossoffs opponent is a Republican more than twice his age who has none of the same rhetorical bite, and who struggled to control his body language when the younger candidate calmly eviscerated him at an October debate, calling him a crook and castigating him for allegedly enriching himself via stock trades in the spring while downplaying the risks of the coronavirus pandemic.

Offered the chance to debate Mr Ossoff again, Mr Perdue did not show up.

Mr Ossoffs first stab at national office came in 2017, when he stood in a special election for Georgias 6th congressional seat  a suburban district in northern Atlanta once held by Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the US House of Representatives. Again, the race attracted intense national attention, held as it was off-calendar during Donald Trumps first year in office.

Facing a crowded Republican field, Mr Ossoff fought that race to a runoff as well; in the course of his campaign he broke fundraising records for a house race, raking in some $25m, and offered the Democrats hope of seizing a longtime Republican seat in a state where theyd long hoped to make inroads.

In the end, he fell short by a larger-than-expected margin of around four points. It was written up at the time as a mortifying defeat for the best-funded congressional candidate in history under a hugely unpopular president. But thanks partly to the organisational roots Mr Ossoffs campaign put down, the Democrats finally flipped the seat in 2018  and kept it by a far wider margin in 2020.

Mr Ossoffs loss has not hurt his political reputation; in fact, he seems the ideal candidate to challenge an incumbent like Mr Perdue in a race where control of the entire senate now rests on the two parties ability to drive up turnout.

Read more: Trump is singlehandedly destroying Kelly Loeffler and David Perdues chances in Georgia

Some have even drawn comparisons with a certain other young Senate candidate who won not only his own seat, but the presidency  Barack Obama, who cut an ad for Mr Ossoff in the home stretch.

That said, there is plenty of precedent for Democratic hopefuls like Mr Ossoff thrilling the media and their base but leaving a meaningful number of voters cold.

Mr Ossoff was raised Jewish by his father Richard Ossoff, a publishing company owner descended from Russian and Lithuanian Jews, and his mother Heather Fenton, an Australian immigrant who co-founded the NewPowerPAC organisation, a nonprofit that works to elect women to local offices in Georgia.

Mr Ossoff and his wife Alisha Kramer have dated since they were in their teens. He finally proposed after 12 years together. Ms Kramer is an OB/GYN at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and has often appeared on Mr Ossoff's campaign posts on social media discussing the COVID-19 pandemic. She graduated with her medical degree in 2018.

She testified against the so-called "Heartbeat bill" in the Georgia state senate in 2019, which made abortions illegal in the state once a heartbeat could be detected. Doctors violating the law could receive up to ten years in prison. A district judge invalidated the regulation in July 2020.

Ms Kramer tested positive for COVID-19 that same month. Mr Ossoff experienced symptoms but tested negative and still took the precaution of avoiding in-person events.

After getting her Bachelor's degree from Georgetown University which included studies abroad in Denmark, Ms Kramer earned a Master's degree from the London School of Economics.

Leaving aside his own 2017 effort, there was Mr Buttigiegs presidential campaign, which saw him vault to the top of the pack before unceremoniously fizzling out; this year, South Carolinas Jaime Harrison and Kentuckys Amy McGrath raised astronomical sums in their races to defeat Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell, but both fell dramatically short of expectations.

On the other hand, signs are that Georgias double-header might be different. Ms Loeffler and Mr Perdue are both tainted by allegations that they profited off the pandemic while playing it down; they are facing not just a surge in Democratic turnout, but the risk that many Republicans wont show up after Mr Trump repeatedly insisted that Georgias electoral machinery is so rigged that voting there is pointless.

Meanwhile, Mr Ossoff and Mr Warnock have fought slick and pithy campaigns, tearing into their opponents and Mr Trump while appearing upbeat about the prospects for America under the Democrats.

Mr Ossoff showed off his uncommon skill at off-the-cuff campaigning in the same impromptu TV interview in which he slammed Ms Loeffler for her choice of company.

Since were live on Fox, let me take this opportunity to address directly the Fox audience," he said, directly to camera. We have two United States senators in Georgia who have blatantly used their offices to enrich themselves. This is beyond partisanship.

Without stumble or pause, he made the case for a strong programme of protecting healthcare and strengthening civil rights  and then appealed to an audience not known for supporting the likes of him: I humbly and respectfully request the support of everyone who is tuned in on Fox right now."
The Judicial Service says Chief Justice Kwasi Anin Yeboah has administrative powers to issue warrants to judges to sit and determine cases any day.



The Service said it was regrettable that the implementation of the administrative measures intended to promote smooth administration of Justice had been misconstrued by a section of the media.



A statement issued and signed by Justice Cynthia Pamela A. Addo, Judicial Secretary in Accra, said.



The statement is in response to public reactions to the re-assigning of two High Court Judges by the Chief Justice.



"The Judicial Service is deeply concerned about publication in some sections of the media imputing ill and improper motives to the Chief Justice's recent legitimate exercise of administrative powers to the re-assigning of two High Court judges."



The statement said "the Chief Justice by a letter dated 10th December 2020, transferred Justice Charles A. Wilson from the High Court, Tamale, where there were three High Court Judges currently, to the High Court at Bolgatanga, which has two High Courts with only one judge."



It explained that Justice Wilson's transfer was to take effect from January 6, next year, when the Christmas vacation would have ended and that he was directed to start work on January 11, 2021 until his release to Tamale, which was his station.



According to the statement, the Chief Justice exercised his administrative powers to transfer Justice Wilson to address a pressing administrative challenge undermining the efficient delivery of Justice in the region.



The statement said in the case of Justice Douglas Seidu, his posting to Bolgatanga upon his appointment, was curtailed because of his previous practice as a lawyer in that town.



"It is this situation that necessitated Justice Wilson's transfer to Bolgatanga to fill the vacuum, until such a time that a permanent replacement is made", it added.



The statement said: "as of now, no warrant whatsoever has been issued to Justice Seidu to sit in Tamale from his station at Sunyani."



It said the Service assured the public of its commitment to uphold, at all times, the rule of law in the discharge of its mandate.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The mastermind of the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai and operations commander of Laskar-e-Toiba (LeT) Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi has been arrested in Pakistan over terror financing charges. The LeT commander, who was out on bail since 2015, was arrested by Punjab province's Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) in a terror financing case registered in a Lahore police station.

"Following an intelligence-based operation conducted by the CTD Punjab, proscribed organisation LeT leader Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was arrested on charges of terrorism financing," the CTD said.

The 61-year old terror commander was running a dispensary to generate funds for terrorist activities as well as personal expenses, officials said. "Lakhvi is accused of running a dispensary, using funds collected for terrorism financing. He also used these fundings for personal expenses," PTI quoted officials as saying. The CTD added that Lakhvi is also ab UN-designated terrorist apart from belonging to the LeT. He will be tried before the Anti-Terrorism Court in Lahore.

LeT commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was the mastermind behind the 26/11 attacks that claimed 166 lives and injured 300 others after coordinated shootouts and bombings orchestrated by the LeT terrorists for three days across India's financial capital. The terrorists who came from Pakistan to Mumbai via sea route targeted several locations-- Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) railway station, Cama Hospital, Leopold Cafe, Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Oberoi Trident and Nariman house and the Nariman House business and residential complex.

Also read: Farmers' protest: 'Will intensify protests; shut malls, petrol pumps if Jan 4 talks fail,' say farmers
Real IRA founder Michael McKevitt, who was one of four men found liable for the Omagh bombing, has died after a long battle with cancer.

Described as an unrepentant Republican by sympathisers, McKevitt, who was released from prison in 2016 after serving a 20-year sentence for directing terrorism, had been terminally ill since he was diagnosed with cancer in 2015.

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He was jailed by the non-jury Special Criminal Court for 20 years in 2003, backdated to 2001, for directing terrorism and for membership of an illegal organisation styling itself as the Real IRA.

McKevitt had a cancerous kidney removed in May 2015 and was returned to jail five and a half weeks later.

Expand Close Former Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt (Niall Carson/PA) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Former Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt (Niall Carson/PA)

A native of Co Louth, McKevitt joined the Provisional IRA at the outbreak of the Troubles.

He was married to Bernadette Sands-McKevitt, a sister of 1981 hunger striker and MP Bobby Sands.

In February 1975 he was shot in the knees by the Official IRA during a feud between the two groups.

He was a long-time senior member of the Provisional IRA before quitting in protest at its ceasefires.

McKevitt launched the dissident republican group the Real IRA, which carried out the Omagh bombing just four months after the Good Friday Agreement was signed.

Expand Close Police officers and firefighters inspecting the damage caused by a bomb explosion in Market Street, Omagh, in 1998 (Paul McErlane/PA) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Police officers and firefighters inspecting the damage caused by a bomb explosion in Market Street, Omagh, in 1998 (Paul McErlane/PA)

The 1998 attack was the single biggest atrocity of the Troubles, claiming 29 lives, including a woman pregnant with twins. All of the defendants denied having any involvement in the bombing.

He had claimed he was framed and wrongly blamed for the Omagh bomb.

However, in 2009 a judge in a civil case in Belfast High Court ruled that McKevitt, Liam Campbell, Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly were all liable for the bombing, and ordered them to hand over 1.6m in damages.

That decision was upheld on appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

In November of last year, his family had been called to his hospital bedside as the 70-year-old fought for his life in Beaumont Hospital, Dublin.

Yesterday notices appeared on Republican websites that paid tribute to the Unrepentant Fearless Soldier & Leader Unbowed and Unbroken.

The Republican Network for Unity said they were deeply saddened to learn of the passing of our friend and comrade Oglach Michael McKevitt.

"Michael was a fearless and committed Republican soldier, they said in a post.

He joined the ranks of the Provisional Irish Republican Army from the inception of the conflict, he was wounded in a feud with the stickies in the early 1970s."

They added: "Michael disagreed with the direction of the movement from the mid-90s, he was a staunch opponent of the Good Friday Agreement and was totally against the '94 and '97 ceasefires called by the IRA."

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Online Editors
Posted Saturday, January 2, 2021 10:37 am

For as long as Manuel Villaseca has lived in the Seattle area, he's always had work.

From restaurants to supermarkets, even a teriyaki place, he's mainly worked in food.

"Before the pandemic, it was easy," Villaseca said of finding employment.

But four months ago, he lost his job at a grocery store after it changed ownership. And on a cold, overcast December afternoon, two days before the new year, he drove 45 minutes from his home in Tukwila to the Ballard Food Bank with his wife and two friends. He had heard that they had a lot of good food to offer.

"This is our first time coming," he said, from the driver's seat of his vehicle as he waited in a slow drive-thru pickup line.

Since the start of the coronavirus crisis, many organizations that provide free food across Washington have seen demand nearly double. At the beginning of April, cars lined up at one distribution site hours before it opened only to find the entire supply depleted in under an hour.

More than nine months in, many families, like Villaseca's, are still having to turn to food banks for the first time.

While unemployment in the state has started to drop, demand for food assistance has not. Instead, over the last three months, many food programs have seen demand spike a second time after the first major spike in May.

"Families are truly hanging on by the skin of their teeth," said Katie Rains, Washington state Department of Agriculture food policy adviser.

Congress recently passed a stimulus bill that includes $600 stimulus checks. A new push, however, to increase that amount to $2,000 recently stalled in the Senate.

At the White Center Food Bank in South King County, the holiday season is always the busiest time of the year, pandemic or no pandemic, said Carmen Smith, associate executive director of the organization. In Smith's four years working at the food bank  and even looking further back in the program's history  there's never been a busier holiday season, she said.

"Holidays are a time of celebration, especially for parents wanting to provide for their kids," Smith said. "I think it just makes families have to stretch a little harder in their budget."

Customers at the White Center Food Bank, in addition to three regular food pickups offered a month, were able to receive an extra holiday distribution in November and December that included baking staples such as flour and sugar, as well as items like cornhusks and fish sauce, chili peppers and vermicelli noodles. Over 75% of White Center's customers identify as people of color, and within that 50% are immigrants or refugees, Smith said, a population that has been disproportionately affected by this crisis with higher jobless rates and less government safety nets to fall back on.

Following Gov. Jay Inslee's announcement of new restrictions in mid-November to combat rising COVID-19 cases, including the closure of gyms and indoor dining, White Center Food Bank started seeing its numbers climb again, Smith said.

In addition to White Center, other food-assistance providers in South King County are reporting high spikes, said Linda Nageotte, president and CEO of Food Lifeline, which helps to supply free-food programs in Western Washington. As of mid-November, White Center Food Bank had served 935 new families last year  way above average.

The past nine months of the pandemic have required every level in the food-distribution chain to rethink the traditional methods of getting food to people who need it. Many food banks have started or ramped up their home-delivery programs. Most requirements for accessing food, like having an ID or living in a certain ZIP code, have been lifted. Four hundred members of the Washington National Guard are still deployed across eight counties to assist in food distribution. For the first time in its history, the state Department of Agriculture has had to start purchasing truckloads of food to help plug holes in the food-assistance supply chain.

The consulting firm McKinsey & Company worked with Northwest Harvest, a food bank supplier for the state, at the start of the crisis to create a model for anticipating need throughout 2020. They used "unemployment shock"  the number of new people who would be out of work as a result of the pandemic and the stay-home directives  to estimate that between 1.6 million and 2.2 million Washingtonians, almost one-third of the state, would lack the financial resources to acquire all of the food they need, said Rains, the food policy adviser. For comparison, in November 2019, 850,000 people living in Washington visited a food bank or food-assistance program.

So far, McKinsey's model has proven in-line with real-time demand, said Thomas Reynolds, chief executive officer of Northwest Harvest.

Heading into 2021, there's now "the exhaustion of assets and that's the thing that we really have no sophisticated and meaningful way to monitor," Rains said.

People leading hunger relief efforts are also concerned where funding will come from in the new year to support the state Department of Agriculture's emergency food buying response. For example, the department received more than $59 million in CARES Act funding through state distribution to purchase emergency food  but all of that money had to be spent by Dec. 30.

Fully understanding the need for food assistance across the state is becoming harder and harder, Rains explained, as the pandemic drags on. Another study by the University of Washington and Washington State University is helping to add more nuance to show how Washingtonians are currently faring. The survey, WAFood Security Survey, is currently in its second wave of data collection and anyone can complete it. Based on the study's first round of data collection in June, 30% of Washington households have experienced a lack of food since the implementation of the state's first stay-at-home order. Of those households, 59% had children living in the home.

"One of the many complexities that the hunger relief community is dealing with ... is that there's losing your job and then there's voluntary workforce reduction," Rains said.

As Seattle Public Schools and other school districts have switched to online learning this school year, many parents have had to reduce their workload or step away from work altogether in order to support their families.

"It's voluntary, but kind of not," Rains said. Folks who are voluntarily reducing their workload don't qualify for unemployment benefits, she added. In addition, many families have drawn from their savings, sold off assets as well as leaned on friends, religious groups or social networks for help.

Measuring whether a family has enough food is like a weather vane for measuring the health and economic prosperity of a community, explained Reynolds, with Northwest Harvest.

"When food insecurity rates go up, it means that people are stretching their dollars to the very limit and are on the brink of economic crisis," Reynolds said.

Jennifer Muzia, executive director of the Ballard Food Bank, said that if people are being forced to choose between what bills they can pay, don't let food be a concern.

"This is a resource we've always had in our community, and now it's one of the most critical things," she said.

Sitting in line at the Ballard Food Bank, Villaseca said if he only had to take care of himself, he might move back to his hometown in Mexico. But he has four daughters and a wife and his oldest is in college to become a doctor.

He's never been out of work like this before, he said, especially around the holidays. For the first time, he wasn't able to buy his kids presents for Christmas.

But thankfully, he said, they're still together.

___

(c)2021 The Seattle Times

Visit The Seattle Times at www.seattletimes.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Hundreds of anti-lockdown protesters were seen in Salem, Oregon on Thursday afternoon, many of whom were waving Trump flags as they urged officials to reopen businesses

Meanwhile, in Pasadena, California, Trump fans staged a car parade to show their support for the President

Many are still refusing to concede that Trump lost the election and will be out of the White House in less than three weeks

Meanwhile, Republicans are clinging to hope that they can maintain control of the Senate in two Georgia run-off races

But Trump has now claimed that the run-off races are 'illegal'; he made the claim in a series of tweets posted about 'election fraud' on Friday night

Democrats currently hold an edge in early voting in the run-offs, leaving Republicans looking for a big Election Day boost next Tuesday, January 5

Democrats Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock are running against GOP Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, respectively

If both Ossoff and Warnock are successful the Democrats will have 50 senators and a majority with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as a tie-breaker

MAGA fans have taken to the streets in Oregon and California to show their support for President Trump and to protest lockdown orders put in place amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hundreds of anti-lockdown protesters were seen in Salem, Oregon on Thursday afternoon, many of whom were waving Trump flags as they urged officials to reopen businesses.

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Police declared the event unlawful and dispersed protesters with impact munitions and flash bang grenades after the group refused to leave downtown.

Several protesters became angered by that move and were pictured facing off with officer clad in riot gear.

Others launched their own smoke grenades and 'several people were arrested', according to local police.

Meanwhile, other protesters assembled outside the gated mansion of Governor Kate Brown, claiming that the Democrat's lockdown orders were a violation of their liberties.

To the south, in Pasadena, California, MAGA fans showed their support for President Trump as he continues to cry foul about the results of the presidential election.

Hundreds of anti-lockdown protesters were seen in Salem, Oregon on Thursday afternoon, many of whom were waving Trump flags

Police declared the event unlawful and dispersed protesters with impact munitions and flash bang grenades after the group refused to leave downtown

Members of the far-right face off with police in front of the governor's mansion during a protest against COVID-19 restrictions at the state capitol

Some protesters launched their own smoke grenades after the rally was declared unlawful by police

Several protesters became angered after the protest was shut down and were pictured facing off with officer clad in riot gear.

Police try to keep far-right and far-left protesters from clashing during a far-right march to protest against COVID related lockdowns

Salem officers are seen wearing riot gear as the policed the protests in the city on New Year's Day

Meanwhile, in Pasadena, California, Trump fans staged a car parade to show their support for the President.

Many are still refusing to concede that Trump lost the election and will be out of the White House in less than three weeks.

The group of MAGA fans waved Trump 2020 flags and beeped their car horns as they made their way down the city's Rose Parade route.

While Trump may be leaving office, Republicans are clinging to hope that they can maintain control of the Senate.

That all hinges on two Senate run-off races in Georgia.

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If Democrat candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff win both races, the Senate will flip blue, giving Democrats control of the Presidency and both chambers of Congress from late this month.

It would spell disaster for President Trump's legacy as he prepares to leave the White House on January 20.

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Clearly concerned about what is at stake, he challenged the legitimacy of the run-off races in a series of angry tweets.

He described the run-off races as illegal and invalid because of 'hasty' changes made to the 'unconstitutional' voting process in the state prior to the election

Meanwhile, in Pasadena, California, Trump fans staged a car parade to show their support for the President

The group of MAGA fans waved Trump 2020 flags and beeped their car horns as they made their way down the city's Rose Parade route

Many are still refusing to concede that Trump lost the election and will be out of the White House in less than three weeks

While Trump may be leaving office, Republicans are clinging to hope that they can maintain control of the Senate

He wrote: 'Before even discussing the massive corruption which took place in the 2020 Election, which gives us far more votes than is necessary to win all of the Swing States (only need three), it must be noted that the State Legislatures were not in any way responsible for the massive changes made to the voting process, rules and regulations, many made hastily before the election, and therefore the whole State Election is not legal or Constitutional.

'Additionally, the Georgia Consent Decree is Unconstitutional & the State 2020 Presidential Election is therefore both illegal and invalid, and that would include the two current Senatorial Elections.'

Election officials have declared Joe Biden won Georgia by a razor thing margin.

The president elect garnered 49.5 percent of the vote in comparison to Trump's 49.3 percent.

President Trump says the two Georgia Senate run-off races are illegal and invalid because of 'hasty' changes made to the 'unconstitutional' voting process in the state prior to the election

Clearly concerned that the Senate may flip Democrat following the Georgia run-off races, Trump challenged their legitimacy in a series of angry tweets

The state's two Senate races have advanced to run-offs, with Georgians already voting early.

A new report has revealed that Democrats hold an edge in early, in-person voting in the run-off races, leaving Republicans looking for a big Election Day boost next Tuesday, January 5.

Fox News Channel reported Thursday that 2.8 million Georgians had already cast a ballot, with black voters making up a larger percentage of voters than in the November general election, which could be good news for Democrats Ossoff and Warnock.

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Additionally, there's been higher turnout in Democratic Congressional districts than Republican ones.

The amount counts for more than a third of the 4.9 million Georgians who voted in the November 3 general election.

Ossoff and Warnock are challenging GOP Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, respectively.

Perdue announced Thursday he was in quarantine after being exposed to COVID-19 by a staff member.

If Democrats pick up both seats the party will have 50 members of the Senate - and with the help of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, a majority.

Jon Ossoff

Rev. Raphael Warnock

Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler (left) and David Perdue (right) will have to make up any voting deficit on Election Day Tuesday. Perdue announced Thursday he was in quarantine after being exposed to COVID-19 by a staff member

Harris will return to the state Sunday to campaign, while President-elect Joe Biden will be in Atlanta Monday.

President Donald Trump will also hold a rally in Dalton, Georgia Monday, which will be one of his few public appearances since Election Day.

Georgia-based GOP consultant Chip Lake told Fox News that 'the early-voting numbers are certainly a little more favorable to Democrats than the early-voting data that we had in November.'

'Republicans need to have a strong Election Day turnout on Tuesday. Election Day votes count the exact same as early votes. We had just under a million people vote on Election Day on Nov. 3,' Lake continued.

'For Republicans to win these runoff races, I think its crucial that we need to have Election Day turnout at 800,000 votes or higher on Tuesday.'

Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's top strategist who's running the Georgia Republicans fundraising apparatus, wrote in a memo earlier this week, 'the combined total number of votes cast so far by absentee mail-in and in-person early voting is a couple points more Democratic than it was in the fall,' Fox reported.

In November, Biden won the state, flipping it to red for the first time since Bill Clinton in 1992.

Both Ossoff and Warnock did well enough to squeak out a run-off, which occurs when neither Senate candidate reach a 50 per cent threshold.

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Election Day is Tuesday, January 5.
MARYSVILLE, Ohio (AP)  When the coronavirus pandemic began, Miriam Looker sprang into action at the behest of her stepson, a central Ohio doctor.

Looker, 95, used her supply of quilting materials and soon was making up to 10 masks a day at her assisted living facility in Marysville, about 30 miles (48.28 kilometers) northwest of Columbus. Then, as she pushed well over 1,000 masks, Looker took a break  to recover from COVID-19 herself.

It was kind of my turn, I guess, she said.

After feeling exhausted and taking a lot of naps in November, Looker was feeling like herself again and started back in. She cuts out patterns at night and adds pleats while watching the news, then inserts elastic straps the next day.

The masks have gone to her stepson's patients, residents at Walnut Crossing Assisted Living Community where Looker lives, churches, hospice groups and schools.

Its something to do when youre tired of reading and tired of whatever is going on, or dont want to do it," Looker said. I can always sew, and it was fun.

Looker now estimates she's made about 1,700 masks, slightly ahead of a fellow resident who's pushing 1,300 of her own.

It's not the first time Looker has worked with material in an effort to save lives. In 1943, she had just finished her first year at Glenville St. College in her hometown of Glenville, West Virginia, when military recruiters came looking for women for the war effort.

After a summer training stint at West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon, she found herself in Dayton at what was then called Wright Field  today's Wright-Patterson Air Force Base  testing parachutes for the army. Testers would watch the troopers jump, record their hang time, then inspect parachutes for damage.

That experience explains a lot about her efforts to help during the pandemic, said her stepson, family practice Dr. Joseph Linscott.

Shes just like Rosie the Riveter from WWII, he said. She went from making quilts to making masks. She changed her assembly line overnight.

Story continues

While in Dayton, Looker met her first husband, Delbert Ford, a paratrooper trainer. At war's end they moved to Beloit, Wisconsin, where they raised four children. Eventually, at age 60, Looker earned a two-year degree in computer science at Edison Junior College  now Florida SouthWestern State College  in Fort Myers. She hasn't ruled out finishing a four-year degree.

I'm thinking about it," she said.

These days, Looker spends her time quilting, reading mysteries, staying current on politics and playing bingo. She uses her iPad to FaceTime with her children and grandchildren, do puzzles and check email.

She attributes her longevity to her parents' own long lives and a secret she shares: Eat fruit every day.

Looker knows there are coronavirus skeptics, and people who don't want to wear masks or think it won't help.

If wearing a mask helps other people, you need to be doing it, Looker said.
Dr Cillian De Gascun, at the National Virus Reference Laboratory in UCD. Photo by: Fergal Phillips.

It is not believed that that the new UK strain of Covid-19 is responsible for the recent surge in figures, as nine more cases of the variant have been detected in the Republic of Ireland.

Dr Cillian De Gascun, UCD National Virus Reference Laboratory Director, said yesterday that a small number of samples were tested for the new variant between December 23 and 29.

Nine new cases of the new strain were detected. Out of the 169 samples detected for this new strain to date, 16 have been confirmed, and thus Dr De Gascun said he does not believe this new strain is responsible for the recent significant and concerning increase in Covid-19 cases.

Read More

Taking to Twitter, he wrote: Further testing this week of #SARSCoV2 samples dating from #December 23rd to 29th has detected 9 additional #UKvariant cases in #Ireland. This brings the total number of cases identified @nvrlucdireland to 16 (of 169 tested to date).

"As a random, albeit small, selection of cases primarily from the community, these data would suggest that the #SARSCoV2 #UKvariant - at a proportion of <10% - is not responsible for the recent significant & concerning increase in #SARSCoV2 case numbers #Surveillance #StayAtHome

Further testing this week of #SARSCoV2 samples dating from #December 23rd to 29th has detected 9 additional #UKvariant cases in #Ireland. This brings the total number of cases identified @nvrlucdireland to 16 (of 169 tested to date) 1/2 https://t.co/gBEy0VjXO7  Cillian De Gascun (@CillianDeGascun) January 1, 2021

On New Years Day a further 1,754 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed by the Department of Health.

The figures, including 11 additional deaths related to Covid-19, come amid warnings that cases could likely reach 3,000 per day, according to HSE CEO Paul Reid.

Speaking on RTE Radio Ones Morning Ireland yesterday, Mr Reid said that coronavirus is now rampant in the community.

He said: The virus is absolutely rampant now in the community. Everybody is at extreme risk of contracting the virus.

Our health service is on what we would call now a high alert.

Yesterday, Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said: The most concerning trend at present is the rapidly increasing number of people being admitted to hospital - we are now admitting between 50  70 people a day to our hospital system.

"Unfortunately, we expect this to get worse before it gets better. Our health system will not continue to cope with this level of impact.

He also warned that the New Years Day figures are just the tip of the iceberg of the actual number of people who have tested positive over the Christmas period.

HSE CCO Colm Henry told Today with Katie Hannon on RTE Radio 1 that 15,000 people with symptoms per day are now being referred by GPs for testing.

He said that people should act as if everyone they meet has the virus.

Act as if everybody you meet has the disease. The disease prevalence rate in the community are extremely high and are increasing exponentially, he said yesterday.

We know the virus is out of control.

Read More





Online Editors
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP)  The chairman of the Missouri Veterans Commission resigned after releasing an investigative report that criticized the commission for its response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed more than 140 lives at seven veteran nursing homes since September.

Tim Noonan told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Thursday that he was resigning, citing comments Gov. Mike Parson made this week about the veterans and the commission.

A summary of the investigation was released earlier in December, but Noonan, who was commission chairman since 2017, had resisted an open records request from the Post-Dispatch to release the full report.

Officials inside Parsons administration and state Sen. Jill Schupp, a Democrat from Creve Coeur, had urged Noonan to release the full report, and he did so after Attorney General Eric Schmitt directed him to, Noonan said.

That came after Parson on Wednesday expressed frustration with the commission, which is an independent body.

Im not going to worry about everybodys personal lives that sit on the commission, or the chairman, Parson said. "Im just going to absolutely worry about the veterans and thats my whole focus.

Noonan said he resigned because of those comments.

The fundamental issue is not the distraction and misleading statements regarding releasing the closed record, which I believe will do nothing but harm the MVC and indeed should remain closed, but rather this statement, he said.

The 415-page report concluded that Paul Kirchhoff, executive director of the commission, and Deputy Director Ryon Richmond, should have appreciated the presence of a COVID-19 outbreak by Sept. 2, 2020, and acted immediately to attempt to isolate and contain the spread of COVID-19."

Among other things, the report cited failures to quarantine staff and patients awaiting test results, a lack of formal infection control policies and failure by top staff at the veterans commission to prepare for a prolonged outbreak.

Failure to do so led to rapid explosion of cases inside the Homes and unnecessary Veteran deaths, said the report, which was compiled by Armstrong Teasdale, a St. Louis law firm.

Since September, at least 142 veterans housed in the facilities have died after contracting COVID-19, the commission reported Dec. 8. More recent death figures were not immediately available.

Parson ordered the independent investigation into veterans homes on Oct. 2.

As of Friday, Missouri has recorded 397,299 confirmed COVID-19 cases, an increase of 4,729 since Thursday. The state health department also reported 5,540 deaths, up 21 since Thursday.

This article was written by The Associated Press from The Associated Press and was legally licensed through the Industry Dive publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@industrydive.com.
Ukraine is set to hold the next summit in the Normandy format, which embraces Ukraine, Germany, France, and Russia and aims at a settlement in Donbas, in 2021, deputy chief of the Office of the Ukrainian President and presidential foreign policy advisor Ihor Zhovkva has said.

"We set the goal of holding the next summit in the Normandy format in 2021. Its strategic mission will be to discuss the keynote issue, i.e. bringing peace to Donbas on Ukrainian terms. In this respect, we are counting on further support from our partners in the Normandy format, Germany and France," Zhovkva said in an article entitled "Foreign Policy Priorities of Ukraine in 2021" and published by ZN.UA.

The effort towards implementing the agreements reached by the Normandy format leaders in Paris in December 2019 will be continuing, he said.

Speaking of tactical tasks, Zhovkva mentioned further implementation of the ceasefire, intensification of the activity of the Trilateral Contact Group, continuation of the exchange of captives, operation of the existent checkpoints and full-fledged reopening of the new ones, disengagement of forces and hardware in new designated areas, implementation of the updated demining plan, provision of the access of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and other international humanitarian organizations to captives, and unhampered access of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Donbas territories uncontrolled by Kyiv.

In the words of Zhovkva, Ukraine will also keep on working on increasing international pressure on Russia so that the latter fulfills its obligations.

"The sanctions against Russia are helping Ukraine with the peace process, so they should remain in place until the complete restoration of the status quo, which Ukrainian diplomats are working on non-stop year after year and will be continuing to successfully do so," he said.
I never misused my position for any personal gains. I am perhaps the only person who did not own any land either at Kilinochchi or anywhere else although my association with Kilinochchi lasts over half a century.

Following article based on an open letter by the writer to the President of Sri Lanka

by V. Anadasangaree

With the date fast approaching for the American sponsored resolution to be taken up at the Human Rights Council in Geneva for discussion and voting, I hasten to write to you my suggestions to save the Country from facing any embarrassment and to prevent its name going down in the Countrys history as a condemned one. i am neither a foreteller nor a soothsayer but one having the interest of the country and its people at heart. I do not want to dig into the past and wound my heart more, but you are not unaware of the positive stand I took in the interest of my country and its people, on certain matters during the bitter past that cost me my seat in Parliament Twice and earned me the honorary title of "Traitor". You are the only person, who being all power full can vouch for my integrity and dignity. You can tell the world that I neither ever asked you for any favor nor you did anything to influence me.

I never misused my position for any personal gains. I am perhaps the only person who did not own any land either at Kilinochchi or anywhere else although my association with Kilinochchi lasts over half a century. The owner of the land where I lived for over 45years has sold it to me now at a very low price which I propose keeping as a monument in memory of Tamil Leaders, young and old who had visited this place.

Off and on I had been giving you advices, but I wonder whether you took any seriously. Winning the War against the LTTE was a joint effort of many and not that of an individual or a group of people. The contributions came in different forms from various sources. The sacrifices were made by the forces, the conscripted youths, and the people of all ethnic and religious groups. In short, the entire country and almost all countries contributed in deferent forms. Almost all countries had the LTTE banned in their respective lands, including UK, USA, Canada, EU, Scandinavian Countries and many such others. Above all, India our immediate neighbor whose Q branch of Tamil Nadu had proved that if not for their involvement the country would have been enslaved.

Your Excellency the biggest mistake you made was, not to check those who were criticizing almost all countries that had pledged to support the American resolution, What do we have in our country, for any country to have hidden motives of bringing our country under their control ? At least now, those who criticize the countries that have pledged to support or stand neutral mainly because the said resolutions are not anti-Buddhist will now change their minds and welcome their decision.

The second mistake was your attempt to go round the world seeking support against the motion from various countries. You can rest assured that even the friendly countries will either vote for the resolution or the most abstain from voting. Almost all countries are sensitive to Human Rights Violations. One reason may be that they are angry about what their forefathers did to the people during colonial days. Reminding them of the past will prove counterproductive. If anyone asks us as to what punishment was meted out to Elapole's Family, we have no answer.

The fact remains that there were Human Rights Violations during the tail end of the war, for which all the soldiers cannot be held responsible. To quote from the poem the Charge of the light brigade, Someone had blundered: Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. Cannons to the right of them, cannons to the left of them, cannons in front of them volleyed and thundered ". But they - the soldiers are not to question why but to do and die. This would have been the plight of the soldiers at the war front too. By punishing them don't violate the human rights of the soldiers. But you have a right and also a duty to identify the real culprits and while doing your duty to the people, whom you rule, give sufficient legal assistance to the soldiers also to escape from punishment, which duty you can't shirk as Minister of Defense.

The third mistake which may be even more important than the other two is your reluctance or failure to implement the 13th Amendment which you had promised to the Indian Authorities to implement with a plus. This is the gravest mistake of all. As I see it, our country had failed to learn from the Indian Diplomacy and Honesty. I traced an article from my old files, dated 25th May 1995 with the Sinhala version published two days later in the daily Sinhala paper Dinamina. That article suits well for the occasion. While quoting some portions from it I annex both the English and Sinhala versions for your perusal and to note the contents.

The said article was captioned Indo - Sri Lanka relations in the present context".

In that article I had given details of proximity of Sri Lanka to India, which is only about 20 miles and of compelling need for both countries to maintain good relationship, not merely as friendly neighbor but as one who will rise to the occasion and come rushing to our help. I have also said about India's readiness to share our burden with us. Starting from Nehru - Kotalawala Pact followed by Srimavo - Sasthiri Pact the Indian Government un - hesitantly agreed to take over a large number of Tamils of recent Indian origin. Although in practice our Party was opposed to these moves one should appreciate the readiness the Indian Leaders showed, in solving a problem that was not theirs.

As regards the most controversial issue today the Kachchathevu, this is what I had said "It is against much protests and opposition that the late Shrimathi Indira Gandhi handed over the Kachchathevu Island to Sri Lanka telling the protesters that it is only a worthless rocky island, when in fact she very well knew that by doing so she was exposing her country to big security risk. This was indeed a gesture of goodwill on the part of the late Mrs. Indira Gandhi the Prime Minister of India at that time. She knew that Sri Lanka will never betray her. I have referred to a number of matters in that article some of which are important and concern both countries.

More than anything else, I want you to concentrate on the paragraph dealing with Kachchathevu. I rememberthe tremendous opposition some Indian States especially the Tamil Nadu had for handing over Kachchathevuto Sri Lanka, at the request of Hon. Madam Srimavo Bandaranayake who was Prime Minister of Sri Lanka at that time. She was worried that Kachchathevu may be used by the LTTE as their base. The protesters were silenced by Madam Indira Gandhi Prime Minister of India at that time saying that this is a worthless rocky island and not to raise serious objection for the handing over of the Island. But at that time, she knew very well that one day it would become a big threat and security risk for India. No one can find fault with anyone who thinks so, especially now when our relationship with China is very close and the relationship between India and China is strained. This is where you should give serious thought to the Indo - Sri Lanka relationship.

It is from the Indian Diplomacy and Democracy that we Sri Lankans should learn a lot. We should not forget that according to the original pact the Indian fisherman had many rights. Yet it has now become Sri Lanka's exclusive possession. Kachchathevu has now become a big issue. Many Indian States, Tamil Nadu in particular are demanding that the Central Government must take the Island back. The demand and pressure from all sides have now made things very uncomfortable for the Central Government. The matter had gone to courts and without any noise the Central Government could have easily taken the island back. Even the Sri Lankan Government could not have objected. If the Indian Government wanted the High Court would have allowedit. But the strangest thing happened when the High Court referred the matter to the Central Government, shockingly but very admirably the Government informed that the Island given will not be taken back. The Government went a step further and said that the Indian fisherman can't do fishing there. Please tell me what we would have done in a situation like this.

Your Excellency if you analyze the decision of the Indian Government it will be clear that they didn't want to bring dishonor to a leader who rightly or wrongly had taken a decision that they can't bring dishonor to her although she died about 30 years back. The most appreciable thing is that they knew very well that this is going to be the major issue at the elections. The Congress Government probably feels as a great political leader once said, Rather than winning by telling lies to the society that one sincerely loves, it is better to face defeat by telling the Truth ". This is the principle I too had been adopting since my entry in to politics 55 years back.

It may not be out of place if I do mention here how the undertaking given by the Father of the Nation Rt. Hon. DS Senanayake to the Tamil Members of the outgoing State Council in 1947 was dishonored by the Indian Citizenship act. In addition to that the Banda Chelva Pact was torn by the late Hon. S W R D Bandaranaiyake himself due to pressure from the opposition. Then the Dudley - Chelva Pact never saw the light of the day although the late Mr. S J V Chelvanayakam and the Members of Parliament of the Federal Party gave full support to the Government of the late Hon. Dudley Senanayake. The report of the Experts Committee created by you died a natural death.

Now Your Excellency unlike in the past, realizing the seriousness of the present situation please take a bold step to implement the 13th Amendment brought out due to the efforts of the late Hon. Rajiv Gandhi Prime Minister of India who sacrificed his life to bring Peace to our Country. This is the biggest tribute that you can offer to a great son of a great country, India which had never betrayed our country and our people.

By implementing the 13th Amendment most of the provisions in the American sponsored Resolution will be attended to and as the first step prevent the matter going up for International Inquiry. In conclusion I strongly urge that your representatives at the Human Rights Council should request the members to vote for an amendment under which the rest of the matters like compensation for lives and property lost along with the war crimes can be taken up under a committee of the sponsor nations headed by an Indian Representative. HI Saving the reputation of the country is now in your hands.

I feel that I have done my duty as a dutiful citizen of Sri Lanka, without causing embracement or humiliation to any country and the people concerned.

V. Anadasangaree, Secretary General - TULF
Mumbai Saga: John Abraham Not Too Happy About Film's Direct OTT Release?

It was mid last year that reports of John Abhaham and Emraan Hashmi starrer Mumbai Saga's OTT release had been doing the rounds. It was being said that makers are in talks with Amazon Prime since theatres had no possibility of opening anytime soon. It is now that the film's release on Prime has been somewhat official, even though a statement is to be made. Trade sources have stated that the film has been acquired by the OTT giant for a good Rs. 80 crores. But it looks like John Abraham isn't too happy about the development.

When trade analysts and Bollywood insiders had tweeted about the film's release on Amazon Prime, many Tweeps felt that the decision was wrong and a Sanjay Gupta film of such scale definitely deserved a big-screen release, since it could have been a crowd puller. John Abraham happened to like one such tweet that called Mumbai Saga's OTT release 'worst mistake'. See the screengrab here:

Well, looks like his displeasure is quite evident, isn't it? We wonder what Sanjay Gupta or Emraan Hashmi or the rest of the cast's reaction would be like! John would, however, have a big screen release this year with Shah Rukh Khan starrer Pathan, where he would play the antagonist. He will also clash with Salman Khan on Eid with Satyameva Jayate 2.
THE CEO of the Irish South & West Fish Producers Organisation has reacted angrily to the lack of protection afforded to Irish fishermen following the recent Trade and Co-operation Agreement between the UK and the EU.

Under the terms of the recent trade agreement, EU fishing boats will have to reduce the quantity of fish caught in British waters by 25%. This has caused considerable anger amongst Irish fishing groups, who met with the Taoiseach and Ministers Simom Coveney and Charlie McConalogue this week.

CEO Patrick Murphy said: We were pleased with the meeting until we heard the Taoiseach announce two measures that were never discussed. He has announced a tie-up scheme and a decommissioning scheme. They brought in a tie-up scheme earlier this year which didnt work. A decommissioning scheme is essentially getting rid of jobs. We are totally opposed to them, he said.

Mr Murphy said he is shocked that Irish politicians have bowed to EU's demands to ensure this trade deal is accepted.

The EU wants the Irish fishermen to pay the price which is unacceptable. It is unbelievable that the leaders of this country are willing to sacrifice their own citizens for the good of the EU. The EU is rewarding the UK for leaving with more fish and they are getting that from Ireland.

The CEO wants the Taoiseach to stand up for the best interests of the Irish fishing industry and to protect coastal communities.

The Taoiseach met us previously in Castletownbere and agreed that we were being treated appallingly. Since he took over as Taoiseach, he has made it worse. It is not too late. We would hope our political leaders will go to the EU and fight our battle. Our hope was they would look for zonal attachment and save jobs in coastal communities. Our politicians are not doing enough to protect our best interests, he added.

Mr Murphy voiced his concerns that this latest agreement will ensure the industry will be wiped out in the future.

Our industry is dying and nobody is helping us. There is great anger out there amongst members. People are leaving in their droves. There is no young person going into the industry. Our fishing grounds and rights are being taken off us. Our fish is being given away. It is the extermination of our industry.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin acknowledged that the post-Brexit trade deal struck between the UK and the EU will have a significant negative impact on the Irish fishing industry.

In a statement issued, a Government spokesperson said the Taoiseach and his ministers were fully committed to engaging with the representative bodies and working with and for the sector and coastal communities.
Some of the shots will be paid for by donors to the Gavi alliance, a global collaboration led by the World Health Organisation for speeding up the development, manufacture and equitable distribution of coronavirus vaccines to low and middle-income countries. It was announced last year that the Serum Institute would receive $150 million in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Gavi vaccines alliance to make 100 million vaccine doses for India and other emerging economies. India will now start to conduct a nationwide vaccination dry run in which participants receive dummy vaccines to test mechanisms and reveal possible gaps in the system ahead of the actual vaccination drive. Loading "We have prepared detailed guidelines on vaccination. Everything in this has been kept very clear and free. In case of adverse events during vaccination, we have also made arrangements to monitor that," said Harsh Vardhan, a health minister. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised everyone will be vaccinated in India, Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said there was no need to vaccinate the country's entire population.

Out of 1.3 billion people, Bhushan said 300 million from priority groups would be vaccinated first. These include 10 million healthcare workers, 20 million front-line workers and 270 million people over 50 and under 50 with co-morbidities. Covishield, as the Oxford vaccination is called in India, can be stored in a refrigerator, making it better for Indian facilities that lack adequate cold-storage facilities for Pfizer's jab. At 10.3 million cases, India has reported the second-highest number of coronavirus cases after the US, though its rate of infection has come down significantly from a mid-September peak. India will require approval from the WHO to export the vaccine to other countries. Virus-defying raves shut down

Illegal parties marking the turn of the year attracted thousands of people in France despite coronavirus restrictions banning these gatherings. A rave south of the city of Rennes in Brittany was attended by around 2500 people, the AFP news agency reported, citing authorities in the Ille-et-Vilaine department. The revellers were reportedly locals as well as people who had travelled from abroad. The police were called to the scene in Lieuron, where disinfectant and masks had been distributed at the event in a bid to minimise the risk of infection. However, very few of the partygoers captured in social media footage were wearing masks or practising social distancing.

The public prosecutor has launched an investigation into the incident. In illegal gatherings in Marseille and Seine-et-Marne, some 300 and 100 people partied into the new year, according to AFP. Those events were broken up by security forces. Broadcaster Franceinfo also reported that another New Year's party was planned in Normandy with 190 guests. Under France's pandemic rules, the government asked citizens to have no more than six adults meet indoors for New Year.

The French Health Ministry reported 19,348 new coronavirus infections over the previous 24 hours on New Year's day (French time), slightly fewer than Thursdays 19,927 and well below Wednesdays more than one-month high of 26,457 but still far from the governments target of less than 5000 daily additional infections. Frances cumulative total of cases now stands at 2,639,773, the fifth highest level in the world. The COVID-19 death toll was up by 133 at 64,765. France will impose an earlier curfew in 15 north-eastern and south-eastern departments from Saturday to combat the spread of the coronavirus, starting at 6pm instead of 8pm. New COVID-19 strain reaches Vietnam

Vietnam has detected its first imported case of the new coronavirus variant that is spreading rapidly around Britain, the Health Ministry said on Saturday. The variant was detected in a 44-year-old woman returning to Vietnam from Britain, who was quarantined upon arrival and was confirmed positive for the virus on December 24, the ministry said. Countries around the world have cut off travel links to Britain to stop the spread of the new variant, which scientists have said is up to 70 per cent more transmissible than the original virus. Vietnam is still operating repatriation flights to bring home citizens stuck in the UK.

With strict quarantine and tracking measures, Vietnam has so far quickly contained coronavirus outbreaks, allowing economic activity to rebound faster than in much of Asia. It has recorded 1474 infections, with 35 deaths. South Korea bans all gatherings of more than four people South Korea will expand a ban on private gatherings larger than four people to include the whole country, and extend unprecedented social distancing rules in Seoul and neighbouring areas until January 17, the Health Minister said on Saturday. Kwon Deok-cheol told a briefing that the measures were necessary to reduce a prolonged surge in infections that has led to a spike in deaths. The country reported 824 new cases as of midnight on Friday, down from 1029 a day before, a drop that officials said was likely due to reduced testing over the New Year holiday.

As much as 40 per cent of recent cases have been linked to small gatherings, Kwon said. The ban on such gatherings had been imposed in Seoul and neighbouring areas before the Christmas holiday and had been due to expire on Sunday. Loading The country also has restrictions on churches, restaurants, cafes, ski resorts, and other venues. Kwon apologised to citizens for the rules, but thanked them for their "solidarity and cooperation".
The ongoing farmers' protests across the borders of Delhi got off to a tragic start on New Year after a participant in the sit-in demonstrations died of a heart attack.

The farmer, identified as Galtan Singh, a resident of Bhagwanpur Nagal village in Baghpat district of Uttar Pradesh, died on Friday.

BCCL

According to Saurav, an associate of Bhartiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait, "Galtan Singh was in good health and fit and but he suddenly felt uneasy with complaint of chest pains and was taken to the hospital but he died on the way. The body has been sent to his village."

Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader from Uttar Pradesh Sachin Chaudhary, who has been protesting against the three farm laws at Ghazipur border, said, "Sacrifice of Galtan Singh will not go in vain."

Several farmers have died during the protest to severe cold weather, he added.

BCCL

Bharatiya Kisan Union (Lakhowal) General Secretary Harinder Singh Lakhowal said, "The farmers have been protesting at the bordering areas of the national Capital since November 26, 2020 and the death toll of farmers has reached to 43 since then."

The government should listen to those who are ready to sacrifice their lives and repeal the agricultural laws which are anti-farmers, he added.

On the eve of the New Year, a tribute was paid to all farmers who died during the protest.

AFP

The farmers protesting have been demanding the withdrawal of the three laws and legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP) which is declared every year by the Centre for 23 crops while the government has assured them that it will accept their two more demands related to stubble burning and electricity subsidies.

Farmers' protest is going on at Singhu border, Tikri border and Ghazipur border amid severe cold conditions in Delhi and NCR as the mercury plummeted to 1.1 degree Celsius on the New Year's day on Friday.

The government and the farmers held several rounds of talks till now and on Wednesday the Centre had said that the two sides had reached consensus on two out of the four key issues.

BCCL

With the government refusing to pay heed to their demand for a total repeal of the contentious laws, the farmers are set to amp up their protests.

"If the 6th round talks with the government are not fruitful then the Shahjahanpur border blockage will be moved towards Delhi and 'Desh Jagruti Abhiyan' will be organised from January 6 to 20 across the country," the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) which is leading the protests said.
The advice was simple: one jab, and then another three weeks later. 'It'll only work properly if you come back for the second dose,' is what Dr Helen Salisbury, an Oxford-based GP, had told her patients  all in their 80s and beyond  at the time of their first shot of the Covid vaccine.

Doubtless, similar conversations have been had by thousands of doctors and patients up and down the country. But there's been a change of plan. Amid spiralling Covid cases, with acute care wards warning they are at breaking point, and a rampant new variant of virus, surgeries have been told to postpone giving a second Pfizer jab to the 600,000 or so patients who have already had one dose.

Instead of giving them booster shots, as planned, GPs will now be cancelling their appointments and offering their jabs as first doses to other vulnerable patients.

The aim is now to provide at least some protection to as many people as possible in the shortest space of time.

From here on, a second dose will be offered, as standard, within three months.

Amid spiralling Covid cases, with acute care wards warning they are at breaking point, and a rampant new variant of virus, surgeries have been told to postpone giving a second Pfizer jab to the 600,000 or so patients who have already had one dose

What's the difference... between a headache and a migraine? Headaches are among the most common health complaints. Roughly 10 million Britons get them regularly, according to NHS data. They can last for several hours, but most go away of their own accord and are not considered serious. Recurrent or severe headaches that don't respond to over-the-counter painkillers are, however, cause to see a doctor. Migraines, which affect one in seven, can cause nausea and vomiting, a sensitivity to light and sound and even temporary vision loss. The condition is thought to be linked to genetics and temporary changes in the chemicals, nerves and blood vessels in the brain. Advertisement

On Friday, Professor Martin Marshall, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, wrote to all GPs in England and Wales admitting the situation was 'frustrating'. Paradoxically, the decision was made as a second Covid vaccine, the Oxford AstraZeneca jab, was approved by regulators. But Prof Marshall explained that 'we can't guarantee that [it] will be available at high volumes straight away'.

He added that the new approach was 'the right thing to do for our patients and the health of the wider population'. Despite this, doctors took to social media to express concern  with some saying they would ignore the new guidance and honour appointments already made.

This included Dr Salisbury, whose group of five practices had already given the first jab to 1,160 patients.

'The published studies only tell us what the antibody response is after two doses. And we don't know how long that protection lasts after one dose,' she said.

Many of those who were expecting to attend an appointment for their second jab may now be having similar worries.

Ann Dannatt, 75, is one of them. She and her husband, architect Trevor, who is 100, both had their first vaccination on December 12, at their local hospital.

As Pfizer jabs have an extremely limited shelf-life, in the run-up to Christmas some vaccine hubs were offering any surplus due to 'no shows' to inpatients and staff, so nothing went to waste.

Despite being, officially, too young to be in the first wave of vaccinations, Ann asked if she too could have the jab. As her husband's primary carer, it would be very difficult for him if she got Covid, she reasoned. 'The nurse just gave it to me,' says Ann.

The couple are booked to have their second dose on Friday, but now face a delay.

'How much protection do we have if we wait for months? We are being careful, but Trevor has a carer who comes to help in the morning. I play ping-pong once a week with a friend who's isolating, and go by car.

'I understand the pressure to get the vulnerable population vaccinated ASAP, but I suppose I'd like some information about what kind of risk we're running now.'

Sentiments, one imagines, that are widely felt at the moment. Given that from here on people will spend up to three months between getting their first and second dose, just how safe are they during this time?

On Friday, Professor Martin Marshall, pictured, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, wrote to all GPs in England and Wales admitting the situation was 'frustrating'

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The decision to make the change was made by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which advises the Government on vaccine programmes, and approved by drug regulators the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

They say nine in every ten people who have a single shot of the Pfizer vaccine are protected from Covid-19 infection. Initially, it was thought that the jab was just 53 per cent effective after one dose. But their own experts, having taken a closer look at this figure, suggested this included people who were infected before the immune system had begun to react to the vaccine.

Discounting them, and it suggests the vaccine is 89 to 91 per cent effective after one dose. The Oxford AstraZeneca jab has been shown to be 73 per cent effective after one dose  that means seven in ten people who have the jab won't get Covid.

The research shows all patients who have one dose are protected against severe disease and hospitalisation. While a second jab will give longer protection, unpublished data suggests immunity from the first dose of the Oxford jab lasts for a duration of 12 weeks, and there is no reason to think the Pfizer jab would differ.

And last week, MHRA chief June Raine revealed that, according to further unpublished evidence, waiting up to 12 weeks, rather than three, between doses could bring about an even stronger immune response, once the second is given.

Although the second dose is still important, they said, the priority is now to retain vaccine stocks, and get a first dose to as many people as possible  which, their analysis shows, will save the most lives.

Under the old plan, patients who'd had a first shot had a 'reserved' second dose, but by releasing these, a million more people will now get a jab faster.

Pfizer called the decision into question, saying 'there is no data to demonstrate that protection after the first dose is sustained after 21 days'. But, as vaccine expert Prof David Salisbury puts it: 'Pfizer can only support what it has the evidence to support, and it did not undertake a long-term study of first-dose efficacy. So I understand its position, but Pfizer also does not have the responsibility for the lives of British people. We are faced with a rapidly worsening situation, and insufficient amounts of vaccine to deal with it. We need to act quickly.'

Prof Salisbury, former director of immunisation at the Department of Health, wrote to the Government in early December urging it to consider giving one dose, following by a longer wait, to maximise the number of people vaccinated in the shortest space of time.

While he admits that the evidence to support such a move 'isn't perfect', he adds: 'No vaccine programme is 100 per cent effective. If we want to save lives, this is best way to do it. '

While urging those who have had just one dose not to worry, he says: 'One dose will provide protection, but people shouldn't abandon the precautions they've been taking before their second dose.'

So does that mean, if someone has been shielding, and has had one dose, that they should continue to do so? 'Yes,' he answers, 'I think they should. By the time of their second dose, more people will have been vaccinated, and the threat will have diminished.'

Justifying her decision to offer a second dose to those already booked in, Dr Helen Salisbury said: 'We told patients they would have to come back in three weeks' time for their booster. We have an ethical duty to provide that.'

Prof David Salisbury (no relation) strongly disagrees. 'People are having operations cancelled. They understand why.

'GPs sticking to the three weeks are overlooking their first responsibilities to save lives in favour of not upsetting their patients. Every second jab they give now denies someone else a first jab.'

As for the advice to keep shielding, Ann Dannatt says: 'That's what we're doing anyway.'
A man has allegedly tried to smuggle methylamphetamine in a hamburger to a person in hotel quarantine along with syringes in a thickshake.

The accused, from Beaconsfield, Western Australia, allegedly went to a quarantine hotel on Adelaide Terrace, Perth, with some takeaway food to deliver to a person inside.

But police claim their officers and security staff at the hotel became suspicious when the 52-year-old started acting nervously.

They began inspecting the food and allegedly found a clip seal bag with 1.2g of methylamphetamine hidden inside the hamburger.

A 53-year-old man allegedly delivered drugs to hotel quarantine by hiding methylamphetamine in a hamburger with syringes in the thickshake. Picture: stock image

They also allegedly found four syringes inside a thickshake drink, police said on Saturday.

'Further evidence was located which indicated he had been communicating with a person in quarantine in relation to delivering a quantity of methylamphetamine to the hotel,' WA Police said on their website.

Perth police have arrested and charged the man with possessing a prohibited drug with intent to sell/supply (methylamphetamine).

The methylamphetamine was allegedly hidden in a clipseal bag similar to the one pictured (stock image)

The man has been charged and will appear in Perth Magistrates Court (pictured) on January 29

He is scheduled to appear in the Perth Magistrates Court on Friday, 29 January.

Western Australia's Health Minister Roger Cook told reporters on Saturday quarantine security was tight because it takes 'all sorts' to fill up the hotels.

'To give you an idea of the level of security, I understand that someone managed to re-seal a chip packet that they had put some illicit substances in and that was even picked up by the authorities.' he said.

'It takes all sorts to fill up a hotel quarantine and we have to be ready for anything.'
National Communication Officer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Sammy Gyamfi says his party is not the only one alleging fraud in the December 7, 2020 presidential polls.



The New Patriotic Party is alleging same, which he says raises questions about the credibility of the polls results as declared by the Electoral Commission.



His comment follows assertions by New Patriotic Party Election 2020 Campaign Manager, Peter Mac Manu, to the effect that the Electoral Commission credited NDC flagbearer, John Mahama with more votes than he actually got.



We believe, and will prove in Supreme Court that even John Mahama did not receive the number of votes that have been credited to him. Were going to show that during the course of the trial, Mac Manu is reported to have told Joy News Wednesday night in response to the Election Petition filed by the NDC and its flagbearer.



To Mac Manus assertion Sammy Gyamfi responds in a tweet on Thursday, saying it is perhaps only in Ghana that both victors and vanquished accuse the Electoral Commission of fraudulently aiding the opponent.



The 2020 Presidential Election is the first election in the history of Ghana and perhaps the World, in which the supposed loser, is alleging fraud by the EC in favor of the supposed Winner; and the supposed winner is alleging fraud by the EC in favor of the supposed loser as claimed by Peter Mac Manu, Campaign Manager of the NPP. This speaks volumes about the credibility of the declared results.



Sammy Gyamfi in another write up explaining the partys petition to the Supreme Court, says it is about the unconstitutionality of the actions of the Electoral Commission and the wrong votes it credited the two leading contestants in the polls, President Akufo-Addo and former President John Mahama.



The case of John Mahama is simply that, the declaration of Candidate Akufo-Addo as the winner of the 2020 Presidential elections is unconstitutional and null and void as Candidate Akufo-Addo didnt get more than 50% of total valid votes per the declaration of the Returning Officer, Jean Mensa, hence must be set aside.



Below is the write-up in full.



On the matter of the 2020 Election Petition filed by HE John Dramani Mahama:



1. The 1992 constitution of Ghana, specifically article 63(3), requires the winner of a Presidential election in Ghana to obtain more than 50% of Total Valid Votes. Failure of any of the candidates to attain more than 50% of Total Valid Votes must lead to a runoff between the first and second candidate.



2. The results of the 2020 Presidential elections were declared by the Returning Officer, Jean Mensah on 9th December. Per the content of the said declaration, none of the Candidates got more than 50% of the Total Valid Votes as required by the Constitution, i.e taken into account her assumption on Techiman south. Fact is, if all votes in Techiman South were added to the votes of candidate John Mahama, Candidate Akufo Addo would have dropped below 50%. The EC Chairperson and retuning officer, Jean Mensah lied when she said in her declaration that even if all votes in Techiman South were added to the 2nd Candidate, John Mahama, the first Candidate, Akufo-Addo will still obtain more than 50% of Total Valid votes. Her own declaration doesnt support this claim.



3. Also, Percentages allocated to the names of the candidates in the 9th Dec. declaration were wrong. The sum total of the percentages is 100.3%, a clear mathematical and statistical impossibility.



4. The case of John Mahama is simply that, the declaration of Candidate Akufo-Addo as the winner of the 2020 Presidential elections is unconstitutional and null and void as Candidate Akufo-Addo didnt get more than 50% of total valid votes per the declaration of the Returning Officer, Jean Mensa, hence must be set aside.



5. The next day after the declaration, 10th December, the EC posted a press release on their website claiming that the returning officer made a mistake by using Total Votes Cast in her declaration instead of Total Valid Votes and purported to rectify this alleged error. The so-called press release was not signed by the returning officer who made the declaration. In fact, it was not signed at all.



6. Also, the unsigned press release didnt make any reference to the Total valid votes figure the returning officer is alleged to have gotten wrong in her declaration of 9th Dec. Rather, it made reference to another figure, hence cannot be described as a true and proper correction of the alleged mistake the returning officer made in her declaration of 9th December.



7. Also, the EC claims in the unsigned press release that the mistake the returning officer made on the 9th Dec. was just a slip of tongue and does not affect the votes obtained by the candidates. Yet, the new total valid votes figure the unsigned press release of 10th Dec. introduced is different from the sum total of votes obtained by the 12 candidates per the declaration of 9th Dec. This is because, the unsigned press release varied the votes obtained by the candidates. JDMs votes were reduced by 1707 and NADAA votes increased by 174, among other variations. The sum total of votes obtained by the candidates per the Returning Officers declaration of 9th Dec. is completely missing in the unsigned press release of 10th Dec. The EC lied.



8. More importantly, article 63(9) requires the EC to pass the outcome of the Presidential election into law (Constitutional Instrument) and gazette same. The EC passed the declaration of 9th Dec., which it admits was in error (per the unsigned press release) into law (Declaration of President Elect Instrument, CI 135) and gazetted same. The unsigned press release of 10th Dec. that purported to correct the 9th Dec. declaration is neither part of CI 135 nor was it gazetted. Rather, it was the declaration of 9th Dec. that the EC admits was in error that was passed by CI 135 and gazetted.



9. Moreover, the new total valid votes figure introduced by the unsigned press release of 10th Dec. is fraught with padding and wrong aggregation of votes as shown by exhibit E & F, hence cannot stand.



10. To make matters worse, the new total valid votes figure capriciously and whimsically introduced by the ECs unsigned press release of 10th Dec. to purportedly correct the alleged mistake the Returning Officer committed in her declaration of 9th Dec. was done without the involvement of agents of the candidates as required by law. No one has seen the basis of that new total valid votes figure nor the new votes allocated to the names of the candidates. This is a gross violation of articles 23 and 296 of the 1992 Constitution in the opinion of the Petitioner.



11. Note that, the declaration of election results is a formal act, the form of which is prescribed by law. Also note that, as we speak, there is only one declaration of the 2020 Presidential election results; The declaration of 9th Dec. as captured by CI 135.



12. The NDC is asking the Supreme Court to set CI 135 aside on grounds of unconstitutionality, as the winner declared therein didnt obtain more than 50% of the Total Valid Votes as required by article 63(3) of the 1992 Constitution.



And whats the NPPs response to this serious constitutional issue? That the NDC committed curable typographical errors in its petition? Hahahaha! 



NB: it is important to make the point, that the NDCs case is about fictitious figures declared by the Returning Officer of the 2020 Presidential Election in violation of the 1992 Constitution and not mere typographical errors committed by her. Hence, there is absolutely no basis for equalization.



Need I say more? Cant you see where this matter is going?



Well, while we wait for the ECs answer to our petition, all I can say is that Tsatsu Tsikata Esq. is a genius. Kudos to all the lawyers who worked with him in crafting this Petition.



Now can the NPP file their answer to the Petition and stop issuing useless press releases?



Sammy Gyamfi Esq.









Source: Graphiconline.com









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Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa on Friday said that Portugal's European Union (EU) presidency priorities will be focussed on the "success of the vaccination" against COVID-19 infection and on "economic and social recovery of Europe". While stating that the Portuguese presidency for the EU begins on Friday, Antonio Costa said that for the next 6 months Portugal will be at the helm of the EU. Pointing towards the motto of the Portuguese presidency- 'Time to deliver: a fair, green and digital recovery", the Prime Minister said, "we have 3 fundamental priorities."

READ | Britain Ends Long Brexit Journey With Economic Break From EU

Antonio Costa lists priorities under EU Presidency

Highlighting the 3 fundamental priorities under the EU presidency, the Portuguese Prime Minister said, "economic and social recovery will be based on engines of the climate and digital transitions." Speaking about the Social Summit which will be held in Porto in May, he said that the central topic of discussion will be developing the European Union Social Pillar as a basis of trust that allows us to lead digital and climate transitions by leaving no one behind. Asserting that it is time to deliver together, as a community of values and shared property, Costa said that the third priority is to "reinforce the strategic autonomy of a European Union open to the world."

READ | EU Avoided Chaos, Explored New Paths In Turbulent 2020 Year

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The President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, extended "the best wishes of success to the Portuguese Prime Minister on his first day of the Presidency of the Council," adding "we are ready to work together, in the interests of the EU and its citizens, for a social, just, green and digital recovery." European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, in her tweet, wished "good luck to Antonio Costa and the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU. She also said that she is looking forward to working with the Portuguese Prime Minister for the recovery of Europe and for the health of the citizens.

German chancellor hands over EU Presidency to Portugal

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday handed Portugal's Prime Minister Antonio Costa the European Union's rotating presidency. In a video message, Merkel wished the nation "every success" and said that Germany would "support Portugal to the best of its ability." The presidency rotates among EU member nations every six months.

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(With ANI inputs)
Donald Trump was acquitted by the Senate at just the third presidential impeachment trial in US history in February, and yet it might not even crack the top three most important news developments over the past 12 months.

Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney made headlines at the time for becoming the first member of an impeached presidents party to convict him.

But the real story  how the history books will remember the saga  is how every single other Republican in Congress stuck by Mr Trump's side.

With so many different factors contributing to the electoral landscape this past fall  the Covid-19 pandemic, a reignited racial justice movement, voter suppression  it is mere speculation how much of an impact that cohesion had on Republicans clinging to power in the Senate (for now).

At the time, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was confident Democrats failed impeachment had been a colossal political mistake".

The Kentucky Republican was clear-eyed that the electoral consequences may not last through the fall, informed by decades of experience that the American public has a very short political attention span.

But he was bullish.

Every one of our people in tough races  every one of them  is in better shape today than they were before the impeachment trial started, Mr McConnell said at a news conference after the impeachment votes on 5 February.

The politics of impeaching Mr Trump were always going to be tricky for Democrats.

Late in 2018, after the party had taken back the House majority, incoming Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler told me he intended to avoid a partisan impeachment process in the next term at all costs.

Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal Show all 26 1 /26 Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal Donald Trump Accused of abusing his office by pressing the Ukrainian president in a July phone call to help dig up dirt on Joe Biden, who may be his Democratic rival in the 2020 election. He also believes that Hillary Clintons deleted emails - a key factor in the 2016 election - may be in Ukraine, although it is not clear why. EPA Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal The Whistleblower Believed to be a CIA agent who spent time at the White House, his complaint was largely based on second and third-hand accounts from worried White House staff. Although this is not unusual for such complaints, Trump and his supporters have seized on it to imply that his information is not reliable. Expected to give evidence to Congress voluntarily and in secret. Getty Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal The Second Whistleblower The lawyer for the first intelligence whistleblower is also representing a second whistleblower regarding the President's actions. Attorney Mark Zaid said that he and other lawyers on his team are now representing the second person, who is said to work in the intelligence community and has first-hand knowledge that supports claims made by the first whistleblower and has spoken to the intelligence community's inspector general. The second whistleblower has not yet filed their own complaint, but does not need to to be considered an official whistleblower. Getty Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal Rudy Giuliani Former mayor of New York, whose management of the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001 won him worldwide praise. As Trumps personal attorney he has been trying to find compromising material about the presidents enemies in Ukraine in what some have termed a shadow foreign policy. In a series of eccentric TV appearances he has claimed that the US state department asked him to get involved. Giuliani insists that he is fighting corruption on Trumps behalf and has called himself a hero. AP Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal Volodymyr Zelensky The newly elected Ukrainian president - a former comic actor best known for playing a man who becomes president by accident - is seen frantically agreeing with Trump in the partial transcript of their July phone call released by the White House. With a Russian-backed insurgency in the east of his country, and the Crimea region seized by Vladimir Putin in 2014, Zelensky will have been eager to please his American counterpart, who had suspended vital military aid before their phone conversation. He says there was no pressure on him from Trump to do him the favour he was asked for. Zelensky appeared at an awkward press conference with Trump in New York during the United Nations general assembly, looking particularly uncomfortable when the American suggested he take part in talks with Putin. AFP/Getty Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal Mike Pence The vice-president was not on the controversial July call to the Ukrainian president but did get a read-out later. However, Trump announced that Pence had had one or two phone conversations of a similar nature, dragging him into the crisis. Pence himself denies any knowledge of any wrongdoing and has insisted that there is no issue with Trumps actions. It has been speculated that Trump involved Pence as an insurance policy - if both are removed from power the presidency would go to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, something no Republican would allow. AP Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal Rick Perry Trump reportedly told a meeting of Republicans that he made the controversial call to the Ukrainian president at the urging of his own energy secretary, Rick Perry, and that he didnt even want to. The president apparently said that Perry wanted him to talk about liquefied natural gas - although there is no mention of it in the partial transcript of the phone call released by the White House. It is thought that Perry will step down from his role at the end of the year. Getty Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal Joe Biden The former vice-president is one of the frontrunners to win the Democratic nomination, which would make him Trumps opponent in the 2020 election. Trump says that Biden pressured Ukraine to sack a prosecutor who was investigating an energy company that Bidens son Hunter was on the board of, refusing to release US aid until this was done. However, pressure to fire the prosecutor came on a wide front from western countries. It is also believed that the investigation into the company, Burisma, had long been dormant. Reuters Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal Hunter Biden Joe Bidens son has been accused of corruption by the president because of his business dealings in Ukraine and China. However, Trump has yet to produce any evidence of corruption and Bidens lawyer insists he has done nothing wrong. AP Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal William Barr The attorney-general, who proved his loyalty to Trump with his handling of the Mueller report, was mentioned in the Ukraine call as someone president Volodymyr Zelensky should talk to about following up Trumps preoccupations with the Bidens and the Clinton emails. Nancy Pelosi has accused Barr of being part of a cover-up of a cover-up. AP Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal Mike Pompeo The secretary of state initially implied he knew little about the Ukraine phone call - but it later emerged that he was listening in at the time. He has since suggested that asking foreign leaders for favours is simply how international politics works. Gordon Sondland testified that Pompeo was "in the loop" and knew what was happening in Ukraine. Pompeo has been criticised for not standing up for diplomats under his command when they were publicly criticised by the president. AFP via Getty Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal Nancy Pelosi The Democratic Speaker of the House had long resisted calls from within her own party to back a formal impeachment process against the president, apparently fearing a backlash from voters. On September 24, amid reports of the Ukraine call and the day before the White House released a partial transcript of it, she relented and announced an inquiry, saying: The president must be held accountable. No one is above the law. Getty Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal Adam Schiff Democratic chairman of the House intelligence committee, one of the three committees leading the inquiry. He was criticized by Republicans for giving what he called a parody of the Ukraine phone call during a hearing, with Trump and others saying he had been pretending that his damning characterisation was a verbatim reading of the phone call. He has also been criticised for claiming that his committee had had no contact with the whistleblower, only for it to emerge that the intelligence agent had contacted a staff member on the committee for guidance before filing the complaint. The Washington Post awarded Schiff a four Pinocchios rating, its worst rating for a dishonest statement. Reuters Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman Florida-based businessmen and Republican donors Lev Parnas (pictured with Rudy Giuliani) and Igor Fruman were arrested on suspicion of campaign finance violations at Dulles International Airport near Washington DC on 9 October. Separately the Associated Press has reported that they were both involved in efforts to replace the management of Ukraine's gas company, Naftogaz, with new bosses who would steer lucrative contracts towards companies controlled by Trump allies. There is no suggestion of any criminal activity in these efforts. Reuters Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal William Taylor The most senior US diplomat in Ukraine and the former ambassador there. As one of the first two witnesses in the public impeachment hearings, Taylor dropped an early bombshell by revealing that one of his staff  later identified as diplomat David Holmes  overheard a phone conversation in which Donald Trump could be heard asking about investigations the very day after asking the Ukrainian president to investigate his political enemies. Taylor expressed his concern at reported plans to withhold US aid in return for political smears against Trumps opponents, saying: It's one thing to try to leverage a meeting in the White House. It's another thing, I thought, to leverage security assistance -- security assistance to a country at war, dependent on both the security assistance and the demonstration of support." Getty Images Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal George Kent A state department official who appeared alongside William Taylor wearing a bow tie that was later mocked by the president. He accused Rudy Giuliani, Mr Trumps personal lawyer, of leading a campaign of lies against Marie Yovanovitch, who was forced out of her job as US ambassador to Ukraine for apparently standing in the way of efforts to smear Democrats. Getty Images Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal Marie Yovanovitch One of the most striking witnesses to give evidence at the public hearings, the former US ambassador to Ukraine received a rare round of applause as she left the committee room after testifying. Canadian-born Yovanovitch was attacked on Twitter by Donald Trump while she was actually testifying, giving Democrats the chance to ask her to respond. She said she found the attack very intimidating. Trump had already threatened her in his 25 July phone call to the Ukrainian president saying: Shes going to go through some things. Yovanovitch said she was shocked, appalled and devastated by the threat and by the way she was forced out of her job without explanation. REUTERS Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal Alexander Vindman A decorated Iraq War veteran and an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, Lt Col Vindman began his evidence with an eye-catching statement about the freedoms America afforded him and his family to speak truth to power without fear of punishment. One of the few witnesses to have actually listened to Trumps 25 July call with the Ukrainian president, he said he found the conversation so inappropriate that he was compelled to report it to the White House counsel. Trump later mocked him for wearing his military uniform and insisting on being addressed by his rank. Getty Images Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal Jennifer Williams A state department official acting as a Russia expert for vice-president Mike Pence, Ms Williams also listened in on the 25 July phone call. She testified that she found it unusual because it focused on domestic politics in terms of Trump asking a foreign leader to investigate his political opponents. Getty Images Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal Kurt Volker The former special envoy to Ukraine was one of the few people giving evidence who was on the Republican witness list although what he had to say may not have been too helpful to their cause. He dismissed the idea that Joe Biden had done anything corrupt, a theory spun without evidence by the president and his allies. He said that he thought the US should be supporting Ukraines reforms and that the scheme to find dirt on Democrats did not serve the national interest. Getty Images Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal Tim Morrison An expert on the National Security Council and another witness on the Republican list. He testified that he did not think the president had done anything illegal but admitted that he feared it would create a political storm if it became public. He said he believed the moving the record of the controversial 25 July phone call to a top security server had been an innocent mistake. Getty Images Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal Gordon Sondland In explosive testimony, one of the men at the centre of the scandal got right to the point in his opening testimony: Was there a quid pro quo? Yes, said the US ambassador to the EU who was a prime mover in efforts in Ukraine to link the release of military aid with investigations into the presidents political opponents. He said that everyone knew what was going on, implicating vice-president Mike Pence and secretary of state Mike Pompeo. The effect of his evidence is perhaps best illustrated by the reaction of Mr Trump who went from calling Sondland a great American a few weeks earlier to claiming that he barely knew him. AP Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal Laura Cooper A Pentagon official, Cooper said Ukrainian officials knew that US aid was being withheld before it became public knowledge in August  undermining a Republican argument that there cant have been a quid pro quo between aid and investigations if the Ukrainians didnt know that aid was being withheld. Getty Images Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal David Hale The third most senior official at the state department. Hale testified about the treatment of Marie Yovanovitch and the smear campaign that culminated in her being recalled from her posting as US ambassador to Ukraine. He said: I believe that she should have been able to stay at post and continue to do the outstanding work. EPA Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal Fiona Hill Arguably the most confident and self-possessed of the witnesses in the public hearings phase, the Durham-born former NSC Russia expert began by warning Republicans not to keep repeating Kremlin-backed conspiracy theories. In a distinctive northeastern English accent, Dr Hill went on to describe how she had argued with Gordon Sondland about his interference in Ukraine matters until she realised that while she and her colleagues were focused on national security, Sondland was being involved in a domestic political errand. She said: I did say to him, Ambassador Sondland, Gordon, this is going to blow up. And here we are. AP Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal David Holmes The Ukraine-based diplomat described being in a restaurant in Kiev with Gordon Sondland while the latter phoned Donald Trump. Holmes said he could hear the president on the other end of the line  because his voice was so loud and distinctive and because Sondland had to hold the phone away from his ear  asking about the investigations and whether the Ukrainian president would cooperate. REUTERS

This was more than a year before the president withheld military aid from Ukraine to boost his political prospects, the basis for his eventual impeachment.

If youre serious about removing a president from office, what youre really doing is overturning the result of the last election, Mr Nadler told me at Roll Call at the time. You dont want to have a situation where you tear this country apart and for the next 30 years half the countrys saying We won the election, you stole it.

Well, it turns out Mr Nadler didn't get his wish on either account (although impeachment had no bearing on the second of those): by and large, Republicans maligned the impeachment process, and Mr Trumps White House has been a spigot of misinformation and discredited conspiracy theories claiming the 2020 election was stolen from him in the weeks since 3 November.

While the most ardent Trump loyalists in both chambers justified his behaviour with Ukraine, a substantial handful of GOP senators acknowledged the president had abused his power  just not enough to remove him from office.

I think it was a mistake. ... I think he shouldn't have done it, retiring GOP Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said of Mr Trumps attempts to leverage military aid to Ukraine for his own political benefit. But the impeachment charge  abuse of power  was such a vague term, he said, it doesn't mean anything.

 The key moments from Trump's impeachment hearing

For some, such as Florida Senator Marco Rubio, whether Mr Trump's actions constituted an impeachable offence or not didn't even matter.

"Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a President from office, Mr Rubio wrote in a blog post at the time.

I will not vote to remove the President because doing so would inflict extraordinary and potentially irreparable damage to our already divided nation.

Americans achieved the same end result nine months later when they voted Joe Biden to be the next president, rendering the impeachment debate more historically symbolic of a time of intense American division than academically substantive.
government Saturday



announced that will reopen for students of standards X and XII from January 8 and will follow the detailed standard operating procedure to be strictly implemented by the authorities, a senior official said.

However, hostels will not reopen now and the school buses will not be available for the students. The parents can make their own arrangements to take their wards to school, the official said.

A maximum of 25 students will be allowed to attend one class and each student will have a specific seat in the class as is usually done during examinations.

across are closed since March in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The school and mass education department has, however, been holding online classes.

The students of standards X and XII will be given 100 days of classroom teaching before they appear in the annual examinations in May, the official said adding that classes will be held on Saturdays and Sundays too.

Classroom classes for students of standard X will be held from January 8 to April 26, while that for students of standard XII from January 8 to April 28, a notification issued by the education department said.

Practical exams for standard X students will be held from April 27 to May 2 and for standard XII students from April 29 to May 14, it said.

The annual board exam of Class X students will be from May 3 to 15, while the Council of Higher Secondary Education will hold exams for Class XII students from May 15 to June 11.

For reopening of the guidelines issued by the health and family welfare department and the special relief commissioners office will be strictly followed.

The decision has been taken by the government keeping in mind the larger interest of students of Class X and XII so that the students of our state can appear timely for all India competitive tests, the notification said.

A detailed SOP has been prepared which will be adopted for reopening of government, government aided and private schools across the State.

As per the SOP online learning will continue to be the preferred mode of teaching and will be encouraged. Students may attend schools with the written consent of parents but attendance must not be enforced and must depend entirely on parental consent.

Online and classroom learning will go in tandem with each other and will continue to share timelines and daily schedules, according to the SOP.

Wherever schools are conducting online classes and some of its students prefer to attend online classes, they should be permitted to do so, it said.

However, the hostels will not open now and the school buses will not be available for the students. The parents may take their wards in their own arrangement. A maximum of 25 students will be allowed to attend one class and each student will have a specific seat in the class as is usually done during examinations.

The state government in its January guidelines has empowered the school and mass education department and higher education department to reopen schools and colleges keeping in view the prevailing pandemic situation.

Earlier, the state government had reduced 30 per cent of the syllabus for the standard X students.

(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.)
After Gov. Jared Polis update Wednesday, Coloradans age 70 and up are now a part of Phase 1B of the COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan, joini
The father of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he is applying for French citizenship now that Britain has severed ties with the European Union.



Stanley Johnson told Frances RTL radio he had always seen himself as French as his mother was born in France.



The 80-year-old former Conservative Member of the European Parliament voted Remain in the 2016 Brexit referendum.



His son Boris spearheaded the Leave campaign and later took the UK out of the EU as prime minister.



Stanley Johnson explained his reasons for seeking French citizenship in an interview broadcast on Thursday, hours before the UK was due to leave EU trading rules.



Its not about becoming French, he told RTL. Its about reclaiming what I already have.



He pointed out that his mother was born in France to a French mother. I will always be European, he added.



Stanley Johnson won a seat in the European Parliament when direct elections were first held in 1979, and later worked for the European Commission. As a result, Boris spent part of his childhood in Brussels.



Brexit issues have divided the Johnson family. The prime ministers sister, the journalist Rachel Johnson, left the Conservative Party to join the Liberal Democrats ahead of the 2017 election in protest against Brexit.



Their brother, the Conservative MP Jo Johnson, resigned from the cabinet in 2018 to highlight his support for closer links with the EU.











Source: BBC









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Ireland plans to end a ban on travel to the country from Britain on January 6 and replace it with stricter Covid-19 testing measures as it seeks to stop the spread of a highly infectious new variant of the virus, Foreign Minister Simon Coveney was quoted as saying on Friday.

Ireland banned passenger flights and ferries on December 21. Some 30,000 people had travelled to Ireland from Britain in the previous two weeks, during which time the new variant was spreading rapidly in parts of Britain.

Passengers flying on non-essential business from Britain after Jan. 6 will need to produce a negative test taken three days before their flight, Coveney told the Irish Independent newspaper.

They will also be asked to restrict their movements for at least five days from their arrival and can move freely only if they then receive a second negative test.

Were planning to end the travel ban with the UK on January 6 but replace it with a more restrictive set of travel regulations between Britain and Ireland, he said.

We are anxious to move away from a travel ban, which we dont think is realistic and there does need to be travel facilitated between Britain and Ireland for lots of reasons.

Covid-19 is spreading rapidly again in Ireland and health officials have said that it has found seven cases of the new variant from 77 positive tests that subsequently underwent genomic sequencing.

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

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Customers never charged for IUC, unlimited calls to continue as before: Airtel

Telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Friday said it has never charged its customers separately for IUC and that the unlimited calling benefits will continue for subscribers without any change. The comments came a day after Reliance Jio announced that calls by its users to other networks in India will become free from Friday, as the Interconnect Usage Charges (IUC) regime ends.

Health Minister reviews preparedness for COVID-19 vaccination dry run

Union health minister Harsh Vardhan on Friday chaired a high-level meeting to review preparedness at various session sites in the country for coronavirus vaccination trial run on January 2. The senior officials of the health ministry apprised the minister on various improvements that have been made to make the pan India dry run glitch free, such as number of telephone operators has been increased to answer every possible query from the teams on the ground conducting the dry run.

Flights to UK resume from Jan 8, only 15 flights per week till Jan 23

Flights between India and the United Kingdom will resume from January 8, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri announced on Friday. The flights were suspended after the mutated strain of coronavirus wreaked havoc across the island nation last month. Earlier this week, the suspension was extended till January 7. Until January 23, only 15 flights per week have been approved for airlines of both countries. Flight operations will be allowed to and from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad only, Puri mentioned.

SEBI fines Reliance Industries, Mukesh Ambani over RPL share trades

Regulator Sebi on Friday imposed penalties on Reliance Industries Ltd, its Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani as well as two other entities for alleged manipulative trading in the shares of erstwhile Reliance Petroleum Ltd (RPL) back in November 2007. Fines of Rs 25 crore and Rs 15 crore have been imposed on Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and Ambani, respectively. Besides, Navi Mumbai SEZ Pvt Ltd has been asked to pay a penalty of Rs 20 crore and Mumbai SEZ Ltd has been directed to pay Rs 10 crore.

Zomato receives record 4,100 orders per minute on New Year's eve

Zomato set an unprecedented record of 4,100 orders per minute (OPM) on New Year's Eve as more people ordered food online since they stayed in due to the night curfews and restrictions imposed in many states due to COVID-19. The online food delivery platform recorded its highest ever velocity on December 31, 2020, according to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Deepinder Goyal. Live-tweeting interesting statistics on the order numbers, Goyal talked about the rise in order value and the subsequent tension which strained the systems and gripped his tech team.

December GST collections highest ever at Rs 1.15 lakh crore

The Goods and Service Tax collection for December 2020 touched a record high of Rs 1.15 lakh crore. This is the highest ever collections since the implementation of the countrywide tax in July 2017, the Finance Ministry said in a statement on Friday, January 1. Out of the headline amount, IGST (Integrated GST) stood at Rs 57,426 crore (comprising Rs 27,050 crore collected on import of goods), while cess was at Rs 8,579 crore (including Rs 971 crore collected on import of goods).Central and state GST stood at Rs 21, 365 crore, and Rs 27,804 crore.
A New Year. A new beginning. Time to look ahead to the future. A Brexit deal was finally done on Christmas Eve.

A negotiated settlement based on zero tariffs, which I suspect is the preferred outcome for the majority of businesses on both sides of the Channel. It is certainly my preferred outcome.

Some bumpy moments might lie ahead as businesses adjust to practical and procedural changes but the important thing is that a deal was done. Its time for British businesses to look ahead to the future and seize the opportunities.

The wheels of industry: JCB chairman Lord Bamford says there has never been a better time for British companies to accelerate their efforts to grow exports  to Europe and further afield

Eight years have passed since we were promised an in/out referendum on EU membership. Much has changed since then. One thing that has not changed is what sets us apart as a trading nation.

We have always been an outward-looking nation and global trade has always been pivotal to our economic prosperity.

This New Year begins with news from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) that the UK is once again the fifth-largest economy in the world, after the US, China, Japan and Germany.

An excellent foundation on which the UK can now build for the future, if businesses seize the available opportunities.

As an independent trading nation, there has never been a better time to accelerate efforts to grow our exports. Not just to EU countries under the terms of the deal, but also to markets further afield, such as Commonwealth nations.

According to a May 2020 report by the think-tank Civitas, the UKs fastest growing export markets are now Nigeria, India (both Commonwealth countries), Thailand and Taiwan.

Let us be more like Germany with exports

Why is it then that so few British companies export? Only 9.6 per cent of businesses in Britains non-financial economy are actively engaged in exporting. An astonishingly low percentage.

Just imagine if it were to increase to 15 per cent, or even double to 20 per cent. Given that exports account for around one-third of GDP, if many more companies could get actively involved in exporting, the benefit to the British economy would be significant.

Does this low proportion of exporting businesses in Britain today explain why the UKs balance of payments  the amount of money flowing into the country compared to the amount going out  has been consistently negative as a percentage of GDP since the early 1980s?

According to a May 2020 report by the think-tank Civitas, the UKs fastest growing export markets are now Nigeria, India (both Commonwealth countries), Thailand and Taiwan

I am not an economist, but when you compare our trade deficit in 2019 of minus 2 per cent with Germanys very healthy surplus of plus 6 per cent in 2019, you have to wonder what Germany is doing right and where the UK is going wrong.

In my view, we should look to Germany a lot more for lessons in operating an economy and running businesses. Two countries, with broadly similar populations, but with very different balance of payment figures. In simple terms, far more German products are sold overseas than imported into Germany, compared with the UK.

No less than 63 trade deals in just two years

Germany is the worlds third largest exporter  the UK is tenth. Let us be a lot more like the Germans when it comes to exporting. We really do need to be exporting a lot more.

My own company, JCB, recently marked 75 years in business. Since 1945, JCB has grown to become a global company selling to over 150 countries. This did not happen by accident  it is the result of a laser- sharp focus on exporting from the early days.

Our home market here in the UK was  and still is  very important. Trading with our closest neighbours  Ireland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany  is also vitally important to JCB, not least because of these markets proximity to our shores and to our factories here in the UK.

Proximity isnt everything though. Take the United States, for example, the largest economy in the world. Its also the single largest market in the world for the kind of equipment that JCB manufactures.

Last week, Liz Truss and her Turkish counterpart locked in tariff-free trading arrangements between the UK and Turkey

It may be further away from our shores, but it is a market that offers so many opportunities and it is easily accessible from British ports  in fact, hundreds of JCBs make their way across the Atlantic from Southampton every week. Even further afield, in India, in South East Asia, and as far away as Australia, there are many export possibilities for British companies.

We just need to seize more of the opportunities. I accept, of course, that many companies might need help and mentoring in order to make the leap into exporting. Chambers of Commerce and the Government export credit agency, UK Export Finance, are good places to start looking for advice and support.

The trading environment for exporters is improving all the time. Something that has been overlooked in recent weeks and months is the success of the International Trade Secretary, Liz Truss, in securing trade agreements with Canada, Singapore, Vietnam and Kenya.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Department for International Trade signed a trade agreement with Mexico. The pace is relentless. No less than 63 trade agreements have been secured in just two years.

Last week, Liz Truss and her Turkish counterpart locked in tariff-free trading arrangements between the UK and Turkey, paving the way for a more ambitious trade agreement in the future.

This particular development will prove to be very important to the manufacturing sector. Such trade agreements open doors to British companies. They create the opportunities that the Prime Minister now wants us to seize. Doing so will grow the economy and create jobs. Its also bound to help improve our balance of payments, once such an important barometer of economic performance.

'I am enthusiastic about the opportunities that offshore wind can offer, particularly when deployed to make green hydrogen,' says Lord Bamford

After several years of debate about our future relationship with the EU, its time for British companies to look to the future and raise their game by exporting more, making Britain a true global leader in free trade.

Now that the deal is done and the transition period has ended, Ministers will hopefully have more time to focus on other priorities.

Dealing with Covid-19 is obviously top of the list, but the list is long. Delivering the national infrastructure strategy is crucial for businesses, upgrading the road and rail networks, improving connections between cities and regions and so on. Dealing with the scourge of potholes on our local roads network is also a priority for motorists.

Another priority high on the list is the Prime Ministers ten-point plan for a green industrial revolution. Boris Johnson is right to accelerate our path to net zero.

As a businessman, I am enthusiastic about the opportunities that offshore wind can offer, particularly when deployed to make green hydrogen.

Fossil fuels are the enemy in the battle against climate change. I believe hydrogen has a very significant role to play as a zero carbon fuel of the future, particularly for public transport, industry and businesses.

Protecting our natural environment is another important part of the PMs plan, which is in everyones interest as citizens of our planet Earth.

Lets hope that Ministers can now dedicate a lot more time and effort into delivering on the remaining priorities of British businesses and the British people, including the promised levelling up agenda.

Lord Bamford is Chairman of JCB and a Conservative peer.
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Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan on Saturday urged people not to hesitate to take COVID-19 vaccine, saying it was safe.

"Vaccine is safe. People all over the world are taking the vaccine. There is not even a single incident of fatality due to the vaccination till now.

People should not be afraid to take it," the governor said in a release.

She visited the Urban Health Centre (UHC) at Tilak Nagar in the city to inspect COVID-19 vaccine dry run held there.

The governor also inspected the cold chain system, vaccination rooms and the vaccination process at the UHC.

Later, in a tweet, Soundararajan, a medical doctor said, "Appreciate arrangements of state and central governments to vaccinate eligible beneficiaries.

Public should come forward without any hesitation or fear of vaccines due to misinformation. Safety of vaccines established beyond doubts by health authorities."



The vaccination process would be taken up in four stages in the state and that around 80 lakh people would be vaccinated, she said.

As part of the first phase of vaccination, around five lakh people would be administered the vaccine.

The governor congratulated the Centre for making the vaccination process possible and the state government for the arrangements.

While 2020 was a year of pandemic, 2021 would be a "year of protection," she said.

"I am really very happy. 2020 was a year of pandemic...

Now 2021 is going to be a year of protection," she told reporters here.

Meanwhile, state Health Minister Eatala Rajender said the dry run was being held at four centres in Hyderabad and three centres at Mahabubnagar.

The state government has already trained 10,000 healthcare personnel for administering vaccines and the state has the capacity to vaccinate 10 lakh per day, he said.

The Centre has indicated that five lakh doses of vaccines will be provided initially, followed by another 10 lakh and one crore doses subsequently, he said.

The state government would distribute the vaccines as it receives from the Centre.

The vaccine shots would be provided initially to the healthcare personnel, he added.
In the next five years, Vietnam aims to restructure its economy towards more resilience and sustainability, photo Le Toan

Throughout the last few decades, Vietnam has been constantly searching for new drivers for economic growth, and the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have even further encouraged the government and businesses to look for new ways of economic restructuring.

Following the guidance of the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM) is the focal point for drafting, evaluating, and monitoring economic restructuring and innovative growth models. The research results will contribute directly to the plan on economic restructuring for the 2021-2025 period which is to be submitted to the government, the central agencies, and the National Assembly in 2021.

In this draft project, the CIEM focuses on analysing several restructuring areas including state-owned enterprises (SOEs), public investment, credit institutions, state budget, public services, eight market production factors, industry restructuring, and private sector development to serve as a basis for proposing solutions for the 2021-2025 period, with a vision to 2030.

Key focal points

The global health crisis has been impacting many countries around the world, also leaving serious implications for Vietnams economic development and social stability. The most direct consequence has been the slowdown in economic growth, noticeable particularly with the widespread recession.

Dr. Dang Thi Thu Hoai, head of the CIEMs Department for Sectoral and Economic Studies, said that the restructuring process of the economy between 2016 and 2020 has achieved many positive results. By the end of the year, 16 of the 23 major targets assigned in the governments Resolution No.27/NQ-CP/2017 are expected to be completed. Of these, five important goals have achieved results far beyond the set plan, contributing to creating substantial progress in economic restructuring.

While Vietnam has reached these successes, Hoai said that there are still limitations. Public investment remains spread out, and its disbursement is slow and ineffective, with the quality of public institutions being low. Moreover, the budget collection system is not sustainable, especially in the context of the pandemic.

Furthermore, the objectives of improving the efficiency and competitiveness of SOEs have not been completed. The autonomous processes of public non-business units are slow, especially in finance, while the scale and financial capacity of credit institutions are still limited, rendering the restructuring of weak credit institutions incomplete and leaving bad debts potentially risky.

According to the CIEM, Vietnam has not yet achieved its previous goals for 2011-2020, especially the ones that determine the ability to overcome the middle-income trap on the countrys development path. Growth has improved but basically remains broad, with resources used with poor efficiency.

Thus, the restructuring of the economy, as well as the reforming of the growth model, continues to be an issue for the next five years. It is necessary to focus on improving the efficiency of resource allocation through synchronous development of all types of markets combined with taking advantage of the opportunities of digital technology and innovation, according to the CIEM.

The results of restructuring the three focus areas  public investment, SOEs, and credit institutions  are an important premise for the next five years to focus on development and a more synchronous system of market types, thereby building a healthy, fair, and favourable business environment that promotes innovation and the development of the private sector.

As the Vietnamese economy has been suffering from the negative impacts of the pandemic, huge changes appeared, especially in terms of economic structure, governance, and economic activities, including daily ones of each individual.

Dr. Cao Viet Sinh, former Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment, said that the CIEMs new draft project should focus on the three vital elements comprising labour productivity, competitiveness, and economic resilience, as he deems these factors crucial in determining the health of Vietnams economy.

Building a restructuring scheme for 2021-2025 requires in-depth research and analysis, including the possible impact of economic restructuring. However, as the plan naturally has a wide scope, efforts to restructure the economy in the past, have been mainly focused on cleaning up the consequences of previous development stages, Sinh argued.

Marketisation of land

In the next five years, effective decisions to allocate resources in the economy according to the market mechanism will affect the formation of a healthy and competitive environment  a prerequisite for promoting technology application and innovation. According to the CIEM, crucial parts of this endeavour include market-oriented amendments to the Land Law, agricultural land use management, and supporting land use rights on the market.

Hoai agreed that early amendments to the Land Law towards more market-oriented agricultural restructuring will improve the efficiency of the resource allocation system. According to the CIEMs proposal, the law should be amended in the direction of removing limits on who can receive transferred agricultural land use rights, the extension of land allocation terms, and the removal or increase of fill limits, among others.

Furthermore, the CIEM also aims for the abolishment of land allocation mechanisms and instead lease land under administrative procedures. This means rather than the current way of allocating land use rights following someones request, the primary market of land use rights should be handled by state auctions and the bidding of land use rights to find suitable investors. Similarly, land that has been recovered by the state for the implementation of socioeconomic development projects should not directly be allocated under the current administrative measures but must be auctioned to find the most appropriate investor.

According to a study published in 2013 by the CIEM, the industries that contribute the most to GDP are not the most invested in. The allocation of investment resources into sectors and localities is currently almost not based on the level of development or efficiency but mainly on administrative factors.

Resource allocation should be the core focus of economic restructuring in the coming time, Dr. Nguyen Dinh Cung, member of the Prime Ministers Economic Advisory Group, commented.

A non-market resource allocation system that is not based on efficiency is the main reason for economic ineffectiveness, Dr. Cung emphasised, adding it is not necessary to divide the restructuring scenario by industry or field but rather build an effective allocation mechanism that paves the way to the market.

In the context of a post-pandemic economy, the ways of production and consumption may see significant changes, which will require more appropriate and effective resource allocation principles.

Nguyen Tu Anh, director of the General Economics Department of the Party Central Committees Economic Commission, said that along with the principle of reallocating resources, restructuring also includes the selection of priority areas for investment and arrange appropriate rankings. The allocation of investment has long been ineffective, said Anh, when referring to the situation that each province gets an increasing rate of investment yearly, while he said focus should lie on large enough investment projects to boost the area or region.
History and design: Making the connection By Sashini Rodrigo Architect Channa Daswatte talks about his short films on fashion and furniture that will feature at the first virtual Sri Lanka Design Festival View(s): View(s):

Knowing the history of ones country is perhaps the key to understanding our own position with regards to different fields of enterprise, according to architect and chairperson of the Geoffrey Bawa and Lunuganga Trusts, Channa Daswatte. It gives one confidence and pride in what we are today.

Rather than simply knowing dates in the historical calendar, he believes in knowing how history impacted our societies and understanding the connections between different histories of the various arts, music, dance, design, architecture, and how they worked together to create the identity of a period.

At the upcoming Sri Lanka Design Festival (SLDF) this month, Channa will look at some of the countrys design history, his conversations highlighting how much of it was contemporaneous and even on par with what was going on in the rest of the world.

These segments, amongst others, will be part of the first ever virtual edition of SLDF from January 15-17.

Channa hopes his two short films (with other segments) will inspire people to reminisce about these histories and the countrys design development in the past. One film focuses on the modern fashion designs of Ena de Silva and the other on the countrys modern furniture designs with particular reference to Geoffrey Bawa.

The film on Ena will turn the spotlight on her fashion and clothing designs in the 1960s.

The film on furniture will look at the influences behind certain pieces made by Geoffrey Bawa, whose practice Channa joined in 1991. Channa was, in fact, the last partner of the firm.

Interior designer Terry Jonklaas, who crafted his own modernist furniture to suit his designs will also be highlighted in the film. Unfortunately though, since there arent many examples of Terrys work to be found the film will focus more on Bawa whose entire collection of work is with the Lunuganga Trust.

Furniture in South Asia, centuries ago, centered around sitting, sleeping, etc on platforms or the floor, while storage was in pots or boxes. Channa believes that perhaps the influence of China to some extent, and of course the West, changed our perception of furniture to a great extent.

Much of the Sri Lankan furniture has been determined by Western designs, he explains. The chair and many of the nomenclature of our furniture is in fact of Western derivation which tells us something about it, he says. Mesaya the Sinhala word for table is derived from the Latin word mensa and mesa in Portuguese. Almariya for instance, is derived from Portuguese.

Owing to the great skills of the Sri Lankan craftsmen and the abundance of fine timber like ebony and satinwood in the island, much of the early Indo-Portuguese furniture was made in Sri Lanka for the Western market.

Though modern furniture with its mostly functional approach does not overtly display any particular Sri Lankan design tradition, Channa feels the furniture from the colonial period incorporates a great deal of local decorative elements.

Channa himself has a rather modernist approach to furniture. Function first and then a highlight of materials and a celebration of it, he tells us, adding that he enjoys thinking about furniture for the architecture he designs. Though in most instances he uses material designed by others, occasionally he designs a few pieces himself when something does not totally fit a place from a functional and aesthetic perspective.

Design is usually about solving problems, functional and often social. Channa believes that both factors are typically affected by the economic and in turn the political context of a country. In fact, in many ways, design is a political act and can clearly reflect the politics of a time, he says.

In Sri Lanka, the 1960s was a time where self-reliance was encouraged through a strictly controlled economy, hence designers needed to be innovative and use the limited resources available to them.

As the flower power movement took shape in Europe, Ena for instance, presented a range of clothing inspired by the likes of the Finnish design house Marimekko and Emilio Pucci, amongst other designers of that period. There were also traditional designs, at a time when import restrictions were in force.

Channas hope is that the Ena de Silva segment will introduce the modern fashion the designer worked with. Ena was conscious of fashion and the social statements that it could make which made her particular of her own dress. In many ways, her fashion was about sharing this attitude of an individual style that people should have, albeit with simply cut clothes that she worked with, he says.

Though better known for her batik tapestries, wall hangings and flags, Enas starting point was fashion and clothes, he adds. This segment will also introduce a new generation to her contributions in making Sri Lanka a part of a world movement in fashion of the 1960s and 70s.

For more information

including registration, visit

https://www.srilankadesignfestival.lk/
Some of the shots will be paid for by donors to the Gavi alliance, a global collaboration led by the World Health Organisation for speeding up the development, manufacture and equitable distribution of coronavirus vaccines to low and middle-income countries. It was announced last year that the Serum Institute would receive $150 million in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Gavi vaccines alliance to make 100 million vaccine doses for India and other emerging economies. India will now start to conduct a nationwide vaccination dry run in which participants receive dummy vaccines to test mechanisms and reveal possible gaps in the system ahead of the actual vaccination drive. Loading "We have prepared detailed guidelines on vaccination. Everything in this has been kept very clear and free. In case of adverse events during vaccination, we have also made arrangements to monitor that," said Harsh Vardhan, a health minister. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised everyone will be vaccinated in India, Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said there was no need to vaccinate the country's entire population.

Out of 1.3 billion people, Bhushan said 300 million from priority groups would be vaccinated first. These include 10 million healthcare workers, 20 million front-line workers and 270 million people over 50 and under 50 with co-morbidities. Covishield, as the Oxford vaccination is called in India, can be stored in a refrigerator, making it better for Indian facilities that lack adequate cold-storage facilities for Pfizer's jab. At 10.3 million cases, India has reported the second-highest number of coronavirus cases after the US, though its rate of infection has come down significantly from a mid-September peak. India will require approval from the WHO to export the vaccine to other countries. Virus-defying raves shut down

Illegal parties marking the turn of the year attracted thousands of people in France despite coronavirus restrictions banning these gatherings. A rave south of the city of Rennes in Brittany was attended by around 2500 people, the AFP news agency reported, citing authorities in the Ille-et-Vilaine department. The revellers were reportedly locals as well as people who had travelled from abroad. The police were called to the scene in Lieuron, where disinfectant and masks had been distributed at the event in a bid to minimise the risk of infection. However, very few of the partygoers captured in social media footage were wearing masks or practising social distancing.

The public prosecutor has launched an investigation into the incident. In illegal gatherings in Marseille and Seine-et-Marne, some 300 and 100 people partied into the new year, according to AFP. Those events were broken up by security forces. Broadcaster Franceinfo also reported that another New Year's party was planned in Normandy with 190 guests. Under France's pandemic rules, the government asked citizens to have no more than six adults meet indoors for New Year.

The French Health Ministry reported 19,348 new coronavirus infections over the previous 24 hours on New Year's day (French time), slightly fewer than Thursdays 19,927 and well below Wednesdays more than one-month high of 26,457 but still far from the governments target of less than 5000 daily additional infections. Frances cumulative total of cases now stands at 2,639,773, the fifth highest level in the world. The COVID-19 death toll was up by 133 at 64,765. France will impose an earlier curfew in 15 north-eastern and south-eastern departments from Saturday to combat the spread of the coronavirus, starting at 6pm instead of 8pm. New COVID-19 strain reaches Vietnam

Vietnam has detected its first imported case of the new coronavirus variant that is spreading rapidly around Britain, the Health Ministry said on Saturday. The variant was detected in a 44-year-old woman returning to Vietnam from Britain, who was quarantined upon arrival and was confirmed positive for the virus on December 24, the ministry said. Countries around the world have cut off travel links to Britain to stop the spread of the new variant, which scientists have said is up to 70 per cent more transmissible than the original virus. Vietnam is still operating repatriation flights to bring home citizens stuck in the UK.

With strict quarantine and tracking measures, Vietnam has so far quickly contained coronavirus outbreaks, allowing economic activity to rebound faster than in much of Asia. It has recorded 1474 infections, with 35 deaths. South Korea bans all gatherings of more than four people South Korea will expand a ban on private gatherings larger than four people to include the whole country, and extend unprecedented social distancing rules in Seoul and neighbouring areas until January 17, the Health Minister said on Saturday. Kwon Deok-cheol told a briefing that the measures were necessary to reduce a prolonged surge in infections that has led to a spike in deaths. The country reported 824 new cases as of midnight on Friday, down from 1029 a day before, a drop that officials said was likely due to reduced testing over the New Year holiday.

As much as 40 per cent of recent cases have been linked to small gatherings, Kwon said. The ban on such gatherings had been imposed in Seoul and neighbouring areas before the Christmas holiday and had been due to expire on Sunday. Loading The country also has restrictions on churches, restaurants, cafes, ski resorts, and other venues. Kwon apologised to citizens for the rules, but thanked them for their "solidarity and cooperation".
Massachusetts abortion bill becomes law as state senate overrides Baker's veto

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A Massachusetts abortion bill known as the ROE Act has become law as both houses of the state legislature have overridden Republican Gov. Charlie Bakers veto of the measure.

On Tuesday, just one day after the Massachusetts House of Representatives voted to override Bakers veto, the Massachusetts Senate followed suit. Thirty-two of the states 40 senators voted to override Bakers veto, far exceeding the two-thirds threshold needed to nullify a gubernatorial veto.

Baker vetoed the bill last week, citing concerns about the sections of this proposal that expand the availability of later-term abortions and permit minors age 16 and 17 to get an abortion without the consent of the parent or guardian. However, Baker expressed support for other portions of the bill that would codify a right to abortion into state law and permit abortions after 24 weeks gestation in cases of a fatal fetal anomaly.

Additionally, the ROE Act enables physician assistants, midwives and nurse practitioners to perform abortions and removes a provision in Massachusetts law banning the use of late-term abortion procedures designed to destroy the life of the unborn child or injure the unborn child in its mothers womb.

The pro-life group Massachusetts Citizens for Life warned on Twitter that the bill eliminated basic standards of care for women, legal protection for our underage daughters requesting surgical procedures, and requirements that physicians provide medical treatment to newborn infants.

In #MA, thanks to NARAL & pro-abortion lobbyists, we're actually leaving behind:

? basic standards of medical care for women

? legal protection for our underage daughters requesting surgical procedures

? requirements that physicians provide medical treatment to newborn infants https://t.co/2d1Kop2SdM  MA Citizens for Life (@MassProLife) December 30, 2020

In response to the passage of the ROE Act, Myrna Maloney Flynn, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, slammed the legislature for ramming this damaging bill through during Covid, inserting it into the state budget, knowing our opposition could not fight it in person due to quarantine restrictions. While we pause today to grieve for the many lives that will be severely damaged and lost as a result of the ROE Act, we anticipate, much as abolitionists did, the inevitability of a brighter tomorrow.

Flynn vowed that the passage of the ROE Act would not deter her organization from continuing its mission: We look forward to continuing our work alongside the citizens of Massachusetts, who already know the value of human life and are eager to educate and support others and to ultimately illuminate the inherent right to life of the unborn. As we have done since January 23, 1973, Massachusetts Citizens for Life will work tirelessly to make abortion unthinkable. And we will prevail.

Meanwhile, the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts reacted favorably to the development. Taking to Twitter, the pro-abortion group touted Massachusetts as the first state to legislatively ease burdensome restrictions on young peoples access to care, ensuring 16 and 17-year olds will no longer be forced to obtain a parents permission or ensure a shame-inducing court process to receive abortion care.

True reproductive freedom means everyone is empowered to make decisions about their own bodies & health care, free from medically unnecessarily barriers, free from medical racism & discrimination, & free from political interference. Now, MA is one stop closer to achieving reality, it added. This is an incredible victory, both for Planned Parenthood patients and people across the Commonwealth, and is thanks to the tireless work of so many advocates, patients, lawmakers, doctors, and more.

Following the passage of the ROE Act, Massachusetts will join 13 other states that have codified a right to abortion into state law that would remain in effect should the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion nationwide be reversed. According to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, the others are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

Additionally, Massachusetts will become the ninth state that does not have any gestational limits on abortion. The others are Alaska, Colorado, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Vermont.

The ROE Act is one of several measures implemented by blue states in recent years to liberalize abortion laws. New York, Rhode Island and Illinois were among the states that passed similar legislation last year while lawmakers in New Jersey introduced the Reproductive Freedom Act following President Donald Trumps nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, citing concern about the possible overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Brian OHiggins was born in 1882 in Cill Scire, Co Meath and moved to Dublin shortly after leaving school.

He took part in the 1916 rising. In the 1918 Westminster election he was elected unopposed for Sinn Fein in the constituency of West Clare and was re-elected in the 1921, 1922 and 1923 General Elections but was defeated in the June 1927 election. OHiggins opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

He was president of Sinn Fein from 1931 to 1933. Disagreeing with the partys strategy he resigned in 1934. He edited the Wolfe Tone magazine, which was banned in 1939.

Brian OHiggins wrote patriotic verse and historical booklets, much of it under the pen name of Brian Na Banban. He also wrote religious verse. His Greeting Cards for Christmas, Easter and St. Patricks Day with their distinctive Celtic design, a selection that are shown here, were very popular in the 1940s and 1950s.

Brian OHiggins died on the 10th of March 1963.

Brian OHiggins on Sean MacDiarmada One of my proudest moments was the comradeship of Sean MacDiarmada in the GPO in 1916. I have known many men who were true patriots, who were willing to endure any pain, suffer any loss and make any sacrifice for the land that bore them, but I have known none more true, none more noble, none more heedless of self, none more worthy of love and respect than Sean MacDiarmada, and I think when the whole story of those strenuous years of preparation comes to be written, no name will shine out more brightly than his.

Brave as a lion, tender and gentle as a woman, simple and lovable as a child, he held men with the magic of his smile and fired them with a courage that was willing to dare all things for the land he served faithfully in life and will continue to serve in death, for the memory of such a man as Sean MacDiarmada can never die.

Sources:

Co. Meath Library.

Christmas Cards courtesy of the family of the late Atty Dunne, CarrickonShannon

Dermot MacNabb, Carrick-on-Shannon and District Historical Society, St Georges Heritage and Visitors Centre.
In this Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020, photo provided by Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health, registered nurse Starla Garcia prepares a coronavirus vaccine in Chinle, Ariz., for someone who enrolled in the COVID-19 vaccine trials on the Navajo Nation and initially received a placebo. (Nina Mayer Ritchie/Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health via AP)

The news came during a hopeful time on the largest Native American reservation.

Daily coronavirus cases were in the single digits, down from a springtime peak of 238 that made the Navajo Nation a U.S. hot spot. The tribe, wanting to ensure a COVID-19 vaccine would be effective for its people, said it would welcome Pfizer clinical trials on its reservation spanning Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

Right away, tribal members accused their government of allowing them to be guinea pigs, pointing to painful times in the past when Native Americans didn't consent to medical testing or weren't fully informed about procedures.

A Navajo Nation review board gave the study quicker approval than normal after researchers with Johns Hopkins University's Center for American Indian Health made the case for diversity. Without Native volunteers, how would they know if tribal members responded to vaccines the same as others?

"Unfortunately, Native Americans have effectively been denied the opportunity to participate in these clinical trials because almost all of the study sites are in large, urban areas that have not done effective outreach to Native Americans," said Dr. Laura Hammitt of Johns Hopkins.

About 460 Native Americans participated in the trials for the vaccine by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, including Navajos. The enrollment reflects a growing understanding of the role that people of color play in vaccine development and the push to rapidly deploy it to curb infections among populations that have been disproportionately affected by the virus.

Yet, few of the country's 574 federally recognized tribes have signed on for the studies, a hesitation often rooted in suspicion and distrust. Many tribes also require several layers of approval for clinical trials, a challenge researchers aren't always willing to overcome and don't face in the states.

This undated photo provided by Arvena Peshlakai shows Arvena Peshlakai opening the gate to her sheep corral at her home in Crystal, New Mexico. She and her husband Melvin volunteered to participate in coronavirus vaccine trials on the Navajo Nation. As coronavirus vaccines were being developed around the world, few Native American tribes signed up to participate. The reasons range from unethical practices of the past to the quick nature of the studies amid the pandemic. Native researchers say without participation from tribal communities, tribes won't know which vaccine might best be suited for their citizens. (Courtesy Arvena Peshlakai via AP).

While vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna Inc. roll out across Indian Country, others are being studied.

In the Pacific Northwest, the Lummi Nation and the Nooksack Indian Tribe plan to participate in a vaccine trial from another company, Novavax Inc. A Cheyenne River Sioux researcher plans to enroll Native Americans and others in South Dakota in the Novavax trial and another by Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline.

On the Navajo Nation, Arvena Peshlakai, her husband, Melvin, and their daughter Quortnii volunteered for the Pfizer trials.

Arvena Peshlakai said the rumors were rampant: Navajos would be injected with the virus, and researchers would use plasma from people who got COVID-19.

She was assured that wasn't happening and let the words of her parents and grandparents guide her: Don't let our struggles be your struggles, begin with our triumphs.

"What else am I supposed to do? Just sit back and say, 'No, I don't trust them' and not try something new to see if we can find a breakthrough?" Peshlakai said. "We have to do something, we can't just sit by and wait and hope and pray."

She overcame her fear of needles to get the doses and keeps track of her well-being daily on an app. As trial participants, the family can get the vaccine if they initially received a placebo.

This undated photo provided by Arvena Peshlakai shows Melvin Luke Peshlakai, left, and Arvena Peshlakai at their home in Crystal, New Mexico. The couple volunteered to participate in coronavirus vaccine trials on the Navajo Nation. As coronavirus vaccines were being developed around the world, few Native American tribes signed up to participate. The reasons range from unethical practices of the past to the quick nature of the studies amid the pandemic. Native researchers say without participation from tribal communities, tribes won't know which vaccine might best be suited for their citizens. (Courtesy Arvena Peshlakai via AP)

The Pfizer trials among the Navajo and White Mountain Apache tribes enrolled 275 people, about 80% of them Native American. Hammitt said enough people participated to compare immune responses in Native patients to others.

Vaccine trials nationwide have been moving quickly, which doesn't always align with tribal guidelines on considering research proposals.

"It must be done with respect for tribal sovereignty and knowing that each individual has truly been given informed consent," said Abigail Echo-Hawk, director of the Urban Indian Health Institute in Seattle.

It helped that Johns Hopkins has a decadeslong history with the Navajos and Apaches, including other clinical trials. Hammitt said the Navajo Human Research Review Board was receptive to a quick review of the vaccine trials because of the devastating impact of the pandemic.

In South Dakota, the Cheyenne River Sioux tribal health committee initially pushed back on Dr. Jeffrey Henderson's proposal for trials of the Novavax vaccine. Henderson, a tribal member, was sent into the community to gauge support.

He expects to get approval from a newly seated tribal council but for now, plans to set up a mobile unit outside the reservation.

"We refuse to do this type of research or any research within the boundaries of a tribe without having explicit approval from the tribe," Henderson said.

This undated photo provided by Arvena Peshlakai shows Melvin Luke Peshlakai, left, and Arvena Peshlakai at their home in Crystal, New Mexico. The couple volunteered to participate in coronavirus vaccine trials on the Navajo Nation. As coronavirus vaccines were being developed around the world, few Native American tribes signed up to participate. The reasons range from unethical practices of the past to the quick nature of the studies amid the pandemic. Native researchers say without participation from tribal communities, tribes won't know which vaccine might best be suited for their citizens. (Courtesy Arvena Peshlakai via AP)

In Washington state, the Nooksack tribe is set to begin enrolling volunteers in the Novavax trials Monday, said Dr. Frank James, the tribe's health officer.

"I expect a slow start to it, and we have to get a few brave people who are comfortable with it and then people to follow," he said.

The nearby Lummi Nation is moving forward with a three-part review and approval process for the Novavax trials.

Initial hesitation among the tribe stemmed from a researcher who took photos of Lummi children years ago to develop a tool to diagnose fetal alcohol syndrome but didn't offer any ways to address it, said Dr. Dakotah Lane, executive medical director of the Lummi Tribal Health Clinic.

"I had already known and was aware of certainly some distrust with any kind of research within our community," Lane said. "But I also knew the only way out of this pandemic was with access to vaccines."

Other stories about the sterilization of Native American women, noted in a 1976 federal report, and military testing of radioactive iodine on Alaska Natives have bred distrust.

The Havasupai Tribe also settled a lawsuit a decade ago that accused Arizona State University scientists of misusing blood samples meant for diabetes research to study schizophrenia, inbreeding and ancient population migration without the tribe's permission.

This photo provided by Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health shows a brochure that was used to provide information about a COVID-19 vaccine trial on the Navajo Nation, Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020, in Chinle, Ariz. (Nina Mayer Ritchie/Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health via AP)

That case came to mind when Annette Brown, a Navajo woman, heard about her tribe's willingness to participate in COVID-19 vaccine trials.

"There's this historical distrust when it comes to any type of experimenting," she said. "It's just experience, I don't know that there are many families out there who haven't been touched by some sort of experimentation (or) biological attacks on tribal communities."

Brown has mixed feelings because she previously participated in a vaccine trial with Johns Hopkins.

In separate research, the Johns Hopkins University's Center for American Indian Health determined the first generation of vaccines for bacterial meningitis was less effective among Navajo and Apache children 6 months and younger, Hammitt said. The rate of the disease used to be five to 10 times higher among those children than the general population.

Researchers and doctors in Native American communities also have found that standard doses for medications like blood thinners weren't always the best fit for tribal members.

For Marcia O'Leary, helping with a study that indirectly discovered HPV vaccines don't protect against a strain that's a leading cause of cancer among Native American women in the Great Plains shows the importance of having more Native researchers and being involved in clinical trials.

"We can't wait for this to trickle down," said O'Leary, director of Missouri Breaks, a small Native American-owned research group on the Cheyenne River Sioux reservation. "It seems like in Indian Country, we keep chasing the ball of health and we never get ahead of it."

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Letter: We must become the United States again
A sign encouraging social distancing is seen on the floor inside a bar in Austin, Tx., on June 26, 2020. (Sergio Flores/AFP via Getty Images)

Texas Supreme Court Halts Enforcement of Dine-In Curfew In Austin and Travis County

The Texas Supreme Court on Jan. 1 ruled to halt enforcement of two ordersone in Austin and the other in Travis Countythat sought to impose a weekend curfew on dine-in services.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton petitioned the high court for an order blocking the City of Austin and Travis County from enforcing local orders that would prohibit bars, restaurants, and other venues from offering dine-in food and beverage services between 10:30 p.m. and 6 a.m. on Jan. 1 through Jan. 3.

Paxton asked the Texas Supreme Court for relief after similar challenges to the dine-in curfews were rejected by a district court and, later, a court of appeals.

In its ruling, the high court blocked enforcement of Travis Countys County Judge Order 2020-24 (pdf) and the Mayor of the City of Austins Order No. 20201229-24 (pdf), pending final resolution of the appeal.

WE WON! Texas Supreme Court stops Mayor Adlers illegal order shutting down restaurants and bars, Paxton wrote in a tweet.

Hours before the curfews were to go into effect, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told restaurants to ignore the curfews.

To Texas restaurants. A formal statement. The Governors statewide executive order allows food establishments to be open for in-person dining on New Years Eve as authorized by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. They should remain open. Happy New Year! Cheers! Abbott wrote on Twitter.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler and Travis County Judge Andy Brown had said the restrictions were a way to handle the current surge in COVID-19 cases impacting the area.

Impacting restaurants is a horrific choice, we didnt want to, Adler said Wednesday, according to Fox29. The surge just happened to us, the number of people in the ICU went up almost 70 percent in the last eight days, 140 people in this surge tonight. Weve gone from 84 to 140 in the last week. This is coming fast. We could have waited until after the holidays, even more people would die because of failure to take action, we are concerned about New Years Eve given the rise in the number, Adler added.

Travis County Judge Andy Brown expressed disappointment in the Texas Supreme Courts order.

I am disappointed by the Texas Supreme Court decision as it limits our ability to slow the spread of COVID-19 in our community, he said in a statement, according to Fox29. I continue to encourage everyone in Travis County to celebrate and eat safely at home until our overall COVID-19 numbers have decreased. I also would ask everyone to consider supporting local restaurants by ordering food for takeout as I did with my family last night, he added.

The issue highlights the tension between efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19 and those who see lockdowns as an unacceptable constraint on personal liberties and worry about their impact on health, businesses, and livelihoods.
Michigans more northern and rural communities are more likely to use the new Moderna coronavirus vaccine - at least initially as vaccinations ramp up in Michigan.

In December, the FDA granted emergency approval to two vaccines, one collaboratively manufactured by Pfizer and a German company named BioNTech, the other created by Moderna. While both work similarly, the Pfizer vaccine has stricter storage requirements, that some rural communities may not be able to meet.

Proper storage temperature would be our biggest challenge here, said Arenac County Commissioner Bobbe Burke, who also sits on the Central Michigan Health District Board of Health, which oversees rural communities in Arenac, Clare, Gladwin, Isabella, Osceola, and Roscommon counties.

Pfizer directs its vaccine be stored at -94 degrees, which requires special ultra-low-temperature freezers. The freezer can cost between $5,000 and $15,000 and are not readily available at health offices or hospitals in sparsely populated areas of Michigan.

Once in a proper freezer, the Pfizer vaccine may be stored safely for up to six months.

Burke said shes aware of only one location within her health district that has a proper freezer for Pfizer vaccine storage -- its in Mount Pleasant -- but she believes once the Moderna vaccine distribution ramps up, there will be adequate coverage for rural communities.

The only hold-back with Pfizer was the temperature, Burke said.

While the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees vaccine distribution, has a working list of partners with ultra-cold freezers, theyre not sharing that information publicly.

We are not releasing additional details about which hospitals of local health departments are receiving shipments of the vaccine, how much vaccine they will be receiving and when shipments are expected, MDHHS spokesperson Lynn Sutfin said in response to a request for a list of locations with the freezers. This is due to concerns about security as well as the fact this information is continually changing as we receive additional information from the federal government and additional sites are enrolled to receive the vaccine.

As of Dec. 30, there were 578 providers, including hospitals and health departments, across Michigan enrolled in the states vaccine program. The state vaccine dashboard reflects 337,875 doses had been shipped and 86,626 doses administered as of Dec. 29 - the majority from Pfizer.

The Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, N.J. December, 21, 2020 Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for

The majority of inoculations so far have been administered by hospitals, with nearly 13,000 of the more than 86,000 doses done by local health departments.

While special freezers are required for long-term storage of the Pfizer vaccine, there are workarounds for shorter-term storage.

Pfizer ships its vaccines in temperature-tracked refrigerated packaging filled with dry ice. Upon receipt, a hospital, health clinic or pharmacy may keep the doses in the refrigerated shipping packaging for up to 30 days, refilling the packaging with dry ice every five days.

After the 30th day, the vaccines may be refrigerated at 36 and 46 degrees for an additional five days.

The Moderna vaccine actually has a shorter shelf life, 30 days, but is easier to store. It arrives at between -13 and 5 degrees and may be refrigerated at up to 36 degrees, the CDC says.

More flexible batch sizes of the Moderna vaccine, which comes in 10-dose packs, also makes it more manageable for sparsely populated communities than the Pfizer vaccines, that come in packages with a minimum of 100 doses.

Both vaccines have proven to be effective in protecting patients from severe symptoms of the coronavirus during clinical trials. Pfizer reported a 95% efficacy rate, while Modernas was 94.1%.

The FDA granted Pfizer emergency approval on Dec. 11. Moderna received approval Dec. 18.

The first doses of the Moderna vaccine were administered Dec. 23 to front-line workers at Southwest General Health Center. (Beth Mlady/Special to cleveland.com)

Clinics over pharmacies

Most Michigan residents are expected to be inoculated at a pharmacy, such as CVS or Walgreens, which both already adept at delivering mass flu vaccinations, when the supply makes its way to the general public this spring or summer.

But local health clinics are likely to take on a greater delivery role in Michigans rural communities, said Jeannine Taylor, a spokesperson for District Health Department 10.

Taylors district oversees 10 counties, including Crawford, Kalkaska, Lake, Manistee, Mason, Mecosta, Missaukee, Newaygo, Oceana, and Wexford. Most of Michigans 45 local health departments only oversee one county. Its geographically the largest health district in the state.

All of our counties are very rural, she said on Dec. 23. We started receiving our vaccines this week and we began vaccinating our frontline staff, our vaccine clinic staff and also were starting to assist with long-term care facilities that dont have a contract with Walgreens or CVS. In the rural areas, there arent Walgreens and CVS pharmacies readily available.

At the end of December, the the health office expected to begin coordinating the vaccination of EMS workers and lower priority medical first responders.

Taylor expects the health department will establish drive-through vaccination clinics potentially in parking lots at schools or county road commission sites, similar to what they provided for COVID-19 testing throughout the summer.

Itll be a place where residents can just pull up to a parking lot have people drive through, Taylor said. Its extremely coordinated.

The final clinic locations havent been identified.

Taylor said her local health department has a contract in place to obtain a deep-freezer to store Pfizer vaccines, but the initial shipments, determined by MDHHS, will be Moderna.

Spread of the coronavirus in Michigan is slowing in recent weeks.

The state is averaging 2,601 new cases and 80 new deaths per day over the last week, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services. Both are improvements from the 4,507-case and 115-death per day averages from two weeks ago. Michigans seven-day average for tests coming back positive is 8.2%, though 15 counties remain at 10% or higher.

Read more on MLive:

COVID-19 brings shortage of respiratory therapists, and the job itself, into the spotlight

How does the coronavirus vaccine work? Nine things you need to know

Michigans Catholic bishops say 2 COVID-19 vaccines are OK morally but another is problematic
MONROE, La. (AP)  Russell Harrison posted 17 points as Louisiana-Monroe got past Arkansas State 84-72 on Friday night. Koreem Ozier added 17 points for the Warhawks, and Johnnie Williams IV chipped in 11 points.

Both teams were playing their first Sun Belt Conference game of the season.

Josh Nicholas had 10 points for Louisiana-Monroe (3-5, 1-0 Sun Belt Conference).

Markise Davis had 22 points for the Red Wolves (3-5, 0-1). Marquis Eaton added 19 points. Norchad Omier had 10 rebounds.

Caleb Fields, who led the Red Wolves in scoring coming into the contest with 13 points per game, finished with four points on 1-of-6 shooting. He also had seven turnovers but only three assists.

___

For more AP college basketball coverage: https://apnews.com/Collegebasketball and http://twitter.com/AP_Top25

___

This was generated by Automated Insights, http://www.automatedinsights.com/ap, using data from STATS LLC, https://www.stats.com
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A police officer has been rushed to hospital after he was pinned between two cars in Sydney's east and suffered leg and arm injuries.

Police had been at a block of units on Hollywood Avenue, in Bondi Junction around 9.50pm on Saturday when the incident occurred.

The officer was getting out of his car before another vehicle allegedly tried to speed out of the narrow driveway of the complex.

The policeman was pinned between his car and the other vehicle and suffered injuries to his left knee, left calf and left wrist.

A police officer was rushed to hospital on Saturday night after he was pinned between two cars in Bondi Junction

Police had been at a block of units on Hollywood Avenue, in Bondi Junction around 9.50pm on Saturday when the incident occurred

Police say another vehicle allegedly tried to speed out of the narrow driveway as the officer was exiting his car, resulting in him being pinned between the two

He was rushed to St Vincent's Hospital as the other car drove away, police said.

Police say investigations are still ongoing.
NEW DELHI: The avowedly atheistic Communist Party of China (CCP) has taken a much more aggressive stance against religious practices in the last several years under Xi Jinpings leadership, including the creation of new rules limiting foreign influence on religion in China. Its intent has been to forcibly align the religions and the religious institutions remained aligned with the ideology of CCP. Xis administration is all geared up to introduce a set of new regulations to control the religious activities of foreign worshipers in China in line with the Chinese religion or say, religion with Chinese characteristics.

The draft regulations for "Provisions on the Administration of Foreign Religious Activities in the People's Republic of China", published by the Ministry of Justice in mid-November were in open to public comments till December 17 and are expected to become law early this year. The draft law comprises 40 Articles clustered under 5 Chapters.

Chapter-I (Article 1-5) primarily focuses on defining terms such as 'foreigners' and 'religious activities of foreigners in China'. The Article-5 states that 'Foreigners in the territory conducting religious activities shall abide by Chinas laws, regulations and rules, respect the principles of Chinese religion's independence and must not violate public order and good customs in China.'

Use of the phrase 'China's religious independence' in Chapter-1 of the new rules underlines the government's effort to rid the country of foreign influences. It is primarily aimed at Christian groups as Christianity is one of the fastest growing religions and lately foreigners have had some freedom in China to live as Christians. With implementation of the new regulations, China also aims at pre-empting any possible move from the Vatican towards religious liberties for Christians in China and filling of vacant seats of bishops as well as any possible pressure from Vatican to have its representation in Beijing.

Chapter-lI (Article 6-21) stipulates that foreign worshipers who want to host religious activities in China shall be required to apply for a permit. It further specifies what documents foreign missionaries need to provide, when applying for a permit, viz., describing the primary religious texts used, listing all attendees names, visa status and nationalities, giving a detailed program of the service, etc. It forbids the foreign missionaries from carrying out religious education & training, converting new believers, or accepting religious donations from Chinese citizens,and any such activity that undermines China's national unity. Under Article 17, the religious activities, organized by foreigners in China are limited to be attended by only foreign citizens.

The phrase 'Chinas national unity' is primarily a reminder of the unquestionability of Xis administration. China has long been disallowing its citizens the right to belief and expression in name of national unity. To this end China has adopted a strategy of 'sinocization of religion' or promoting 'religion with Chinese characteristics'. The Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang have been victimized for years to fulfill Xi Jinpings desire to have control over religion. Some recent reports, such as China: Big Data Program Targets Xinjiangs Muslims by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Coercive Labour in Xinjiang: Labour Transfer and the Mobilization of Ethnic Minorities to Pick Cotton by Centre for Global Policy, has uncovered that the CCP has reached a new low by detaining and enslaving ethnic minorities to impose upon the so called "religion with Chinese characteristics".

Chapter-Ill (Article 22-29) specifies that the foreign missionaries shall be allowed to conduct friendly religious exchanges and be required to demonstrate that they are "friendly to China" in their country of origin.

The phrase 'friendly to China' is an obvious pointer towards Tibet. China has been trying to control Tibetan Buddhism since it occupied Tibet in 1950. In 1995, China announced their own Panchen Lama, after abducting the real 11th Panchen Lama just two days past his name was announced by the Dalai Lama. The move was aimed at using the China-appointed puppet Panchen Lama for legitimizing the appointment of their own Dalai Lama. However, China-appointed Panchen Lama is widely considered a false Panchen Lama. With the new regulations, China would be further altering the real doctrine of Buddhism in line with Chinese characteristics, while pressurizing the Tibetan religious leadership to fall in line.

Chapter-IV (Article 30-36) describes the punishments for violating the stipulated provisions. It states that such offenders shall be dealt with by the national security organs under 'Counter Espionage Law of the People's Republic of China'. There are provisions for punishment not only to foreigners who violate the rules, but also to the public officials who abuse their powers or engage in malpractices for the personal gain while managing religious activities of foreigners. This shows the resolve of Chinese administration to ensure fail-proof implementation of the new regulations so that the religious institutions and leaders embrace state-mandated socialism and leadership of the Chinese Community Party.

Chapter-V (Article 37-40) illustrates the supplementary provisions regarding responsibilities of the religious organizations in the provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities under direct administration of the Central Government. It states that overseas Chinese living in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, conducting religious activities in the Mainland, shall also be dealt with in reference to these rules.

The new regulations are intended to further the existing tools of controlling the religions, religious institutions and leaders. The first set of such regulations were issued in 1994, followed by revisions in 2000 and 2010. By emphasizing the religious independence of China and its national unity, Xi's administration intends to layover CCPs ideology on free religious beliefs, both legally and bureaucratically.

In China, the CCP has always been above the nation and its citizens. Now, with the new regulations China would be enforcing CCPs supremacy over the religions. The current hierarchical system of CCP is well established with Xi Jinping being the core of the party. Now with the almighty God being in centrality of every religion, Chinas next attempt could be to superimpose Xi Jinping over the God.
LANSFORD

Woman found in stolen car, charged

A Weatherly woman was charged after she was found in a stolen vehicle on April 16, court papers say.Alicia Sidari, 46, faces theft, unauthorized use of motor vehicles and criminal mischief by Lansford police. They filed the charges against her Sept. 24 and Magisterial District Judge Joseph Homanko, Weatherly, released her on $10,000 unsecured bail Dec. 10.

Lansford police said a man called them in April to report that he just returned home from the hospital and his green 2005 Escalade was stolen. Weatherly police stopped the vehicle on Sept. 21, finding Sidari at the wheel. The vehicle was registered to her but had two different vehicle identification numbers and the real VIN showed the Escalade was stolen, police wrote.

Sidari was taken into custody, telling police she bought the vehicle online and picked it up in Stroudsburg but couldnt provide details, court papers state.

Police: Woman kicked officer

Lansford police say a borough woman refused to stop yelling at her neighbors on Dec. 12 and then kicked a police officer.

Deanna Augelli, 42, was charged with disorderly conduct, harassment, public drunkenness, simple assault and aggravated assault. Her bail was set at 10% of $75,000 Dec. 13 by Magisterial District Judge William Kissner, Palmerton.

Augelli called police about a neighbor working on a car in the alley making a lot of noise in the area of 23 E. Kline Ave. around 9 p.m. Police arrived to find Augelli, highly intoxicated, yelling and cursing at her neighbors and told her to stop but she refused, according to arrest papers. While attempting to put her in a police vehicle, she kicked an officer in the groin, police wrote.
At least two hospitals in Southern California have been vaccinating non-frontline workers having received 'extra' doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine

On several occasions, word has gone out to family members of healthcare workers who might be interested in receiving a dose

Redlands Community Hospital openly admit they did not want to see the extra vaccine go to waste and so reached out to those associated with the hospital

A relative of a worker from Southern California Hospital say they were also 'invited' to receive the vaccine

The hospital denies such an offer was made and instead says other frontline workers in the community were invited to be vaccinated

At least two hospitals in Southern California have been found to be vaccinating the relatives of employees working at the facilities, many of whom are not involved in healthcare whatsoever.

Redlands Community Hospital in Culver City said it was left with 'extra' doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and so reached out to people who didn't work at the medical center.

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The hospital claims that the vaccine doses would have otherwise expired and insists that all first-responders working at the 420-bed facility were treated first.

At least two hospitals in Southern California have been vaccinating non-frontline workers having received 'extra' doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine including Redlands Community Hospital

A relative who works at Southern California Hospital, but did not want to be identified, also said that family members were invited to receive Pfizer vaccines.

'The hospital had planned on vaccinating all of their employees, but a large number of their staff declined and they were sitting on a lot of thawed vaccines,' the woman said to the Orange County Register.

'They offered police officers, firefighters and first-responders to get vaccinated and also told employees they could invite four family members.'

She will return to the hospital in a few weeks time to receive a second dose of the vaccine.

But despite attempting to keep the extra inoculations to family members, the hospital quickly became overwhelmed by those clamoring for the extra Pfizer doses.

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A relative of a worker from Southern California Hospital say they were also 'invited' to receive the vaccine

The hospital was forced to stop offering vaccines to relatives and go back to focusing on solely first-responders.

However, the vaccination program outlined in federal guidelines, put together by the Centers for Disease Control, said relatives should be treated far later in the rollout of the vaccine.

It has seen some hospital boards come out to state openly that they are following the rules to the letter.

'We have been really holding the line and making sure frontline workers go first,' said Krist Azizian, chief pharmacy officer for Keck Medicine of USC, which has about 9,000 workers to the OC Register. 'We do not offer it to family members of our staff.'

Any extra, the hospital says, goes to frontline workers.

Engineer/paramedic Bonnie Breckenridge (right), gives the the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to Fire Chief Colin Stowell (left) at the San Diego Fire-Rescue Training Facility

The main issue with the Pfizer vaccine is that it must be stored at a temperature of -94 degrees Fahrenheit and as soon as it is taken out of the freezer, must be administered as soon as possible, or it goes to waste.

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The woman who got to receive the vaccine early despite not being a frontline worker has praised the actions of the hospital in seeing that none of it goes to waste.

'Faced with thawed, expiring vaccines that can't be refrozen, and no contingency plan, doctors made the choice to vaccinate people they could,' she said.

'That's what doctors do, save lives. That's what happens in disasters. Situations are constantly in flux and people have to make command decisions to save as many lives as possible within their current capacity. Hospitals are overwhelmed saving lives and don't have time to stop and create a new vaccine distribution plan for a small amount of vaccine that is about to expire.'

Southern California Hospital has denied that relatives of employees were invited to to receive the Pfizer vaccine.

Andrew Noymer, an associate professor of public health at UC Irvine says it appears Southern California Hospital handled the situation properly,

'That seems like a reasonable explanation, if they truly received more vaccinations than they can use, it's not really their fault,' he said.

The main issue with the Pfizer vaccine is that it must be stored at a temperature of -94 degrees Fahrenheit and as soon as it is taken out of the freezer, must be administered as soon as possible, or it goes to waste. The extra doses were offered to others in order all of it be used

'The excess could not be returned to the distribution center,' the hospital explained in an email.

'Instructions provided with the vaccine indicated that the vaccine has a shelf life of five days when removed from the approved freezer. The distribution center indicated the vaccine was not to be stored in dry ice or transport freezers. All the vaccine had to be used within five days or go to waste,' spokeswoman Laura Gilbert said.

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'After inoculating all hospital employees who requested the vaccine, staff contacted physicians who treat patients at the facility, as well as local first-responders, including police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians to inform them of the vaccine's availability. Additionally, some public service workers were also vaccinated.

'This decisive action ensured we achieved our goal of vaccinating all frontline staff as quickly as possible, and prevented the waste of valuable vaccine,' Gilbert said.

'They don't exactly deny that staff family members were vaccinated, only that they weren't invited,' said Dr. David D. Lo, senior associate dean of research at the UC Riverside School of Medicine. 'Also, it gave no indication that they had actually planned out their vaccination strategy.'

Back at the Redlands Community Hospital a 33-year-old claims to have been vaccinated after her husband's aunt, who works at the facility, had some extra doses that were set to expire.

'Science is basically my religion, so this was a big deal for me,' the woman said in a Facebook post.

Redlands Community say that the non-frontline healthcare workers were offered the vaccine because the hospital had extra doses and wanted to ensure the vaccine wasn't thrown away.

The woman was not a healthcare worker either and is normally employed by Disney.

Republican Mitt Romney has blasted the vaccination rollout as 'incomprehensible' and 'inexcusable'

Trump defended his administration's efforts, saying the states are moving at a slow pace when it comes to vaccinating the population.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has blamed the slow rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines on the states as he praised his administration's 'successful' distribution of the doses amid growing backlash over the disastrous program.

Trump appeared to respond to mounting criticism of the vaccine rollout on Friday after new data revealed only a quarter of the shots distributed to states have been administered since early December.

As of New Year's Day, 3.17million doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been administered. That is just 25 per cent of the 12.4million doses that have been delivered to states, according to an analysis from Bloomberg.

Trump however has defended his administration's efforts, saying it's the states that are moving at a slow pace when it comes to vaccinating the population.

'Some States are very slow to inoculate recipients despite successful and very large scale distribution of vaccines by the Federal Government. They will get it done!' Trump said on Twitter.

The tweet appeared to be in response to Senator Mitt Romney and President-elect Joe Biden, who both spoke out in harsh terms about the clumsy effort to distribute vaccines hours earlier.

In an emotional statement released on Friday, Romney, a Republican but frequent Trump critic, warned the delays would be 'deadly' if the government does not urgently undertake new strategies to boost vaccination efforts.

'That comprehensive vaccination plans have not been developed at the federal level and sent to the states as models is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable,' Romney said in a statement that was perhaps aimed as much at the incoming Biden administration as the outgoing Trump one.

'It was unrealistic to assume that the health care workers already overburdened with Covid care could take on a massive vaccination program,' Romney said.

The senator also highlighted the fact that the program is 'woefully behind' despite it only targeting frontline workers and long-term care residents - the 'two easiest populations to vaccinate'.

He called on the government to 'enlist every medical professional, retired or active, who is not currently engaged in the delivery of care' to be drafted into a crash program of government-run vaccination sites across the country.

'This could include veterinarians, combat medics and corpsmen, medical students, EMS professionals, first responders, and many others who could be easily trained to administer vaccines,' he proposed.

Romney also proposed a scheme to 'Schedule vaccinations according to a person's priority category and birthdate: e.g., people in group A with a January first birthday would be assigned a specific day to receive their vaccination.'

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Referring to his experience overseeing the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, Romney also included what could be seen as a pitch to the Biden administration to offer his own assistance, saying: 'I have experience organizing a major logistical event,' though adding humbly that it was 'nothing on the scale of what is called for today.'

As of Friday, West Virginia has still vaccinated the highest percentage of its population, followed by South Dakota and Maine. Kansas continues to lag the farthest behind in population vaccinated, with just 0.42% of all residents having received the jab
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Love Island Australia star Isabelle Green has welcomed a baby girl.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, the 28-year-old shared an Instagram post picturing the newborn.

The influencer wrote in the caption: 'Meet Dakota born at 12:33pm on the first of January 2021.'

New addition: Love Island Australia star Isabelle Green (pictured) has welcomed a baby girl

She added: 'I'll be offline and most likely not responding to all your messages as I'm in recovery mode and learning to be a Mumma but I truly do appreciate your love and support'.

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The former model announced the surprise pregnancy in July, but has not revealed the identity of the baby's father.

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At the time, she shared two stunning images of herself wearing a black bra and underwear on Instagram, while cradling her bump.

The influencer shared a photo of the baby girl (pictured) and wrote in the caption: 'Meet Dakota born at 12:33pm on the first of January 2021. I'll be offline and most likely not responding to all your messages as I'm in recovery mode and learning to be a Mumma'

'The last four months have been WILDDDDD to say the least. Creating a mini-me takes some work,' she wrote.

The Queensland beauty then posted on Instagram, where she revealed her pregnancy journey thus far and how it has been 'extremely rough' on her.

'I have been so, so sick. The whole four months spewing, nauseous, so tired, extremely unwell,' she told fans.

Expecting: The former model announced the surprise pregnancy in July, but has not revealed the identity of the baby's father. 'I have been so, so sick. I have had to do my best to hide it from you guys and act like I was completely fine on social media. But it has been rough' she said

'So I have had to do my best to hide it from you guys and act like I was completely fine on social media. But it has been rough.'

The model finished, jokingly: 'So all of you ladies that have had a breeze or told me that pregnancy is a beautiful thing. You're lying to me.'

She has been documenting her pregnancy on Instagram, showing off her blossoming bump week after week in stunning photos.

Baby love: Isabelle has been documenting her pregnancy on Instagram, showing off her blossoming bump week after week in stunning photos

Isabelle appeared on season two of Love Island Australia, before going on to enjoy a career as an influencer, amassing over 64,000 followers on Instagram.

She memorably got a '12 out of 10' from co-star Eoghan Murphy, 25, following a kissing competition, before happily exiting the show.

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Isabelle was notably part of the 'bomb squad', which comprised of five bikini-clad stunners who were intruders in the villa.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-01 20:01:14|Editor: huaxia

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PHNOM PENH, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- Twelve Cambodian migrant workers have recently tested positive for COVID-19 after returning to the kingdom from neighboring Thailand, the Ministry of Health (MoH) said in a statement on Friday.

The new confirmed COVID-19 cases are all reported in women aged between 24 and 39, who came back to Cambodia separately earlier this week via land borders, the statement said.

"The results of their samples' tests showed that the 12 persons above were positive for the COVID-19," MoH's secretary of state and spokeswoman Or Vandine said in the statement.

Currently, the patients are being treated at Battambang Provincial Referral Hospital and Pailin Provincial Referral Hospital in Northwest Cambodia, she added.

Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen has called on Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand not to return amid the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak unless necessary, and ordered the authorities along the borders to tighten security measures.

"I'd like to ask our migrant workers to continue staying there so that the Thai authorities can help examine and treat, rather than bringing the disease into our country," he said in an audio message released to the public on Thursday evening.

"All returnees must be quarantined for 14 days at the designated quarantine facilities along the borders and their samples must be taken for a lab test," he added.

Since January to date, the Southeast Asian nation has recorded a total of 378 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with zero deaths and 362 recoveries, the MoH said. Enditem
The South Carolina Baptist Convention has acknowledged the denomination's racist past and has made several strides over the years to build bridges with African Americans.

In recent years, the SCBC elected its first Black president, formed a racial reconciliation task force, and has made it a goal to recruit more African American pastors. The efforts appear to point to a more inclusive future for the SCBC, which is part the of the larger Southern Baptist Convention.

But several pastors with the SCBC, the state's largest Protestant denomination, said a recent joint statement by six Southern Baptist seminary presidents around race has threatened that progress, calling the letter unwise.

At best, it was an unforced error," said Pastor Philip Pinckney, an African American minister who leads Radiant Church in North Charleston. "At worst, it was yet another accommodation to the conservative extreme parts of the Southern Baptist Convention that will twist any biblical passage, any theological position, to shut down any meaningful conversations about race and justice.

The Nov. 30 statement, authored by the national Council of Seminary Presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention, cited critical race theory and intersectionality as "incompatible with the Baptist Faith & Message."

Critical race theory includes a group of ideas that examine the history of institutional racism in the country and how it persists. Southern Baptists' main issue with the theory is it doesn't name sin as the ultimate problem and the Gospel as the solution.

The council, which includes presidents from the denomination's six seminaries, also denounced intersectionality, an approach that aims to explain how people's different social and political identities intersect.

The letter came out in recognition of the 20th anniversary of the SBC's Baptist Faith & Message, which outlines the denomination's core beliefs.

The remarks by the educational institution leaders have been met with heavy backlash across the country. Several Black pastors have decided to break with the Southern Baptist Convention, a denomination they feel has repeatedly ignored the concerns of African Americans.

The Rev. Marshall Blalock, who pastors First Baptist in Charleston, called the letter flawed because it didn't explain critical race theory, which Blalock said is not a monolithic or clearly understood concept. Blalock also noted the seminary presidents, who are White, failed to consult African Americans about how the statement might be received.

While the letter condemned "racism in any form," it's been interpreted by many as an affirmation of the nonexistence of systemic racism, Blalock said.

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Blalock, who's White and pastors the oldest Southern Baptist church in the nationwide denomination, joined a diverse group of more than a dozen original signers in a December joint statement that called out some in the convention who "appear to be more concerned with political maneuvering than working to present a vibrant, gospel-loving, racially and culturally diverse vision."

Blalock said he wanted to stand in solidarity with those who took offense at the comments from the seminary leaders. He said he's disappointed for the denomination as it loses prominent Black faith leaders due to the controversy.

"We are diminished as a body when we don't have the voices of all of our people together," Blalock said.

Several who helped pen the November document have since issued follow-up statements aiming to clarify their intentions.

Adam W. Greenway, president at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, said in a Dec. 22 response that the presidents' initial statement reaffirmed a previous denominational apology to African Americans for "condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism in our lifetime."

R. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, told The Post and Courier he doesn't regret the November statement. But he recognizes there is a need to clarify what he and others meant by their words.

He looks forward to doing so during a January meeting with the National African American Fellowship of the Southern Baptist Convention. The meeting was called by the national convention's executive committee in attempt to foster "healthy dialogue" following the flurry of statements issued in recent weeks.

He added the nationwide convention is committed to increasing diversity within the faith group.

Religious leaders agree that relationships are key.

Josh Powell, pastor of Lake Murray Baptist and outgoing president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, pointed to the racial reconciliation task force that was formed several years ago.

Powell, who is White, said what's been most beneficial is that the diverse group paved the way for relationships and difficult conversations.
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If you have been affected by this story you can call the NSPCC helpline on 0808 800 5000

EastEnders fans were left in tears as Mick Carter emotionally told his wife Linda he was abused as a 12-year-old child during Friday's episode.

The pub landlord, played by Danny Dyer, broke down as he revealed the awful truth to his wife of 20 years, emotionally telling her 'I didn't understand it'.

After bravely telling Linda (Kellie Bright) about what had happened in his childhood, and his 30-year-old daughter Frankie, Mick said he didn't want to go to the police.

Powerful: EastEnders fans were left in tears as Mick Carter emotionally told his wife Linda he was abused as a 12-year-old child during Friday's episode

In the moving scenes Mick struggled to find the words to explain his past, leaving Linda to at first thing he'd had an affair and fathered a child.

However when he said Frankie was 30, Linda realised what he was trying to say and rushed to embrace him as he started to cry.

After their chat, Mick said: 'I just want to concentrate on us, I just want to fix us, I don't want no police, I don't want no court case'.



Several fans took to Twitter after the powerful scenes were aired, with many praising Danny Dyer and Kellie Bright for their incredible acting.

Shock: Mick struggled to find the words to explain his past, leaving Linda (pictured) to at first think he'd had an affair and however when she realised what he was trying say she ran to him

One person wrote: 'Katy manipulated him and he's so messed up blaming himself this is so heart breaking.'

While another added: 'These scenes are so powerful man got me on tears Kelly and Danny smashing these scenes wow that hug goosebumps Eastenders is top tier at the moment.'

While someone else penned: 'Beyond powerful @kelliebright76 @MrDDyer You had me in tears from start to finish! I am so glad Mick opened up to Linda and going to work on their marriage, soulmates always. You both deserve every award for your outstanding performances.'

'Yeah Eastenders came through with the powerful messages. Respect,' added another viewer of the soap.

Twisted: Katy tried to manipulate Mick during the show telling him 'we were in love and we created a beautiful child'

Reaction: Several fans took to Twitter after the powerful scenes were aired, with many praising Danny Dyer and Kellie Bright for their incredible acting

While one fan said: 'Mick's story on Eastenders is absolutely heartbreaking.'

Elsewhere in the episode Mick confronted Katy and forced her to admit the abuse, however she tried to twist it back round on him.

Trying to manipulate him, she said: 'I'm sorry I had to threaten you but when we're talking about abuse, it sound so wrong.

'You loved me Michael, we were in love and we created a beautiful child... I knew the rest of the world wouldn't understand, would judge us and blame you - that's why I had to keep a secret for so long.'

Tough: Mick broke down after revealing the awful truth to Linda, with the pair embracing as he cried

Awful: After bravely speaking to Linda, Mick told her he didn't want to go to the police

Katy continued to tell Mick that he sounded 'pathetic' and added that 'real men' would have been 'proud' to lose their virginity to an older woman.

Putting a stop to her awful talk, Mick then declared: 'You talk and you twist things, just like you used to do... I don't care if they bang me up, you don't control me anymore.'

Back in October, the hard-hitting storyline saw Mick blame himself for the abuse, where he emotionally denied being groomed and abused during a chat with Frankie, saying he had 'made the first move' and 'done all the chasing' with his care worker.

In the scene, Mick told Frankie (Rose Ayling-Ellis): 'I think you've been a little bit quick to judge. I made the first move on your mum.

Shock: Frankie discovered Mick was her father - and her mother had abused him - in October

'I did all the chasing so it's not, it can't be her fault and I just remember thinking I can't believe my luck. And I remember I told my dad and my dad was like "go on boy, you're living the dream".'

It is unlikely Mick's father, who is actually his grandfather, knew who or how old Katy was.

A horrified Frankie responded: 'The fact that you were telling daddy, did that not ring any alarm bells? Now that you're an adult, now that you're not 12?

'You were 12. Mum was what 20? How are you even trying to justify this? Everything I thought I knew, I can't trust it Mick. My own mum, what did all this make me exactly?'

Bosses revealed that Mick will struggle to come to terms with his historic abuse in the emotional storyline, and have worked with charities Survivors UK and the NSPCC to ensure the issue has been handled sensitively.

Since Frankie arrived in Albert Square fans have theorised about her true identity, with the truth finally being revealed when she admitted to Mick he could be her dad.

Mick's aunt Tina then revealed her identity to the rest of the Carter clan, having known Frankie's mum Katy from their years in care.

But the truth was finally revealed as Tina said that Katy was 'in love' with Mick when he was just 12, with Frankie finally realising the truth about her conception.

Pulling Mick aside, she quickly told her dad she now knew he'd been sexually abused by Katy in care, despite his insistence it was just 'an affair.'

If you have been affected by this story you can call the NSPCC helpline on 0808 800 5000
Mumbai, Jan 2 : Anupam Kher and the unit of the upcoming film The Kashmir Files celebrated on New Year's Eve with a midnight party on the set of the film in the hills of Uttarakhand. It was the last day of Kher's schedule, so the party also marked his shooting wrap.

"We have been working in very difficult terrain and very difficult situations in very extreme cold weather for the last month. A lot of people were getting hurt, Mithun (Chakraborty) da fell sick and I also fractured my ligament," said the film's director Vivek Agnihotri.

"People were extremely tired but on New Year's Eve we decided to celebrate while we were shooting. We had a social bubble party that was also the wrap of Mr. Anupam Kher, so it became like a double bonanza. Like disciplined soldiers we just met and had good dinner on the terrace with a bonfire, and at 12 o'clock after wishing everyone we just left. We had to report for the shoot the next day at 5am," Agnihotri added.

On returning to Mumbai, Kher tweeted: "As I travelled back to Mumbai after the shoot of #KashmirFiles, it is time to say #JaiHo to the #KashmiriPandit community of #Uttarakhand. They were a force to reckon with. Their personal stories of #Exodus were heartbreaking but their emotional support was heartwarming! " The Kashmir Files featuring Mithun Chakraborty, Anupam Kher, Pallavi Joshi, Puneet Issar and Arpan Tiwari is expected to release by the end of the year.


remaining of

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is going to carry out around 30 civilian and commercial launches in 2021, a source in and rocket industry told Sputnik.

"In 2021, about 30 Russian launches as part of the Federal Space Program and commercial projects are expected," the source said.

The source added that the launches would be carried out from the cosmodromes of Baikonur, Plesetsk and Vostochny, as well as from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.

Last year, carried out 17 space launches: seven from Baikonur, seven from Plesetsk, two from Kourou and one more from Vostochny. The United States and China conducted more space launches than in 2020.

(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.)
Today's column is about social media abuse and the day I inadvertently unmasked my most vicious of Twitter trolls, only to discover he was no stranger at all.

Television personality Erin Molan endured a heavy personal toll to pursue her social media tormenter.

Last week the federal government announced new social media legislation which, if passed, will result in fines of up to $111,000 for individuals who abuse, threaten, intimidate, post revenge porn or bully children, and fines of over half a million dollars for corporations like Facebook and Twitter, who refuse to take down offensive material or reveal the identities of perpetrators.

A big part of the problem with online trolling has been revealing a perpetrator's true identity.

Generally, social media platforms refuse to divulge any information about such culprits, citing lofty ideals like freedom of speech. But in reality they are more fearful of their profitability being eroded.
A disgruntled former Mercedes-Benz worker has been arrested after he went on a 5 million wrecking spree with a stolen JCB at a Spanish factory he used to work at.

The 38-year-old allegedly destroyed around 50 brand-new vans with the stolen JCB that he drove 18 miles to the factory on an industrial estate in the Basque capital Vitoria, northern Spain.

The damaged vans included the Mercedes-Benz V-Class worth nearly 90,000 and the new eVitos during the spree which occurred in the early hours of Thursday.

A disgruntled former Mercedes-Benz worker has been arrested after he went on a 5 million wrecking spree (pictured) with a stolen JCB at a Spanish factory he used to work at

The damaged vans included the Mercedes-Benz V-Class worth nearly 90,000 and the new eVitos during the spree which occurred in the early hours of Thursday

A security guard had to fire a warning shot into the air to get the suspect to stop his crazed attack while he waited for police to arrive, according to local reports.

Police said the detainee worked at the Mercedes Benz site between 2016 and 2017.

Officers are currently investigating the incident, which happened in the early hours of Thursday morning, as a work-related revenge attack.

Initial company estimates have put the damage at between 1.78 and 4.45 million.

The 38-year-old allegedly destroyed 69 brand-new vans with the stolen JCB (pictured) that he had driven 18 miles to the factory on an industrial estate in the Basque capital Vitoria, northern Spain

A Erzaintza regional police spokesman stated there were around 50 damaged vehicles (pictured) despite local reports suggesting there were 69

Meanwhile the JCB was taken from a construction firm on an industrial estate in Legutiano.

A Erzaintza regional police spokesman stated there were around 50 damaged vehicles despite local reports suggesting there were 69.

The spokesman said: 'Officers in Vitoria have arrested a man aged 38 who stole a JCB from one firm and smashed it into 50 parked vehicles.

The JCB was taken from a construction firm on an industrial estate in Legutiano to the industrial estate

The JCB was driven 18 miles to the factory at the industrial site and was allegedly used to destroy the vehicles

The spokesman said: 'Officers in Vitoria have arrested a man aged 38 who stole a JCB from one firm and smashed it into 50 parked vehicles (pictured) in another'

Officers are currently investigating the incident, which happened in the early hours of Thursday morning, as a work-related revenge attack. Pictured: The Mercedes-Benz factory in the Basque capital Vitoria, northern Spain

Initial company estimates have put the damage at between 1.78 and 4.45 million. Pictured: A van destroyed during the spree

'During the journey between the two sites, he caused other damage.

'Police arrived at the scene of the damage to find the man at the wheel of the JCB smashing into the parked vehicles.

'He was held on suspicion of causing criminal damage.'
No, not that fight. While the fight in Congress will (hopefully) be epic, the fight on the streets of D.C. will be heated as well.

Donald Trump has invited patriots to march on Washington in support of the fight for election integrity.

Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!

It should be anticipated that January 6 in D.C. will be wild.

It has been reported that D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser is working to suppress turnout and to punish attendees. Several hotels have announced closure on the 4th, 5th, and 6th in an effort to limit accommodations. It is also being reported that porta-potties are being withheld.

Antifa/BLM have threatened attendees. These threats should be taken seriously, and attendees should be prepared to defend themselves.

I read countless op-eds and comments of how we (conservatives) will fight tyranny when pushed too far. How much farther will we tolerate our long train of abuse?

Antifa/BLM are made up of pajama-boy, he/she miscreants, but they have one advantage against "the right." They riot in packs. When they decide to attack, they do so in groups, usually against easy targets (women, older men, young persons, etc.). They count on us wanting to work things out without resorting to violence.

Our people need to recognize this truth: an attack on any one of us is an attack on all of us. We will either stand together or surely be (repeatedly) beat individually. How many of our wives, sons and daughters, and grandfathers need to be attacked and beaten for us to stand our ground? Do we think these attacks will stop if the left secures power? They're already making lists. You're (I'm) on it.

The National Guard were not federalized, and since Democrat mayors and governors refused their involvement, President Trump was unable to deploy the Guard units this past summer in Portland, Seattle, and elsewhere.

But D.C. National Guard units report directly to the president. Therefore, Donald Trump should call up the National Guard to defend march attendees.

Any and every act of violence perpetrated against peaceful protestors should be punished promptly and severely. If authorities aren't prepared to protect our right to protest, who then will?

Image: Ted Eytan.
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Scott Stafford has been a reporter, photographer, and editor at a variety of publications, including the Dallas Morning News and The Berkshire Eagle. Scott can be reached at sstafford@berkshireeagle.com, or at 413-496-6301 and on Twitter at @BE_SStafford.
Three sites have been selected to conduct coronavirus vaccine dry run across Delhi today. The drive will be conducted in the Maternity and Child Welfare (MCW) centre in Daryaganj, Guru Teg Bahadur hospital and Venkateshwara hospital.

The objective of conducting the dry run for coronavirus vaccines is to "assess operational feasibility in the use of COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network (Co-WIN) application in field environment, to test the linkages between planning and implementation and to identify the challenges and guide the way forward prior to actual implementation," according to the Union Health Ministry.

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan visited Delhi's Guru Teg Bahadur hospital to review dry run of coronavirus vaccine today. The Central Minister tweeted, "I will be visiting GTB hospital, Delhi to review the dry run of administering the #COVID19vaccine at 09:30 AM today."





I will be visiting GTB hospital, Delhi to review the dry run of administering the #COVID19vaccine at 09:30 AM today.



Watch Live !



Yhttps://t.co/zsWCYml5dJ

Yhttps://t.co/fJImeR9axx

Yhttps://t.co/OPeFB5gIQZpic.twitter.com/1IZp0qG63Y a Dr Harsh Vardhan (@drharshvardhan) January 2, 2021

During his visit to the GTB hospital today, the Central Minister appealed to people to not focus on rumours. The minister told ANI, "I appeal to people not to pay heed to rumours. Ensuring safety and efficacy of vaccine is our priority. Different kinds of rumours were spread during polio immunisation but people took the vaccine and India is now polio-free."

Delhi government is prepared to receive, store and administer coronavirus vaccine to 51 lakh people under the priority category-- healthcare workers, frontline workers, people above 50 years of age, and those below 50 years but with co-morbidities in phase 1 of immunisation, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal had said last month.

Meanwhile, Niti Aayog member and head of the national COVID-19 task force, Dr VK Paul said "India will pitch for vaccines for 300 million individuals". He added though healthcare workers will be priority in the first phase of vaccination, preparedness for inoculating other priority groups has also reached advanced stages.

In Hyderabad, the coronavirus vaccine dry run will take place at Nampally's Area hospital. The mock COVID-19 immunisation will be conducted at District Hospital in Pune, Maharashtra.

Also read: Govt to cover vaccination cost of 30 crore priority people: COVID-19 task force head

Also read: COVID-19 vaccine dry run in India today; here's all you need to know
DUP minister Edwin Poots has been criticised for thanking a leading Brexit campaigner for his efforts following the UKs withdrawal from the European Union  even though his party voted against the deal.

His praise for Arron Banks has been questioned because officials from the department led by Mr Poots are involved in building Irish Sea border infrastructure bitterly opposed by unionists.

The UUP branded Mr Poots remarks as risible.

It came as Secretary of State Brandon Lewis was criticised after insisting on Twitter that there is no border in the Irish Sea.

As the Brexit transition period with the European Union came to an end on Thursday night, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it offered the chance to transform the UK.

His Brexit trade deal with the EU was passed by 521 votes to 73 in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

Despite being the only major local party to campaign for Brexit, none of the DUPs eight MPs voted to support the European Union (Future Relationship) Bill.

The partys main Brexit cheerleader Sammy Wilson described the DUP as disappointed Brexiteers in the Commons prior to the vote.

He told MPs his party would not back the deal because the UK would not leave the EU as a whole.

Officials from Mr Poots Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs have been involved in building border control infrastructure at local ports, something the minister has said he opposes.

However, on Friday the Lagan Valley MLA sent a tweet to Mr Banks, the co-founder of the Leave EU campaign, thanking him for all you done in making Brexit happen.

Mr Banks helped Nigel Farages campaign to leave the EU and was one of the largest donors to the UK Independence Party. He originally tweeted: A long fight but we did it.

Brexiteers love their Queen and country  we believe in Britain!

When the Belfast Telegraph contacted Mr Poots to explain his tweet to Mr Banks, he said it was self-explanatory.

My only desire was that Northern Ireland left [the European Union] the same as Great Britain and not separately, as Sammy Wilson said in his statement to the House, added the Agriculture Minister.

UUP leader Steve Aiken criticised the message. Referring to officials for the department led by Mr Poots being currently involved in building border posts at local ports, he said: That Edwin Poots believes there is anything to celebrate about Northern Ireland being hived off as a place apart so that Conservative and other reactionary grandees can relish a diminishing of the United Kingdom is risible.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood replied directly to Mr Poots response to Mr Banks. The Foyle MP simply posted: Unrequited love.

Critics of the DUP have been urging the party to hold its hands up and be honest over the role it played in creating a border in the Irish Sea, as the divorce settlement imposes customs checks between here and Britain.

Ulster Unionist peer Lord Empey argued that the Northern Ireland Protocol only came about after the DUP initially indicated acceptance of it.

The protocol, part of the Withdrawal Agreement, was designed to avoid the need for border checks on the island of Ireland after Brexit.

Meanwhile, the Secretary of State was criticised after tweeting: There is no Irish Sea Border.

Independent Lagan Valley MLA Trevor Lunn responded: Im avoiding calling his comments b******* because Im naturally polite.
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Iran said on January 2 that it plans to enrich uranium up to 20 percent purity at its underground Fordow nuclear facility "as soon as possible," a level far above limits set by an international nuclear accord.



Ali Akbar Salehi, the U.S.-educated head of the civilian Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, offered a military analogy to describe his agency's readiness to take the next step.



"We are like soldiers and our fingers are on the triggers," Salehi told Iranian state television. "The commander should command and we shoot. We are ready for this and will produce [20 percent enriched uranium] as soon as possible."



His comments on January 2 come a day after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that Tehran had revealed its intention in a letter to the UN nuclear watchdog.



"Iran has informed the Agency that in order to comply with a legal act recently passed by the country's parliament, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran intends to produce low-enriched uranium (LEU) up to 20 percent at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant," the IAEA said in a statement on January 1.



The letter, submitted on December 31, did not say when this enrichment activity would take place," the IAEA said.



Russia's ambassador to the IAEA, Mikhail Ulyanov, said earlier on Twitter that IAEA chief Rafael Grossi had reported Irans letter to the agencys board of governors.

Iran currently enriches its uranium stockpile up to around 4.5 percent, which is above the 3.67 percent cap imposed by the 2015 nuclear deal but below the 90 percent purity considered weapons-grade.



An increase to 20 percent would shorten Irans break-out time to a potential nuclear weapon, if it were to make a political decision to pursue a bomb. The Iran nuclear deal also prohibits Tehran from enrichment at the Fordow facility, buried deep in a mountain to protect against air strikes.



Iran has gradually reduced its compliance with the accord since the United States unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018 and started imposing crippling sanctions on Iran.



Following the assassination of top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh on November 27, Irans parliament passed controversial legislation that ordered an immediate ramping up of the countrys uranium-enrichment program to 20 percent and an end to IAEA inspections.

The government led by President Hassan Rohani has opposed the bill, saying it was detrimental to diplomatic efforts and no funds were allocated to implement the law.



Some analysts have suggested that Iran could use parliament's move to gain leverage in future talks with the United States.



The remaining parties to the deal -- China, France, Germany, Russia and Britain -- said on December 21 that they were preparing for a possible return of the United States to the accord after President-elect Joe Biden takes office on January 20. Biden has said he will try to rejoin the deal, which was struck when he was vice president.



Biden has suggested the United States would reenter the deal if Iran complies with the agreement, leaving other issues of concern such as Irans ballistic missiles and support for regional proxies to "follow on" agreements.



Iran says its missile program and regional policies are off the table, and has said it would come back into compliance once the United States and the three European countries that signed the deal fulfill their end of the agreement by providing Tehran with the economic relief promised under the accord.



Tehran has always denied pursuing nuclear weapons, saying its nuclear program was strictly for civilian purposes.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters.
Neither Trollz nor Stuck With U lasted at No. 1 longer than a week. But a song that has managed to balance attention-grabbing with staying power is perhaps the mother of all 2020 collaborations, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallions gloriously libidinous WAP. The third No. 1 hit of the year to feature two Black women, WAP was a powerful show of solidarity between two contemporaries who  had they emerged a generation or two ago, when plenty of people in the music industry believed the self-fulfilling lie that only one successful female rapper could exist at a time  might have been pitted against each other as rivals. Instead, WAP finds them showcasing their differing though complementary musical personalities and weathering the reactionary conservative backlash to the track more blithely than they may have been able to alone.
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The Ukrainian government is seeking to develop economic relations with China.

Deputy Head of the Ukrainian President's Office Ihor Zhovkva has said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky plans to visit a number of Asian countries in the second half of 2021.

Read alsoPresident's Office names priorities in 2021Ukraine has many economic interests in South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, which will be the main destinations of the tour, Zhovkva wrote in his article for the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia weekly on January 2, 2021.

In addition, the Ukrainian government is seeking to develop economic relations with China.

"The key task in relations with China is to develop mutually beneficial trade and economic cooperation, first of all, via boosting exports of Ukrainian products to this country, expanding the range of exported goods, and strengthening Ukrainian agricultural producer's positions in the Chinese market," he said.

Zhovkva added that the involvement of the Chinese side in the implementation of certain infrastructure projects in Ukraine would remain an urgent task in the bilateral relations.

Other related news reports

Reporting by UNIAN
Ward 7 Councilor Anthony Maffuccio has asked for an investigation into why more people aren't taking advantage of the homeless shelter at St. Joe's.

Advocates Concerned for Pittsfield Unsheltered as Winter Deepens



Tents sprang up around the city this past summer. PITTSFIELD, Mass.  As 2020 drew to an end, around 70 individuals remained unsheltered or housing insecure in Pittsfield as winter weather descends on the county.

"I don't believe our homeless are being well taken care of, I believe the city is painting a pretty picture when there's not one there," Ward 7 Councilor Anthony Maffuccio said. "People are treating these individuals like a pack of wild animals and not like human beings, and I have an issue with that."

Local homelessness advocates say the city needs to take a different approach to aid the unsheltered population.

At the time of Pittsfield's last City Council meeting, non-profit Western Massachusetts Recovery Learning Community reported that 72 individuals in the city were currently unsheltered. This number included people tenting throughout Pittsfield, sleeping in empty buildings, sleeping in cars, and those who are couch surfing.

County coordinator Jean-Marie Laurin said this number hasn't changed drastically since.

Some suggested actions include utilizing collaboration, investigating claims made about ServiceNet's shelter at the former St. Joseph's High School, providing a warming shelter for daytime hours when the shelter is not open, adopting trauma-informed care, and using a "Housing First" model approach with the end goal of providing permanent supported housing to these individuals.

"So much of it is just letting folks know that they have someone to listen, and someplace safe and warm to be," Laurin said.

Maffuccio has not been happy with the progress that his petition calling for the investigation of abuse and human rights violations at ServiceNet's shelter has made since the last council meeting.

He said things are moving slowly, and it seems that the city does not want to go down that path because ServiceNet is its only shelter provider.

"There has to be an obvious reason on why at least 70 individuals are living in the wilderness when there are beds available," Maffuccio said.

Volunteer homelessness advocate Regina White is on a first-name basis with many of these unsheltered folks. While assisting them over the summer, she said she was surprised to learn they hadn't been advised to fill out permanent housing applications by ServiceNet's shelter at St. Joe, which was then closed. White was able to help them submit nearly 82 applications to the city.

White commended Western Mass RLC, which raised more than $13,000 for survival gear to support those displaced by the closing of ServiceNet's shelter over the summer, opened its doors to the unsheltered population so they can have a warm place to relax and to use a computer, and give them assistance with various forms of paperwork.

The RLC, which is in an accessible location on North Street, is currently open Wednesdays through Fridays, though somewhat limited in access by COVID-19 restrictions.

Since securing funds to provide unsheltered folks with tenting equipment during the warmer months, Laurin and RLC team have been since focusing on assisting them with important paperwork from entities such as the Department of Transitional Assistance, Social Security, apartment searches, personal identifications, and birth certificates.

"We're a fairly small organization just doing a lot," Laurin said.

Laurin is more than disappointed that the city has not provided a warming shelter yet. In early December, Mayor Linda Tyer announced that the final elements of a daytime warming center at the Christian Center are being put into place, but it has not come to fruition yet.

"This is something that should have happened back in June, we knew winter was coming," Laurin said.

The RLC, along with other advocates, is more than concerned about the multifaceted homeless crises that have exploded in Pittsfield. Laurin said the immediate crunch is the fact that temperatures are dropping, there are reports of abuse and misconduct at the reopened St. Joe's shelter, there is a lack of transparency and accountability over whether these claims are true or not, and there is no warming shelter.

"I would like to say that trauma-based care would just be common sense," Laurin said. "But I think you're looking at an entire system of exhausted people and I think we could be doing a lot better."
RTHK: Sino-US relations are at a "crossroads": Wang Yi

China's relationship with the United States could get back on the right track following a period of "unprecedented difficulty", senior diplomat Wang Yi said in official comments published on Saturday.

Relations between the world's two biggest economies have come under increasing strain amid a series of disputes over trade, human rights and the origins of Covid-19. In its latest move, the United States blacklisted dozens of Chinese companies it said had ties to the military.

Wang, China's state councilor and foreign minister, said in a joint interview with Xinhua news agency and other state media outlets that recent US policies towards China had harmed the interests of both countries and brought huge dangers to the world.

But the relationship had reached a "new crossroads" and there was now an opportunity for the two sides to "open a new window of hope" and begin a new round of dialogue, he said.

Wang urged the United States to "respect the social system and development path" chosen by China, adding that if Washington "learns lessons", the conflicts between the two sides could be resolved.

"We know some people in the United States are apprehensive about China's rapid development, but the most sustainable leadership is to constantly move forward yourself, rather than block the development of other countries," he said.

Politicians in the United States have accused China of covering up the outbreak of Covid-19 during its early stages, delaying its response and allowing the disease to spread much further and faster.

But Wang said China had done its utmost to combat the virus's spread, "sounding the alarm" for the rest of the world.

"We raced against time, and were the earliest to report the epidemic to the world," he said. "More and more studies show that the epidemic very probably emerged in many places throughout the world." (Reuters)

This story has been published on: 2021-01-02. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
A case of cheating and dishonesty was registered against a 65-year-old Pakistani woman who got elected as a member of village panchayat and was serving as interim panchayat head in Jalesar block of Etah in Uttar Pradesh.

The case has been registered under section 420 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) at Jalesar police station. A case has been lodged on Friday evening against Bano Begum on complaint of then panchayat secretary Dhyan Pal Singh under section 420 (cheating and dishonesty) of the IPC.

We are checking her documents and collecting all relevant details which would be verified during the investigation, said KP Singh, in-charge of Jalesar police station in Etah district (Aligarh division).

Also read: Day 1 of dry run concludes as two Covid-19 vaccines await final nod

More sections could be added if other facts are revealed during the investigation, the police official said while clarifying that the woman hasnt been arrested as of now.

Begums Pakistani roots and nationality came to light after a resident approached the police saying she was working as gram pradhan without any authority and that she was a Pakistani national.

The complainant also told the police that Begum had concealed her identity. Subsequently, the authorities in Etah removed her from the post. Begum had been living on a long-term visa after marrying an Indian national and functioning as the interim village panchayat head in Jalesar.

District panchayati raj officer (DPRO) Alok Priyadarshi said district magistrate Sukhlal Bharti has ordered the probe to figure out how did Begum manage to get an Aadhaar card and other documents to get elected as a gram panchayat member and later the interim village head.

In the 2015 local body elections, Bano Begum was elected as a gram panchayat member. Gram pradhan (chief) Shehnaz Begum died on January 9 this year and Begum was asked to work as interim gram pradhan, DPRO said.
School teachers object to monitoring of online classes View(s):

The Western Province Education Ministrys recent letter to schools about online teaching conducted by school teachers, has come under much fire from several teachers. The letter said online classes will be monitored by schools principals and the ISA (In-service Advisors) of schools.

The Ceylon Teachers Union (CTU) said teachers conduct online classes via Zoom, Microsoft and other apps through their own initiatives, and the Government had no right to monitor the classes.

CTU General Secretary Joseph Stalin also said teachers were not given any assistance for conducting the classes and they used their own resources including phones and mobile data to teach their students.

Furthermore, a survey has revealed that online teaching is unsuccessful. We are totally against this move, Mr Stalin said. -CC
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 2) Manila residents who spent the holidays outside the National Capital Region will have to test negative for the coronavirus before they could head home, the city government said Saturday.

Barangay officials have been informed of the requirement as early as Dec. 22, according to a memorandum signed by Acting City Health Officer Arnold Pangan.

Under the order, residents returning to Manila starting Jan. 2 should undergo a swab test or real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test, considered the gold standard in detecting the presence of the virus.

Returnees should stay in designated quarantine facilities while awaiting their test results. Only those who test negative will be allowed to leave, while those confirmed to have the coronavirus disease will continue to be quarantined, the memorandum order states.

In a message to reporters on Saturday, Julius Leonen, head of the city's public information office, clarified that those who spent only a night outside Metro Manila do not need to get tested, but they are encouraged to do so. Those who visited other areas within the capital region may also volunteer to undergo the swab test.

The tests will be administered to the residents for free, Leonen said.

On Sunday, Manila Mayor Francisco "Isko Moreno" Domagoso issued a warning to all concerned parties, saying they "will be tested" even if they refuse.

"We will test them. Kasi unang-una bakit ka naman tatanggi?" Moreno said in a separate interview with CNN Philippines' Newsroom Weekend. "Sayang nga ito, wala kang gastos eh. Libre naman eh."

[Translation: We will test them. Because first of all, why would anyone refuse? It would be a waste, you won't need to pay for this, this is free.]

He stressed the mandatory testing would be for the residents' own good and for their "peace of mind" amid the possible virus threat.

The city has recorded a total of 24,948 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began. Of this number, 750 died while 23,900 have recovered, leaving 298 active cases.

Government officials had appealed to the public to stay home and limit holiday gatherings to household members to prevent further transmission of the virus. Still, the Department of Health saw "the beginning of the surge" of infections even before Christmas.

The agency reported 1,097 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday despite incomplete data from 15 laboratories. The country has recorded a total of 476,916 infections, with the number expected to increase further as data from the backlog comes in.
British shirt-maker Charles Tyrwhitt is scaling back manufacturing in China after customers said they no longer wanted to buy products from the country.

Founder Nick Wheeler told The Mail on Sunday: 'We are reacting to what the customer wants.

'A lot of customers are telling us they don't want us to make shirts in China. They don't like the Chinese government.'

As well as reducing the number of garments made in China, the company is ending contracts with cotton suppliers in Xinjiang province from July.

Mr Wheeler also cited wider human rights issues for the move, saying: 'There are areas of Chinese manufacturing using forced labour it's so far removed from anything we would ever do.'

British shirt-maker Charles Tyrwhitt is scaling back manufacturing in China after customers said they no longer wanted to buy products from the country. Founder Nick Wheeler told The Mail on Sunday: 'We are reacting to what the customer wants'

Charles Tyrwhitt is just one of dozens of multinationals scaling back manufacturing in China due to such concerns, coupled with steep tariffs on Chinese goods imported to the US.

A study by Swiss bank UBS last year found three in four US firms with factories in China are either moving or considering moving their operations to other countries, such as Vietnam.

They include Nike and Apple, which could shift almost a third of its iPhone production out of China.

Relations between China and Australia are also deteriorating. Beijing has slapped tariffs on barley and wine and is disrupting imports of many other Australian goods.

Charles Tyrwhitt makes all of its shirts overseas  it has factories in Vietnam, India, Malaysia, Italy, Portugal and Eastern Europe.

In the UK, the company makes shoes in Northampton, ties in Essex and suit fabric in Yorkshire.

Mr Wheeler said customers have asked him to make shirts in the UK, but he said higher manufacturing costs would mean he would have to more than quadruple prices, charging about 140 a shirt.
Like so many other Irish abroad, Grange man James Feeney had been looking forward to spending Christmas with his family, a small luxury after the year he has had, but, it was not meant to be.

The hotelier who is based in London, instead spent Christmas Day at work with colleagues.

"I was meant to be off, and coming home on the ferry on December 23rd.

"I had planned to drive this year as I thought it would be better than getting public transport," says the General Manager of Clayton Hotel City of London.

The 30 year old had even planned on staying home for longer this Christmas.

"I had holidays saved and I planned on staying home for two weeks. I was coming home to see my Dad, Gerry, my brother Kieran and my sister Caitriona."

Reality hit for James that he would not be spending Christmas in Sligo after Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressed the nation on December 19th instructing people to stay at home and implementing Tier 4 restrictions for larger parts of London, following concerns over the new strain of the coronavirus.

James had prepared himself for the possible reality of not being able to get home for Christmas and says because of that it eventually did not come as a huge shock when Taoiseach Micheal Martin banned inward travel from the UK until December 31st.

"It didn't come as that much of a shock. The cases were getting quite bad here and then we heard about the new strain, the reality had sunk in that I wouldn't be getting home, but you know after the year everyone has had I was looking forward to seeing my family."

James, who studied Hotel Management in IT Sligo, still counts himself lucky though, as he got home in September for a few days.

"I'm lucky I got home then, I was restricting my movements so I couldn't do too much but it was nice to be home."

The hotel manager is also the founder of the Sligo Association of London, a group that is hoping to connect Sligo diaspora in London.

"I decided to set it up last year and a few of us had big plans for 2020, growing the group and organising events, but that was all put on hold.

"But I'm still using the page to provide people with advice on travel and just if people want to talk or are lonely they can contact the page on Facebook."

He continues, "In London there can be lots of people around but hard to connect when you just arrive here, especially for younger generations. The Irish meet in pubs and through the GAA and we don't have that now so I hope the page can help connect people."

James worked throughout the lockdown although the hotel he manages was closed to normal guests.

On March 20th the hotel closed its doors, but, given its proximity to the Royal London Hospital it provided accommodation to NHS frontline workers.

"We were delighted to look after them," he says.

James says it was strange, given that he had only opened the hotel in 2019 and just a year later had to close the doors.

"It's been strange. In hospitality you want to spend time chatting to guests, but now you've have to limit that contact."

Instead of sitting around the table for Christmas James spoke to his family virtually, but still hopes he can get back to Sligo sooner rather than later when it is safe to do so.

For anyone wanting to make contact in London you can visit Sligo Association London on Facebook.

Sligo Champion
Centre has provided more than 21.89 crore vaccine doses to states/UTs

Bharat Biotech expects approval of Covaxin for emergency use from WHO in July- September

Moderna's single-dose COVID-19 vaccine in India likely next year; Pfizer ready with 5 crore doses for 2021

Centre asks states to plan for scaling up Covid-19 vaccination through stocks, supplies till June-end

Bengal all set for COVID-19 vaccine dry run

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Kolkata, Jan 02: West Bengal is all set to go for the COVID vaccination mock drill on Saturday as a part of the Centre's decision to test across the country the preparedness of the authorities before launching the actual vaccination programme, a health department official said.

India test drives vaccine delivery, mass vaccination soon? | Oneindia News

The dry run will be held at Urban Primary Health Centres at Duttabad and Madhyagram and at Amdanga Rural Hospital in North 24 Parganas district. In each centre, 25 health workers will participate in the dry run.

Covid-19 vaccination in India: Dry run starts today to test systems

"All arrangements have been completed for the Covid vaccination mock drill on Saturday," the official said on Friday.

Before Saturday's nationwide exercise, the earlier dry run drill had been conducted in Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Gujarat on December 28 and 29.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Saturday, January 2, 2021, 10:20 [IST]
A federal judge in Texas has dismissed a long-shot lawsuit by Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, that sought to overturn the presidential election, saying neither the congressman nor his allies have legal standing to pursue the case.

The judge's Friday night ruling tosses out what many election law experts considered a far-fetched theory to challenge the formal mechanism by which President-elect Joe Biden will be affirmed as the winner of the race for president.

U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle issued an order dismissing the case because, he found, neither Gohmert nor his fellow plaintiffs have a sufficient legal stake in the process to justify the lawsuit. Kernodle was nominated to the federal bench by President Donald Trump.

The judge's ruling comes less than 12 hours after lawyers for Gohmert filed court papers arguing that Vice President Mike Pence has far more power than the government claims to alter the outcome of the presidential election. It was not immediately clear if Gohmert's legal team plans to appeal the decision.

In response to a Justice Department request to reject the suit, the Friday filing by Gohmert's legal team accused the government of trying to "hide behind procedural arguments." Gohmert's lawyers contended that arguments made by the Justice Department and Congress - that the suit upends long-established procedures and that Pence is an inappropriate target for the suit - are unfounded.

"They say that the Vice President, the glorified envelope-opener in chief, has no authority to preside over anything else or to decide anything of substance or to even count the votes in those weighty envelopes. He is only the envelope-opener," Gohmert's filing states.

Gohmert claimed the vice president has the power to effectively pick the next president during the formal recording of electoral college votes by Congress on Wednesday. Pence oversees that ceremony and, as president of the Senate, has the power to declare Biden electors in a handful of key states invalid and instead recognize electors supporting President Trump, the filing contends.

Pence "may count elector votes certified by a state's executive, or he can prefer a competing slate of duly qualified electors. He may ignore all electors from a certain state. That is the power bestowed upon him by the Constitution," the filing states.

Gohmert and a number of Republicans in Arizona filed the suit in Texas, arguing that an 1887 law governing how Congress certifies presidential elections is unconstitutional. They argue that the Constitution gives the vice president discretion to determine which states' electors are valid for choosing the president of the United States.

While experts agree that 19th century law is vague and confusing, it has never before been challenged; it has been accepted by officials in both parties for more than 130 years as establishing a process in which voters choose electors who choose the president. This past year, 81 million voters supported Biden, earning him 306 electoral college votes to Trump's 232.

In a Thursday night filing, a Justice Department lawyer wrote on Pence's behalf that the case is "a walking legal contradiction," because Gohmert has sued Pence seeking to give Pence more power. If Gohmert and his allies want to make such a claim, the Justice Department argued, they should sue Congress, not Pence.

Lawyers for the House of Representatives also asked the judge to reject the Gohmert suit, arguing that it called for a radical departure from our constitutional procedures and consistent legislative practices and would authorize the Vice President to ignore the will of the Nations voters.
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China has unveiled her foreign policy focus for 2021, Chinese state councillor and foreign minister Wang Yi disclosed in an interview with official Xinhua News Agency and China Media Group in Beijing.

Noting that the year 2021 would be of historic significance to Chinas national rejuvenation, Wang said the country would celebrate the centenary of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

The foreign minister added that China was ready to embark on a new journey of fully building a modern socialist country.

He noted that the centenary was just the first chapter of the CPCs great cause, stressing, we in the foreign service will rally closely around the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core and follow the guidance of Xi Jinpings Thought on Diplomacy.

Wang further said that China would continue to advance the major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics, safeguard Chinas sovereignty, security and development interests, and focus on six areas.

We will make our best efforts to serve Chinas development strategies, and while ensuring effective COVID-19 control, we will promote better integration of the domestic and international markets and greater complementarity between domestic and global resources, he said.

According to him, China will endeavour to create a favourable external environment for fostering a new development paradigm and implementing the 14th Five-Year Plan at home.

He said that China would continue to build a new type of international relations that is guided by President Xis personal involvement in diplomacy.

We will work for steady progress in Chinas relations with major powers, cement solidarity and friendship with neighbours and other developing countries, and further deepen international and regional cooperation, he added.

The foreign minister further said China would upgrade opening-up and cooperation, advance high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.

Tap into the strength of Chinas enormous market and potential of domestic demand.

He said that China would also boost global recovery with its own growth, and share with the world Chinas development dividends.

We will proactively engage in the reform of global governance, Wang said, noting that the year 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the restoration of Chinas lawful seat at the United Nations and the 20th anniversary of its accession to the World Trade Organisation.

The foreign minister said China would continue to practice multilateralism, host a successful UN Biodiversity Conference, meet global challenges in partnership with others, and promote a more equitable and sound global governance system.

Wang said China would also focus on actively facilitating mutual understanding between the countries of the world.

The minister said China would communicate better to the world the CPCs strong record of governance, the Chinese peoples extraordinary journey towards the Chinese dream and Chinas commitment to peaceful development.

He called on all countries to overcome their differences, seek common development and embrace exchanges, mutual learning and harmony between civilizations.

We will continue to work for a community with a shared future for mankind. In this context, we will seek to realise a global community of health for all and a community with a shared future in the Asia-Pacific, he said.

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Wang added that China would uphold the shared values of humanity  peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom.

He added that China would also work with all countries to build an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world of lasting peace, universal security and common prosperity.

(Xinhua/NAN)
Noting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's approval rating is the highest among world leaders in a survey conducted by a US data firm, BJP president J P Nadda on Saturday said this is a testimony to his able leadership and a matter of pride for all Indians. While Nadda tweeted to laud Modi's leadership, the BJP also held a press conference wherein Union minister Prakash Javadekar said it is a "rare phenomenon" that the prime minister's public approval has been rising over the past six years, defying the general trend of fluctuating ratings for most leaders.

American firm Morning Consult, which regularly tracks approval ratings of world leaders, said over 75 per cent people approve of Modi while 20 per cent disapprove, putting his net approval rating at 55 per cent. This is higher than any other world leader the firm tracks.

Referring to the survey, Nadda tweeted that Modi has yet again emerged as the most popular head of government for his efficient handling of various issues and management of the COVID-19 crisis. "PM @narendramodi ji's popularity not only rises unabated across all demographic groups & geographic regions of the country and he also gets a thumbs up globally for his dedication to his country. PM Modi ranks Number 1 among all global leaders in this (these) challenging times," he said.

Ever since the Modi-led government came to power, people's trust in the government and the faith that the nation is progressing in the right direction have risen drastically, he added. "This rating is testimony of his able leadership and hard work and is a thing of pride for all Indians," Nadda said.

According to Morning Consult's survey, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's approval rating was 24 per cent while it was in the negative for UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson as more people disapprove of his work than those who approve. Javadekar attributed Modi's high approval rating to his foresight and able leadership. He said the government's "successful" handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has further boosted his popularity.

The prime minister has a vision for the country and formulates his programmes accordingly in which he is successful, he said. Javadekar said Modi's approval rating of 55 per cent is almost double that of the second most popular leader in the list of 13 democratic state heads, including those of the US, France, Australia and Brazil.

He noted that the Morning Consult's survey follows similar surveys by global agency Gallup and India's CVoter which also recorded a very high approval for Modi. For Modi, the country is everything and everything is for the country, the Union minister said, adding that people have come to have full faith in his leadership, leading to the BJP's big wins in Lok Sabha, assembly and local body polls.

Javadekar noted that various other international recognitions, including those from Gulf countries, have come Modi's way. He said this shows that India has an able leadership with foresight.

Javadekar said the prime minister's timely actions, including lockdown, saved India from serious harm during the pandemic and the country's recovery rate is now among the highest in the world. To a question about protesting farmer unions' warning of intensifying their stir against the three farm laws if the government does not agree to their demands, the minister said the Centre is hopeful of resolving the issue and ending their agitation.

Farmer leaders had on Friday said they will have to take firm steps if the government does not take a decision in their favour in the next round of talks scheduled for January 4. Earlier on Saturday, they said they would take out a tractor parade towards Delhi on January 26 if the government does not accept their demands.

Referring to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh's outreach to farmers, Javadekar said what the senior BJP leader had said is the view of the government as well. Asked about Rahul Gandhi's allegations that the government waived off a huge amount of loans of some industrialists, Javadekar said nobody can match the Congress leader in spreading "false" information.

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As Bollywood star couples Deepika Padukone-Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt-Ranbir Kapoor arrived back in Mumbai on Saturday morning, pictures from their animal safari in Ranthambore National Park have flooded the internet. They were spotted by their fans at their holiday and obliged them with some pictures.

Photos shared by their fans on social media show the fours first pictures together from the trip. So far, they had been sharing a few selfies and pictures of the gorgeous views but none of themselves with each other. Alia was seen smiling as she posed with her fans. She wore a chunky black jacket, black pants and brown boots. Meanwhile, Ranbir wore a blue and green jacket with blue jeans and a blue cap. Ranveer and Deepika were dressed in black from head to toe. He wore a black cap, dark sunglasses, black mask, a black jacket and black pants. Deepika also wore black mask, muffler, jacket and pants.

More pictures from the safari showed them in different vehicles with their families. Ranveer and Deepika were joined by her parents, Prakash and Ujjala Padukone, and sister Anisha. Ranbir and Alia were with her mother Soni Razdan and others. His mother Neetu Singh, sister Riddhima Kapoor Sahni, brother-in-law Bharat Sahni,niece Samara and Alias sister Shaheen had also joined them for the holiday.

Alia-Ranbir and Deepika-Ranveer at the airport in Mumbai.

The families arrived back in Mumbai on Saturday morning. They were seen at the Kalina airport in Mumbai.

It was earlier rumoured that the families had all gone to Jaipur for the engagement ceremony of Ranbir and Alia. Later, veteran actor, Ranbirs uncle Randhir Kapoor denied the reports saying, It is not true. If Ranbir and Alia were to get engaged today, my family and I would have also been there with them. Ranbir, Alia and Neetu have gone there for holidays and to bring in the new year. The news of their engagement is incorrect.

Also see: Ananya Panday shows off lean beach body in a bikini on Maldives vacation, Suhana Khan loves it

Fans started speculating about their wedding after Ranbir, in a recent interview with Rajeev Masand, said that he and Alia may have gotten married in 2020 had it not been for the pandemic. Well, I think it (the wedding) would have already been sealed had the pandemic not hit our lives. But I dont want to jinx it by saying anything. I am going to tick mark that goal very soon in my life, the actor had said.

Follow @htshowbiz on Twitter

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A federal judge in Texas has dismissed a long-shot lawsuit by Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, that sought to overturn the presidential election, saying neither the congressman nor his allies have legal standing to pursue the case.

The judge's Friday night ruling tosses out what many election law experts considered a far-fetched theory to challenge the formal mechanism by which President-elect Joe Biden will be affirmed as the winner of the race for president.

U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle issued an order dismissing the case because, he found, neither Gohmert nor his fellow plaintiffs have a sufficient legal stake in the process to justify the lawsuit. Kernodle was nominated to the federal bench by President Donald Trump.

The judge's ruling comes less than 12 hours after lawyers for Gohmert filed court papers arguing that Vice President Mike Pence has far more power than the government claims to alter the outcome of the presidential election. It was not immediately clear if Gohmert's legal team plans to appeal the decision.

Kernodle wrote that previous court cases make clear that an individual member of Congress cannot sue for a harm supposedly done to the larger legislature. Additionally, the judge found, Gohmert's claim of harm is a series of hypothetical scenarios stacked on top of each other, further undercutting any authority for the court to intervene.

"Plaintiffs presuppose what the Vice President will do on January 6, which electoral votes the Vice President will count or reject from contested states, whether a Representative and a Senator will object under Section 15 of the Electoral Count Act, how each member of the House and Senate will vote on any such objections, and how each state delegation in the House would potentially vote under the Twelfth Amendment absent a majority electoral vote. All that makes Congressman Gohmert's alleged injury far too uncertain to support standing," the judge wrote.

In response to a Justice Department request to reject the suit, the Friday filing by Gohmert's legal team accused the government of trying to "hide behind procedural arguments." Gohmert's lawyers contended that arguments made by the Justice Department and Congress - that the suit upends long-established procedures and that Pence is an inappropriate target for the suit - are unfounded.

"They say that the Vice President, the glorified envelope-opener in chief, has no authority to preside over anything else or to decide anything of substance or to even count the votes in those weighty envelopes. He is only the envelope-opener," Gohmert's filing states.

Gohmert claimed the vice president has the power to effectively pick the next president during the formal recording of electoral college votes by Congress on Wednesday. Pence oversees that ceremony and, as president of the Senate, has the power to declare Biden electors in a handful of key states invalid and instead recognize electors supporting President Trump, the filing contends.

Pence "may count elector votes certified by a state's executive, or he can prefer a competing slate of duly qualified electors. He may ignore all electors from a certain state. That is the power bestowed upon him by the Constitution," the filing states.

Gohmert and a number of Republicans in Arizona filed the suit in Texas, arguing that an 1887 law governing how Congress certifies presidential elections is unconstitutional. They argue that the Constitution gives the vice president discretion to determine which states' electors are valid for choosing the president of the United States.

While experts agree that 19th century law is vague and confusing, it has never before been challenged; it has been accepted by officials in both parties for more than 130 years as establishing a process in which voters choose electors who choose the president. This past year, 81 million voters supported Biden, earning him 306 electoral college votes to Trump's 232.

In a Thursday night filing, a Justice Department lawyer wrote on Pence's behalf that the case is "a walking legal contradiction," because Gohmert has sued Pence seeking to give Pence more power. If Gohmert and his allies want to make such a claim, the Justice Department argued, they should sue Congress, not Pence.

Lawyers for the House of Representatives also asked the judge to reject the Gohmert suit, arguing that it called for "a radical departure from our constitutional procedures and consistent legislative practices" and would "authorize the Vice President to ignore the will of the Nation's voters."

While the court ruling short-circuits for the time being the legal challenge to next week's joint session, the political drama within the Republican party is likely to intensify in the coming days.

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., called the effort to use the congressional process to reverse Biden's electoral college victory a "dangerous ploy," underscoring the challenge Trump faces in persuading even members of his own party to join it.

Sasse wrote to his constituents that there is no evidence of outcome-altering voter fraud and said he has urged his colleagues to reject "a project to overturn the election."

"All the clever arguments and rhetorical gymnastics in the world won't change the fact that this January 6th effort is designed to disenfranchise millions of Americans simply because they voted for someone in a different party," Sasse wrote on Facebook. "We ought to be better than that."

Sasse has been far more willing to criticize Trump than most of his GOP colleagues, but even so, his staunch opposition highlights the nearly certain futility of the president's efforts to hang on to power.

On the other side of the GOP, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., announced he will object next week when Congress convenes to certify the electoral college vote, a move that would force a contentious floor debate that top Senate Republicans had hoped to avoid.

Trump has repeatedly and falsely suggested that the ceremonial milestone offers a last-ditch way to reverse the election results and is urging Republicans to join such efforts.

But to succeed, Trump would not only have to prevail in the Republican-led Senate but also in the House, which is controlled by Democrats.

The objections would come during a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. According to the Constitution, Pence will read aloud electoral college votes cast in each state in December.

Any member of the House, joined by a senator, can object to a state's electoral college votes, prompting two hours of debate in each chamber, followed by a vote on the challenge.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and other leading Republicans have discouraged members of their caucus from challenging the electoral college vote, conceding that the move would fail but could drag out the process through lengthy debate and force Republicans to take an awkward vote.

A number of other Senate Republicans have acknowledged Biden's victory, and several - including Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania and Mitt Romney of Utah - said this week they plan to oppose any challenge to the electoral college vote.

Hawley, meanwhile, who is believed to be contemplating a run for president in 2024 and is eager to garner support among Trump's base, began citing his plans in fundraising appeals for his campaign committee Thursday.

More Republicans are expected to sign on to challenges in the House, but their relatively small numbers there mean the effort will likely amount to little more than a show of loyalty to Trump.

Seven House Republicans from Pennsylvania on Thursday issued a joint statement indicating they plan to contest the results from their own state, blaming the Democratic governor, secretary of state and a "rogue Pennsylvania Supreme Court" for Biden winning more votes.

They did not allege fraud but complained about several issues involving the administration of the state's elections. Similar complaints have already been litigated in state and federal courts in Pennsylvania, and the Republican-led legislature declined to interfere with the certified results, which showed that Biden defeated Trump by more than 81,000 votes in the state.
San Francisco, Jan 2 : Samsung has opened pre-order reserve bookings for its upcoming Galaxy S21 lineup of phones in the US and people can book a slot when the devices become available, which is usually after the likely launch event ends on January 14.

Those who pre-book can get up to $700 of instant trade-in credit toward the purchase of a Galaxy S21 "if you trade an iPhone 12 series phone, or one of Samsung's own Note 20 and S20 phones".

The company is also offering up to $550 of trade-in credit for certain phones with cracked screens.

"Be the first to know about the next Galaxy. Reserve to unlock an extra $50 instant credit for accessories. Plus, get an extra $10 in the Android Shop Samsung App," Samsung said on its US website.

The company is asking for some basic information like your name, email address, and zip code. You do not need to pay anything to reserve your preorder.

Samsung is expected to launch three models of the S21 Series -- Galaxy S21 5G, S21+ 5G, S21 Ultra 5G.

The S21 would have a 6.2-inch display, the Plus would be 6.7 inches and the Ultra would reportedly have a 6.8-inch display.

The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra shows its camera module supposed to feature a 10MP 10X super-telephoto zoom, a 108MP main, a 12MP ultrawide and a 10MP 3X telephoto camera.

Galaxy S21 Ultra might feature a laser autofocus system that would replace the Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensor found in its predecessor.

The Galaxy S21 would come in phantom violet, phantom grey, phantom white and phantom pink colours.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Former Malian Prime Minister Boubou Cisse has been charged by the state prosecutor's office for allegedly planning a coup against the interim government, according to Bloomberg. Cisse, who himself was ousted in a coup last year, was charged on Thursday, along with five others, for allegedly participating in crimes, including an attempt to destabilize the current government. According to the report, Cisse had earlier dismissed the allegations of planning a coup against the government.

Read: Mali's Former President Amadou Toumani Toure Dies At 72

According to the report, Cisse couldn't be detained, but five others, including his half-brother Aguibou Tall, were taken into custody on Friday. The lawyers of those charged with crimes to destabilize the government said that none of their clients have any ties with members of the military. Although the term "attempted coup" was not used by the prosecutor's office in its statement, the lawyers used it while issuing a statement on behalf of their clients.

Read: French Forces Kill Al-Qaida-linked Commander In Mali

2020 coup by the military

Former Prime Minister Boubou Cisse and ex-President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita were ousted in a coup by the military on August 18, 2020. The military rulers then handed the power over to an interim government fearing international sanctions. The coup was triggered by a series of protests against the government earlier in 2020, demanding the resignation of Cisse and Keita. When the two refused to give up the power, the military orchestrated the coup to bring down the government.

Read: ECOWAS Lifts Embargo Against Mali After Latter Appoints Transitional Leader

The Economic Community of Western African States (ECOWAS) imposed an embargo on Mali after the coup carried out by a faction in the Army. The ECOWAS in October lifted the sanctions citing "notable advances towards constitutional normalization" after the military junta named an interim civilian government and announced elections in 2022. the coup was also condemned by the international community, including the United Nations, the European Union, and France, the former colonizer of Mali. The African country is currently suffering from radical Islamic terrorism.

Read: Mali Attack: Courts Sentence Two Men To Death For 2015 Targeted Attack On Foreigners


The taxpayer bill for the mental health care of former defence personnel has ballooned 35 per cent in five years, with nearly 20,000 former service members checking into rehab clinics every year.

The problem of addiction and mental illnesses among former service members is so great that some treatment providers are starting to offer veterans-only programs, including The Buttery in northern NSW kicking off a pilot study this month.

Senator Jacqui Lambie says alcohol and substance abuse issues are rife among veterans and the system is failing them at every turn. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The Australian Defence Force has more than 89,000 service members and about 6000 leave each year, often with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) alongside depression and addiction. They are then given unlimited access to mental health care, with clinics reporting some veterans are checking into rehab repeatedly to deal with deep-rooted problems.

The Department of Veteran Affairs (DVA) spent $241 million in 2018-2019 on mental health care for 55,500 veterans, including psychiatry, psychology and treatment in hospital or rehab clinics. The total figure also includes DVA-funded mental health treatment for war widows and dependants, plus the Open Arms counselling service for current and former service members and their families.


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WASHINGTON - South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York live more than 1,500 miles apart and inhabit entirely different political orbits, but they share a similar space in the minds of ideological warriors who want to upend a pair of titans in the Senate.

Conservative and liberal activists are pushing the Republican Noem, 49, and the Democratic Ocasio-Cortez, 31, to challenge, respectively, Republican Sens. John Thune and Democrat Chuck Schumer in their state's 2022 primaries.

How Thune, the No. 2 Republican in leadership, and Schumer, the Democratic leader, respond to their standing as high-profile primary targets could reveal a lot about the state of their political parties and whether there is any hope for bipartisan compromise in the Senate.

Of the 34 Senate seats up for grabs in two years, just three incumbents hail from states that voted for a president of the opposing party, including Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who first has to win Tuesday's runoff election in Georgia to be on the ballot again in two years. That means the most competitive portion of the lion's share of these races could come in primaries.

Liberals have had recent success with primary challenges in House races, but have struggled to match it statewide in Senate races, which has had some pining for Ocasio-Cortez to challenge Schumer since her upset victory in the 2018 primary.

Republicans could be in for a replay of the brutal primaries they faced in the Senate in 2010 and 2012, particularly as President Donald Trump heads for the exits with vows to promote primary challenges to GOP incumbents.

In particular, Trump has turned Wednesday's protest votes in the House and Senate over the final certification of President-elect Joe Biden's victory into something of a loyalty test. And Thune, usually mild-mannered, has emerged as the most outspoken critic of Trump's congressional allies for forcing votes on what is normally a perfunctory reading of the actual electoral college results.

"The thing they've got to remember is, it's just not going anywhere. It's going down like a shot dog," Thune told reporters Dec. 21, a comment that went viral and prompted Trump the very next day to promote a primary challenge to the incumbent.

Despite Noem's public declaration that she will run for reelection as governor, Trump used a New Year's Day tweet to formally kick off the Noem speculation.

"I hope to see the great Governor of South Dakota @KristiNoem, run against RINO @SenJohnThune, in the upcoming 2022 Primary. She would do a fantastic job in the U.S. Senate, but if not Kristi, others are already lining up," Trump tweeted.

There's little love lost among the Hill's top leaders. Can Biden get them to work together?

Thune and Schumer have taken different approaches to their internal party critics, with the Republican mocking the outgoing president.

"Finally, an attack tweet! What took him so long? It's fine, that's the way he communicates," Thune told reporters in the Capitol on Friday.

He said that he has made no effort to patch things up with Trump. "I'm not sure that anything changes his mind once he makes it up," he said.

Schumer has not publicly poked at liberals, who have long thought the Brooklynite was too close to Wall Street. "Look, throughout my career, I do the job for my constituents and for my country and it always works out," Schumer recently told Politico, a refrain he uses whenever his own 2022 race is mentioned.

He has taken several not-so-subtle steps to try to neutralize his critics and his potential opponents. The day after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Schumer appeared with Ocasio-Cortez at a Sept. 19 news conference.

On Dec. 7 he held a Manhattan news conference to announce his support for a top liberal cause, canceling college loan debt. And he appeared there with three incoming House members who won their primaries with anti-establishment support, including Democrat Jamaal Bowman, who defeated Schumer's friend, 32-year incumbent Eliot Engel, in the primary.

And on Dec. 22, after Trump declared he wanted $2,000 stimulus checks sent to most adults, Schumer jumped on Twitter to throw his support behind Ocasio-Cortez's legislation calling for just that amount.

Thune and Schumer entered the Senate as giant slayers themselves. In 2004, when South Dakota's three members of Congress were all Democrats, Thune defeated then-Democratic Minority Leader Tom Daschle, becoming the first challenger to defeat a party leader in more than 50 years.

By 2010 Thune did not face an opponent in his reelection, and for the past six years the state's delegation has been entirely Republican. He has more than $13 million sitting in his campaign account.

Schumer defeated a three-term incumbent, Al D'Amato, in 1998, knocking off the Banking Committee chairman and claiming a seat Republicans had held for 42 years. New York Democrats have won every Senate race since and lost just one governor's race - Republican George Pataki's reelection in 2002.

Schumer won his 2016 race with almost 71%, about the same margin as Thune. He has more than $10 million leftover in his campaign account to start the 2022 campaign.

That prowess makes a primary challenge to Thune and Schumer both daunting and attractive, particularly since Democratic primary voters in New York have grown more liberal the same way South Dakota's GOP voters have grown more conservative.

Noem called Thune "a friend of mine" when she proclaimed she would not challenge him, but that won't matter to Trump and his closest allies. They will likely spend the next 15 months stoking her as a potential challenger, until the candidate filing deadline in the spring.

And the South Dakota governor is almost unrecognizable to anyone who followed her four terms in the House. She landed in the Capitol in 2011 with a tea party following and a national media that was ready to anoint her the next Sarah Palin, a young conservative woman.

Instead, Noem recoiled from the spotlight and spent eight years maintaining a low profile, a very reliable vote for establishment-friendly GOP speakers.

Most interpreted her 2018 run for governor as an attempt to get further away from national attention, but this year, after some Trump advisers grew close to her, she embraced the president's anti-mask approach to battling the pandemic even as her state's death toll soared. She's now a regular on cable news shows, travels the nation to campaign for other Republicans and, if Trump doesn't run for president in 2024, some view Noem as a potential top-tier candidate for the GOP nomination.

Ocasio-Cortez took the opposite approach to Noem upon arriving in the Capitol two years ago, embracing the limelight and immediately becoming an ideological flamethrower.

And she has declared that it's time to replace Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "I do think that we need new leadership in the Democratic Party," she told the Intercept in a December interview.

For now, Schumer will continue with his aggressive approach to hitting all 62 counties in New York, reminding them of how much largesse he brings home.

And Thune will hope that once Trump is no longer president his tweets will fade from relevance. As he put it back in June, after Trump stoked racial division during protests, Thune told reporters that the president has "his moments" of presidential behavior.

"As you know, it lasts generally as long as the next tweet," he added.
Seasoned Journalist Kwesi Pratt Jnr has disclosed that he recently received death threats from someone who spoke "impeccable English'.



Some journalists prior to and after the December 7 polls have been receiving death threats and attacks from unknown persons.



Top on the list is Afia Pokua aka Vim Lady of Despite Media, morning show host of Accra-based Angel FM, Captain Smart, investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni and GTV journalist Abdul Hayi Moomen.



Describing the phenomenon as unfortunate, the Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, narrated how he also received death threats from a 0508590799 number.



"I had a call last week from someone who spoke impeccable English and he said I looked like the devil's incarnate and that people like me should be eliminated. He said I looked like the devil and that people like me should not be alive

..what was my crime; I only expressed my mind. even under Emperor Bokassa these things were not happening" he fumed.



Kwesi Pratt who was contributing to a panel discussion on Panafrican TV's Good Morning Africa added: "I've seen personalities sitting on television threatening to kill...these are frightening and the police have not invited them. The level of impunity is shocking; it doesn't even happen in a banana republic"



Meanwhile, Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has charged the police to deal with these threats.



It is of critical importance that our security agencies get to the bottom of these complaints and use all the legitimate means at their disposal to unmask the identities of the culprits; whatever their motives; and arrest and prosecute them with speed, he said in a tweet.









Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The painting portrays the 120 martyrs canonized by John Paul II in 2000. They include Saint Alberico Crescitelli, PIME missionary, killed in 1900 during the Boxer revolution. The altarpiece is the work of Gary Chu Kar-kui. Card. Zen praised the martyrs who courageously stood firm in the truth, sacrificing their lives.

Hong Kong (AsiaNews / SE) - Bishop emeritus of Hong Kong, Card. Joseph Zen, has blessed an altarpiece depicting the Chinese martyrs. These martyrs were canonized on 1 October 2000 by Pope John Paul II during the Jubilee of that year.

The list includes 120 names including priests, men and women religious, lay people - even children - and foreign missionaries, killed between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. They also include a martyr of PIME (Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions), Fr. Alberico Crescitelli, killed in 1900, during the Boxer revolution.

At the time, the Patriotic Association in China launched a fierce campaign against canonization, fearing ever greater unity between official and underground Catholics, under the leadership of the pope.

Twenty years later, the pastor of the parish of St. Peter and Paul in Yuen Long, Fr. Gervais Baudry, decided to honour these martyrs with a painting. Last April, he invited artist Gary Chu Kar-kui to do the work. The blessing of the altar piece was set for October 1, 2020, but due to restrictions on gatherings, linked to the pandemic, it has been postponed.

Card. Zen blessed the work last December 13, but the news was published in the diocesan weekly only yesterday.

The cardinal expressed his appreciation for the witness of the martyrs, who courageously stood firm in the faith, sacrificing their lives.

The painting is 2.4 meters wide and 1.2 meters high and for now it is located in the external corridor of the chapel. On both sides of the work there are two inscriptions honouring the sacrifices of the saints, composed by Sister Juan Gu, engaged in the pastoral care of the parish. Fr Baudry also placed a commemorative plaque which offers some information on the life of the martyrs.
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Who has the discursive power and political context to not only assign but also stabilise the meaning of state power? Who has the political stamina to confirm the character of the state? These questions have a relevance in the context of the current farmers protest. There have been multiple readings of the nature of state power, depending on the nature of relationship that different sociopolitical groups have with the state. For example, the states passive response to violence and, sometimes, active involvement in such violence against women leads women to rightly characterise the state as patriarchal. Gender violence, particularly against Dalit women, leads to relative expansive characterisation of the state, which, for Dalit women, is not only patriarchal but also Brahminical. For Adivasis, the state is both coercive and callous. For minorities, the state, led by a right-wing party, is necessarily communal. For the liberals, the state becomes authoritarian on account of its attempts to suppress a set of rights and democratic ideals. However, the character of the state gets defined in terms of the critical and confrontationalist relation between the state and various embattled social groups. It is shaped by what is immediate and empirically visible. In such a confrontation, the victim and the tormentor are face to face.

In this regard, it is interesting to note that the right-wing ruling party at the centre has chosen to attack the leftist and liberal understanding of the state. It sought, therefore, to discount the leftist materialist understanding of the right-wing concept of the state and, on the other hand, it made a constant attempt to ridicule the efforts made by the leaders from the Congress party, which continues to associate the ruling party with corporate interests.
Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae / Yonhap



Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae on Saturday apologized again for a mass coronavirus outbreak at a detention center in Seoul, saying the country will prioritize resolving overcrowding of inmates at the facility.



Choo has been under fire for belatedly responding to COVID-19 infections at Dongbu Detention Center in southeastern Seoul, where 958 virus cases, including 916 detainees, have been confirmed.



"With priority being placed on reducing overcrowding at the facility, we will transfer inmates who test negative for the virus to other correctional centers, following the fifth round of full-scale testing," Choo said in a social media post.



She said the government will allow every inmate who has come in close contact with virus patients to stay in a one-person cell to prevent further spread of the virus.






Mumbai attack mastermind and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operations commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was arrested on Saturday in Pakistan on terror financing charges, an official said.

Lakhvi, who was on bail since 2015 in the Mumbai attack case, was arrested by the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of Punjab province.

However, the CTD did not reveal the place of his arrest.

Following an intelligence-based operation conducted by the CTD Punjab, proscribed organisation LeT leader Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was arrested on charges of terrorism financing, it said.

It further said that Lakhvi, 61, was arrested in a case of terrorism financing registered in a police station of CTD Lahore.

Lakhvi is accused of running a dispensary, using funds collected for terrorism financing. He and others also collected funds from this dispensary and used these funds for further terrorism financing. He also used these funds for personal expenses, the CTD said.

The CTD said that in addition to belonging to proscribed organisation LeT, Lakhvi is also a UN designated individual.

His trial will be held before the Anti-Terrorism Court in Lahore, it added.
This 11-mile trail manages, in its short distance, to navigate through a variety of landscapes as it heads west from the Chicago suburb of Montgomery (one hour from downtown Chicago) to the campus of Waubonsee Community College thats snuggled in a pastoral setting. Named for Virgil Gilman, a champion of public access to the Fox River (which crosses the trail), the route follows the right of way of two former railroads: the Chicago Aurora and DeKalb, and the Elgin Joliet and Eastern Railway. Tree-lined with everything from black walnut to box elder, and sprinkled with wildflowers (especially in the forest preserves), the trail becomes more sylvan the farther west it travels. Blackberry Creek runs beside the path on the way to Bliss Woods Forest Preserve, an open forest with a unique geological feature left by glaciers: a gravel- and boulder-ridden ridge. And the wildflowers dont let up, especially near the college where deer, red fox and even coyotes may be spotted.
The birth of San Antonios first baby of 2021 was a spark of wonder and joy, shining through a crisis.

After midnight, Cheryse Williams began pushing in the labor and delivery department at North Central Baptist Hospital. Less than an hour later  at 12:53 a.m.  she gave birth to a baby boy. Khario Deyvan Moore weighed 6 pounds, 9 ounces and measured 19 inches.

As night became morning, Williams couldnt sleep. She was unable to stop marveling at her son.

Nine hours earlier, San Antonio hospital leaders had issued an ominous letter, begging residents to help reduce transmission of the coronavirus. They described hanging on the edge of a precipice: With more than 1,100 people hospitalized with COVID-19 across the city as of Wednesday, this surge was on pace to become worse than the one that pummeled San Antonio over the summer. If area hospitals became overrun with patients, they warned, medical care would suffer.

On ExpressNews.com: Birth in the time of coronavirus

It was amid that chaos that Williams, a first-time mother, and her partner, Martel Moore, drove to the hospital on New Years Eve. It made Williams all the more thankful for a healthy delivery.

It was still a beautiful experience, Williams, a 25-year-old interior designer, said by phone. Its not the ideal way that everyone plans it to be. But its not the worst thing in the world because the reward was much more appreciated.

Throughout her pregnancy, Williams had to move through the world with caution. By the time she found out she was pregnant, the pandemic was already in full swing, and it colored every step along the way.

Williams social distanced the whole nine months. There were no baby showers, no visits from friends and extended family members. To keep herself safe, she worked from home and saw few people other than her parents, who were frequently tested for the virus.

A lot of things did not go as you dream, Williams said. Things were weird. It just felt out of place.

Such precautions became ever more urgent as evidence emerged that pregnant women were at higher risk of suffering severe complications from COVID-19 and problems with their pregnancies.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonios first baby of the year born 25 seconds after midnight

Before her prenatal visits, Williams underwent temperature checks and symptom screenings. The only appointments Moore was allowed to attend were the few that involved ultrasounds, a rule that made him feel involved from a distance, Williams said.

As the pandemic dragged on, Williams research on where to give birth had to account for COVID-19 precautions and protocols. She eventually landed on North Central Baptist, which delivers a high volume of babies each year. She felt comfortable with the hospitals physical layout and its process for separating expectant mothers from other patients.

During the pandemic, many hospitals restricted visitation, typically allowing just one or two people in to support laboring mothers. In rare cases, fathers were not allowed inside hospitals at all, instead observing births through windows or over video calls.

In Williams case, she was allowed one support person: Moore. When they arrived at the hospital around 8 a.m. Thursday, several hours after her water broke, both were tested for the virus. Moore manned the camera, holding a phone up so Williams mother and sister could observe the delivery.

On ExpressNews.com: Birth on demand: An investigation of cesarean rates along the Texas border

Williams had wanted her mother to be at her side.

It was hard. Shes on FaceTime, trying to see whats going on. It is upsetting, Im not even going to lie, Williams said. I do wish she was there. But she was still there in spirit, and at least on a screen.

Shortly after the delivery, Williams heard applause from the hallway. She figured hospital staff was celebrating another birth. She was shocked when they told her she had delivered San Antonios first baby of the new year, nearly an hour after 2021 began. In 2019 and 2020, the citys first baby of the year was born at the stroke of midnight.

Although it was scary to give birth under such circumstances, Williams encouraged other expecting parents to not let themselves become consumed by discouragement or fear.

In the end, she said, it was all worth it.

lcaruba@express-news.net
As thousands around the world exclaimed in joy for the beginning of 2021, the stroke of midnight looked similar in a hospital room.

Jose and Juliana Miranda Sucuzhanay, of Kearny, celebrated the birth of Ella Andrea, their first baby girl and Hudson Countys first baby of 2021.

Though Ella was delivered in Livingston at Saint Barnabas Medical Center, shell be going to her new home in Kearny. This is the couples second child.

Oh my God, shes beautiful, Jose told The Jersey Journal. Weve had a really tough year in 2020... I feel like this year is going to be a good year for everybody and, for us, its already started.

Ella Andrea Sucuzhanay was born at the stroke of midnight at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston to Jose and Juliana Miranda Sucuzhanay, of Kearny.Courtesy of RWJBarnabas Health

Right at 12 a.m., Ella entered the world at 7 pounds, 10 ounces and 20 inches long.

On Friday afternoon, Juliana rested with her daughter while Jose prepared for their homecoming with his 4-year-old son.

All the couples they want to have a boy and girl, and were lucky to have to that, Jose said. Im blessed right now.

Nearly three hours after Ella was born, another baby girl blessed a Jersey City couple.

Belen weighs 6 lbs. and 8 oz. and is 19.5 inches long.Courtesy of Jersey City Medical Center

At 2:59 a.m., at the Jersey City Medical Center, Belen was welcomed by parents Brigitte Cruz and Andres Segura.

Their daughter weighed in at 6 pounds, 8 ounces and 19.5 inches long. This is their second child.

The family was still resting Friday morning, so they werent available for an interview, a hospital spokeswoman said. But Cruz and Segura are proud and happy parents, she added.

Meanwhile, Hudson Countys third baby girl was welcomed at the Hoboken University Medical Center.

Aaliyah Isabella Smith was born at 9:32 a.m. on Friday and introduced to Jersey City parents Alexis Vega, 19, and Xavier Smith, 20.

Alexis Vega holds her daughter, Aaliyah Isabella Smith, at Hoboken University Medical Center.Courtesy of Alexis Vega

Vega said she feels great, and having a baby in 2021 on Jan. 1 makes her feel even greater.

I was happy, I was excited, I was overwhelmed, she said. (Id tell Aaliyah) that its a blessing that youre here, that I love her, Ill take care of her and Ill give her the world.

Aaliyah is Vegas second child. She has a one-year-old daughter.

As for Hudson Regional Hospital in Secaucus and Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen, it was a quiet night.

According to the hospitals respective spokeswomen, the last baby born at Hudson Regional Hospital was on Dec. 30 and, for Palisades Medical Center, it was on Dec. 31 at 7 p.m.

Outside of Hudson County, Vyshnavi and Manoj Thotakura welcomed their first child, a baby girl, at 2:02 a.m. at Englewood Health. The parents are from Harrison and Manoj has worked in IT at the hospital since 2011.
Home Search ICH Question Everything! Purpose and Intent of this website: Jobs, Houses and Cows: Chinas Costly Drive to Erase Extreme Poverty



China has spent heavily to help its poorest citizens.



By Keith Bradsher January 01, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - "NYT" - JIEYUAN VILLAGE, China  When the Chinese government offered free cows to farmers in Jieyuan, villagers in the remote mountain community were skeptical. They worried officials would ask them to return the cattle later, along with any calves they managed to raise. But the farmers kept the cows, and the money they brought. Others received small flocks of sheep. Government workers also paved a road into the town, built new houses for the villages poorest residents and repurposed an old school as a community center. Jia Huanwen, a 58-year-old farmer in the village in Gansu Province, was given a large cow three years ago that produced two healthy calves. He sold the cow in April for $2,900, as much as he earns in two years growing potatoes, wheat and corn on the terraced, yellow clay hillsides nearby. Now he buys vegetables regularly for his familys table and medicine for an arthritic knee. It was the best cow Ive ever had, Mr. Jia said. The village of Jieyuan is one of many successes of President Xi Jinpings ambitious pledge to eradicate abject rural poverty by the end of 2020. In just five years, China says it has lifted from extreme poverty over 50 million farmers left behind by breakneck economic growth in cities. But the village, one of six in Gansu visited by The New York Times without government oversight, is also a testament to the considerable cost of the ruling Communist Partys approach to poverty alleviation. That approach has relied on massive, possibly unsustainable subsidies to create jobs and build better housing. Local cadres fanned out to identify impoverished households  defined as living on less than $1.70 a day. They handed out loans, grants and even farm animals to poor villagers. Officials visited residents weekly to check on their progress. Were pretty sure Chinas eradication of absolute poverty in rural areas has been successful  given the resources mobilized, we are less sure it is sustainable or cost effective, said Martin Raiser, the World Bank country director for China. No Advertising - No Government Grants - No Algorithm - This Is Independent Media Get Our Free Newsletter Beijing poured almost $700 billion in loans and grants into poverty alleviation over the past five years  about 1 percent of each years economic output. That excludes large donations by state-owned enterprises like State Grid, a power transmission giant, which put $120 billion into rural electricity upgrades and assigned more than 7,000 employees to work on poverty alleviation projects. The campaign took on new urgency this year as the country faced devastation from the coronavirus pandemic and severe flooding. One by one, provinces announced they had met their goals. In early December, Mr. Xi declared that China had achieved a significant victory that impresses the world. But Mr. Xi acknowledged further efforts were needed to share wealth more widely. A migrant worker in a coastal factory city can earn as much in a month as a Gansu farmer earns in a year. Mr. Xi also called for officials to make sure that newly created jobs and aid for the poor did not fade away in the coming years. Gansu, Chinas poorest province, declared in late November that it had lifted its last counties out of poverty. Just a decade ago, poverty in the province was widespread. Hu Jintao, Chinas leader before Mr. Xi, visited people living in simple homes with few furnishings. Villagers ate so many potatoes that local officials were embarrassed when a young girl initially refused to eat yet another one with Mr. Hu in front of television cameras because she was tired of them, according to a cable disclosed by WikiLeaks. Though many villages are still reachable only by single-lane roads, they are lined with streetlights powered by solar panels. New industrial-scale pig farms, plant nurseries and small factories have sprung up, creating jobs. Workers are building new houses for farmers. Three years ago, Zhang Jinlu woke in terror when the rain-weakened mud brick walls of his home gave way. Half the roof timbers came crashing down with slabs of dirt, narrowly missing him and his mother. Officials in Youfang village built a spacious new concrete house for them, complete with new furniture. Mr. Zhang, 69, now receives a monthly stipend of $82 through the poverty program. His original house was rebuilt for him as a storage shed. This house used to be dilapidated, and it leaked when it rained, Mr. Zhang said. The government helps private factories buy equipment and pay salaries if they hire workers deemed impoverished. At Tanyue Tongwei Clothing & Accessories Company in southeastern Gansu, about 170 workers, mostly women, sewed school uniforms, T-shirts, down jackets and face masks. Workers said that several dozen employees received extra payments from the poverty alleviation program in addition to their salaries. Lu Yaming, the companys legal representative, said Tanyue receives at least $26,000 a year in subsidies from poverty alleviation programs  out of which $500 a year was paid to each of the 17 villagers deemed impoverished. But the viability of these factories without ongoing aid is far from clear. Until the subsidies arrived, the factory frequently had trouble paying wages on time, Mr. Lu said. Inevitable questions swirl over whether some families have used personal ties to local officials to qualify for grants. Corruption investigators punished 99,000 people nationwide in connection with poverty relief efforts last year, according to official statistics. At local eateries in communities like Mayingzhen, where a heavily seasoned platter of fried donkey meat costs $7, the talk is all about who received what, and whether they really should have qualified. While the poverty alleviation program has helped millions of poor people, critics point to the campaigns rigid definitions. The program assists people classified as extremely poor at some point from 2014 to 2016, without adding others who may have fallen on hard times since then. It also does very little to help poor people in big cities where wages are higher but workers must pay far more for food and rent. According to the governments complicated criteria for determining eligibility for aid, anyone who owned a car, had more than $4,600 in assets or had a new or recently rebuilt house was excluded. People hovering just above the governments poverty line continue to struggle to make ends meet, but are often denied help with housing or other benefits. Zhang Sumei, a 53-year-old farmer, earns $1,500 a year growing and selling potatoes and had to use her savings to build her home in concrete. She says that she should have qualified for aid for the extremely poor. Farming Gansus notoriously infertile soil is hard and difficult. In this society, poor families are designated by cadres, and we have nothing. she said bitterly. The partys campaign-style approach also fails to tackle deep-seated problems that disproportionately hurt the poor, including the cost of health care and other gaping holes in Chinas emerging social safety net. Villages provide limited health insurance  only 17 percent of the cost of Mr. Jias arthritis medicine is covered, for example. Hefty medical bills can ruin families. Yang Xiaoling, a 48-year-old worker who works at another government-subsidized factory in Gansu, wept uncontrollably as she described the crippling debt she faced after paying medical fees for her husband, who suffered kidney failure. Three years ago, she borrowed $7,700 at zero interest from a bank affiliated with the poverty alleviation program and was supposed to invest the money in buying livestock. But instead she borrowed more money from relatives and then spent all the money on a kidney transplant and medicine for her husband. Now the entire loan is due and she has no money to repay it. Follow-up medical treatments for her husband consume her entire salary. So the couple and their three children and her husbands invalid parents subsist on monthly government poverty assistance payments of less than $50 per person. I dont have the ability to pay it back. I cant help it, Ms. Yang sobbed. I have already borrowed a lot of money, and now no one lends me money. Despite the challenges, the poverty relief program may have a long-term political benefit that helps to ensure some of it survives. Gratitude for the program seems to be reinforcing the political power of the party in rural areas. In Youfang, Mr. Zhang was quick to praise not just the poverty program but also Mr. Xi, comparing him to Mao. It is good for the country to have Xi Jinping, he said, and the national policy is good. Chris Buckley contributed reporting from Sydney. Liu Yi, Amber Wang and Coral Yang contributed research. - " Source " - Post your comment below Registration is necessary to post comments. We ask only that you do not use obscene or offensive language. Please be respectful of others. See also China Coronavirus Cases: 87,071 - Deaths: 4,634 United States Coronavirus Cases: 20,541,026 - Deaths: 355,627 Search Information Clearing House The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. Click Here To Support Information Clearing House Your support has kept ICH free on the Web since 2002. Click for Spanish , German , Dutch , Danish , French , translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load.
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January 02 : Actor Juhi Chawla is a well-known figure in the industry. Though she has been away from the limelight, she knows how to grab the attention of her fans. The Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak actor keeps sharing on her social media, whether it is about making people aware of the environment or urging her fans to find the lost diamond ring.

No doubt the Ishq actor is a travel freak. She started her new year by traveling to South Africa. Juhi shared a picture of a few village children on her Instagram. She clicked the picture when she was on her way to Kipling lodge by the river Nile.

Juhi wrote, As we drive past villages and farms on our way to Kipling Lodge by the River Nile...we stopped to share some goodies with the children

On the work front, the Darr actor was last seen in the much-acclaimed movie Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga. Starring Sonam Kapoor, Anil Kapoor, and Rajkummar Rao in the leading roles, Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga narrates the story of a closeted lesbian, Sweety Chaudhary, and her attempts to come out to her conservative and traditional family. Directed by Shelly Chopra Dhar, the movie also stars Madhumalti Kapoor, Seema Bhargava, Alka Badola Kaushal and Akshay Oberoi in prominent roles.

Juhi will be next seen in Sharmaji Namkeen. The makers of the movie had originally roped in actors Rishi Kapoor, Juhi Chawla and Suhail Nayyar to play the lead characters in the movie. However, after Rishi Kapoor's tragic demise this year and due to the unprecedented Coronavirus pandemic, the movie is currently kept on hold. Directed by Hitesh Bhatia, the movie also stars veteran actor Gufi Paintal in a prominent role. The movie would have marked Rishi Kapoor and Juhi Chawla's reunion onscreen after 24 years.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 18:00:52|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), has signed an order to release revised regulations on military equipment.

Focusing on war preparedness and combat capabilities, the regulations define the basic tasks, contents and management mechanisms for military equipment work under the new situation and system.

Comprised of 100 stipulations under 14 chapters, the document adheres to the general principle of "the CMC exercising overall leadership, theater commands responsible for military operations and the services focusing on developing capabilities."

It took effect on Jan. 1, 2021. Enditem
The BJPs opponents were detained yet again before the counting of ballots and after the counting. Does this look like democracy to anyone except the Prime Minister? And yet, it was BJPs opponents who made themselves heard through the ballot box.

Even in the Hindu-majority area of Jammu, the saffron party could win only about half the seats, facing defeat in the constituencies of some of its key leaders. A below par showing in the Jammu division should be a matter of strategic concern for the saffron party.



To prevent voting in South Kashmir, cordon and search operations were mounted on polling day in certain constituencies to assist BJP candidates

At first glance it suggests that the Hindu populace is no longer gung-ho about the abrogation of Article 370, as appeared to be the case initially. As in some other hills states and remote regions, in J&K too special constitutional protection was given to land rights and government employment for the local population. Thats now gone in J&K and the Jammu Hindu is as aggrieved as the Kashmir valley Muslim (or the Pandit).

The story was the reverse in the Valley. BJPs bete noire, the Peoples Alliance for the Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), a conglomerate of regional parties- National Conference, PDP, Peoples Conference and some smaller parties, although traditional rivals, have banded together. Their larger aim is to work for the restoration of J&Ks autonomy. They practically swept the poll in the Valley and made inroads in Jammu.

The formation of the PAGD is the result of a lesson learned. The mainline parties of Kashmir had boycotted the panchayat election two years ago to protest the Centres overbearing attitude after it imposed Governors rule.

The result was that BJP candidates or independents backed by it won everywhere since there was no contest -- in some places by as few as six votes. The Modi governments publicised aim was to put the mainstream parties out of business, accusing their leaders of corruption and dynastic rule, and to grow a fresh crop of politicians in the Valley.

To prevent a repeat of the farce of the panchayat poll, the mainstream parties came together as the PAGD. They decided to contest the DDC polls as well as to prevent a division of the anti-BJP vote. But more, it is the people of Kashmir, including those who have no love lost for the mainstream parties, who expressed their determination to keep the BJP and its proxies out of the reckoning.

The reason was straightforward. The saffron partys government in Delhi had snatched away Kashmirs even largely technical autonomy, with which was linked its peoples identity and sense of dignity. The Centre was also impervious to Kashmirs every need as a society. The Modi regime had reversed the approach of the late PM Vajpayee for whom showing respect to Kashmirs sentiments was bound with Indias strategic imperatives.

In the DDC election it might have served the BJPs cause best if the Hurriyat Conference (which doesnt take part in elections) had given a boycott call, as it usually does. Then the BJP would have had a field day. But the Hurriyat did not oblige. The militants too stayed quiet. All of Kashmir appeared determined to show that it was not pleased with what happened on August 5 last year.

However, the Centre can take revenge if better sense does not prevail. Fifty independent candidates have been elected to DDCs. Through the misuse of the official machinery, an effort could be mounted to ensure their defection, a process that has commenced in Shopian district with the defection of a National Conference member. The method honed in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and the northeast could well make an entry in J&K. But the more New Delhi alienates Kashmir, the harder it would be to deal with the Pakistan-China axis.

---

*Senior journalist based in Delhi

Propaganda apart, the result of the recent District Development Council (DDC) election in Jammu and Kashmir cannot have pleased the Modi government. This was the first proper test of popular endorsement in J&K after the willful destruction by the Centre of the erstwhile states constitutional autonomy in August 2019, imbuing the poll with more than ordinary significance.While the Hindutva party won three stray seats (with no linking thread, or political meaning) in Kashmir Valley, it lost quite heavily even in Hindu-dominant parts of the Jammu division. In these, the Valley-centric parties picked up seats.Indeed, the BJP fared a lot worse here than it had in the Assembly election of 2014, which is a kind of comment on its all-round militaristic control of J&K since it scuttled its coalition government with Mehboba Mufits PDP in 2018, possibly with the ulterior motive of playing games to install a Hindu Chief Minister, if feasible, for the first time in Muslim-majority J&K, or at least a BJP CM by roping in a Muslim.Since the end of the rule of Maharaja Hari Singh -- a Hindu ruler of mostly Muslim subjects -- after he signed the Instrument of Accession, the Hindu right has been at odds with all CMs of Kashmir on account of their religion. There was a sense of loss of a Hindu kingdom in their narrative.Breaking up the erstwhile state and making it a UT under Hindu nationalist control from the Centre might produce a sense of catharsis. But thats as far as it goes. Much sought success in BJPs venture of seeking to stamp its political authority in J&K through the DDC poll failed to materialize. How the Modi government negotiates the terrain here on will therefore be keenly watched. Hindu nationalists are dealing with Muslim citizens in a sensitive region.BJPs outsize celebration of the three Valley seats appears misplaced and pointless in the circumstances. Its chief purpose would appear to be to shore up morale of the faithful when the picture is one of setback. Although the BJP government held a tight grip over Kashmir from the Centre, the electoral submission of Kashmir has not come to pass.Obstacles were placed in the way of campaigning of the Kashmir parties. Kashmirs best known leaders were maligned as corrupt and their properties sought to be confiscated. Their key cadres were detained. To prevent voting in South Kashmir, cordon and search operations were mounted on polling day in certain constituencies to assist candidates of the BJP or Apni Party -- the quisling party.
As confusion reigns about the sudden NSW border closure and conflicting health advice for returning Victorian travellers, some stranded north of the Murray cannot get home at all.

Adam Laws, from Eltham North, is one of many Victorians stuck in NSW with no way of getting out after the border was slammed shut by the state government on Friday night.

Victorian travellers to regional NSW were allowed back into the state before Friday's 11.59pm cut-off, but those who had been in the "red zone" over the Christmas period, which included Greater Sydney, were unable to apply for a border crossing permit.

Vehicles queue to cross the NSW-Victorian border at Albury on Friday. Credit:Jason Robins

Mr Laws was in Sydney to visit and care for his sick mother for the first time since her cancer diagnosis earlier in 2020. He arrived in Sydney on December 20  the day Victoria announced it was closing its border to those in the red zone.
Vandals struck the homes of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the first days of the year. In both cases, the apparent vandals spray-painted messages related to stimulus checks. Several messages, including weres my money were spray-painted across the front door of the Kentucky Republicans home. The vandalism came shortly after the Senate adjourned Friday night without approving a measure to increase stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000, which had been supported by President Donald Trump and Democrats.

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Ive spent my career fighting for the First Amendment and defending peaceful protest. I appreciate every Kentuckian who has engaged in the democratic process whether they agree with me or not, McConnell said in a statement Saturday morning. This is different, he added. Vandalism and the politics of fear have no place in our society.

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Someone spray-painted Moscow Mitch McConnell's Louisville-area home last night. pic.twitter.com/fRcwdPj2t6  Scott Dworkin (@funder) January 2, 2021

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The vandalism in Kentucky came shortly after vandals spray-painted the San Francisco home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and left a severed pigs head in front of her garage along with some fake blood. A photo posted on social media showed the vandals spray-painted a message that appeared to have to do with coronavirus relief bill. The message read 2K with a line through it. Cancel Rent? We Want everything! read the graffiti. The letters UBI! were also spray-painted on the garage door, an apparent reference to universal basic income.

BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: @SpeakerPelosis house VANDALIZED with red paint, PIGS HEAD & spray-painted message $2K (crossed out)... CANCEL RENT... WE WANT EVERYTHING. City called to clean up at 3am & police attempting to stop photos of scene. Media SILENT. pic.twitter.com/LD1jfZIvco  Maggie VandenBerghe (@FogCityMidge) January 1, 2021

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Police confirmed it responded to report of vandalism at around 2 a.m. on New Years Day. In an email, police confirmed that officers found that suspects had painted graffiti on the garage door and left a pigs head on the sidewalk. It isnt clear whether any suspects have been identified. A Twitter account that identifies as a pro Trump patriot and conservative creator was the first to publish photos of the vandalism. Others then tweeted photos showing how the graffiti had been covered up.

Lunatics leave pigs head & graffiti at Nancy Pelosi's house.



Appalling.@FogCityMidge is right. News is ignoring.



I took this picture just 5 minutes ago. They are literally covering it up.



Dems like Pelosi will learn sooner or later: you cannot appease the violent left. https://t.co/Ohih0zVTpO pic.twitter.com/0JOxzj9KA4  John Dennis (@RealJohnDennis) January 1, 2021
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Travellers' caravans

Travellers will be barred from returning to illegal sites for a year under a Government crackdown to be announced in the New Year.

Police will get powers to prosecute travellers if they return to a specific site within 12 months, a quadrupling of the time limit from the current three months. Those who breach the law will face up to three months in jail and fines of up to 2,000.

It is part of an overhaul of the legislation to prevent illegal encampments which ministers say cause communities significant distress.

The reforms, part of the Police Powers and Protection Bill due in the New Year, will give councils powers to direct travellers to authorised sites in neighbouring council districts. Currently, police are banned from moving travellers to sites outside the council area where they have camped.

Police will also be able to act sooner as the threshold for intervention will be dropped from six illegally parked caravans to two.

It follows widespread complaints from MPs and residents about trespassing, noise and anti-social behaviour. It is estimated there are some 23,000 traveller caravans in England, of which 14 per cent are parked on unauthorised sites.

Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, is expected to make good a manifesto commitment to give police new powers to arrest and seize the property and vehicles of trespassers who set up unauthorised encampments, in order to protect our communities.

This will be done by making it a criminal offence for travellers to intentionally trespass on private land when setting up an encampment.

The change was campaigned for by Ms Patel when she was a backbench MP alongside Alok Sharma, now the Business Secretary, and John Whittingdale, a culture minister.

Mr Sharma said: My view is clear  the law needs strengthening and trespass needs to be made a criminal offence.

This is the case in the Republic of Ireland and we need this change here. It will deter illegal encampments as the individuals concerned will understand they will face criminal law sanctions, rather than civil ones, right from the start.

Story continues

The civil sanctions for fly tipping, which leaves farmers having to pay tens of thousands of pounds to clear up dumped rubbish, and squatting in commercial premises are expected to remain unaffected by the changes.

The proposal to criminalise trespass was first mooted by the Tories in the partys 2010 general election manifesto.

The vast majority of travellers are law-abiding citizens  but illegal sites often give an unfair, negative image of their community and cause distress and misery to those who live nearby, said a Government source.

There is a widespread perception that the law does not apply to travellers and that is deeply troubling.

The moves are being opposed by traveller organisations who claim they are more about electioneering than tackling any perceived problem.

The Friends, Families and Travellers (FFT) charity said that even the police did not believe the new criminal powers were necessary.

Responses to the Governments consultation obtained by the charity under freedom of information (FOI) legislation, showed that 75 per cent of police responses indicated their current powers were sufficient and/or proportionate.

Additionally, 84 per cent did not support the criminalisation of unauthorised encampments, and 65 per cent said lack of site provision was the real problem.

Abbie Kirkby, advice and policy manager at FFT, said the proposed laws would make the lives of Gypsies and Travellers a misery.

She said: The evidence we have collected shows that the Home Office are deliberately ignoring police views on unauthorised encampments. The timing of the consultation made it clear that the Governments motive was to use Gypsies and Travellers to gather votes at election time.
James Burke has a prediction, and it is just a little mind bending. Imagine all the people in the world had a machine in their home that would produce anything and everything needed to live, crafted largely from air, water and dirt, Burke asks.

"It is going to be either paradise or Armageddon," says the Londonderry-born author and television presenter.

It will happen in the lifetime of people who are living today is his prediction, arguing it will entirely upend the way society operates and warning the world needs to start readying itself now.

If this all sounds like mad science fiction, it is worth remembering Burke has some form and experience as an expert and futurist, the theory is sound, and scientists in various parts of the world are way beyond the conceptual stage of using nanotechnology to control atoms to make substances and build structures.

It is largely about nanotechnology, in short the breaking up of everything and anything down into atoms, building them up into molecules and creating stuff.

And just about everything organic is made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, some nitrogen, with a sprinkling of sulphur and phosphorus.

Burke reported for Tomorrow's World after it first aired in 1965, was one of the team, along with Patrick Moore and Cliff Michelmore, that fronted the BBC's Apollo mission programmes, including the 1969 moon landing, and the person who conceived and fronted Connections, the wildly successful science and history 10-part series of the late 1970s.

"One of the most intriguing minds in the western world," according to the Washington Post after Connections aired in the US.

At the tail end of the last episode of Connections, Burke was in Nepal, at a quiet Buddhist monastery but fresh from reporting from the frontline of national security in North America at a massive complex in the Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado.

It was at the missile early warning centre he observed the radar stations communicating with each other in real time via electronic messaging, better known now as email.

And he signed off by predicting the potential implications, that the microchip will lead to instantaneous connections between this out-of-the-way community in the Himalayas and New York.

Now he is back - though for many he never really went away, you know - working on a series, and a book, that builds on Connections but with less of an emphasis on how we got here, and more where we are going, diving into the worlds of artificial intelligence, avatars and, likely the most profoundly important and world-changing, nanotechnology.

It has been a long and hugely interesting journey from his early youth in Derry and the beach at Downhill on the north coast where Burke and his brother Clive were evacuees from a city on the target list for Hitler's bombers during the Second World War.

"We spent five years living in Downhill near Castlerock and made infrequent trips back to the big city, maybe three of four times," Burke remembers. "It was pretty much an idyllic life, less a village on the sea and more a cluster of houses. We were in the water half the time and went to school by bus to Articlave on the other side of Castlerock, taught by Mrs Burnside."

Following his father James's return from the war, the family, mother Mary from outside Limavady and the two boys, decamped to England.

After school at the "extraordinary" Maidstone Grammar in Kent, two years' National Service and graduating from Oxford's Jesus College with a degree in English, the adventurous Burke, rather than "die", as he saw it, working in management for a big company, the route many of his colleagues took, he went to Italy, spending some years as a teacher.

Then he fell into the world of television after the storied World in Action current affairs programme needed someone around the Mediterranean who could speak Italian. His first programme was on the Mafia, a tough one to produce as many of the planned contributors came down with ailments prior to filming.

Tomorrow's World then came calling, but "what locked me in to science and technology was ... Apollo happened". He was on air as Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, fearful that he would not keep his mouth shut and talk over the astronaut at the very wrong time.

Armstrong's "One giant leap for mankind" was happily delivered without interruption.

If the moon landing was one of the most extraordinary events of the 21st century, Burke sees incredible possibilities ahead - and the implications are immense.

He sees every home having a nanofabricator, a backyard factory where atoms, then molecules, will be mixed together in the right amounts and formula to produce all foods, all shelter, many goods and, unfortunately, even weapons, he adds.

He then delivers a blizzard of C, H and O combinations and numbers that would produce sweet tea, without milk, a recipe if you like.

And Burke sees no reason why we will not be able to create a human body, but not the brain, so bafflingly complex and gigantic that no formula could be found to recreate, he adds. At least this side of 10,000 years.

Nanotechnology was central to producing at incredible speed many of the Covid-19 vaccines. And a team from the University of Manchester has already reported using robotics to transport molecules.

"The arrival of such technology would signify the beginnings of a fundamentally new approach to manufacturing and manipulating matter at the nanoscale," the researchers conclude.

"Molecular robotics has the potential to be the cornerstone of revolutionary technologies that will impact on public health, energy, transport and security."

When scientists start speaking in such strong terms about the future, it may be best to listen.

A few decades ago "there was no nanotechnology, not really any awareness, now there is," says Burke.

Once one home-based nanofabricator is built, it can create a second, then four, then eight, and so on until they are available to everyone in the world is how he sees the near future, It would take two years, Burke believes.

"It will be the most revolutionary thing since we came out of the caves," he confidently argues. "There are few things you will not be able to make."

Burke is on a mission to flag up but also warn as he sees a world where people are autonomous, unshackled from the need to do business and able to operate without money, or other outside means.

It could be paradise, he says, or Armageddon if this technology is not properly controlled, delivered and managed. Apart from upending the business of business, and throwing up all manner of ethical issues, there is that problem about weapons.

Burke is a little downbeat.

"People making decisions ... do not know about science, (they are) looking at a 21st century problem from a 19th century point of view," he says.

He is referring to the approach to climate change, where the focus appears to be on stopping people doing something, like driving cars, rather than concentrating on harnessing the huge technological changes that are happening, and will do so.

Nanotechnology, and other advances, will "certainly mitigate" the effects of climate change, he argues.

"Perovskite," he offers. "In 10 years you will be able to spray this material on your house and it will create energy, electricity, from the sun a lot more efficiently than solar panels or farms."

But that's another story.

James Burke is still thinking, still making connections, still making thought provoking predictions about humanity's future.
Kabul, Jan 2 : The Afghan Supreme Court has sentenced Mohammad Adil, the mastermind of the November 2020 Kabul University attack that claimed the lives of 22 people, to death.

In a statement on Friday, the Supreme Court said that five other collaborators of the attack were sentenced to various jail terms on charges of treason, transfer of explosive materials and cooperation with the Islamic State (IS) terror group which claimed responsibility, TOLO News.

Adil, a resident of Panjshir province, was recruited by Sanaullah, a member of the Haqqani Network terror group, according to Vice President Amrullah Saleh.

He was arrested just a few days after the attack.

Adil had been missing for the last three years and it was rumoured that he has gone abroad for "studies and war", Saleh added.

On November 2, 2020, at least 22 people were killed and over 40 others were wounded after two gunmen attacked the University.

The victims included 18 students -- 16 from the Public Administration Faculty and two from the Law Faculty.
Two Oregon Coast Attractions Reopen Friday | Online Lectures Resume

Published 01/01/21 at 3:05 PM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff

(Seaside, Oregon)  Since a handful of Oregon coast counties have been upgraded from extreme risk to high risk, some reopenings around the region will happen. For lovers of aquariums, only one facility opens back up, however, but another famed history museum in Astoria swings open its doors.

Meanwhile, Cannon Beach's Friends of Haystack Rock's lecture series returns with this season going all digital.

New COVID risk assessments by the State of Oregon have relaxed restrictions in six counties, including some on the Oregon coast. Clatsop, Coos, Douglas and Lincoln counties have gone from the extreme risk category down to high risk, which opens up aspects of some businesses and attractions. However, only the Seaside Aquarium in Clatsop County is opening back up, unlocking its doors again on Friday.

This also means the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria opens back up on New Year's Eve.

In accordance with current COVID-19 restrictions for our County, Museum occupancy is limited to 50 people, including staff, at any one time, the museum said on its Facebook page. Please be prepared for the possibility of having to wait for entry, especially if you are part of a large party.

The store is open as well but occupancy will be limited to ten people at any time, which includes staff.

Meanwhile, other aquariums on the coast remain closed. The Oregon Coast Aquarium told Oregon Coast Beach Connection they will not be open until at least January 15.

The aquarium in Westport, Washington remains closed, as do the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport and the Charleston Marine Life Center on the south coast.

Cannon Beach Digital Lecture

While lecture events are not something that can happen yet, the Friends of Haystack Rock organization in Cannon Beach has kicked off its season of lectures digitally. The World of Haystack Rock Library Lecture Series 2020-2021 is normally held at the local library, but now  like all Oregon coast lecture events  its being held live on the Internet. These are recurring lectures with different speakers and topics. They are held on the second Wednesday of every month from November to May.

In this case, the group is being hosted by Facebook Live. Go to @Friends of Haystack Rock on Facebook to catch the show.

The next upcoming lecture is on Wednesday, January 13 at 7:00 p.m. It features Elaine Trucke of the Cannon Beach history Center and Museum with the presentation entitled Let's talk Haystack Rock: Tales of Haystack Rock.

With the love of storytelling, Trucke will focus on the unique history of Haystack Rock rather than its diverse ecosystem. Trucke will explore why Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach is so unique and share some of the crazier stories associated with the rock.

Trucke has been the director of the Cannon Beach History Center & Museum for over ten years. The Cannon Beach History Center & Museum is a small non-profit museum located in the heart of Cannon Beach. It is home to the cannon that the town is named for.

More talks of the Haystack lecture series:

February 10: Cape Falcon Marine Reserve. Duncan Berry and Kipp Baratoff, Co-Founders, Fishpeople Seafood. Title: Seeking Balance through Sustainable Fishing.

March 10. Kiirsten Flynn. Title: Insights into large whale entanglements in the Pacific Northwest from research of populations, responses and reports.

April 14. Katie Volkie North Coast Land Conservancy. Title: Climate Change and Conservation.

May 12. Tim Halloran. Title: Just how do you monitor the puffins?

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Photo below courtesy Friends of Haystack Rock



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A federal judge has thrown out Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert's lawsuit that had sought to give Mike Pence the power to overturn the presidential election during a formal count of the votes next week.

Texas US District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, on Friday dismissed the suit, ruling that the plaintiffs had lacked 'standing' and alleged 'an injury that is not fairly traceable' to the vice president.

Gohmert and Arizona's slate of GOP 'alternate' electors had sued Pence to expand his powers, so that he can solely determine which Electoral College votes to count when he presides over the January 6 session of Congress to make President-elect Joe Biden's win official.

The Electoral College cemented Biden's 306-232 victory in mid December and multiple legal efforts by President Trump's campaign to challenge the results have failed.

Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert (right) sued Vice President Mike Pence in a last ditch attempt to keep Trump in power, claiming he 'may exercise the exclusive authority and sole discretion in determining which electoral votes to count for a given State'

President Donald Trump (left), pictured returning to the White House Thursday with first lady Melania Trump (right), was reportedly unhappy the Justice Department stepped in on behalf of Vice President Mike Pence to crush a lawsuit aimed at giving Pence the power to overturn the election

The suit named Pence, who has a largely ceremonial role in next week's proceedings, as the defendant and asked the court to throw out the 1887 law that spells out how Congress handles the vote counting.

In a fresh filing Friday afternoon, Gohmert argued that Pence is more powerful than a 'glorified envelope-opener in chief.'

'Under the Constitution, he has the authority to conduct that proceeding as he sees fit,' Gohmert wrote.

'He may count elector votes certified by a state's executive, or he can prefer a competing slate of duly qualified electors. He may ignore all electors from a certain state. That is the power bestowed upon him by the Constitution.'

Texas U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, dismissed Gohmert's lawsuit due to lack of 'standing'

Legal experts have strongly disagreed with Gohmert's assessment.

In the Thursday night DOJ filing, Pence's lawyer, Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Coghlan, pointed out a basic fallacy in this case - in order to sue, the plaintiff and the defendant must be in opposition.

In this case, Gohmert and Pence's interests are aligned.

'The Vice President is not the proper defendant in this lawsuit,' Coghlan wrote. 'The Vice President - the only defendant in this case - is ironically the very person whose power they seek to promote.'

'A suit to establish that the vice president has discretion over the count, filed against the vice president, is a walking legal contradiction,' Coghlan noted in a Thursday night filing.

The department said, in effect, that the suit objects to long-standing procedures laid out in law, 'not any actions that Vice President Pence has taken,' so he should not be the target of the suit.

'A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction,' the department argued.

The dismissal of the suit comes amid reports that President Donald Trump was unhappy that the Department of Justice responded on behalf of Pence in the lawsuit.

The New York Times reported that Trump called Pence Friday morning to express surprise at the development. The president was more vocal to others about his displeasure, sources told the paper's Maggie Haberman.

Trump and his allies have filed roughly 50 lawsuits challenging election results, and nearly all have been dismissed or dropped. Hes also lost twice at the Supreme Court.

On Friday, a number of Michigan's 'alternate' electors filed a brief in the case.

If Trump had won Michigan, these individuals would have been the state's members of the Electoral College.

However, because Trump didn't win Michigan, the state's electors are Democrats - and cast their votes in favor of Biden in Lansing on December 14.

In court documents the rogue electors say that 'with the permission and endorsement of the Michigan Legislature' they cast votes in favor of President Donald Trump 'at the time, place, and manner required under Michigan state law and the Electoral Count Act.'

'At the same time, Michigan's Governor and Secretary of State appointed a separate and competing slate of electors who cast Michigan's electoral votes for former Vice-President Joseph R. Biden, despite the evidence of massive multi-state electoral fraud committed on Biden's behalf that changed electoral results in Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and other states that have also put forward competing slates of Presidential Electors,' the court document reads.

On Friday, Trump continued to push his supporters to come to Washington, D.C. to protest on the day Pence will oversee a Congressional session in which the Electoral College votes are tallied

Trump's White House backed the effort to have 'alternate' electors show up in state capitols to vote on December 14, so that those votes could be used to challenge the actual Electoral College results when Congress meets on January 6

The group did not have the permission of the Michigan legislature - with Michigan State Police blocking their access to the capitol - but they did have approval from the White House.

On December 14, White House aide Stephen Miller revealed a plot to have separate Republican electors cast votes for Trump in key swing states including Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico.

'As we speak, today, an alternate slate of electors in the contested states is going to vote and we're going to send those results up to Congress,' Miller said on 'Fox & Friends.' 'This will ensure that all of our legal remedies remain open. That means if we win these cases in the courts, we can direct that these alternate electors be certified.'

This is where the Gohmert lawsuit comes in.

The suit argues that the Electoral Count Act, which was passed in 1887, violates the 12th Amendment, which outlines the procedure for electing the president and vice president.

The amendment, which was ratified in 1804, says that the 'President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall be counted.'

While the lawsuit aims to give Pence unprecedented power to choose from slates of electors, lawmakers have the ability to challenge the count, with Sen. Josh Hawley saying he would object to some states' results

The lawsuit argues that the 'President of the Senate,' which is Pence, has the sole authority to determine which votes to count.

'That, with respect to competing slates of electors from the State of Arizona or other Contested States, the Twelfth Amendment contains the exclusive dispute resolution mechanisms, namely, that (i) Vice-President Pence determines which slate of electors' votes count, or neither, for that State,' the lawsuit says.

Legal experts called the reasoning laughable.

Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe tweeted that Gohmert effort 'may be the dumbest law suit of all' adding that it's 'jaw-droppingly stupid.'

'The idea that the Vice President has sole authority to determine whether or not to count electoral votes submitted by a state, or which of competing submissions to count, is inconsistent with a proper understanding of the Constitution,' Ohio State University law professor Edward Foley told The Hill.

Gohmert will also be joining the effort backed by more than 140 House Republicans to object to state vote counts during the Congressional session.

Congress has the power to toss out Electoral College votes - though has never done so.

If a House member and a senator both sign on to an objection, lawmakers debate the merits of that objection for two hours and then vote.

Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, has said he will file objections, but he hasn't said how many states' votes he will protest.

That effort, which could drag out the January 6 session for hours, even days, is doomed to fail, as only a simple majority is needed to knock down an objection.

With Democrats in control of the House and enough Republicans objecting to the plot in the Senate, Biden's win will get the Congressional seal of approval.
1. Yes. The public must have assurances that ethical standards are met by everyone.

2. Yes. As long as an independent board hears the grievances, its a worthwhile idea.

3. No. The concept is too broad. It should be limited to the citys elected officials.

4. No. There are plenty of stipulations in place already. An ordinance is a waste of time.

5. Unsure. Its hard to say without seeing how it would be structured and applied.

Vote

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Phuket Red Cross calls for donations to help COVID afflicted

PHUKET: With the annual Phuket Red Cross Fair cancelled this year due to concerns over COVID-19, Wandee Woonciew, President of the Thai Red Cross chapter in Phuket, has called for donations to help the organisation continue with its community outreach projects.

charityeconomicsCOVID-19

By The Phuket News

Saturday 2 January 2021, 02:32PM

Phuket Red Cross President Wandee Woonciew thanked those who had already made donations, and urged people to help the best they can. Photo: PR Phuket

Ms Wandee, who as wife of the current governor, Narong Woonciew, serves as President of the Thai Red Cross chapter in Phuket, explained that the annual fair each year helps to raise much needed funds for community charity projects

This year, with the number of people suffering financial hardship due to the ongoing economic crisis, the raising of funds to help people in need was much greater, she added.

At a recent event at Phuket Provincial Hall, Ms Wandee, joined by her husband Governor Narong Woonciew and a host of other officials, recognised individuals and businesses who made donations to help support the Phuket Red Cross.

Among the donations singled out for special thanks was one for B710,000, along with several others including one for B40,000 and B10,000. Even donations of just B2,000 to B3,000 were also held up as examples that any donations to help the Phuket Red Cross continue its work were much appreciated.

This event was organized to raise money for the Phuket Red Cross to use in helping people affected by various disasters in Phuket, including those greatly affected during the COVID-19 outbreak, Ms Wandee said.

Our goal is to help provide support to people affected by such circumstances. For most of these people we try to provide basic household goods. The aim is to improve their lives so they live like normal people, she added.

Earlier this week, Rewat Areerob, who has been unofficially named president-elect of the Phuket Provincial Administration Organisation (PPAO, or OrBorJor) following the election held on Dec 20, estimated that 40,000 to 50,000 people on the island were greatly affected by the current economic situation.

The Phuket Red Cross is located in the government building complex off Sakdidet Rd Soi 1 on the south side of Phuket Town, to the west of Saphan hin. The Red Cross building sits adjacent to the Phuket Employment Office. The office is open from 9am to 5pm on weekdays. Contact the Phuket Red Cross at Tel: 076-211766 or visit their official Facebook page here.
UPDATE: Birmingham police on Tuesday said Debra Branton has been found safe and reunited with her family.

EARLIER: Authorities are asking for the publics help in finding a 63-year-old woman who disappeared on New Years Day in eastern Birmingham.

Debra Branton was last seen about 11:45 a.m. Friday in the 7900 block of Crestwood Boulevard. She suffers from a medical condition which impairs her judgment, said Officer Truman Fitzgerald.

Branton was last known to be wearing a green camouflage hat, black shirt, green camouflage pants and pink shoes. She is a white female who is 5-feet, 2-inches tall and weighs 170 pounds.

Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to call the Birmingham Police Departments Special Victims Unit at 205-297-8485 or dial 911. Tipsters can also call Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777.
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The Delhi government on Saturday said that not only health care and front line workers  as announced by the Central government  but all residents of the city, who are eligible, will get the Covid-19 vaccines for free.

Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain, who inspected the dry run of the vaccination process at a government primary health care centre in Daryaganj on Saturday, said the state administration aims to vaccinate around one lakh people every day once the drive begins.

The Delhi government already provides free medicines and treatment to residents of the city. The vaccine against Covid-19 will also be provided free of cost to the people of Delhi, once it arrives, said Jain while talking to reporters.

Jains announcement is slightly different from the one made by Union health minister Harsh Vardhan, who said the Covid shots will be free for the most prioritised beneficiaries one crore health care and two crore front line workers. Officials in Delhis health department said the government is planning to give the vaccines for free also to senior citizens and those with co-morbidities during the first phase.

Read more| Covid-19 vaccination dry run underway; health minister urges people not to pay heed to rumours

The Delhi government so far has identified 51 lakh people who will be the first ones to get the Covid-19 vaccine shots, as part of the Central governments priority category. Of the 51 lakh people, three lakh health care workers such as doctors, nurses, paramedic staff and so on  will be the first ones to get the vaccine doses. This will be followed by 6 lakh frontline workers which include police, civil defence volunteers and municipal workers. Next, in line will be 42 lakh people who are either 50 years or above in age or are below 50 years age but have co-morbid conditions.

Final lists of beneficiaries in all these categories is still being prepared by authorities, a senior government official said. The Delhi Police have already started sending test SMSes to its personnel, who fall in the second category of those who will be vaccinated, as part of the vaccination program.

Jain said the Delhi government has completed all arrangements from storage to administering the vaccines.

We will set up 1,000 vaccination centres across Delhi. Largely, centres will be set up in three types of institutions - government hospitals, private hospitals and dispensaries. The purpose of conducting the dry run today at three different types of centres was to review the system set up in each of these categories. The system in Delhi is flawless, he said.

Read more| Co-WIN app, test beneficiaries: India to hold dry run for Covid-19 vaccination

Explaining about the vaccination process, the state health minister said monitoring stations will also be set up in all centres.

At a time, only 10 persons will be given entry into the centre so that all norms of social distancing are followed. When the vaccination is done, the person will be put under observation for 30 minutes. Every centre has been linked to a nearest hospital. In case any patient shows any kind of discomfort, an emergency room has been set up, Jain said.

Apart from 1,000 centres where people will get vaccinated, the government has also identified and readied 621 vaccine stores, most of which will also act as centres. The list of these vaccine stores, seen by HT, showed that almost all the major government dispensaries, primary healthcare centres, hospitals (both government and private), maternity and child welfare (MCW) centres and polyclinics will be storage and vaccination centres.

Delhi Police, on its part, also said that they have chalked out an elaborate plan for smooth transportation of Covid-19 vaccines as they arrive in India. After a recent meeting with the commissioner of police, the operations branch of the Delhi police issued an order apprising its personnel about the arrangements that need to be put in place.

Read more| Day 1 of nationwide dry run concludes as two Covid-19 vaccines await final nod

The order, seen by HT, said, Proper security arrangements at the airport will have to be made. Police Control Room (PCR) vans will escort these vaccines to primary, then secondary and finally to territory stores. All possible assistance by traffic police should be provided. Local police should make round the clock security arrangements at the storage sites.

The document further read that adequate police arrangements by local police should also be made at session sites, where the vaccine will be given and that the Central Police Control Room should promptly respond to any call for help from any of the cold storage point or vaccination session site and pass on the information to the PCR vans as well as local police, traffic police and any other agency, as the case may be. The district deputy commissioners of police have also been told to maintain close coordination with district magistrates in this regard.

Since there will be limited availability of the vaccine in the initial phases, round-the-clock arrangement for the security of cold chain points at all locations will be made. While access to cold chain rooms will be restricted to authorised personnel only, the vehicles carrying the Covid-19 vaccine between districts and states will be sealed before leaving the cold chain point and will be opened only in front of the facility in-charge, said a senior Delhi police officer.
Bolivia has come up with a novel way to reactivate its tourism sector decimated by the coronavirus pandemic: it's giving extra holidays to its public sector employees.

More than 500,000 people work in the public sector in the South American country of just 11 million people.

Depending on the number of years of service, public employees receive between two and four weeks of annual leave.

But under the program launched at the end of November, they will be able to boost their time off by 20-30 percent as long as they go on holiday within the country.

The coronavirus has cost Bolivia's tourism sector one billion dollars according to one estimate.

"We obviously need to reactivate it, but for this we need the state's help and this is the way we're starting," productive development minister Nestor Huanca told AFP.

The program will run until the end of 2021.

Bolivia has numerous popular tourist destinations such as the Uyuni Salt Flats, Lake Titicaca, the pre-Incan ruins of the Tiwanaku ceremonial site and nature reserves such as Toro Toro.

La Paz, the unofficial administrative capital of the country, is also popular due to its Witches Market and the ominous Death Road that attracts adrenaline junkies.

In 2019, the country received 1.47 million foreign tourists that spent an average $936, according to the national statistics institute.

But Bolivia shut its borders in March as the coronavirus started to spread. The virus has infected almost 150,000 people and killed more than 9,000.

The tourism sector, which accounts for 4-5 percent of Bolivia's GDP, has shed an estimated 100,000 direct employees and another 500,000 indirectly.

While the sector depends on foreigners, the statistics institute said that almost half of the population embarked on at least one holiday in 2018.

Not everyone is convinced this measure will work, though.

"I don't know if there will be the acceptance or internal tourist influx from these public sector employees as is hoped," said Helga Cisneros, president of the Chamber of Hostelry in La Paz.
ALBANY  A few days ago, U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik took Andrew Cuomo to task for allowing "drug addicts" to get relatively early doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

"The Worst Governor in America streak continues, Stefanik wrote on Twitter. This time prioritizing vaccines for drug addicts over tens of thousands of seniors who have been home bound since the start of the pandemic. An absolute disgrace."

Let me start by crediting Stefanik, who lives in Saratoga County, for being one of the members of Congress to refuse an early dose of the vaccine. It was distasteful that young, healthy politicians such as New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the downstate Democrat, jumped to the head of the line when so many who need the vaccine are waiting.

"She will take the vaccine only after the most vulnerable groups have been served," Stefanik spokesperson Alex DeGrasse told me. "She is a healthy 36 year old."

Good. But that tweet about drug addicts and the vaccine? Not so good.

I'd suggest it was misleading, since it isn't as though being addicted alone will get a person vaccinated. Cuomo has said only that residents of state Office of Addiction Services and Supports facilities would be high on the vaccine priority list, after medical workers, residents of nursing homes and other high-risk populations. Those OASAS residents are, in the scheme of things, a relatively small number of people.

These are congregate facilities. Congregate facilities are problematic, the governor said Monday, adding that nursing homes are obviously the most problematic because they're congregate plus older, vulnerable people.

Certainly, there are valid reasons to disagree with New Yorks vaccine distribution priorities, with some critics making strong arguments that distribution should be based on age alone once medical workers have been vaccinated. Older people, after all, are most at risk from the virus.

But people living in congregate facilities are at a particular disadvantage. It's harder for them to isolate. They have staff members and other coming and going from their homes. Such places are fertile ground for the virus to spread.

What really bothers me about Stefaniks tweet, though, is its seemingly implicit suggestion that this very important public health decision should be based on assumptions about the moral value of the person receiving the vaccine. The North Country congresswoman seems to be suggesting that drug addicts don't deserve the vaccine early.

Why? Because they are, what, somehow less virtuous?

I wish that I could ask Father Peter Young for his thoughts about that. Young, a prominent Capital Region priest who died last month, spent his life arguing that addiction is a disease rather than a moral failing. He believed the light of God is within every person, no matter the troubles of their life.

In an ideal world, of course, the vaccine would be readily available to all who want it and governments wouldn't need to prioritize who gets it first. What we have instead, obviously, is a supply-and-demand problem that is forcing governments to make difficult decisions.

Clearly, those decisions should be driven entirely by saving lives and preventing the virus' spread. Assumptions about the virtue of the recipients shouldn't be part of the discussion, and politicians shouldn't use heightened emotions surrounding the vaccine to pander to one group at the expense of another.

I asked Stefaniks office if she'd be willing to put some meat on the bones of her tweet and explain why, precisely, she objects to residents of OASAS rehab centers receiving the vaccine relatively early. In response, DeGrasse said Stefaniks position is based on guidance from the federal Centers for Disease Control.

"Governor Cuomo is once again the only governor in the country blatantly ignoring CDC guidance regarding vaccination distribution, DeGrasse said in a written response, noting that the CDC recommends that vaccine distribution should prioritize healthcare workers, long-term care facility residents, frontline essential workers and others.

But those living in OASAS rehab centers are residents of longer-term care facilities, and New Yorks vaccine priority list is generally in agreement with CDC vaccine recommendations, which note the very real COVID-19 dangers of group-living situations. In this case, it just isn't true that Cuomo is ignoring CDC guidance.

That isn't to say that New Yorks vaccine roll out is going as smoothly or as quickly as it should. There has been confusion over who will distribute the vaccine, with the state recently pushing aside counties who had been preparing for years on how to handle widespread vaccine distribution. There are indications that the early phase of distribution is far too sluggish.

But none of that has anything to do with people fighting to overcome addiction.

cchurchill@timesunion.com  518-454-5442  @chris_churchill




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Reports have circulated in the Moroccan media that Egypt will soon inaugurate a consulate in Laayoune, one of the largest cities in the disputed Western Sahara, the scene of decades of conflict between Morocco and the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.

Moroccos Le360 news site reported Dec. 21 that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced plans to dispatch Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry to Rabat, where he will coordinate the opening of an Egyptian consulate in Western Sahara with his Moroccan counterpart Nasser Bourita.

The Polisario Front, a pro-independence movement established in 1973, proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in 1976 and joined the African Union in 1984. The group is seeking the independence of Western Sahara from Morocco, which has controlled over 80% of the vast desert since the Spanish withdrawal in 1975 and considers it an integral part of its territory. The Polisario Front and its Algerian ally, which hosts Sahrawi refugees, are campaigning for a referendum on Western Saharan independence.

Morocco is betting on foreign consulates opening in Western Sahara, Bourita says. During the opening of the Bahraini Consulate in the disputed territory on Dec. 14, Bourita said the international community is convinced that the dispute can only be resolved within the framework of Moroccan sovereignty over the territory.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted that the United States would also open a consulate in Western Sahara Dec. 24. President Donald Trump's administration recognized Morocco's sovereignty over the territory, the only Western country to do so, when Rabat agreed to normalize relations with Israel. US President-elect Joe Biden, who is set to be sworn in Jan. 20, will have to decide whether to uphold the US agreement with Morocco.

Morocco views the opening of foreign diplomatic representations in Western Sahara as affirmation of its sovereignty over the territory while the Polisario Front and Algeria condemn the openings as a violation of international law.

The number of diplomatic missions in Western Sahara hit 18 after Bahrain and Haiti opened their consulates in the territory in December. The United Arab Emirates was the first Arab country to open a consulate in Laayoune on Nov. 4, and Jordan has expressed its intention to do the same.

Rakha Hassan, a member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, said that Egypt will not open a consulate in Western Sahara. He told Al-Monitor via phone, Egypt has no interest in this territory.

Hassan questioned the accuracy of the Moroccan press reports, saying, Egypt's position has remained unchanged on the Western Sahara issue so far, and this position will not change overnight. He added, Egypt's position on the Western Sahara issue is the same and in line with UN resolutions that call for a referendum allowing the Western Sahara citizens to decide either to be part of Morocco or to be independent.

After the truce agreement signed between the Polisario Front and the Moroccan government in 1991 under the UN, a referendum was set to be held on the Western Sahara dispute. Yet as the sides failed to agree on voter eligibility, the dispute has remained unsolved.

The Western Sahara crisis has long been a reason for tense relations between Egypt and Morocco, particularly since Sisi took office. The Moroccans feel that Egypt is biased toward Algeria, the main supporter of the Polisario Front.

On Dec. 15, Egypt called on Morocco and the Polisario Front to exercise restraint and respect the UN Security Councils resolutions, including the 1991 truce agreement, and to refrain from taking any provocative actions that would harm economic and trade interests in this region.

The Egyptian call came amid fears that the two sides would resume military operations in one of Africas oldest disputes, after recently breaching the UN-brokered truce agreement that ended years of fighting. Moroccan forces launched a military operation Nov. 13 in the buffer zone of Guerguerat in southern Western Sahara to clear a road that has been blockaded by the Polisario Front since Oct. 21. The road leads to Guerguerat, the gateway to Mauritania.

Polisario chief Ibrahim Ghali ended his groups commitment to the truce in a Nov. 14 decree.

The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed in a Nov. 15 statement the need to commit to dialogue and resume the political process to resolve the crisis and bring about stability, protect all parties interests and abide by international law, especially state sovereignty.

Egypt has been neutral regarding the tension in the buffer zone of Guerguerat while Gulf and other Arab states, including Cairos allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, support Morocco against the Polisario Front.

Egypt fears that recognizing Morocco's sovereignty over Western Sahara might jeopardize its Algerian relations, which are stronger than its ties with Morocco.

Algeria was one of the first Arab countries Sisi visited less than a month after assuming power in June 2014. That December, the Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum announced a deal to import natural gas from Algeria at half price, as part of efforts to overcome Egypt's energy and economic crises following the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in July 2013.

Algeria has backed Egypt during several other crises. In October 2016, after Saudi Aramco suspended petroleum shipments to Egypt, Algeria sent Cairo more than 30,000 tons of diesel fuel. Egypt and Algeria routinely work together in the fight against terrorism and illegal migration and share common visions on the conflict raging in neighboring Libya.

Yasmine Hasnaoui, a Moroccan researcher on the Western Sahara conflict, told Al-Monitor, There is nothing official regarding the opening of an Egyptian consulate in Western Sahara. If Egypt decides to open a consulate, it is because it sees that Morocco is becoming an important partner to several big states, notably the United States.

Hasnaoui went on, If this move happens, it will bolster Egypts economic partnership not only with Morocco but with many other countries in Europe and Africa on several levels.

She continued, International relations are not based on feelings, but rather partnership, and Morocco is gaining momentum regarding the Western Sahara issue.
COLUMBIA  Parole denial, a death in the family, losing a prison job or getting out of COVID-19 quarantine. Those are among the stressors South Carolina prison officials know might trigger an inmate to lash out. So, they're working to defuse the tension before that happens.

Since September, the state's prison agency has used its extensive data on inmates' lives to identify who might be on the verge of a meltdown and intervene before they potentially erupt.

Dubbed the "Violence Indicator System," it brings to mind "Minority Report," the 2002 movie where a "pre-crime" police force stops murders by arresting people before they kill.

But in reality no psychics foresee the future. And there are no arrests or punishments for something that hasn't occurred. Instead, the system involves a weekly crunch of data and communication.

"One of the things that impressed me the most is that sometimes people just want to be heard," Corrections Director Bryan Stirling told The Post and Courier. "They just want someone to talk to. Theyre no different from anybody else, and I think thats bringing the temperature down.

"The answer may be 'Im sorry, no, I cant do what you want.' But theyre heard. Or it may be 'Yes, we can look into that,'" he said.

Either way, officials hope a rapport is established so that when there is trouble brewing, the inmate feels comfortable approaching the warden, Stirling said.

The simple-sounding concept is proving successful. Assaults, whether between inmates or on officers, declined by 17 percent between the statewide rollout and mid-December, he said.

The hiring of a single person made it possible. Cheryl Bolchoz, a biostatistician, developed the data-crunching tool that spits out a list of names every Monday for each prison.

"It's basically just statistics," Bolchoz said. "The beauty of it is that its dynamic. Every week changes. I keep adding information to it from previous assaults and characteristics, and every week it comes out a little bit different."

The list is used subtly, said Brian Kendall, warden of maximum-security Lieber Correctional in Dorchester County, which piloted the system in August.

Kendall said he and four others on his prison's leadership team are the only ones to see the list, which generally has 20 names. They divide it up by prison section and go visit that area to talk to the identified inmates, as well as others, so as not to make it obvious, he said.

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"I never want the inmate to know hes on a list, so I go down and I stop at three or four cells, but in the meanwhile theres one person I want to talk to on this list," said Kendall, who helped train other wardens on how to use the list.

The goal is to have an enlightening discussion.

"I'm asking about his personal life. Is everything OK at home? Is he talking to family? I slowly progress to whats happening in his unit," Kendall said. "Im not asking is a fight going to happen. What I am asking is whats the temperature like, meaning, is it safe down here? What can I do to make it better?"

Most inmates do open up and talk to some extent. For those who don't want to talk to the warden, he'll make a note and send someone else from the leadership team to try again a day or so later.

Many on the list have been violent in the past, so seeing their names is no surprise, and some pop up on the list repeatedly. But others wouldn't remotely be on his radar, Kendall said. A conversation with one such inmate stuck with him.

"His whole demeanor changed as we had our discussion. At the end, he was actually laughing with me, and hes not the type of inmate who would normally laugh," Kendall said. "Did I prevent an assault? There's no way of knowing, but his demeanor definitely changed, and I felt good leaving there."

Stirling readily acknowledges he borrowed the idea, and that it won't prevent all violence. But it can help.

After the April 2018 riot at Lee Correctional left seven inmates dead and 22 injured, marking the nation's worst prison riot in nearly a quarter century, Stirling asked his colleagues in other states about successes they were having that he could copy. He learned about the predictive tool from Indiana while at a national conference.

"What were doing is using analytics and technology to make prisons safer for everybody," Stirling said.

He also called it a cost savings.

When an assault doesn't happen, that also means there's no lawsuit. No medical treatment is needed. And officers don't have to be pulled away from their normal duties to transport an inmate to a local hospital.
(Newser)  With the number of flights sharply reduced due to the coronavirus pandemic, there were fewer commercial airplane crashes in 2020, the Guardian reports. But the number of people who were killed in crashes last year increased. Data from Dutch consulting firm To70 reveal that there were 40 accidents involving passenger planes in 2020. Of those, five involved fatalities for a total of 299 deaths. In 2019, there were 86 accidents, of which eight involved fatalities for a total 257 deaths. Of the 2020 deaths, more than half176are connected to the Ukrainian airliner that was shot down by Iranian forces in January, per the BBC.

story continues below

The second deadliest incident happened in May when a Pakistan International Airlines flight crashed in Karachi, killing 98 people. Overall, commercial aviation deaths have decreased dramatically since the start of this century, Reuters reports. In 2005, for instance, there were 1,015 deaths worldwide. To70 says the fatal accident rate for 2020 is similar to the average for the last 10 years, per the BBC. However, the firm warns that the pandemic-induced reduction in flights can hurt the performance of flight crews: Skill fade is recognized as a critical issue for our industry as we return to normal operations. (Read more plane crash stories.)
Pa. Republicans advance three anti-abortion bills. What they would do.
Teguchigalpa, Jan 2 : Police in Honduras have said that 18 people were killed in several violent incidents during New Year's celebrations.

In a statement on Friday, Deputy Inspector of the National Police Rigoberto Rodriguez said rge figure was lower than 2019, when 24 homicides were reported, reports Xinhua news agency.

The official also said that in 2020, there were a total of 3,482 violence-related deaths, while in 2019, 4,082 fatalities were reported.

In general, there were 37 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2020, while in 2019 the rate was 44.5 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the national police.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Poroshenko on fifth anniversary of FTA with EU: economic integration is path to Ukraine's EU membership

The fifth president of Ukraine, the leader of the European Solidarity party, Petro Poroshenko, is confident that the launch of a deep and comprehensive free trade area with the European Union in 2016 launched a new era of trade relations between Ukraine and the EU.

"This event forever changed the Ukrainian foreign economic policy and opened up qualitatively new unlimited opportunities for national exporters and foreign investments," Poroshenko said on the fifth anniversary of the FTA.

He recalled that five years ago in Ukraine, many skeptics and populists were convinced that nothing would work out, and that the FTA with the EU would fail.

"In response to this historic step of our state, the Russian aggressor strengthened the economic blockade of our traditional markets in the east in order to discredit our course towards economic integration with the EU, to prove that the only correct choice of Ukraine is Russian networks, the Russian stall," Poroshenko stressed.

The fifth president states that today about 40% of the total volume of Ukraine's trade belongs to the European direction.

"For the five years, we have increased the volume of trade with the EU by about 60%. Ukraine is confidently included in the top 20 trade partners of the European Union and the five largest exporters of agricultural products to the EU. And we will continue this path of success," the leader of European Solidarity believes.

"Economic integration is a way to achieve membership criteria and to a practical solution to the issue of Ukraine's accession to the European Union - a guarantee of our independence, sovereignty, prosperity and security," Poroshenko summed up.
It may be a new year for much of the world, but the poisonous stench of previous years remains with the U.N. (United Nations) and its money-pit tentacles. One of these infected appendages is the U.N.'s Human Rights Council, which is billed as

an inter-governmental body within the United Nations system responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe and for addressing situations of human rights violations and make recommendations on them. It has the ability to discuss all thematic human rights issues and situations that require its attention throughout the year. It meets at the UN Office at Geneva. The Council is made up of 47 United Nations Member States which are elected by the UN General Assembly.

All you need to know about their definition of "the promotion and protection of human rights" is to learn who joined their Human Rights Council (sic) yesterday.

On Jan. 1, China, Cuba, and Russia will become members of the U.N. Human Rights Council. Yes, China, which has imprisoned 2 million of its Uighur citizens in gulag reeducation camps, sterilized thousands, and used the rest for de facto slave labor, is donning the U.N. human rights mantle. Cuba, a dystopia tolerated by the Western media elite for its creaking art deco facade, sees many of its best and brightest choose to brave shark-infested waters in search of better lives. Vladimir Putin's Russia wages a very thinly veiled war on all who question the Kremlin. Whether it's Novichok nerve agents and Alexei Navalny, open windows and journalists, or gang attacks on gays, Putin's Russia despises human rights. It is not simply alarming that these governments are joining the Human Rights Council, but that so few governments and organizations are bothered by it. (Emphasis added.)

Oh.

Will the new members objectively investigate themselves and then improve their human rights as we know it? Was that the devious, clever reason they were added? Sadly, those are rhetorical questions; the answer is of course not. In the safety of Geneva, the Human Rights Council members will contribute to global warming by spouting hot air about mythical Israeli human rights violations against Arab and other Muslims who want to kill them while tsk-tsking about the deadly conditions in Burundi, Venezuela, Yemen, and South Sudan, where thousands upon thousands are being forced from their homes, kidnapped, and killed, not to mention similar conditions in their home countries, which will be ignored, and then enjoy the good life in Geneva.

President Donald J. Trump (R) was absolutely correct to slash U.S. funding to the U.N. More reductions are needed; independently joining with others might bring some aid to the beleaguered.

Until  if  there are real improvements, understand that the U.N. is an evil joke that is not funny.

Image: sanjitbakshi via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.
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Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press

Someone left a pigs head on the sidewalk in front of House Speaker Nancy Pelosis house in Pacific Heights and spray-painted graffiti on her garage door overnight, the San Francisco Police Department said Friday.

Police responded to the scene at 2 a.m. No one has taken credit for the vandalism and the political graffiti is now covered by black garbage bags. Pelosis Washington office did not respond to a request for comment.
Bhaswati Ghoshs debut novel Victory Colony 1950 is based on the lives of refugees from East Pakistan.

Bhaswati Ghoshs debut novel Victory Colony 1950, published by Yoda Press, is an absorbing book about the lives of refugees from East Pakistan who learn to trust their own instincts and the camaraderie of friendly strangers when the Partition of India in 1947 forces them to show up in Calcutta. Ghosh refuses to let her characters drown in their grief. Amidst squalor, malnutrition and poverty, they begin to repair and rebuild. They do not want to live off government handouts.

Ghoshs story centers the experience of Amala Manna, a woman who is not only displaced from home but also separated from her younger brother. At the refugee camp, she makes new friends and also finds love. Manas Dutta, a volunteer who assists in relief and rehabilitation efforts, surprises her with a marriage proposal. While he is intensely committed, his mother disapproves of their relationship. The novel explores how they deal with this challenge together.

Edited excerpts from an interview with the author, who lives in Ontario, Canada.

How did you work on keeping your novel free of the cliches that haunt Partition writing?

While the Partition as a historical event does form the backdrop of the story, my main concern was what happens to Amala, the central female character after the fact. I wanted to step into her world to see what all someone who has just experienced extreme trauma must go through  first to survive and then, to redeem hope off an essentially hopeless situation. In doing so, I found her world expanding, with the inclusion of other ill-fated people like her, and strangely enough, the story that emerged out of this association wasnt all bleak and hopeless but one of new families being formed and love springing in the most unexpected of ways.

Would you tell us about your personal connection with the subject of Partition, since your own grandparents were also refugees from East Pakistan? What were their lives like? In what way did their stories help you craft this novel?

I grew up in Delhi in the late 1970s and 1980s and, for a long time, the history of my familys loss in Partition didnt come upon the screen of my consciousness in any direct way. Ours was a joint family  my mother came to live with her parents after her divorce, on the heels of my birth.

My maternal grandmother, Amiya Sen, who was also a published author in Bengali, piqued my childhood imagination with stories of her village in East Bengal  of its verdant lushness and riverine beauty, of its fruit orchards and freshwater ponds full of fish, of an abundance that seemed to be in striking dissonance with our lower-middle-class reality.

It was only as I grew up that the apparition of Partition  invisible yet ever present in those stories  became apparent to me. So, growing up I saw how the displacement had affected not only my grandparents  the direct victims of it  emotionally and financially, but how it continued to leave its stamp on the successive generations  my mothers and uncles, and then my brothers and mine.

My family story didnt directly aid me in writing this novel, but it had a huge indirect, subconscious impact. That influence, coupled with my reading of my grandmothers short stories, many of them dealing with this inalienable part of her personal and family history, prepared me to write Amalas story. Incidentally, Amala happens to belong to Barisal in East Bengal (now Bangladesh), the district my grandparents came from, and one that saw widespread communal violence in 1949-50, the period of this novel.

It had become clear to Manas that the state administration didn't have a solid plan to tackle the worsening refugee situation. Nor did the central government for that matter. When I read this sentence in the book, I wondered if it might be as relevant today as it was right after the Partition. What do you think about the treatment of refugees by the West Bengal administration and the Government of India?

Across the world, human displacement remains as pressing a concern today as it was in the years following the Indian Partition. It may not always grab the headlines, but that doesnt discount its presence. Whether it is about Rohingyas in the Indian subcontinent, African refugees desperately looking to enter Europe, or refugees from war-ravaged countries like Syria, the stories of people like Amala continue to come to us through different news mediums. Given the frequency of these news items and the sheer volume of people involved, these stories barely register in our consciousness before were benumbed to them again.

To answer the second part of your question, when it came to refugees from the East, both the West Bengal state government and the central government in India were found wanting in dealing with the situation. This became evident to me during my research, through both anecdotal as well as documented records. I felt it was important to include in my narrative.

Language plays an important role in shaping public perception about refugees in India where you grew up, and in Canada where you live now. Could you please describe the thought process that went into your representation of refugees, the depiction of the refugee camp, and the police brutality experienced by refugees?

It is unfortunate how tragedy, when it strikes a large number of people at once, renders them into a nameless mass with generic labels such as refugees or migrants. Its almost as if they are instantly coalesced into a monolith and no longer remain individual lives in distress. Along with this comes the stripping of their dignity.

Through Amala and the other refugee characters in the novel, I wanted to bring the focus back on how such mass tragedies affect the life of one person or one family. What does it mean to them on a day to day basis? How deep are the scars over the long term? I hoped to do this in their own voices, using their language  sparse and utilitarian perhaps, but not lacking in warmth or affection.

On the other end of the novels character spectrum are the government officials and people like Manass mother who represent the mindset with which such destitute groups of people are often viewed by the majority of the populace  condescension and disgust, sometimes to the point of intolerance. Again, such a mindset of majoritarian entitlement wasnt limited to that time period; we can see it manifest even in our current world.

Amala seems to have the inner resources to look after herself. She is creative, enterprising, and resilient. What made you give her a happily ever after with Manas, a man who is physically and emotionally drawn to her but also appears to fancy himself in the role of a benefactor and caretaker?

I will answer the second part of your question first  the part where you talk about Manas being a benefactor/caretaker of the refugees, and by extension, of Amalas. This question was crucial to me in writing this story. In the novel, Manas confronts this very topic in a long discussion with Chitra Sen, his senior co-volunteer.

While Manas does come from a well-off family, hes conscious of that privilege and its concomitant weight or burden. It was important to me to know that he wasnt drawn to Amala impelled by a messiah/saviour impulse. But that rather he felt attracted to her because of the sheer force of her personality and her inner spirit, regardless of her circumstances. Remember, he might have been affluent and an activist, but he was also a young man with a beating heart.

As for Amala, youre correct in assessing that she had no real need of a happily-ever-after with Manas or with anyone for that matter. And she was certainly not looking for anything like that. But as it turned out, not unlike many other random happenings in her young life, love burst forth and she found herself pulled into its current. This might sound cloying, but this lack of personal control over a lot that happens in our lives  good or ugly  informed my storytelling.

I do not mean to say that the love story appears forced. There are some beautiful moments in their rather unusual courtship but getting married imposes new shackles on Amala, whose mother-in-law Mrinmoyee views her as shudra and Bangaal rather than her son's beloved. Could you please unpack the caste and language politics at play here, given the period this novel is set in?

I wanted to explore what happens when a woman like Amala steps inside the world of someone like Manas whose stature is entirely different in terms of class and caste. Mrinmoyees attitude towards her isnt atypical; in fact, such attitudes continue to prevail even now as is evident from the tragic outcomes many inter-caste marriages conclude in.

For Manas Bhadralok (elite, upper caste) mother, the scandal of her son marrying a Bangaal (a term used to refer to the people of East Bengal, as opposed to the Ghotis of West Bengal) girl was exacerbated by the fact of her being a shudra, the lowest rung of the Hindu varna system. At the time the story is set in, the word Bangaal was used almost as an invective to deride Bengalis from the East, many of them refugees.

Caste and class were important to me, particularly because of how entrenched these were in peoples minds during the period the story is set in, but also because of how forceful they continue to be in determining the course of relationships even in the 21st century.

Focusing on these aspects was also a way to allow the reader to test Manas love for Amala. Early in the novel, he claims to remain steadfast in his commitment to her, even if that means going against his family. In the time following their wedding, while he does try his best to change his mothers outlook, he also makes it clear to her that he wouldnt be one to cower down in submission or worse, become indifferent and passive to the situation.

Since the book is about Hindu refugees from East Pakistan, which is now Bangladesh, do you wonder how it might be received by people who stand for and against Indias Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019? How do you grapple with the need to memorialise the brutalities of the past without playing into the agenda of those who want to create divides today?

Human history moves in cyclical patterns, and what has happened before has every chance of recurring again, even if some of the visible elements acquire a different appearance. This is crucial to note, for the differences are mostly surface level, whereas the underlying pattern remains as sinister as ever.

As Amalas story shows, while those in power, and I dont mean political power alone, make sweeping decisions on behalf of large sections of the population, the impact  sometimes devastating  is borne by those who wield little power. In this context, markers like religion or ethnicity have scant significance as the overarching determinant is power and who has it at any given point in time in history. Amala and folks like her suffered because they were on the wrong side of this power divide and worse still, minorities.

The need to remember the brutalities of the past is important, even necessary, precisely because of this reason  so that we can draw lessons from them and avoid repeating such violent histories.

The novel took me back to your essay Bhasha, Basha, Bari published in 2011. Towards the end, you mull over the definition of home and ask, Is it a place? Or is it more likely a language? If the novel is anything to go by, home is food, home is sisterhood, and home is generosity when it is least expected. Any concluding thoughts?

Youve summed it up so well. Home is all of those ideas and more. As I understand it, the very definition of home is dependent on the past and our memories of a time or place we no longer inhabit. Even in our attempts to set up home in newer geographies and time periods, were guided by those memorised signposts and the comfort of their familiarity. Hence, the need to recreate mothers food, establish sisterhood anew or paying forward the kindness your neighbour of the majority community had once shown to protect you from the wrath of their own.

Chintan Girish Modi is a writer, educator and researcher. He tweets @chintan_connect
Vietnam detects first COVID-19 case carrying the newly found, highly contagious variant of coronavirus on Saturday.

The patient is a 45-year-old Vietnamese woman repatriated from the UK in a flight landing at Can Tho International Airport on December 22 but was quarantined on arrival.

Health workers at a hospital in Hanoi collect specimens to be tested for COVID-19.

The flight has 305 passengers on board, 147 of them were quarantined in Tra Vinh Province, 137 in Vinh Long Province, 17 in Can Tho City and 4 in HCM City.

The HCM City Pasteur Institute have conducted genetic sequencing on the six COVID-19-positive cases detected among the 305 arrivals and Patient No.1,435 was found to have been infected with the new strain of SARS-CoV-2.

The woman has a 10-year history of high blood pressure.

Prior to her return to Vietnam, her health was reportedly stable.

One day after being placed under quarantine, typical COVID-19 symptoms like sore throat and light fever developed and her specimens were sent to lab for testing.

The results returned positive on December 24 and she was moved to Tra Vinh Provinces Hospital for Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases.

As of December 31, the patient only suffered from light coughing, no sore throat or breathing difficulties, while X-ray scans show mild damages to her lungs.

Her husband, who currently remained in the UK, has also tested positive for the virus.

HCM City Pasteur Institute has asked the health ministry for further guidelines in research and anti-epidemiological responses.

The new coronavirus variant, first detected in the UK and thought to be responsible for the rise in cases in the country, is deemed to be much more transmissible than other variants but does not seem to be resulting in more serious diseases or deadlier, and approved COVID-19 vaccines could still be effective against it.

Other than Viet Nam, 33 countries have reported infections with the variant, mostly among recent arrivals from the UK.

To head off the spread of the new virus variant, many countries and regions have imposed bans on entry from the UK, or foreign arrivals altogether.

VNS
City approves first reading of temporary medical marijuana ordinance

With state officials still putting together the oversight rules for medical marijuana establishments, local governments need temporary ordinances.
Some 2,500 partygoers attended an illegal New Year rave in northwestern France, violently clashing with police who failed to stop it and sparking concern the underground event could spread the coronavirus, authorities said Friday

Lieuron, France, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 1st Jan, 2021 ) :Some 2,500 partygoers attended an illegal New Year rave in northwestern France, violently clashing with police who failed to stop it and sparking concern the underground event could spread the coronavirus, authorities said Friday.

The revellers had set up the illegal rave in Lieuron south of Rennes in Brittany after skirmishes with police, said a statement from the local prefecture. Many were still on the site Friday as a sanitary cordon was thrown up around it.

Local gendarmes tried "prevent this event but faced fierce hostility from many partygoers" who set one of their cars of fire and threw bottles and stones, it said.

Those present had come from across France and even abroad, it said.

Such mass gatherings are strictly prohibited across France to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and a nationwide 8:00 pm curfew -- which was not lifted for New Year -- applies across the country.

Reports said that the rave party took place in a empty warehouse belonging to a storage company.

Prosecutors have opened an investigation into the illegal organisation of a musical gathering and premeditated violence against persons in authority.

Vehicles registered from all over France were still parked at the site Friday and many revellers were present as techno music thudded away, an AFP journalist said.

- 'Little social distancing' - Participants interviewed by AFP said that the revellers had included partygoers from foreign countries, including Spain and Britain.

One participant, who gave his name as Jo from the Alsace region of eastern France and refused to be identified further, said they had all met at a meeting point on Thursday evening in the parking lot of a shopping centre.

Then the convoy headed for Lieuron where the police tried to prevent them from passing, he said.

He acknowledged that "very few had respected social distancing" at the event, which was supposed only to end later on Saturday.

French authorities have been particularly concerned about mass wildcat rave parties throughout the pandemic but New Year's night was a particular concern.

In the southern city of Marseille, security forces halted an illegal party grouping some 300 people, police said. Over 150 people were warned and the three suspected organisers have been arrested.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that 132,000 police had been deployed across France for the New Year celebrations to ensure security and that the curfew was respected.
Sir John Bell warned lack of investment in vaccine capacity left UK unprepared

Oxford and AstraZeneca rely on outsourced companies to help create doses

Chris Whitty said vaccine availability issues will 'remain case for several months'

Government have pledged to give single doses of Pfizer jab to ration supplies

But manufacturers of Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZeneca jabs have rubbished claims

Scientists have blamed the vaccine's slow roll-out on the government's lack of investment and neglect of manufacturing.

Sir John Bell, a regius professor of medicine at Oxford University and member of SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies), said that insufficient investment in the capacity to make vaccines has left Britain unprepared.

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He accused successive governments of failing to build onshore manufacturing capacity for medical products, with Oxford/AstraZeneca counting on outsourced companies to help create doses, such as Halix in the Netherlands, Cobra Biologics in Staffordshire and Oxford Biomedica.

After the vaccine is produced by those companies, it is transported to a plant based in Wrexham that is operated by an Indian company, Wockhardt, where it is either sent to another plant in Germany or transferred to vials.

England's chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty this week warned that vaccine availability issues will 'remain the case for several months' as firms struggle to keep up with global demand.

In a bid to ration supplies, the Government has pledged to give single doses of the Pfizer vaccine to as many people as they can - rather than give a second dose to those already vaccinated.

But manufacturers of both the Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZeneca jabs have rubbished concerns, saying there is no problem with supply.

Sir Richard Sykes, who led a review of the Government's Vaccines Taskforce in December, added that he is 'not aware' of a shortage in supply.

The comments come after a further 53,285 people tested positive in Britain on Friday - marking four days in a row with more than 50,000 positive tests announced.

And 613 more people have died with the virus - including an eight-year-old child - taking the total official death toll to 74,125.

The eight-year-old died in England on December 30 and had other health problems, the NHS said.

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At least one million Pfizer doses and some 530,000 Oxford doses will likely be given to patients across the country next week, The Daily Telegraph reports.

A member of the Oxford/AstraZeneca team has said that two million doses of the vaccine will be available per week in more than a fortnight, after AstraZeneca boss Pascal Soriot promised to deliver the mid-January target - meaning 24million could be immunised by Easter.

Vaccine firms have rejected the Government's warnings of jab supply gaps lasting months, claiming there will be enough doses to hit the Government's ambitions targets (file image)

Referring to governments over the past ten years, Sir Bell told The Times: 'The government has been completely disinterested in building onshore manufacturing capacity for any of the life-sciences products.'

On vaccine production, he added: 'When the pandemic started, we were not in great shape and I think we are probably paying the price for that.

'It's not AstraZeneca's fault - it's a national legacy issue, and it's one of the things we've got to fix.'

The scientist mentioned that Britain struggles to produce other medical commodities, including monoclonal antibodies, to an extensive scale.

An Oxford/AstraZeneca source also told the newspaper that two million doses per week should be available rather quickly, by the third week of January.

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Meanwhile, Health Secretary Matt Hancock tweeted this morning: 'Huge THANK YOU to everyone playing their part in the national effort to beat coronavirus.

'Over a million people have been vaccinated already. With the vaccine roll-out accelerating, the end is in sight & we will get through this together.'

The intervention by Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZeneca, the developers of the UK's only two approved Covid vaccines, came amid a row over ministers' decision to ration vaccine supplies.

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Officials have said patients who already had one dose of the vaccine should have their second one - which they were told they'd get three weeks later - postponed for up to 12 weeks.

In a statement published on Thursday night, the UK's chief medical officers said the decision had been made on a 'balance of risks and benefits'.

Margaret Keenan returned to hospital this week to receive her second round of the Covid-19 vaccine, but thousands of other patients are set to see their appointments delayed under a new scheme aimed at getting more people to receive their first dose

Chief medical officer Professor Chris Witty, who warned that vaccine availability issues will 'remain the case for several months', pictured speaking during a coronavirus media briefing

Matt Hancock tweeted this morning: 'Over a million people have been vaccinated already. With the vaccine roll-out accelerating, the end is in sight & we will get through this together'

The medical officers are Professor Whitty (England), Dr Frank Atherton (Wales), Dr Gregor Smith (Scotland) and Dr Michael McBride (Northern Ireland).

They said: 'We have to ensure that we maximise the number of eligible people who receive the vaccine.

'Currently the main barrier to this is vaccine availability, a global issue, and this will remain the case for several months and, importantly, through the critical winter period.

'The availability of the AZ vaccine [Oxford/AstraZeneca] reduces, but does not remove, this major problem. Vaccine shortage is a reality that cannot be wished away.'

PFIZER HITS BACK AT UK PLAN TO GIVE PEOPLE ONE DOSE NOT TWO Pfizer warned yesterday there is 'no data' to show a single dose of its coronavirus vaccine provides long-term protection after the UK scrapped its original jab rollout plan. The UK medical regulator is now recommending Covid jabs are given in two doses three months apart, rather than four weeks apart, to allow millions more people to be immunised over a shorter time period. The strategy will apply to both Pfizer/BioNTech's vaccine and the newly approved jab by Oxford/AstraZeneca, despite limited data around the effectiveness of the initial doses. It is a direct response to spiking Covid cases and hospitalisations across the UK that are being driven by a new, highly infectious strain that emerged in the South East of England in September. Virtually the whole of England is facing brutal lockdown until the spring, with Covid vaccines the only hope of ending the devastation. Health bosses now want to give as many people as possible an initial dose, rather than holding back the second doses, so more of the population can enjoy at least some protection. AstraZeneca praised the move and revealed it had tested the three-month strategy on a small sub-group of trialists in its studies. But Pfizer said there was 'no data' in its studies to show its vaccine protects against Covid when taken 12 weeks apart. In a thinly-veiled swipe at the UK, the US firm warned that any 'alternative' dosing regimens should be closely monitored by health authorities. 'Data from the phase three study demonstrated that, although partial protection from the vaccine appears to begin as early as 12 days after the first dose, two doses of the vaccine are required to provide the maximum protection against the disease, a vaccine efficacy of 95 per cent,' Pfizer said in a statement. 'There are no data to demonstrate that protection after the first dose is sustained after 21 days.'

And they said there is no reason to suggest the vaccines will be any less effective if doses are given further apart than intended.

The report added: 'With most vaccines an extended interval between the prime and booster dose leads to a better immune response to the booster dose.

'There is evidence that a longer interval between the first and second doses promotes a stronger immune response with the AstraZeneca vaccine.

'There is currently no strong evidence to expect that the immune response from the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine would differ substantially from the AstraZeneca and Moderna vaccines.'

But doctors have revolted and said they won't deny vulnerable patients the vaccines they promised them amid concerns the jabs won't work as well with just one dose.

GPs blasted the policy as 'grossly unfair' and frustrated scientists warned that clinical trials of the vaccine only tested how well it worked with a three-week gap, so there is no evidence the new regime would work long-term.

Sir Sykes, chairman of the Royal Institution and Imperial College Healthcare, also told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme this morning: 'I wasn't aware there was a shortage.

'I thought the difficulty was getting people vaccinated, and with the Pfizer vaccine that is quite difficult because of the conditions in which the vaccine has to be stored.

'But with the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine, that should be very, very straightforward.

'Going to pharmacists, going to care homes, going to GP surgeries, there should be no restriction on the distribution of that vaccine.'

He added: 'If the Government said that there's a shortage then that must be the fact. If there is a shortage, that's a problem.'

Experts backing the policy change, however, have hit back and said every second dose that gets given is one more person missing out on their first, potentially life-saving vaccine.

Former Department of Health vaccination chief Professor David Salisbury said: 'Every time we give a second dose right now, we are holding that back from someone who is likely, if they get coronavirus, to die.'

The Government has not yet laid out whether there will be sanctions for doctors who refuse to switch to the one-dose policy, with one doctor saying NHS bosses had told her to use 'clinical discretion'.

Margaret Keenan, the first person in the world to receive a Covid-19 vaccine, received her second jab earlier this week.

But thousands of others across Britain will see their second appointment delayed so the NHS can focus on delivering jabs to more people.

A total of 944,539 people across the UK had received the first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine by December 27, according to the Department of Health.

The Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association (HCSA) warned the 'ill thought-out' plan to delay the second dose would leave many vulnerable staff in limbo.

GPs working for Black Country and West Birmingham NHS boards, as well as a doctor in Oxford, said they would honour the commitments they had made to patients.

No10 has pinned its hopes on the Oxford vaccine - which was approved this week - finally putting an end to the perpetual cycle of locking down and opening up, which has devastated the economy and wider healthcare.

But life is unlikely to go back to normal by Easter even if 24million people are vaccinated because two-thirds of the population will still be vulnerable to the disease.

Scientists say herd immunity  when enough of a population becomes immune that the virus fizzles out  will only be achieved when 70 per cent of people are protected. Some experts in the US have warned the figure could be as high as 90 per cent.

Teaching union calls for ALL primary and secondary schools to stay closed because of Covid 'tsunami' - after primaries are shut across London in latest government U-turn

A teaching union has called for all schools across the country to be closed for the start of the new term after the government U-turned on its decision to keep some primaries in London open despite rising Covid cases.

The government bowed to protests, legal pressure and scientific advice on New Year's Day after it initially omitted a number of the capital's boroughs from the forced closures.

But Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, questioned why the same restrictions are not being rolled out across the rest of the country.

Gavin Williamson had this week released a list of London primary schools in coronavirus 'hotspots' that would stay shut for two weeks after the start of term next week.

The list did not include areas where Covid rates are high such as Haringey whose leaders said they would defy the government and support schools that decided to close.

All primary schools in London will now close for the start of the new term after the government U-turned on its decision to keep some open despite rising Covid cases

The government bowed to protests, legal pressure and scientific advice on New Year's Day after it initially omitted a number of boroughs from the forced closures

Many of the London boroughs which had been told to keep primary schools open are experiencing a surge in Covid cases

Under the Government's initial plan, schools in the City of London and Kingston were set to reopen but those in 22 other London boroughs would have remained closed.

The leaders of Camden, Islington, Greenwich, Haringey, Harrow, Hackney and Lewisham boroughs, and the City of London, said in a letter to Education Secretary Gavin Williamson: 'We ask in the strongest terms that your recommendation is urgently reviewed and our primary schools are added to the list of those advised to move learning online.'

The action prompted an emergency Cabinet Office meeting today where they decided to abandon the original plans and order the remaining area to close their primary schools.

The move is expected to see similar arrangements to the spring lockdown when schools continued to accept children from key worker families but moved to online learning for the vast majority of pupils.

But a teaching union has slammed the decision not to apply the same measures to schools across the country, due to the Covid 'tsunami' rocking the country.

Labour's London Mayor Sadiq Khan and party colleagues running the city's councils had been pushing for all schools in London to shut

Sadiq Khan responded to the news, saying: 'This is the right decision - and I want to thank education minister Nick Gibb for our constructive conversations over the past two days.'

Mr Khan previously branded it 'nonsensical' for some primary school pupils to be told to return next week and wrote to the Prime Minister about his anger that local leaders had not been consulted.

Mr Williamson said: 'Children's education and wellbeing remains a national priority. Moving further parts of London to remote education really is a last resort and a temporary solution.

'As infection rates rise across the country, and particularly in London, we must make this move to protect our country and the NHS. We will continue keep the list of local authorities under review, and reopen classrooms as soon as we possibly can.'

The Tier 4 areas initially excluded from the closures but now added are Camden, City of London, Greenwich, Hackney, Haringey, Harrow, Islington, Kingston upon Thames, Lambeth and Lewisham.

According to Covid rates compiled by the PA news agency, Greenwich had 2,176 new cases recorded in the seven days to December 26 compared to list-featuring Kensington and Chelsea's 768 new cases in the same period.

On December 15, Greenwich was forced to withdraw advice asking schools to switch to online learning amid rising coronavirus rates following threats of legal action by the Education Secretary.

Labour's shadow education secretary Kate Green said the last-minute nature of the London schools decision had caused 'huge stress' for pupils, families and staff, with only a matter of days to go before the new term was due to commence.

But health secretary Matt Hancock said: 'Over the past week we have seen infections and hospitalisations rise sharply across London and hospitals are coming under increased pressure.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the government has to 'strike a balance' between education and infection rates

'While our priority is to keep as many children as possible in school, we have to strike a balance between education and infection rates and pressures on the NHS.

'The situation in London continues to worsen and so today we are taking action to protect the public and reduce the spread of this disease in the community.

'Everyone across London must take this situation incredibly seriously and act responsibly to minimise the spread of this deadly disease.'

The previous decision had left many baffled, with schools ordered to remain open just yards away from other schools forced to close.

Two schools in Islington, North London, had been given different advice about whether they could open or close despite being just 700 yards apart.

Councillor Richard Watts, leader of Islington Council, slammed the government for their last-minute decision.

He said: 'It's unacceptable that the Government has waited until Friday night on New Year's Day, with just a weekend before pupils were due to go back, to make a decision that should have been made weeks ago, as the public health situation became clear.

'The Government has taken the right decision only after previously threatening schools with legal action if they did not reopen in January, after Islington and other councils advised last month that this had to be done, following public health advice.

'The Government has left schools and parents with very little time to prepare and make arrangements.'

Schools are already converting sports halls and setting up marquees in playgrounds to prepare for the mass testing programme which will be manned by alumni volunteers.

All secondary schools have been asked to carry out tests for five million people from next week.

Pupils will take the tests themselves but former pupils will be on hand to help the operation.

Dr Patrick Roach, NASUWT union general secretary, agreed, saying: 'Yet again, parents, pupils and staff are having to deal with the consequences of yet more last-minute chaotic announcements from the Government.

'The Government has bowed to political pressure and has once again shown its disregard for the scientific advice which increasingly suggests that the delayed reopening of schools across all areas of the country is essential in breaking the chain of coronavirus transmission.'

The Tier 4 areas initially excluded from the closures but now added are Camden, City of London, Greenwich, Hackney, Haringey, Harrow, Islington, Kingston upon Thames, Lambeth and Lewisham

Scientific advisers had warned that more school closures are necessary to control rising infections.

The Government's Sage committee said it was 'highly unlikely' the pandemic could be managed effectively if schools were free to open next week.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: 'Just at the moment when we need some decisive leadership, the government is at sixes and sevens.

'The Government cannot expect to command public confidence with such a confusing and last-minute approach.'

Meanwhile Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: 'It is welcome that, albeit in their usual last-minute fashion, ministers have corrected an obviously nonsensical position - one that it could not justify by evidence or sense.

'But the question has to be asked: why are education ministers so inadequate and inept? Who is advising them?

'And what is right for London is right for the rest of the country. With the highest level of Covid-19 infection, and hospitals buckling under the tsunami of very ill patients, it is time for ministers to do their duty - to protect the NHS by following Sage advice and close all primary and secondary schools to reduce the R rate below 1.

'It is time for the Government to protect its citizens, and in particular its children, by shutting all primary schools for two weeks in order for the situation to be properly assessed, schools made much safer and children and their families protected.'

A businessman whose daughter attends a primary school in a Covid hotspot had blasted the 'absurd' decision to keep it open before the latest U-turn.

Stephen Cook was left baffled by the decision as his London council told head teachers to defy ministers and remain closed over the coming weeks.

Mr Cook, 55, who runs a building firm told MailOnline: 'It's all very confusing and totally absurd. But then you could say that we live in very confusing and absurd times.

'None of it makes any sense because there are kids that come from the London Borough of Barnet to my daughter's school and she also has friends from there. Haringey's infection rate is higher than Barnet's so why are not all schools in the area closing?;

Mr Cook lives with his family on Coppetts Road, a busy thoroughfare which divides the London Borough of Haringey on one side and Barnet on the other.

He said: 'Kids who live in the borough of Barnet attend Coldfall and Haringey kids go to Coppetts Wood. And when they are out and about in local parks, they are constantly mixing and playing.

Stephen Cook and daughter Holly were left baffled by the initial decision as his London council told head teachers to defy ministers and stay closed

'We are in an incredibly difficult situation and I'm glad that I'm not in charge, but we need greater clarity because a lot of people don't understand what's going on.

'I live in a Covid hotspot but if I cross the road, I'm in the London Borough of Barnet so why is there not more consistency?'

According to the Government's latest figures, in the week leading up to December 25, Haringey registered 2,120 cases of coronavirus with infections running at 789.14 per 100,000.

For the same period, Barnet registered 2,751 with infections running at 694.13 per 100,000.

Haringey councillor Joseph Ejiofor wrote to head teachers outlining the fact the area's Covid case rate is higher than the London average and that officials weren't consulted before the decision was made.

He wrote: 'We are part of the same integrated care system as two boroughs where primaries have been told to stay closed (Barnet and Enfield) and the North Middlesex, a hospital under significant pressure, serves the populations of both Haringey and Enfield.

'We believe that all primary schools in Haringey should therefore open only to the children of key workers and vulnerable children next week and we will support all our schools in this approach.'

Jenny Batt, Lib Dem councillor for Worcester Park in Sutton, south-west London, said local people were 'confused and worried' about what was going on and did not understand how officials were reaching their decisions.

Medics are pictured collecting a patient from an ambulance at the Royal London Hospital this morning, January 1

'They don't understand what the criteria is,' she told BBC London. 'I've got residents who live in Sutton whose children go to a Kingston school and are told that it is safe.

'And then they've got their neighbours' children who can't go to school because theirs isn't safe.'

Secondaries also face an anxious wait to find out whether they will be able to reopen fully on the new target date of January 18.

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The Department for Education is racing to put a mass testing system in place, but has warned the curbs could need to be even wider than for primaries as older children are more likely to spread the disease. The situation is not expected to become clear until the next review date of January 13.
Home > 2021 > Governorship Is Boring - Power Matters | TJS George

IMPRESSIONS

Arif Mohammed Khan must be the most frustrated politician in India today. He has been made governor when his own conviction is that he can serve the country best by being a power-wielding minister. He is taking out his frustration on the elected government in Kerala, the state he is governing. He seems convinced that he as governor has a political role to play as much as the ministers of the state. Result: An ugly situation that has been saved from becoming a public scandal only by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayans diplomatic handling of it.

The state government wanted to call a special session of the legislature to express support to the ongoing farmers agitation. The discipline of the farmers, not to mention their determination, has won universal admiration. But the Modi Government sees them as enemies which means that those who are loyal to the government must criticise them. Arif Khan seems to be on the side of the critics. He refused permission for the

legislature to convene.

This is what happens when a man becomes over-enthusiastic about proving his loyalties. The Governors loyalty must be to the Constitution and only to the Constitution. The constitution also defines his powers. As per convention, he has no authority to ask why the legislature has to be called into session. That is a political right vested in the political leadership. In this case the opposition had also joined the ruling coalition in support of a special session. The Governors interference in such a situation is plain politics. Governor Khans keenness to please the BJP Government in Delhi is a bit too obvious.

Perhaps he should learn a thing or two from the Chief Ministers expert handling of the spat. Asked if the Governor was playing politics, he smartly avoided an answer. He then went on to say that he had no problem with the Governor exercising the powers given to him. This was his way of saying that the Governor had no business exercising powers not vested in him. Calling a session of the legislature is a political matter and if the cabinet takes the decision to do so, the Governors role is to accept it. What must be discussed in the house is for the legislature to decide, not for the Governor.

It cannot be that an experienced politician like Arif Khan was unaware of these facts. It is more likely that it was his awareness of the rights and wrongs of legislative procedures that made him choose the wrong interpretation in order to serve a calculated political purpose. People are not likely to accept the idea that an unelected office-holder such as a Governor can interfere with the proceedings of an elected legislature. Arif Khan takes that position because he has chosen to please Delhi rather than carry out his limited constitutional obligations.

If he were a wise man, Khan will learn from the way the consummate politician that is Pinarayi Vijayan handled the matter. With a smile he said the proper procedure was for the Governor to accept what the cabinet recommended. He sent two senior cabinet ministers to discuss the matter with the Governor. Subsequent reports suggested that the Governor softened his position. If he did, it could not have been just because of the Christmas cake the ministers had taken with them.

In most states the Governor is but a decorative part of the parliamentary system. As a resident of Karnataka, I cannot offhand remember who is the Governor of the state. This is in spite of the fact that this Governor, Vajubhai Vala, once invited the BJP to form the Government in preference to the largest alliance of parties. He failed of course. Who for that matter is the Governor of Tamil Nadu? We have to look into the records to find out. (What a pity that hardened party apparatchiks are appointed governors these days.)

As to who is the Governor of Kerala, even people in UP and Assam must be aware. He is in the news with his self-serving ambitions. See how he enjoys every opportunity to talk to a media crowd, explaining how he is the embodiment of wisdom unlike the run-of-the-mill politicians. The Centre must help this man get out his frustrations. Give him a political post and all will be well. (So we hope.)
Iraq's military on January 2 said explosives experts with its naval forces successfully dismantled a mine that was discovered stuck to an oil tanker in the Persian Gulf.

The statement said Iraqi authorities have opened an investigation into the incident. No group has claimed responsibility for placing the mine.

The announcement came a day after Iraq confirmed reports by private security firms that a mine had been discovered attached to the side of a tanker rented from Iraq's Oil Marketing Company, known as SOMO, as it was refueling another vessel. It said that Iraqi teams were working to dismantle the mine.

Iraq has not provided further details, but the two private security firms said the discovery was likely a limpet mine on the MT Pola, a Liberian-flagged tanker.

A limpet mine is a type of naval mine that attaches to the side of a ship, usually by a diver-member of special forces. It later explodes, and can significantly damage a vessel.

The discovery came amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S. in the final days of President Donald Trumps administration.

Already, America has conducted B-52 bomber flyovers and sent a nuclear submarine into the Persian Gulf over what Trump officials describe as the possibility of an Iranian attack on the one-year anniversary of the U.S. drones strike near Baghdad that killed a top Iranian general and a top Iraqi militia leader.

Iraq is marking the anniversary with a series of events this week, including a ceremony at Baghdad's airport Saturday night, where the drone strike that killed the two men occurred a year ago.
Got your passport? Check. Got your boarding pass? Check. Got your proof of a negative COVID-19 test?...

Got your passport? Check. Got your boarding pass? Check. Got your proof of a negative COVID-19 test?...

The federal government announced this week anyone booked on a flight to Canada  starting Jan. 7  will need all three before boarding. Key to the new requirements is travellers aged five and up must provide a negative PCR test result performed within 72 hours of flight departure time.

"Our government remains committed to protecting the health and safety of Canadians," Marc Garneau, minister of transport, said Thursday in a news release. "These new measures will provide another layer of protection for Canadians as we continue to assess public health risks and work to limit the spread of COVID-19 in Canada."

Airports will also still enforce existing health requirements, including health check questions, temperature screening and passenger use of a face mask on flights.

"We want to take all the measures to make sure people are safe while they are travelling," Tyler MacAfee, vice-president of communications and government relations at the Winnipeg Airports Authority, said Friday.

"We obviously want to get people moving again in this country. I think thats an important part of both our economic and social recovery, but we need to be able to do that safely  and thats where testing comes into play."

The government will also require potential international arrivals to use the ArriveCAN app or website to provide contact information and their mandatory 14-day quarantine plan before entering the country. The passenger plan will be reviewed by a government official and if not suitable, they will be required to quarantine at a federal facility.

People travelling from a country where PCR testing is deemed unavailable will also be required to spend a 14-day quarantine in a federal facility.

Ottawa encourages people abroad to get tested as soon as possible to avoid any delay in their return to Canada, and to get travel insurance that covers COVID-19-related medical expenses to cover the cost of testing abroad.

MacAfee said other countries have made negative-COVID test results mandatory for entry, as well. He added some have also relaxed quarantine requirements and length, something Canada hasnt done yet.

Canada is 10 months into dealing with the pandemic, a vaccine has been developed, yet the same restrictions and policies are in place that were put into place in March, said MacAfee.

"The industry itself has identified there is about a one-in-27-million chance of contracting COVID in an airplane right now," he said.

"The act of travel itself is as safe as it can be at this point. There is no zero risk, but we can certainly take steps to mitigate the small risk."

Canadians who have received the COVID-19 vaccine will still have to provide a negative test result, Ottawa said. The vaccine protects the individual from illness, but further evidence is required to know if a vaccinated person can still carry and spread the novel coronavirus.

kellen.taniguchi@freepress.mb.ca
Charities in Ireland and across the globe have suffered financially as most of their fundraising plans have been halted due to COVID-19.

2020 has been an incredibly difficult year for many local charities, who are also facing a greater demand for their services, at the same time as dealing with a shortfall in funds.

So in order to help out, the team at VIDA Living donated 2,500 to Women's Aid Dundalk, just in time for Christmas.

Staff at VIDA Living also put together a 'Giving Tree' to support the work of Women's Aid. The 'Giving Tree' facilitated the donation of items such as clothing, bedding and toiletries identified by Women's Aid as needed or in short supply, for use throughout the year by Women's Aid Dundalk in its work with women and children impacted by domestic abuse and coercive control.

A spokesperson for Women's Aid Dundalk said: 'It is always encouraging to see the local community and businesses come forward to help with donations and support that will be needed in the course of the year.'

'Women's Aid Dundalk would also like to thank VIDA Living for its very generous corporate gift of 2,500.00 this year as well.'

Due to the current pandemic, Women's Aid Dundalk has had to reconfigure its refuge accommodation to ensure that staff and residents could comply with the guidelines regarding social distancing; this work has meant additional costs, for example, fitting out two self-contained units. So, this very timely donation will help to alleviate these costs.

The Women's Aid Dundalk's 24-hour helpline is available to anyone who needs help, contact them on 042 9333244

The Argus
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India's Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) expert panel on Saturday recommended granting approval for restricted emergency use of Bharat Biotech's indigenous COVID vaccine Covaxin in India, said officials.

The Indian drug regulator DCGI's Subject Expert Committee (SEC) today reviewed the application for emergency use authorisation of Covaxin, which is jointly developed by Hyderabad-based vaccine manufacturer Bharat Biotech and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

The committee on Saturday again deliberated on the emergency use authorisation (EUA) application of the Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical firm after it submitted additional data, facts and analysis subsequent to Friday's review meeting, PTI reported citing sources.

This is the second Covid-19 vaccine which has been recommended for emergency use approval to DCGI after Serum Institute of India's locally produced Oxford Covid-19 vaccine 'Covishield'.

The government said the final decision on the two vaccines would be made by the chief of the Central Drugs Standards Control Organisation (CDSCO).

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare's statement:

"The Subject Expert Committee of CDSCO met on 1st and 2nd January, 2021 and made the following recommendations for the consideration and final decision of the Drugs Controller General of India:

1) Grant of permission for restricted emergency use of vaccine, subject to multiple regulatory conditionalities, to M/s Serum Institute of India, Pune.

2) Grant of permission for restricted use in emergency situation in public interest as an abundant precaution, in clinical trial mode, specially in the context of infection by mutant strains, to M/s Bharat Biotech International Ltd., Hyderabad."

According to a PTI report, the SEC had on Friday recommended 'interim efficacy analysis for Covaxin'.

While considering Bharat Biotech's application, the SEC had noted that the" ongoing clinical trial is a large one with 25,800 subjects of which 22,000 have been enrolled, including subjects with comorbid conditions, which has demonstrated safety till date but efficacy is yet to be demonstrated," PTI reported.

On Friday, the expert panel recommended granting emergency use authorization to Serum Institute of Indias (SIIs) Covishield, according to Mint report, while the government prepared to roll out the shots as early as next week.

SEC gave its recommendations to Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) V.G. Somani for emergency licence for Covishield subject to certain conditions, the persons said, requesting anonymity. A formal clearance from the DCGI is likely to follow soon.

However, Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar confirmed the new reports and told reporters on Saturday the vaccine had been given the green light on Friday.

Javadekar said at least three more vaccines were waiting to be approved - local company Bharat Biotch's COVAXIN, Zydus Cadila's ZyCoV-D and Russia's Sputnik-V.

"India is perhaps the only country where at least four vaccines are getting ready," he said.

"One was approved yesterday for emergency use, Serum's COVISHIELD." he said, referring to the fact that the AstraZeneca/Oxford shot is being made locally by the Serum Institute of India (SII).

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan also stressed that there would be no compromise on any protocol while approving the vaccine. Vardhan appealed to people on Saturday not to be misguided by "rumours" regarding the safety and efficacy of the coronavirus vaccine, and said the most prioritised beneficiaries would be vaccinated for free.

The minister, who visited two mock vaccination sites in Delhi to review the drill, said free vaccines would be provided in the first phase of the inoculation drive to the most prioritised beneficiaries, including one crore healthcare and two crore frontline workers.

SII had applied to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) for EUA for Oxford COVID-19 vaccine on December 6, while the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech had sought the nod for its indigenously developed Covaxin on December 7.

With input from PTI

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The Week

After publicly expressing "grave concerns" over Arizona's audit of the 2020 election results, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) was "stripped" of her ability to "defend election lawsuits" by the state's Republican-led House Appropriations Committee, reported Arizona's ABC 15 on Tuesday. The duty was transferred "exclusively" to Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) through the end of the 2023 fiscal year. Democrats say the move is retaliation against Hobbs' defense of Arizona voters in "lawsuits filed by the State Republican Party and others challenging Arizona's election results," per ABC 15. "It can't be just a coincidence" that Republicans are blocking a "vocal critic of the audit," writes Elvia Diaz for azcentral.com. Democratic State Rep. Randy Friese reportedly called the move "troubling," "disturbing," and "quite nefarious." Furthermore, the Appropriations Committee removed Hobb's "oversight of the Capitol Museum," ABC 15 reports, after Hobbs angered state lawmakers when she "flew a gay pride flag from the building's balcony" in 2019. Katie Hobbs has conscientiously supervised elections in Arizona. Republicans there just stripped her of some powers -- including her ability to litigate election lawsuits. They gave control of that process to the state AG, a Republican. This is how democracy gets dismantled. https://t.co/VamVgXfxgR  Tim O'Brien (@TimOBrien) May 25, 2021 In an article for azfamily.com, Hobbs labeled the entire audit "a political stunt," adding that it is "dangerous to people's safety and to the integrity of our democracy." She later tweeted a photo on Tuesday of a fruit basket sent by Stacey Abrams and Fair Fight, saying that's how "you know you're doing it right." When @staceyabrams, @gwlauren, and their crew at @fairfightaction send you a fruit basket, you know you're doing it right. pic.twitter.com/yQ11UdmXso  Katie Hobbs (@katiehobbs) May 25, 2021 Read more at azfamily.com. More stories from theweek.comBiden says he underestimated Trump's ability to spread 'the big lie'Biden needs some braggadocioReport: D.A. convenes grand jury expected to hear Trump investigation evidence
The majority of Canadians agree that temporary immigrants are essential to the agricultural sector.

Most Canadians support permanent immigration pathways for temporary foreign workers The majority of Canadians agree that temporary immigrants are essential to the agricultural sector.

Most Canadians support permanent immigration pathways for temporary foreign workers The majority of Canadians agree that temporary immigrants are essential to the agricultural sector.

Most Canadians support permanent immigration pathways for temporary foreign workers The majority of Canadians agree that temporary immigrants are essential to the agricultural sector. Shelby Thevenot Aa Accessibility Font Style Serif

Sans Font Size A

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The majority of Canadians want to see temporary workers in the agricultural sector become permanent residents, according to a new survey.

Nanos Research, a market and public opinion research firm held a random survey of 1,039 Canadians over the age of 18 between October 28 and November 1, this year.

Results show more than eight in 10 Canadians would support a permanent immigration program for temporary foreign workers to remain in Canada. Support is strongest among Atlantic Provinces, and weakest in the Prairie Provinces.

The majority of Canadians agree that temporary foreign workers are essential to Canadas agricultural sector, and they should be entitled to the same benefits and protections as any other worker. British Columbians were most likely to share these views.

Get help with your Canadian work permit

More than eight in 10 Canadians also say that federal programs like the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, and Seasonal Agricultural Worker program have a positive impact on agriculture in Canada.

About 97 per cent of participants agreed that the agriculture sector is an important contributor to Canadas economy.

Participants were randomly recruited by telephone using live agents and administered a survey online. The margin of error for this survey is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The research was commissioned by Senator Ratna Omidvar and Senator Robert Black.

Immigration minister hints towards more pathways for temporary residents

Canadas minister of immigration, Marco Mendicino, has mentioned to the media the federal government is looking into ways to offer temporary residents more pathways to permanent residence.

What these pathways may be is not yet known, Mendicino has suggested that they will be focused on workers who are contributing to essential parts of the economy. Especially those working in occupations such as doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and support workers, where there are dire needs in the labour force.

Coronavirus safety measures, such as travel restrictions, have reduced immigration to Canada. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canadas strategy for immigration intake during the pandemic has been to prioritize applicants who are already in Canada. As such, the federal government is increasing immigration targets to over 401,000 new permanent residents next year, and up to 1.2 million over the next three years.

Canada already has a pathway to permanent residence for some agriculture workers through the Agri-Food Immigration Pilot. This pilot program is for people who are working in meat processing, mushroom and greenhouse production, as well as livestock-raising industries. Applications are open until May 14, 2023.

Get help with your Canadian work permit

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Britons defied Covid rules to party at a 2,500-strong underground rave in France where revellers attacked police trying to shut it down.

The partygoers had set up the illegal rave in Lieuron, Brittany, on New Year's Eve after skirmishes with officers, said a statement from the local prefecture.

Many people were still on the site Friday as a sanitary cordon was thrown up around it.

Local gendarmes tried to 'prevent this event but faced fierce hostility from many partygoers' who set one of their cars of fire and threw bottles and stones.

The partygoers had set up the illegal rave in Lieuron, Brittany, on New Year's Eve after skirmishes with officers, said a statement from the local prefecture

Many people were still on the site Friday as a sanitary cordon was thrown up around it

Local gendarmes tried to 'prevent this event but faced fierce hostility from many partygoers' who set one of their cars of fire and threw bottles and stones

Those present had come from across France and even abroad, it said. Pictured: The party on New Year's Eve

By Friday night, the sound of techno music could still be heard from the party venue, though police were preventing any newcomers from joining the rave

Those present had come from across France and even abroad, it said.

By Friday night, the sound of techno music could still be heard from the party venue, though police were preventing any newcomers from joining the rave.

Police said: 'Police controls are taking place around the site. Verbal warnings are being given to everyone leaving.'

Speaking later on BFM TV, interior ministry spokesman Camille Chaize said there had been 'great hostility, great violence' against the forces of law and order, without indicating when the police would be able enter the rave site.

Such mass gatherings are banned across France to prevent the spread of Covid-19, and a nationwide 8pm curfew applies across the country.

Police said: 'Police controls are taking place around the site. Verbal warnings are being given to everyone leaving'

Speaking later on BFM TV, interior ministry spokesman Camille Chaize said there had been 'great hostility, great violence' against the forces of law and order, without indicating when the police would be able enter the rave site

Such mass gatherings are banned across France to prevent the spread of Covid-19, and a nationwide 8pm curfew applies across the country

Reports said the rave party took place in an empty warehouse belonging to a storage company

Prosecutors have opened an investigation into the illegal organisation of a musical gathering and premeditated violence against persons in authority

Reports said the rave party took place in an empty warehouse belonging to a storage company.

Prosecutors have opened an investigation into the illegal organisation of a musical gathering and premeditated violence against persons in authority.

Vehicles registered from all over France were still parked at the site Friday.

Partygoers said the revellers had included people from foreign countries, including Spain and Britain.

Jo from the Alsace region of eastern France said they had all met at a designated spot Thursday evening in the parking lot of a shopping centre.

More than 150 people were warned, and the three suspected organisers have been arrested

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said 132,000 police were deployed across France for the New Year celebrations to ensure security and that the curfew was respected. Pictured: The Lieuron party

Partygoers said the revellers had included people from foreign countries, including Spain and Britain

Jo from the Alsace region of eastern France said they had all met at a designated spot Thursday evening in the parking lot of a shopping centre. Pictured: People leaving the party

Then the convoy headed for Lieuron, where the police tried to prevent them from passing, he said

Then the convoy headed for Lieuron, where the police tried to prevent them from passing, he said.

He acknowledged 'very few had respected social distancing' at the event, which was supposed only to end later on Saturday.

French authorities have been worried about mass rave parties throughout the pandemic, but New Year's night was a particular concern.

In the southern city of Marseille, security forces halted an illegal party grouping some 300 people, police said.

More than 150 people were warned, and the three suspected organisers have been arrested.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said 132,000 police were deployed across France for the New Year celebrations to ensure security and that the curfew was respected.

Darmanin said on Twitter on Friday he was working with local officials in the evening 'on re-establishing a normal situation' while keeping people safe.
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WILIMINGTON, DE  A Delaware man alleged to be a ringleader in a would-be coup to abduct Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is seeking to be released from incarceration as his case is pending.

Barry G. Croft Jr. and 12 Michigan men were arrested and charged in October in a domestic terrorist plot.

Croft has not been able to appear in court in Michigan because of delays in prisoner transfers out of the Philadelphia federal prison where he is jailed. Writing in court documents, federal officials said prisoner transfers were temporarily postponed and prison officials are currently working through a backlog of transfers.

Michigan defense attorney Joshua Blanchard, representing Croft, has filed a motion with the court seeking to have Croft released from custody pending future hearings or the scheduling pretrial hearings in Michigan within seven days, according to The Delaware News Journal. He has argued the unreasonable delay in transferring Croft is frustrating the ability to build a defense and that federal rules mandate the transfer of inmates should be timely.

The point is to arrange for Mr. Croft to be brought to Michigan, Blanchard said, according to The News Journal. He is willing to do that voluntarily or the government can bring it back, but they cant indefinitely detain him in Pennsylvania.

Federal attorneys who brought the charges said releasing Croft would be unreasonable and that arguments invoking rules meant to ensure defendants receive a prompt trial are premature.

In court filings, federal prosecutors describe Croft as a violent extremist and assert releasing him would be unreasonable. Prosecutors further argued Croft was the prime mover behind the defendants testing and construction of explosives.

Prosecutors further referenced a prior failed attempt by Kaleb J. Franks, one of Crofts codefendants, to be released awaiting trial. They said evidence shows Franks is less culpable in the alleged crime than Croft, so it is implausible that Croft would be released on bond had he been transferred to Michigan already, The News Journal reports.

A date has not been set for a judge to rule on Crofts motion.

(Top row, from left) Michael Null, 38, of Plainwell, Adam Dean Fox, 37 of Grand Rapids, Joseph Morrison, 26, Kaleb J. Franks, 26, Pete Musico, 42 and Brandon Caserta, 32. (Bottom row, from left) William Null, 38, of Shelbyville, Eric Molitor, 36, of Cadillac, Ty G. Garbin, 24, Shawn Fix, 38, of Belleville, Daniel J. Harris, 23, Brian Higgins, 51, of Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin and Barry Croft of Delaware. Not picture is Paul Bellar, 21. This is a composite of 13 of the 14 individuals charged with plotting to kidnap Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, authorities said Thursday, Oct. 8, 2020, in announcing charges in an alleged scheme that involved months of planning and even rehearsals to snatch Whitmer from her vacation home.

Charged alongside Croft on the federal level are Michigan men Adam D. Fox, Ty G. Garbin, Kaleb J. Franks, Daniel J. Harris and Brandon M. Caserta. The men are alleged to have conspired in the plot between the dates of June 6 and Oct. 7.

Croft, according to the indictment, traveled from Delaware to Wisconsin and Michigan to train with the alleged conspirators, practice building and detonating improvised explosive devices and conduct surveillance of the governors vacation home.

Fox and Croft met in Dublin, Ohio, on or about June 6 to discuss antigovernmental actions, including the kidnapping of state governors and began recruiting like-minded individuals to their cause, the indictment states.

On June 18, Fox then met up with Garbin, a leader of the Michigan-based militia group called the Wolverine Watchmen, at a rally outside the State Capitol in Lansing. He then invited Garbin and other Wolverine Watchmen members to meet him in Grand Rapids for recruiting purposes, the indictment states.

Fox, Garbin, and others then began working together and Croft met them in Wisconsin in July to attend a field training exercise where the group practiced combat tactics, including assaulting motor vehicles using semiautomatic assault rifles and live ammunition.

They also attempted to detonate two improvised explosive devices during the training, according to the indictment.

A month later, on Aug. 9 at a live-fire training exercise in Munith, Fox is alleged to have proposed the kidnapping of Whitmer to Gerard, Franks, and Harris.

Two weeks later, the four, along with Caserta met in Lake Orion and examined each others documents in an attempt to verify that no members of the group were undercover law enforcement agents or informants. Harris then established a new encrypted messaging group for the five he said would enable them to instantly delete their messages in case of federal law enforcement contact.

On Aug. 29, Fox conducted a daytime surveillance of Whitmers vacation home in which he noted approximate distances from the home to police first responders.

The following day, Garbin is alleged to have suggested taking down a highway bridge near Whitmers vacation home that would hinder response times. He also offered to paint his boat black for a future nighttime surveillance trip, the indictment states.

Croft joined the men for another field-training exercise in September at Garbins property near Luther where the men allegedly practiced assaulting a building in teams, and discussed tactics for fighting Whitmers security detail with improvised explosive devices, a projectile launcher, and other weapons.

That same weekend, on the night of Sept. 12, four of the men conducted a nighttime surveillance of Whitmers vacation home and a nearby public boat ramp, using two-way radios and a night-vision scope.

They also investigated the underside of the bridge for a place to mount an explosive charge, according to the indictment. After Croft detonated an explosive at a training exercise, on Sept. 13, Fox then ordered $4,000 worth of explosives from an undercover FBI agent posing as a co-conspirator.

Fox, a couple weeks later, purchased a Taser-type high voltage stunning device, the indictment states.

On Oct. 7, Caserta instructed his co-conspirators in an encrypted video message that if they encountered police during a reconnaissance, they should give the officers one opportunity to leave, and kill them if they did not comply.

The same day, Fox, Garbin, Franks, and Harris drove to Ypsilanti to meet the undercover FBI agent posing as a co-conspirator, and use the group cash for a good-faith payment towards explosives and other supplies.

The four were among 13 men arrested and charged, Oct. 7, in the domestic terrorist plot. In addition to the six men facing federal kidnapping charges, Michigan residents Paul E. Bellar, Shawn M. Fix, Eric J. Molitor, Michael J. Null, William G. Null Jr., and roommates Pete Musico, and Joseph M. Morrison are charged on the state level under Michigans anti-terrorism laws. A Wisconsin man, Brian P. Higgins, has also been charged on the state level.

Read more:

6 suspects in alleged plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer indicted by federal grand jury

Suspect in plot to kidnap Michigan governor fights extradition from Wisconsin

The ties that bind the men behind the plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer

Grand Rapids man, alleged leader of plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer, had to be insane, boss says

Suspect in plot to kidnap Michigan governor fights extradition from Wisconsin

Big talk between crackpots: Attorney doubts Gov. Gretchen Whitmer would have been abducted - mlive.com

Plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer prompts renewed calls to ban guns in Michigan Capitol building

Northern Michigan town grapples with plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer from local vacation home

What we know about the militia members charged in kidnapping plot against Michigan governor
In their statement, the Republicans cited poll results showing most members of their party believe the election was rigged, an assertion that Mr. Trump has made for months, and which has been repeated in the right-wing news media and by many Republican members of Congress.

A fair and credible audit  conducted expeditiously and completed well before Jan. 20  would dramatically improve Americans faith in our electoral process and would significantly enhance the legitimacy of whoever becomes our next president, they wrote. We are acting not to thwart the democratic process, but rather to protect it.

They also acknowledged that their effort was likely to be unsuccessful, given that any such challenge must be sustained by both the House, where Democrats hold the majority, and the Senate, where top Republicans including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, have tried to shut it down.

We fully expect most if not all Democrats, and perhaps more than a few Republicans, to vote otherwise, the senators wrote.

Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the top Democrat on the Rules Committee with jurisdiction over federal elections, called the Republican effort a publicity stunt that would ultimately fail, but said it was dangerous nevertheless, amounting to an attempt to subvert the will of the voters. She noted in an interview that hundreds of millions of votes had already been counted, recounted, litigated and state-certified across the country.

These baseless claims have already been examined and dismissed by Trumps own attorney general, dozens of courts and election officials from both parties, said Mike Gwin, a spokesman for Mr. Bidens campaign.

While lawmakers have sought to register their opposition to past presidential election results by challenging Congresss certification, the move has generally been more symbolic than substantive, given that the loser had already conceded and senators rarely joined with members of the House to force a vote. But as Mr. Trump continues to perpetuate the myth of widespread voter fraud, a growing number of Republicans in Congress have been eager to challenge the results, either out of devotion to the president or out of fear of enraging the base of their party that still reveres him even in defeat.
Srinagar: The COVID-19 vaccination drive hasn't begun yet but the politics around it has already started. Hours after the Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav said that he won't get vaccinated as he can't trust the BJP's vaccine, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah made a statement that he will happily roll up his sleeve to get a coronavirus vaccine.

"I don't know about anyone else but when my turn comes I'll happily roll up my sleeve & get a COVID vaccine. This damn virus has been far too disruptive & if a vaccine helps bring about a semblance of normalcy after all the chaos then sign me up," tweeted Omar Abdullah.

He added, "The more people that get vaccinated the better it will be for the country & the economy."

Making further comments, the National Conference vice president stated, "No vaccine belongs to any political party, they belong to humanity & the sooner we get vulnerable people vaccinated the better."

The more people that get vaccinated the better it will be for the country & the economy. No vaccine belongs to any political party, they belong to humanity & the sooner we get vulnerable people vaccinated the better.  Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) January 2, 2021

Earlier in the day, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had said, "I am not going to get vaccinated for now. How can I trust BJP's vaccine, when our government will be formed everyone will get free vaccine. We cannot take BJP's vaccine."

The comments come on a day when the COVID-19 vaccination dry run was conducted by all the States and UT governments, with the objective to gear up for the roll-out of coronavirus vaccine across the country.

Notably, a dry run is essentially a practice session where a sample number of beneficiaries will go through a mock immunisation process.

Apart from the staff of the designated COVID-19 vaccination centres, the dry run will see the participation of a select group of health care workers as test vaccine beneficiaries. Each centre will identify 25 test beneficiaries for the dry run.

According to the Union Health Ministry, the objective of the dry run for COVID-19 vaccine introduction is to 'assess operational feasibility in the use of COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network (Co-WIN) application in a field environment, to test the linkages between planning and implementation and to identify the challenges and guide the way forward prior to actual implementation'.

The Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan also said on Saturday that in the first phase of COVID-19 free vaccine shall be provided across the nation to most prioritised beneficiaries.

In 1st phase of #COVID19Vaccination free #vaccine shall be provided across the nation to most prioritised beneficiaries that incl 1 crore healthcare & 2 crore frontline workers

Details of how further 27 cr priority beneficiaries are to be vaccinated until July are being finalised pic.twitter.com/K7NrzGrgk3  Dr Harsh Vardhan (@drharshvardhan) January 2, 2021

Meanwhile, India's active coronavirus cases have increased to 2,50,183, whereas, close to 1.5 lakh people have succumbed to the virus. Almost 1 crore people have recovered from the virus that was first reported in India in January 2020.



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A major avenue for global money laundering and tax evasion has been closed off by a new law requiring disclosure of owners of US shell companies used to hide billions of dollars.

The Corporate Transparency Act was included in the US defense appropriations bill passed into law by Congress late Friday, overriding President Donald Trump's veto.

The law forces "beneficial owners" behind shell companies to report their identities to the US Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN.

While the law still grants them protection from public knowledge -- only the Treasury and law enforcement will be able to access the FinCEN database -- transparency advocates say it is a huge step against kleptocrats, organized crime and rich tax evaders who have been able to anonymously wash their suspect wealth through the world's largest economy.

"For years, experts routinely ranked anonymous shell companies ... as the biggest weakness in our anti-money laundering safeguards," said Ian Gary, executive director of the FACT Coalition, which lobbied for the legislation.

"It's the single most important step we could take to better protect our financial system from abuse."

The United Nations estimates that $800 billion to $2 trillion is laundered through the global financial system every years.

While much of the attention on has focused on tax havens like Panama and the Cayman Islands, experts say that the size of the US economy, and its ability to absorb billions of dollars without notice, has made it crucial for converting illicit funds into legitimate assets.

In early 2020 the Tax Justice Network ranked the Cayman Islands and the United States as the global leaders in helping people conceal their finances from law and tax enforcement.

- Property and art -

Gary Kalman, the US director of Transparency International, said the Corporate Transparency Act was "foundational" for fighting money laundering.

Despite geopolitical tensions, he pointed out that money has flowed into the United States from China and Russia because it was the easiest place to launder it, through properties, corporate assets, securities and art.

"We are the easiest place in the world to set up an anonymous company," he told AFP before the law had passed.

"We are the dream of any kleptocrat or criminal to hide money."

By forcing company owners to divulge their identities, he said, the US is establishing a "global norm" for the world's financial system.

"By choking off access to the advanced economies, you are making it much harder. You are upping the cost and the likelihood of getting caught," he said.

The legislation sets penalties for not reporting a company's beneficial owners of up to two years in jail and a $10,000 fine.

FACT said the law could result in a sharp drop in all-cash business transactions, especially in real estate, a favored way for outsiders to move large sums into the US economy.

FACT also says that anonymous companies underpin trade in counterfeit luxury goods, pharmaceuticals and industrial equipment.

The legislation isn't perfect, say analysts. The FinCEN database will not be open to the public or media, whose efforts have produced the biggest stories about money laundering.

For example, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists was behind the explosive release in 2016 of the Panama Papers, some 11.5 million documents detailing secret companies set up in the Central American country.

In that case, enforcement authorities around the world made use of the files made public by reporters, which showed prominent politicians, celebrities and business people hiding money offshore.

Although they will have all the new data, the US Treasury and law enforcement have limited capacity to comb through files themselves.

"We think that the database should be public," said Kalman.

Short link:


A series of candlelit vigils will take place around the country this afternoon in reaction to the fatal shooting of George Nkencho by armed gardai on Wednesday.

Gatherings are planned for the Spire on Dublins OConnell Street, Eyre Square in Galway, and at numerous other locations around the country from 3pm.

The protests are planned to be both static and to comply with social distancing, while the dress code is all black. Several hundred attendees are expected at the Dublin meeting, which was organised following a mass Zoom call involving as many as 500 people from the community on Wednesday night.

Mr Nkencho was shot dead outside his home near Hartstown, west Dublin, on Wednesday afternoon following an altercation at a nearby shop.

After a two-hour standoff with both armed and unarmed gardai he was fatally shot outside his home in an incident caught on camera by a passerby.

A palpable feeling of tension was present in the locality on Thursday, with a protest march wending its way from Blanchardstown Garda Station as far as the Nkencho home yesterday evening.

Protesters Jennifer Zunga and Sylvia Orekoya from Blanchardstown wearing face masks outside Blanchardstown Garda Station. Picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

Dr Lucy Michael, a sociologist with Fingal Communities Against Racism, said the feeling was that protests are unavoidable given the depth of hurt being felt in the local communities.

People are so hugely upset about this, she said.

Many people when they saw the photo of George realised they knew him growing up. When you know someone whos been killed it is very difficult to process that it has happened in your community.

This is a shock, it makes people feel unsafe, that their son or daughter, wife or husband or neighbour, could find themselves in a situation they cant control, and end up dead as a result.
Pong Dam : , Jan 2 (IANS) Biologists on Saturday sounded the alarm with over 1,000 migratory birds, largely the endangered bar-headed goose, a highest-altitude migrant, were found dead over the past one week or so in Pong wetlands -- one of the largest in northern India in Himachal Pradesh.

Chief Conservator Wildlife (Pong wetlands) Upasna Patyal told IANS the reason for the deaths is still a mystery as their carcasses have been sent to different laboratories to determine their cause of death, but it could take days or at least a week to get results.

The number of deaths was now more than 1,000. Besides the bar-headed goose, the other species were the shoveler, the river tern, the black-headed gull and the common teal.

Some birds -- including the bar-headed goose -- were seen acting strangely before their deaths, she said.

"When you're seeing that birds are not able to take the flight despite healthy wings, it's really disturbing. At some distance, you find their carcasses," she said.

The bird carcasses were sent to the Indian Veterinary Research Institute in Bareilly, the Regional Disease Diagnostic Laboratory in Jalandhar and the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun to know their cause of death.

Sensing gravity of the situation, Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) scientist K.S. Gopi Sundar told IANS that it's something an alarming situation.

"We are getting reports of death of birds in nature across India. It's likely to be a disease because the deaths are occurring in multiple locations involving multiple species. It is a dangerous situation and needs multi-stakeholder intervention on priority," he warned.

"It is wrong to blame temperature intolerance for the death of birds in Pong and as reported earlier in Indore (in Madhya Pradesh) and in Jhalawar (in Rajasthan). Temperature can't be an issue. The death at different locations is a matter of serious concern as India lacks rapid response to wildlife emergencies," explained Sundar, who is the IUCN Co-chair of the Stork, Ibis and Spoonbill Specialist Group.

Wildlife experts favour 'One Health' policy -- a collaborative effort of multiple disciplines -- working locally, nationally, and globally -- to attain optimal health for people, animals and the environment.

At the Pong wetlands, preliminary findings of their postmortem have ruled out poisoning as the cause of their death, wildlife official said.

An official report said the field staff reported the sudden death of four bar-headed geese and one common teal in Fatehpur area of Pong on December 28.

The next day, the field staff was ordered to carry out a search of the entire area of the sanctuary and 421 birds were found dead in the wildlife range of Dhameta and Guglara areas of the Nagrota range.

Forest Minister Rakesh Pathania said the Wildlife Wing has initiated a probe into the deaths of the migratory birds.

After receiving the reports of the samples sent to different institutions, strict action will be taken against those found guilty, he added.

Every winter, the Pong wetlands are home to over 100,000 birds of nearly 114 species. Among them the bar-headed geese, the northern pintail, the Eurasian coot, the common teal, the common pochard, the northern shoveler, the great cormorant, the Eurasian wigeon and the ruddy shelduck are notable.

According to the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), the Pong wetlands are the one wintering grounds in the globe to hold such a large congregation of bar-headed geese.

Most of the wetlands in India have been regularly getting bar-headed geese every winter. But Pong is the only habitat that holds the largest influx of bar-headed geese every winter, a BNHS ornithologist told IANS.

Chief Conservator Wildlife Upasna Patyal said as per the census conducted in Pong on December 15, around 57,000 migratory birds were recorded. The most prominent among them was the bar-headed goose, a rare winter migrant in other Indian wetlands.

Besides the bar-headed goose, the other noticeable species were the northern pintail, the common pochard, the Eurasian coot, the common teal, the great cormorant, the Eurasian wigeon, the gadwall and the graylag goose.

With the onset of winter, thousands of migratory birds from central and northern Asia start arriving for their annual sojourn.

Built in 1976, the reservoir is the only place in India after the Bharatpur sanctuary in Rajasthan where the red-necked grebe descends every year.

The influx of birds can be seen at swamps near Nagrota Suriyan, Budladha and Sansarpur Terrace.

The Pong wetlands occupy an area of at least 18,000 hectares and extend up to 30,000 hectares in the peak monsoon season. An area of about 20,000 hectares within a radius of 5 km has been notified as a buffer zone dedicated to wildlife.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)
Toyota India is conducting an event on 6 January. The company is expected to launch the new refreshed version of its SUV, Fortuner . The company has also shared teaser for the same on its social media handle.

Toyota India has shared an image of the headlight assembly of the new Fortuner which also. The new Fortuner will be the companys first launch for 2020.

Going by the teaser, we can be certain that the new Fortuner will come with a new headlight cluster. The fog lights and the indicators will also get new positioning on the Fortuner.

Its been the undisputed leader for over a decade. Go ahead and guess its name in the comments below. Power-packed launch on 6th Jan 2021. Save the date! Witness it @ https://t.co/tGrAQOR92K#PowerPackedLeader #PowerUnleashed #StyleIcon #Toyota #ComingSoon #ContestAlert pic.twitter.com/mdGyiFJOcx  Toyota India (@Toyota_India) January 2, 2021

Toyota has already launched the new version of Fortuner in a few South East Asian countries. This gives us a good idea of what to expect from the version coming to India. The new Fortuner has also been spotted on Indian roads. The company is expected to also launch a new Fortuner Legender which will be a more premium variant compared to the standard variant.

The new Fortuner comes with an updated front fascia and as well as updated interiors. The new update is expected amp up the appeal for the SUV by introducing some creature comforts. The Legender provides a sportier design in comparison to the standard version.

The standard version of the SUV comes with a bigger mesh compared to the outgoing model and also gets revised DRL LED headlamps. The car that was launched in Indonesia with 18-inch alloy wheels which is expected to carry over in India. The Legender version of the car might launch with a larger 20-inch alloy wheel.

The interior is expected to feature bigger 9-inch infotainment display. However, the Legender might get some additional features such as a 4.2-inch MID.

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Lucknow, Jan 2 : Samajwadi Party (SP) Chief Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday announced he would not get himself vaccinated even after the Coronavirus vaccine arrives in India. Speaking to the media at the Samajwadi Party office in Lucknow, Akhilesh said he does not trust the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) vaccine. "This vaccine belongs to people in the BJP. How can I trust this vaccine? When our government comes to power in 2022, everyone will get the corona vaccine free of cost." Yadav claimed there is no outbreak of coronavirus infection anywhere in the country. "The BJP has spread the fear of the pandemic only to scare the opposition. Look at me I am sitting with everybody without a mask." He asked the media to tell him where coronavirus is.

The SP Chief said the fear of coronavirus spread by the BJP is only for the opposition parties so that the opposition does not conduct any programme in the state and the country. "During the lockdown, the BJP was busy beating 'thaalis'. Then what is the need for a dry run of the Coronavirus vaccine now?" The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister met religious leaders from all faiths from Ayodhya on Saturday and took their blessings.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
A pond in Khentawas village of Farrukhnagar block that was severely polluted and unusable was restored and inaugurated on Saturday.

It was the second natural water body to be restored under the Gurujal initative project. The Mojabad pond in Pataudi was revived in September 2020.

Minister of state (independent charge) for statistics, programme implementation and planning Rao Inderjit Singh inaugurated the restored pond site through video conference.

The 1.25-acre water body in Khentawas was among the 72 water bodies identified for restoration in different blocks of the district. Currently, 14 such water bodies in sites like Kasan, Dhaula, Wazirpur, Navada, Dharampur and Khentawas, are under restoration.

The Khentawas pond will recharge groundwater by up to 19.7 million litres in a year, said Shubhi Kesarwani, director, Gurujal.

The village is situated about 18kms from Gurugram and has 400 households, with a population of more than 2000. Untreated water of the village would be discharged into the pond.

The Gurujal team began the restoration work last year with desilting and levelling the pond bed.

Thereafter, a 150 kilo litres a day (KLD) capacity sewage treatment plant (STP) was constructed at a cost of 70 lakh to recycle the water, said Kesarwani.

The treatment will remove large coarse material or suspended solids before being pumped into filtration tanks and then to a holding tank before being released into the pond. The team also planted saplings of neem, sheesham, jamun, gulmohar and tamarind, among others, in an effort to beautify the pond.

Amit Khatri, deputy commissioner, said that the local population will be responsible for the maintenance of the treatment plant and pond.

Minister Rao Inderjeet Singh also supported traditional methods of water conservation to recharge groundwater.
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The Andhra Pradesh government on Friday extended the terms of special officers of the local bodies by six months, according to two separate order issued in this regard. The terms were due to end on Sunday and Monday.

State election commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar has said the elections to local bodies will be held in February. The government has opposed the move saying the entire official machinery will be busy with Covid-19 vaccination programme then.

The high court last week ruled Kumar is the final authority to decide the schedule for the elections and directed the government to constitute a three-member committee to discuss the poll schedule.

Kumar and the government have been at loggerheads since March last year over the conduct of local elections. The process for the elections was stalled due to Covid-19 pandemic.

Chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has accused Kumar of stalling the election process in collision with opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP). He alleged Kumar sought to benefit the TDP because he belongs to the community of N Chandrababu Naidu, the head of the party.

The government removed Kumar through an ordinance in April that sought to reduce the term of the state election commissioner from five to three years.

Kumar moved the high court challenging the ordinance and got an order in his favour on May 29. The Supreme Court upheld the high court order.
The Finnish Medicines Agency has received the first report of an adverse reaction to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against coronavirus a week after Europe started its mass immunization campaign, the Finnish YLE broadcaster reported on Saturday.

The EU member states launched the bloc-wide vaccination program on December 27, the next day after receiving their first shipments of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine following the European Commission's authorization.

"When there are at least five such reports, we will put information on our website about the type of reactions that have occurred," the agency's Chief Physician Maija Kaukonen told the broadcaster, adding that no further details could be disclosed due to patient confidentiality.

At the same time, Kaukonen noted that reports of allergic or adverse reactions were likely to increase.

So far, COVID-19 vaccines have been administered to healthcare workers in Finland's five largest hospital districts of Helsinki, Turku, Tampere, Kuopio and Oulu, according to YLE.

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

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Northern Ireland's health trusts have spent more than 30m on overtime to cover staffing gaps during the Covid-19 emergency.

Over 10m - around a third of the total - has been allocated for nursing staff alone.

Between January and October 2020 - the most recent statistics available - the five trusts paid out a total of 31,853,142 on overtime.

The trusts spent a total of 10,349,458 on nursing overtime in that 10-month period, compared to 9,246,055 in the whole of 2019.

Read More

Alliance health spokesperson Paula Bradshaw believes if an independent body analysed the amount of extra time that healthcare staff worked during the Covid crisis, the figures would be much higher.

The Department of Health (DoH) said it is fully committed to bringing safe and sustainable staffing levels.

The Belfast Trust spent the highest amount on overtime for nursing and midwifery in 2020 (4,339,458), followed by the South Eastern Trust (2,063,000), the Northern Trust (1,645,000), the Western Trust (1,168,000) and the Southern Trust (1,134,000).

The figures, obtained by the Belfast Telegraph, come after the chaotic scenes outside several hospital A&Es last month.

Read More

Other staff areas in the figures included administration, estates and maintenance, medical, support services, social services, and professional and technology.

Ms Bradshaw, a South Belfast MLA, said more staff must be hired as soon as possible to help keep the overtime figures to a minimum.

"The Royal College of Nursing did a survey of nurses asking people if they were asked to take on extra responsibilities during the pandemic and if they were given the extra money to act up or extra hours," she explained.

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"A very high percentage came back and said that they weren't properly remunerated so I wasn't surprised to hear that the overtime pay was up 1m.

"If an independent body came in and did a proper analysis of how much extra time nurses and other medics had given during Covid I would say the figure would probably be a lot higher."

Ms Bradshaw added that the trusts are not to blame for the rising expenditure, but said there is an issue around staff being properly remunerated.

UUP health spokesperson Alan Chambers said the rise in nursing overtime pay was an "understandable consequence" of the pandemic.

He added that all public service agencies have an obligation to maintain minimum staff numbers to guarantee their safety.

"Staff in all levels of our NHS and social care sectors have stepped up to the plate during this pandemic and have been working much longer shifts than normal to ensure that patients continue to received the high level of treatment they require," the North Down MLA explained.

"These overtime payments have been paid to staff who have been prepared to go the extra mile to maintain our health service.

"I am sure that these overtime payments will have contributed to lives being saved and illness curtailed. On that basis it is money that has been very well spent."

A spokesperson for the DoH said it was "very conscious" of the pressure that nurses are under and will work with trade unions and employers to increase staffing levels.

"While we take steps to address these pressures, the use of overtime and other measures, such as agency staffing, complement the regular workforce," the department said.

"In the longer term, the department is investing in additional training places to grow the workforce, reduce the burden on staff and the spending in these areas.

"We would, even in a normal year, expect to see an increase in the overtime bill - as salaries increase, so does the cost of overtime.

"The overtime worked (in 2020) is testament to the dedication of our frontline staff who have shown again that they are prepared to go above and beyond to care for our population."
The Midland community has always supported its veterans, and the trying year of 2020 has been no different.

Ross Ahlich, Midland County Department of Veteran Affairs director, thanks the community for its continued support.

"The Midland County Veterans Service Office would like to acknowledge and say thank you to Midland County citizens and organizations that helped provide relief to veterans in our community throughout the years," Ahlich stated in a press release.

This "relief" has been displayed in many forms, Ahlich said, including wood delivery for heating homes, monetary donations for Christmas baskets, gift cards donated for veterans in need, afghans for veterans on hospice, winter coats that turn into a sleeping bag for homeless veterans, Christmas toys for children and more.

In 2020, several local residents also took it upon themselves to create and deliver handmade masks for veterans who needed them.

Despite some chilly November weather and pandemic protocols, a large -- socially-distanced -- crowd of Midlanders gathered downtown to honor the community's veterans on Veteran's Day.

"Your dedication to the wellbeing of others and the selfless service to the community brings credit to yourself and the organizations that you represent," Ahlich stated.

Midlanders have also shown their support through the caretaking of veteran memorials, and donations to organizations, including Michigan veteran's homes, children's homes, family camps, hospitals and honor guards.
Aerial photo taken on April 29, 2020 shows a view of a poverty-relief relocation site for the Baiku Yao People in Nandan County, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Cao Yiming)

BEIJING, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese word for "crisis" (wei ji) is composed of two characters: "danger" (wei) and "opportunity" (ji), and the wisdom to avert a crisis is always somewhere in between.

As the new year kicks off, the very "danger" from 2020 has largely departed China, where the extraordinary year ended with a newly-approved vaccine -- a further step to tame the pandemic -- and the completion of investment agreement negotiations with the European Union -- a boost to world economic recovery.

A staff member checks a COVID-19 inactivated vaccine product at a packaging plant of the Beijing Biological Products Institute Co., Ltd. in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 25, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhang Yuwei)

Despite the unpredictable outbreak of the coronavirus, the unprecedented recession worldwide, and the unhinged bully from the outside, China became the first major economy in the world to register positive growth, and its GDP is expected to exceed 100 trillion yuan (about 15.38 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2020, a solid ground to embark on a new journey of modernization in a new year that marks the centennial of the governing Communist Party of China (CPC).

But it was quite an unintended story at the beginning of 2020, as an unknown pathogen, whose exact origin and jump to humans have yet to be scientifically concluded, was in circulation.

It was the annual peak travel season for hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens. People fell sick and many tragically succumbed to what later became known as the COVID-19 pandemic. Those were confusing and agonizing days for everyone and led to sleepless nights for the Chinese leadership.

Resolute action followed. In an unprecedented but crucial move, Wuhan, a megacity of 11 million, cut off outbound flights and trains. Residents across China voluntarily complied with social distancing requirements. The world's second-largest economy nearly came to a halt -- a loss of 150 billion yuan in economic output every day, but a price worth paying as human lives are of the utmost importance. Medical workers, scientists, community workers, volunteers, construction workers and many others jumped to action.

"Greatness is forged in the ordinary, and heroes come from the people. Every single person is remarkable," Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a televised New Year speech on Thursday.

Under decisive leadership from Beijing, China prevailed in the battle against the epidemic. The local transmission of coronavirus all but vanished, to the extent that a domestic vaccine trial is now infeasible as there are insufficient numbers of patients. The trials are well underway in cooperation with some foreign countries.

The industrial output was the first to rebound from the shock. Its manufacturing proved reliable for not only China but also other countries, particularly when the need for masks and ventilators presented itself. Nearly 300 million Chinese students returned to campus in September, free from fear.

Employees produce ventilators at Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics Co., Ltd., a medical device manufacturer based in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, March 31, 2020. (Xinhua/Liang Xu)

That does not come easily. Beijing used extraordinary policy tools, including an additional one trillion yuan in deficit spending, one trillion yuan in special treasury bonds and 2.5 trillion yuan in tax and fee cuts. The government rolled out incentives and long-term plans to unleash the potential of its domestic demand, with 400 million middle-income earners, an anchor for the economy to offset downward pressure. China has also acted more forcefully to stabilize employment -- keeping the world's biggest population in work is vital for stability, socially and economically.

The epidemic was not the only battle that China fought in 2020.

The country was also racing against the clock to reach the historical feat of eradicating absolute poverty. In 2020, all of China's nearly 100 million impoverished rural residents living below the current poverty line have shaken off poverty after eight years' efforts.

China is still the largest developing country in the world. The decisive victory against poverty is the beginning of an even more challenging and promising drive: socialist modernization.

Externally, the year 2020 has witnessed the U.S. administration's increased hysteria toward China, piling one unreasonable sanction on another, targeting Chinese companies and officials and daydreaming about a decoupling.

Beijing responded with a firm and commensurate counteractions, and, most conspicuously, with greater reforms and openness to the outside world.

China has become European Union's largest trading partner, while Beijing and Brussels ushered a "balanced, high-standard and mutually beneficial" --- in the words of President Xi -- bilateral investment treaty in the year's end. China's business environment, as measured by the World Bank's Doing Business reports, has risen sharply for two consecutive years.

The more blockades and suppression China faces, the more it must insist on open cooperation, Beijing reasons.

More evidence of China's unrelenting promise to participate includes the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership trade deal, bringing 15 economies and 2.2 billion people into the world's largest trading partnerships.

The signing ceremony of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement is held via video conference in Hanoi, capital of Vietnam, Nov. 15, 2020. (VNA via Xinhua)

However, a bumpy ride is ahead. Han Wenxiu, a senior economic official, said while economic growth for 2020 and 2021 would average around 5 percent annually, the numbers are good but the days aren't necessarily so; on the micro-level, many small and medium enterprises still need supports; and some of provincial-level regions have a current shortfall in the basic pension fund.

Thinking ahead and playing the long game has been characteristics with Beijing. In late October, a key CPC meeting proposed key outlines for China's next five years and its vision for 2035, mapping out critical targets identified by leadership.

Among them are the upgrading of manufacturing, breakthroughs in core technologies, coping with an aging population, and resolving systemic financial risks. "Stay vigilant in times of peace," a Chinese saying teaches.

The Chernobyl moment predicted for China at the beginning of 2020 did not materialize. Extraordinary hardship had allowed the Chinese people to demonstrate their resilience with more confidence in their way of life and the country's governance model.

2021 is also the year that will see China formulate and begin to implement the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for National Economic and Social Development -- "embark on a new journey to fully build a modern socialist country," Xi said on Thursday.

China, a country of 1.4 billion -- one-fifth of the world's population -- has seen light in the tunnel through the pandemic. And its peaceful development by putting overwhelming emphasis on improving the living standards and happiness of its own people -- rather than looting, colonization, or wars -- stands as a promising alternative path to others in the world.

The eventful year has also been a reminder of the importance of a community with a shared future for humanity. It has become clear that people's lives and prosperity depend on unknown strangers in far-off corners of the world.

In the words of British poet John Donne, "No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main."
Pa. Republicans advance three anti-abortion bills. What they would do.
In 2020, Oregonlive.com added Annie Lane to its online lineup of advice columnists, replacing Carolyn Hax.

The Dear Annie column has plenty of fans, and one article in particular topped other offerings. Not surprisingly, this letter dealt with a friends unease with announced tropical travel plans during the pandemic. That column saw twice as many readers as the second place post.

Other top questions for Annie concerned wild and unruly children at a wedding, marriages on the rocks, and unrequited love.

Here are the top 10 Dear Annie columns for 2020, listed 10 to 1:

10. A lost love from more than 50 years ago continues to haunt him

9. Stress and children drown his wifes desire for sex

8. After 33 years, this fire seems totally out

7. Her crush on a married man could cause trouble

6. A throwback column from 2018 got plenty of views due to a question about a creepy husbands texting an 18-year-old

5. Even people rich enough to have a lovely vacation home can have problems

4. Construction worker husband hits on young women from the job site  always

3. Countless children set loose at a wedding race around and deconstruct the appetizer table

2. Many people needed help this year, this young widowed mother in particular

1. The most read Dear Annie column of the year deals with directives against nonessential travel due to the pandemic. As her friend heads to Florida to bask in some warmer weather, the letter writer shares her frustration at those disregarding COVID-19 guidelines.

 Rosemarie Stein, rstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-4376
The United Nations nuclear watchdog said that Iran has informed the agency it is planning to enrich uranium to up to 20 per cent purity, which would be a violation of the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and members of the UN Security Council, including Germany. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in a statement seen by several media outlets, reportedly said that Iran intends to enrich uranium to up to 20 per cent purity at its Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, which again would be a violation of the deal because Tehran is not allowed to use the site as per the agreement.

According to the Associated Press, Iranian state-run news agency IRNA acknowledged the step by Iran after reports emerged saying that the Islamic Republic has sent a letter to the IAEA, informing it will soon start enriching uranium to up to 20% purity.

Read: Iran Blames Yemen's 'foreign Occupation' For Aden Airport Terror Attack

Violating nuclear deal since 2019

Iran is violating the deal since 2019 after it started enriching uranium to up to 4.5 per cent purity. The Joint Comprehensive Plan for Action (JCPOA) framework allows Iran to enrich uranium to up to 3.67 per cent purity only. The IAEA in a letter to member states said that Iran has not revealed to the agency exactly when it will start enriching uranium at the Fordow site, a facility that is built deep inside a mountain to avoid airstrikes and other attacks.

Read: Iran Fires Stern Warning To US, Says Soleimani's Killers 'won't Be Safe On Earth'

The cap on enrichment matters because it will extend the time needed to develop a nuclear weapon. Iran was already enriching uranium to up to 20 percent purity before the signing of the nuclear agreement with the United States and other major powers of the world. As per BBC, Iran's parliament passed a bill last month after the assassination of top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and mandated the enrichment of uranium to up to 20% purity. It also blocked the inspection of its nuclear sites by IAEA officials.

Read: Iran General Warns US: Military Ready To Respond To Pressure

Iran started violating the JCPOA framework after the Trump administration withdrew the United States from the Obama-era deal in 2018. The JCPOA required Iran to limit its uranium enrichment purity among other things and, in return, all economic sanctions against Tehran would be lifted. However, after Donald Trump withdrew from the deal, the US reimposed all sanctions on Iran. Meanwhile, the US President-elect Jow Biden has pledged to return to the agreement with Iran after taking over the White House on January 20.

Read: US To Move Aircraft Carrier Out Of Mideast Amid Iran Tension
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will find out Monday whether he can be extradited from the U.K. to the US to face espionage charges over the publication of secret American military documents.

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser is due to deliver her decision at London's Old Bailey courthouse at 10 a.m. Monday. If she grants the request, then Britain's home secretary, Priti Patel, would make the final decision.

Whichever side loses is expected to appeal, which could lead to years more legal wrangling.

However, there's a possibility that outside forces may come into play that could instantly end the decade-long saga.

Stella Moris, Assanges partner and the mother of his two sons, has appealed to US President Donald Trump via Twitter to grant a pardon to Assange before he leaves office on Jan. 20.

And even if Trump doesn't, there's speculation that his successor, Joe Biden, may take a more lenient approach to Assange's extradition process.

US prosecutors indicted the 49-year-old Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse that carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.

Lawyers acting on behalf of the US government said in their closing arguments after the four-week hearing in the fall that Assange's defence team had raised issues that were neither relevant nor admissible.

Consistently, the defense asks this court to make findings, or act upon the submission, that the United States of America is guilty of torture, war crimes, murder, breaches of diplomatic and international law and that the United States of America is 'a lawless state', they said. "These submissions are not only non-justiciable in these proceedings but should never have been made.

Assanges defense team argued that he is entitled to First Amendment protections for the publication of leaked documents that exposed US military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan and that the US extradition request was politically motivated.

In their written closing arguments, Assanges legal team accused the US of an extraordinary, unprecedented and politicized prosecution that constitutes "a flagrant denial of his right to freedom of expression and poses a fundamental threat to the freedom of the press throughout the world.

Defense lawyers also said Assange was suffering from wide-ranging mental health issues, including suicidal tendencies, that could be exacerbated if he is placed in inhospitable prison conditions in the US

They said his mental health deteriorated while he took asylum inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for years and that he was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. Assange jumped bail in 2012 when he sought asylum at the embassy, where he stayed for seven years before being evicted and arrested. He has been held at Belmarsh prison in London since April 2019.

His legal team argued that Assange would, if extradited, likely face solitary confinement that would put him at a heightened risk of suicide. They said if he was subsequently convicted, he would probably be sent to the notorious ADX Supermax prison in Colorado, which is also inhabited by Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Mexican drug lord Joaquin El Chapo Guzman.

Lawyers for the US government argued that Assanges mental state "is patently not so severe so as to preclude extradition.

Assange has attracted the support of high-profile figures, including the dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and actress Pamela Anderson.

Daniel Ellsberg, the famous US whistleblower, also came out in support, telling the hearing that they had very comparable political opinions.

The 89-year-old, widely credited for helping to bring about an end to the Vietnam War through his leaking of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, said the American public needed urgently to know what was being done routinely in their name, and there was no other way for them to learn it than by unauthorized disclosure.

There are clear echoes between Assange and Ellsberg, who leaked over 7,000 pages of classified documents to the press, including The New York Times and The Washington Post. Ellsberg was subsequently put on trial for 12 charges in connection with violations of the Espionage Act, which were punishable by up to 115 years in prison. The charges were dismissed in 1973 because of government misconduct against him.

Assange and his legal team will be hoping that developments in the US bring an end to his ordeal if the judge grants the US extradition request.
A cat with a facial deformity has become a social media star after being adopted by kind-hearted student.

Sydney Benham, 20, from Michigan, adopted eight-year-old Peanut three months ago after he was abandoned at a kennel when his original owner died, leaving behind eight other cats.

He is partially blind and deaf, but otherwise healthy, and Sydney said she 'couldn't leave him behind' after seeing he was the last cat at the shelter she visited who hadn't been adopted yet.

Peanut has now settled into his new home, with Sydney setting up social media accounts for the cat, where he boasts 8,589 followers 134,800 likes on TikTok and 1,265 followers on Instagram.

Sydney Benham, 20, from Michigan, adopted a cat with a facial deformity (pictured), who she has since helped become a social media star

Eight-year-old Peanut suffers with an unknown facial deformity, is partially blind and deaf, but is otherwise healthy

Speaking in an Instagram video, she said: 'I was determined to get a cat that day.

'I called my best friend and her and I and my roommate went to three or four shelters until we could find a cat, we had finally gone to this local shelter and this was going to be our last one.

'We saw the cats and my best friend and I - it was a full kennel - but Peanut was the one in the middle in his own little crate. I saw him and thought "I need him".

'My whole childhood I wanted to adopt a special needs cat, to help them and give them the life they deserve and he was the last one there who needed to be adopted and I couldnt leave him.'

Sydney (pictured) said she 'couldn't leave him behind' after seeing he was the last animal in the kennel who needed adopting

Sydney isn't sure of the reason behind the animal's facial condition, but says the shelter predicted either a birth defect or an abnormality as the result of abuse when Peanut was a kitten.

She explained: 'When we adopted him the shelter had said it was either going to be a birth deformity or defect that kind of thing.

'He could have been abused when he was younger. He came from a hoarding situation with about eight cats in the house and the owner had died. So he had to get abandoned at the shelter and that's just how he looks, they said he was perfectly healthy.

Peanut's facial defect doesn't have any major impact on his health, and aside from a 'few issues' when Sydney first adopted him, he's settling into his new home well.

Peanut's facial defect doesn't have any major impact on his health, and aside from a 'few issues' when Sydney first adopted him, he's settling into his new home well

She said: 'The vet said he was healthy the head shape doesn't affect him that much.

'They think the lack of hearing and eyes are an effect of the head shape, but hes pretty healthy otherwise.

'He had some issues when we first got him, we had those taken care of and hes doing really well.'

Peanut has adapted well to his new surroundings, and Sydney says that he's getting on well with her other cat Apollo, despite the pair having a rocky start.

Peanut has adapted well to his new surroundings, and Sydney says that he's getting on well with her housemate's cat Apollo, despite the pair having a rocky start

Internet famous Peanut has been compared to a rabbit and a Renaissance painting of a cat online

'They get along fairly well, they didnt used to, said Sydney.

'I remember the first day he started walking and eating and little steps, like that was so revolutionary and amazing for him to get comfortable here.'

The cat has become a star on TikTok, with one popular video detailing all the things Peanut has been compared to - including a rabbit and a Renaissance painting - racking up over 10k views.

'We didnt realise that he looked like a bunny before people kept commenting and now I completely see it', said Sydney on Instagram.

Commenters have praised the duo, with one writing: 'OMG you are both so cute!! Thank you so much for taking care of Peanut!!'

Commenters have praised the duo, with one writing: 'OMG you are both so cute!! Thank you so much for taking care of Peanut!!'

Another said: 'You are so wonderful!! Thank you for making this video'.

A third penned: 'Such an amazing story!! Peanut is the best boy'.
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Lisa Montgomery, a federal prison inmate, at the Federal Medical Center Fort Worth in an undated photograph. (Courtesy of Attorneys for Lisa Montgomery via Reuters)

Appeals Court Clears Way for Execution of Lone Female Death Row Inmate

A federal appeals court has cleared the way on Friday for the only woman on federal death row to be executed.

A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that a lower court judge had acted illegally when he vacated convicted murderer Lisa Montgomerys execution date.

In an order last week, U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss ruled that the Justice Department had unlawfully rescheduled the womans execution. He also vacated an order from the director of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) that had set Montgomerys execution date for Jan. 12.

The appeals courts order has the effect of reinstating the Jan. 12 execution date.

Montgomerys execution by lethal injection was originally scheduled for Dec. 8, but Moss delayed the execution after Montgomerys attorneys contracted COVID-19 and asked him to extend the time to file a clemency petition. On Nov. 19, he gave her lawyers until Dec. 24 to file the clemency petition, and granted Montgomery a stay of execution until Dec. 31, 2020.

On Nov. 23, the BOP announced it was rescheduling her execution to Jan. 12.

Moss concluded that the BOP could not reschedule Montgomerys execution until at least Jan. 1, when the stay order expires. But the appeals panel on Friday disagreed.

Meaghan VerGow, an attorney for Montgomery, said her legal team would ask for the full appeals court to review the case.

The federal government must be required to follow the law in setting any execution date, as the district court correctly held. Lisa Montgomery should not be executed on January 12, VerGow said in a statement.

Given everything we know about Lisa Montgomerys mental illness, her lifetime of horrific torture and trauma, and the many people in positions of authority who could have intervened to save her but never did, there can be no principled reason to carry out her execution.

The government should stop its relentless efforts to end her life, and President Trump should commute her sentence to life without possibility of release.

Montgomery, now 52, was convicted in 2007 for killing then-23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant.

The murder took place in Skidmore, Missouri, in December 2004. Montgomery used a rope to strangle Stinnett, and then cut the baby girl from the womb with a kitchen knife, authorities said. Montgomery then took the baby with her and claimed it was her own, according to prosecutors. The baby survived the attack.

Her lawyers said that Montgomery had long suffered from brain damage and multiple mental illnesses that cause her to dissociate from reality.

She endured horrific trauma throughout her life at the hands of her stepfather, her lawyers said in a statement.

The Justice Department, under then-Attorney General William Barr, resumed federal executions earlier this year after a pause of 17 years.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Donald Trump's Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger spoke

Mr Pottinger told politicians leak is emerging as 'most credible source' of virus

He claimed the pathogen may have escaped through a 'leak or an accident'

One of America's most senior government officials says the most 'credible' theory about the origin of coronavirus is that it escaped from a laboratory in China.

Matthew Pottinger, who is President Donald Trump's respected Deputy National Security Adviser, told politicians from around the world that even China's leaders now openly admit their previous claims that the virus originated in a Wuhan market are false.

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Mr Pottinger said that the latest intelligence points to the virus leaking from the top-secret Wuhan Institute of Virology, 11 miles from the market, saying: 'There is a growing body of evidence that the lab is likely the most credible source of the virus.'

Matthew Pottinger, who is President Donald Trump's respected Deputy National Security Adviser, says the most 'credible' theory about the origin of coronavirus is that it escaped from from the top-secret Wuhan Institute of Virology in China

He claimed the pathogen may have escaped through a 'leak or an accident', adding: 'Even establishment figures in Beijing have openly dismissed the wet market story.'

The comments, which were made during a Zoom conference with MPs on China last week, come as a team of experts from the World Health Organisation prepare to fly to Wuhan to investigate how the pandemic began.

Critics fear the probe will be a whitewash given China's influence on the WHO.

'MPs around the world have a moral role to play in exposing the WHO investigation as a Potemkin exercise,' Mr Pottinger told the parliamentarians, in reference to the fake villages created in the Crimea in the 18th Century, intended to convince the visiting Russian Empress Catherine the Great that the region was in good health.

Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory Party leader who attended the meeting, said Mr Pottinger's comments represented a 'stiffening' of the US position on the theory that the virus came from a leak at the laboratory, amid reports that the Americans are talking to a whistleblower from the Wuhan institute.

Mr Pottinger (left) told politicians from around the world that even China's leaders now openly admit their previous claims that the virus originated in a Wuhan market are false.

'I was told the US have an ex-scientist from the laboratory in America at the moment,' he said. 'That was what I heard a few weeks ago.

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'I was led to believe this is how they have been able to stiffen up their position on how this outbreak originated.'

He added that Beijing's refusal to allow journalists to visit the laboratory only served to increase suspicion that it was 'ground zero' for the pandemic.

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'The truth is there are people who have been in those labs who maintain that this is the case,' he said.

'We don't know what they have been doing in that laboratory.

'They may well have been fiddling with bat coronaviruses and looking at them and they made a mistake. I've spoken to various people who believe that to be the case.'

He claimed the pathogen may have escaped through a 'leak or an accident', adding: 'Even establishment figures in Beijing have openly dismissed the wet market story'. Pictured: Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli, who was dubbed 'Batwoman', at the Wuhan lab with a colleague

Sam Armstrong, communications director at the Henry Jackson Society foreign policy think-tank, said: 'With such a senior and respected intelligence official speaking in support of this claim, the time has come for the British Government to seek both answers about and compensation for Covid-19.'

Mr Pottinger, who speaks fluent Mandarin, previously worked as a journalist for Reuters and The Wall Street Journal, including seven years as its China correspondent.

In 2005, he became a US marine and served as a military intelligence officer before being asked to join the US National Security Council in 2017, becoming Asia director before assuming his current role.

His older brother, Paul, is a virologist at the University of Washington.

President Trump last year accused the WHO of being a 'puppet of China' and withdrew funding.

The visit to Wuhan by the WHO team is already mired in controversy after it published terms of reference revealing it will not investigate the Wuhan institute  the only laboratory in China with the highest international bio-security grading  as a possible source of Covid-19.

The world must investigate all the mounting evidence Covid leaked from a Wuhan lab, writes IAN BIRRELL

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By Ian Birrell for the Mail on Sunday

It is a year since the world learned of a deadly new respiratory disease stalking the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

Yet we still know little about how and why the virus spread with such devastating consequences.

It can almost certainly be traced to bats. But we do not know how this pathogen  having evolved an extraordinary ability to infect, causing such damage to different bodily organs  made the jump into human beings.

At last, a World Health Organisation investigation is under way into the origins of the coronavirus, but it is accused of meekly pandering to China's agenda by recruiting patsy scientists and relying on Beijing's dubious data.

Now there is growing clamour from experts around the world that no stone should be left unturned during this inquiry  and that it must include one key element of a hunt which has all the hallmarks of a thriller novel.

It is a year since the world learned of a deadly new respiratory disease stalking the central Chinese city of Wuhan, writes Ian Birrell. Pictured: Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli, who was dubbed 'Batwoman', at the Wuhan Institute of Virology

This centres on a cave filled with bats, a clutch of mysterious deaths, some brilliant scientists carrying out futuristic experiments in a secretive laboratory  and a cover-up of epic proportions that, if proven, would have huge consequences for the Chinese Communist Party and the global practice of science.

So what, precisely, is this theory on the origins of this pandemic?

It must be stated clearly that it is just a theory, albeit one based on crumbs of evidence teased out by a few courageous scientists and some online detectives.

New diseases have emerged throughout human history. Most experts believe Covid to be a 'zoonotic' disease that spilled over naturally from animals to humans.

They think it was most likely 'amplified' by an intermediate species  similar to how Chinese people's consumption of civet cats sparked the 2002 Sars epidemic.

Yet at the same time, Beijing's actions from the outset  covering up the outbreak, blaming a wild animal market that it has since admitted wasn't at fault, barring outside investigators, burying data and silencing its own experts  have served to fuel suspicions.

Last week, leaked documents exposed how the Chinese government, under orders from President Xi Jinping, is strictly controlling all research into the origins of Covid while promoting fringe theories suggesting it came from outside China.

And it is an uncomfortable coincidence that Wuhan  a city buzzing once again, with busy shops, packed restaurants and many people without masks on the streets celebrating New Year  is home to the world's top coronavirus research unit as well as ground zero to a pandemic from a strange new strain.

The clues start with an abandoned copper mine in Mojiang, a hilly region in Yunnan, southern China, where bats roost in a network of underground caves, cracks and crannies.

Two weeks ago, a BBC reporter was prevented from reaching this remote site after being trailed by police for miles along bumpy tracks, then blocked by a lorry and confronted by men at roadblocks saying their job was to stop him.

Days after three Chinese miners who had been clearing bat droppings inside caves died, Zhengli went to investigate

The previous month, a team of US journalists had also been tailed by plainclothes police who barred their access.

One research team recently managed to take some samples at the mine, but reportedly had them confiscated.

The reason for such secrecy goes back to the end of April 2012 when a 42-year-old man clearing bat droppings in these underground caverns turned up at a nearby hospital with a bad cough, high fever and struggling to breathe.

Within a week, five colleagues had similar symptoms. Three later died, one after doctors spent more than 100 days fighting to save his life  yet the two youngest spent less than a week in the hospital and survived. Sound familiar?

We have since learned from a detailed masters thesis, which included medical reports and radiological scans, that these miners suffered a viral pneumonia, attributed to Sars-like coronaviruses originating from horseshoe bats.

One leading US health body pointed out last year that they had 'an illness remarkably similar to Covid-19'.

Little wonder a prominent vaccine scientist told me: 'This is about as close to a smoking gun as exists.'

Intriguingly, a second thesis three years later also highlighted these cases.

It was written by a student of Oxford-trained virologist Professor George Gao Fu, who is now head of China's Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, which is leading their response to the pandemic.

So the Chinese authorities must have known about the dead miners.

Yet they quickly tried to blame the wildlife market in Wuhan as Covid's source, until challenged by respected studies revealed in this newspaper.

Following the miners' deaths, Shi Zhengli, a Wuhan-based virologist known as Batwoman for her expeditions to gather samples in such caves and a member of the team that traced the origin of Sars to bats, went to investigate.

'The mine shaft stank like hell,' she told Scientific American magazine, explaining how her colleagues spent a year discovering new coronaviruses in samples taken from the blood and faeces of bats.

The miners, she claimed, died from a fungal infection.

'The mine shaft stank like hell,' she told Scientific American magazine, explaining how her colleagues spent a year discovering new coronaviruses in samples taken from the blood and faeces of bats. The miners, she claimed, died from a fungal infection.

Another expert noted how the miners who died were treated with anti-fungal medications, while those surviving were given other drugs.

'So in addition to the fact that the cases were more Sars-like than fungal-like, this treatment story argues against a fungal [cause],' he said.

'It is very odd that Shi Zhengli would assert these cases were fungal.'

Prof Shi examined samples in her Wuhan lab, a few miles from the infamous market. Studies later found the virus in sewage, but it was not detected in animals.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology is the first laboratory with the highest global bio-safety level in China.

It specialises in the study of bat-borne viruses and is spearheading China's drive to assert itself in bio-technology.

Leaked diplomatic cables reveal that US officials who visited the lab two years ago warned about safety weaknesses and the risks of a new Sars-like epidemic emerging from the site.

The lab's own safety chief also publicly admitted concerns over flawed security systems.

The institute has carried out experiments on bat coronaviruses since 2015  including research that can increase their virulence by combining snippets from different strains.

Some viruses were injected into special 'humanised' mice that had been created for use in labs with human genes, cells or tissues in their bodies.

These controversial experiments artificially force the evolution of viruses so as to boost our understanding of diseases and their transmissibility.

They help researchers develop new drugs and vaccines.

The Wuhan scientists were working with prominent Western experts and supported financially by the National Institutes of Health, the most important US funding body  although this relationship was ended on safety grounds after being revealed by The Mail on Sunday.

Some scientists argue this type of pathogen research is too risky since it could trigger a pandemic from a new disease.

As a result, there was a moratorium on such work by the US for four years under the Obama administration.

Other critics have warned that the Wuhan Institute was constructing 'chimeric' coronaviruses  new hybrid micro-organisms that show no sign of human manipulation.

Now the big question is whether they took samples from the coronavirus that killed the Yunnan miners and, back in their laboratory more than 1,000 miles away, created a new virus that somehow leaked out into their own city.

Leaked diplomatic cables reveal that US officials who visited the lab two years ago warned about safety weaknesses and the risks of a new Sars-like epidemic emerging from the site

As leading experts have suggested, it would have been a logical step to create chimeric viruses by combining properties from different samples.

Many scientific breakthroughs have emerged from such speculative endeavours.

One medical professor suggested to me that the miners may have died after being exposed to very high doses of coronaviruses while working in deep shafts filled with bats and their droppings.

But the Wuhan scientists then struggled to prove causality in their lab as their samples were too weak to infect human cells.

'This would have stopped them publishing a major finding of a new Sars-like virus infecting humans.

The possibility is they might then have tried modifying the virus to make it better able to infect human cells in a bid to establish the missing link.'

This is, it must be stressed, unproven speculation.

And it is understandable why China wants to comprehend as much as possible about bat viruses that emerge in their country.

Yet as experts say, there are many unanswered questions centring on Beijing's reluctance to come clean about the miners' cases, viruses and samples held in their labs.

The Wuhan Institute has even taken key databases offline.

Key to all this is the enigmatic Batwoman, Prof Shi. First, she published a genetic sequence for Sars-Cov-2  the strain of coronavirus that causes Covid-19  which, despite close analysis of other novel features, ignored its most surprising characteristic.

This is 'the furin cleavage site', a mutation not found on similar types of coronavirus that allows its spike protein to bind so effectively to many human cells.

The lab's own safety chief also publicly admitted concerns over flawed security systems

Then, last January, Prof Shi and two colleagues published a paper in Nature that revealed the existence of a virus called RaTG13 that was taken from a horseshoe bat and stored on their premises, the biggest repository of bat coronaviruses in Asia.

This paper, submitted on the same day China admitted to human transmission, caused a stir in the scientific world since it revealed the existence of the closest known relative to Sars-Cov-2 with more than 96 per cent genetic similarity.

It underlined that such diseases occur in nature  yet although closely related, it would have taken RaTG13 several decades to evolve in the wild into Sars-Cov-2 and was too distant to be manipulated in a laboratory.

Other experts wondered why there was so little information about this new strain. One reason soon became clear: the name had been changed from that of another virus called Ra4991 identified in a previous paper  but, unusually, not cited in the Nature piece.

This obscured a direct link to the dead miners, which was only confirmed when Nature sought publication of an 'addendum' following complaints.

The Wuhan team also admitted it had eight more Sars viruses from the Yunnan mine that have not been disclosed.

Some scientists say these new details raise many fresh issues  including a 20-point critique put on her blog by an Indian microbiologist called Monali Rahalkar.

Many high-profile experts, however, still dismiss the idea of a lab leak as a conspiracy theory.

Yet David Relman, one of the world's leading experts in this field, points out that scientists could easily have combined a 'furin cleavage site' from one viral ancestor with the backbone of Sars-Cov-2 taken from another.

'Alternatively, the complete Sars-Cov-2 sequence could have been recovered from a bat sample and viable virus recreated from a synthetic genome to study it before that virus accidentally escaped,' wrote Relman, professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University's medical school, in a recent paper.

The former US government adviser on bio-security told me he raised the issues out of frustration with scientists who seemed discomforted by the idea.

'This perplexing story does not add up  the possibility of a lab accident cannot be discounted,' he said.

There have also been questions over the apparent disappearance of a young woman researcher who worked in the laboratory.

It has been suggested she might have been patient zero of this pandemic, although this has been denied by the Chinese authorities.

Even if the miners' link was eliminated, it would not rule out the possibility of an accident causing this pandemic.

Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, said Wuhan scientists have shown in publications that they have sampled hundreds of bats and people living near bat caves in their search for Sars-related viruses.

'Even if the precursor to Sars-Cov-2 was not from these miners or the Mojiang mine, did they find other viruses that are very closely related that we do not yet know about?' she asked.

It sounds like the plot from a science-fiction film: an engineered virus leaking from a high-tech lab to cause global chaos.

Yet there are plenty of precedents, including two researchers infected with Sars in a Beijing virology lab in 2004.

Studies also show accidents with deadly pathogens are common in labs where people are working with microscopic viruses.

Prof Shi admitted she never expected an outbreak in a city so far from the home of the bats she studied.

She said her first thought on hearing coronaviruses might be the culprit was to wonder: 'Could they have come from our lab?'

She then frantically rushed back to Wuhan to check her records for any possible mishandling of materials  which proves she believed such a leak was a possibility.

There is also another lab in Wuhan with a lower level of bio-security, 500 yards from the animal market.

A study posted by two Chinese scientists in February on a site for sharing research  then pulled two days later  enigmatically claimed 605 bats were kept here, describing how some attacked, bled and urinated on a researcher.

'It is plausible that the virus leaked,' the paper concluded.

Perhaps this theory will unravel as we find out fresh facts.

Or scientists will uncover an alternative explanation for the path of Covid-19 from bats to humans.

Equally, it is possible we may never discover the truth about the origins of this virus.

But at this stage the only certainty is that we all do science  and indeed, investigative reporting  a disservice if this idea is discarded without being properly disproved and devoid of evidence.

We owe this to a world dislocated so terribly by this pandemic.

Charles Tyrwhitt is scaling back shirt-making in China after customers complained about the government in Beijing

By Harriet Dennys, City Correspondent for the Mail on Sunday

British shirt-maker Charles Tyrwhitt is scaling back manufacturing in China after customers said they no longer wanted to buy products from the country.

Founder Nick Wheeler told The Mail on Sunday: 'We are reacting to what the customer wants.

'A lot of customers are telling us they don't want us to make shirts in China. They don't like the Chinese government.'

As well as reducing the number of garments made in China, the company is ending contracts with cotton suppliers in Xinjiang province from July.

Mr Wheeler also cited wider human rights issues for the move, saying: 'There are areas of Chinese manufacturing using forced labour it's so far removed from anything we would ever do.'

British shirt-maker Charles Tyrwhitt is scaling back manufacturing in China after customers said they no longer wanted to buy products from the country. Founder Nick Wheeler told The Mail on Sunday: 'We are reacting to what the customer wants'

Charles Tyrwhitt is just one of dozens of multinationals scaling back manufacturing in China due to such concerns, coupled with steep tariffs on Chinese goods imported to the US.

A study by Swiss bank UBS last year found three in four US firms with factories in China are either moving or considering moving their operations to other countries, such as Vietnam.

They include Nike and Apple, which could shift almost a third of its iPhone production out of China.

Relations between China and Australia are also deteriorating. Beijing has slapped tariffs on barley and wine and is disrupting imports of many other Australian goods.

Charles Tyrwhitt makes all of its shirts overseas  it has factories in Vietnam, India, Malaysia, Italy, Portugal and Eastern Europe.

In the UK, the company makes shoes in Northampton, ties in Essex and suit fabric in Yorkshire.

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Mr Wheeler said customers have asked him to make shirts in the UK, but he said higher manufacturing costs would mean he would have to more than quadruple prices, charging about 140 a shirt.
COVID-19 vaccine is on the way to Fingal.

The first batch of COVID-19 vaccines to be administered in Fingal look destined for a nursing home in Balbriggan.

The eagerly-awaited Pfizer vaccine has landed in Ireland and an extensive programme of vaccinations against COVID-19 is set to begin in the next couple of days.

The wait will go on a couple of weeks in Fingal with Hamilton Park Nursing Home in Balbriggan set to be the first to receive the vaccine for its residents on January 15, 2021.

Several local nursing homes will receive the vaccine between January 15 and January 27 with Fingal Nursing Home and Loughshinny Residential Home set to receive the vaccine on January 20.

On January 21, Newpark Nursing Home will be able to administer the vaccine while St Doolagh's Nursing home receive the vaccine two days earlier on January 19.

At least three nursing homes in Swords will receive the vaccine in this period with Swords Nursing Home slated for January 25, as is Carechoice Swords while Tara Winthrop Nursing Home will get the vaccine on January 27.

The news comes not a moment too soon with the latest figures from Fingal and around the country showing an upward trend in the incidence of the disease.

The latest 14-day results available are from December 8 to December 21 and are split along Local Electoral Area lines.

The figures show the Local Electoral Areas in Fingal are on are above the national average in terms of the rate of cases per 100,000 of population.

Swords fares worst with the Swords Local Electoral Area showing a 149.9 rate per 100,000, well above the 138.2 per 100,000 national average.

There were 77 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the Swords Electoral Area during this two week period.

The Balbriggan Local Electoral Area had 63 cases in the same period, leaving it with exactly the national average of 138.2 cases per 100,000 of population.

Remarkably the rate was exactly the same for the Rush and Lusk Local Electoral Area and for the Howth Malahide Local Electoral Area.

Fingal Independent
In an all out crackdown against the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant groups, Pakistan counter-terrorism authorities have arrested Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the chief planner of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the LeT's current supreme commander of operations, on charges of terror financing.

Lakhvi was arrested by the Punjab province's Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), which has already filed over two dozen cases against Hafiz Saeed, JuD chief and mastermind of the Mumbai attacks, on charges of money laundering and terrorist financing.

As per reports, Lakhvi has been found guilty of extending financial help to terrorists through different umbrella businesses.

Reliable sources told IANS that Lakhvi has been arrested for running a dispensary and generating funds for the purpose of diverting the same to terrorists.

He was arrested through an intelligence based operation (IBO) by the CTD and was in reference to a case filed against him at the CTD police station Lahore.

Lakhvi's name is also present in the UN proscribed persons list.

He is a close aid to Saeed and has been involved in various operations of both the JuD and LeT.

As per details shared by the CTD, Lakhvi has been arrested on charges of terrorist financing.

His case will now be heard in the Anti-Terrorist Court (ATC) in Lahore.
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP)  Two months after the November elections, Georgia voters have unfinished business. The outcome will determine partisan control of the U.S. Senate and how lawmakers deal with a new White House.

Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are both on the ballot Tuesday in runoff elections because neither got enough votes Nov. 3 to win outright.

Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock have raised staggering sums as they try to capitalize on President-elect Joe Biden's narrow victory in Georgia over GOP President Donald Trump.

Here's a look at how two key Georgia elections pushed into 2021, who's running and what's at stake.

WHO'S RUNNING?

Both of Georgia's Senate seats weren't supposed to be up for grabs in 2020.

Perdue is wrapping up a six-year term. The Republican was first elected in 2014 after running as a political outsider and former CEO of Reebok and Dollar General. In his first term, Perdue became known as one of Trump's chief defenders in the Senate.

The race got shaken up in August 2019 when fellow GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson announced he was resigning because of failing health. Georgia's governor appointed Loeffler to fill the seat, but she would have to run in the November election to fill the last two years of Isakson's term.

Like Perdue, Loeffler's background was in business rather than politics. Before joining the Senate, she worked at Intercontinental Exchange, a company founded by her husband that operates the New York Stock Exchange. One of the Senate's wealthiest members, Loeffler has spent more than $20 million of her own cash running and traveled the state in her private jet.

As for the challengers, Ossoff and Warnock are seeking to become the first Democrats to win a U.S. Senate election in Georgia since 2000.

If he defeats Perdue, Ossoff would be the Senate's youngest member at age 33. His introduction to politics came as a college students when he interned for Georgia U.S. Rep. John Lewis, the Democrat and civil rights hero who died in July. Ossoff runs a company that produces documentary films and ran for a House seat in 2017, which he lost but proved a formidable fundraiser.

In the wide-open race for Loeffler's seat, Democratic leaders united early to endorse Warnock, pastor of the Atlanta church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached and one of Georgia's best-known Black ministers. Warnock's activism from the pulpit on issues such as bail reform and expanded voting rights have become centerpieces of his campaign  just as his sometimes fiery sermons have provided ammunition for attacks by Republicans.

WHY IS GEORGIA STILL VOTING?

Georgia law requires candidates for Congress and state offices to win by getting more than 50% of the vote. Otherwise, races get forced into a runoff between the top two finishers.

In November, Perdue finished 88,000 votes ahead of Ossoff but fell just short of a majority with 49.7% of the vote in a three-way race that included Libertarian Shane Hazel.

A runoff was virtually assured in the special election for Loeffler's seat. Because she was running to complete her predecessor's unfinished term, state law requires a political free-for-all with multiple Republicans and Democrats sharing the ballot. Loeffler and Warnock were the top finishers out of 20 candidates, with neither getting more than one-third of the vote.

Why wait until 2021 to resolve those races?

Georgia amended its election laws in 2014 to require nine weeks between general elections and runoffs. The runoff period had been just four weeks. But that changed after the U.S. Justice Department sued Georgia, arguing military members stationed overseas didn't have enough time to receive and mail back absentee ballots.

WHAT'S AT STAKE?

If Perdue and Loeffler both lose their seats, Republicans lose control of the U.S. Senate after six years holding a majority in the chamber.

The November elections resulted in Republicans holding 50 Senate seats and Democrats controlling 48. Only the two seats in Georgia remain undecided.

A win by either Perdue or Loeffler would keep the Senate in Republican hands.

But victories by both Ossoff and Warnock would leave both parties with 50 seats each  and therefore tilt control to Democrats. That's because Democratic Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will serve as the Senate's presiding officer and will vote as needed to break any ties.

It would be a big win for Biden, as Democrats would control both houses of Congress.

WHERE DO THINGS STAND?

Perdue and Loeffler have cast themselves as the last line of defense against Democratic control of Washington. But their closing arguments have been complicated by Trump siding with Democrats in calling for one-time cash payments of $2,000 for pandemic relief, an amount most congressional Republicans oppose.

Both GOP senators have said they support Trump's demand for the extra money after months of caricaturing Democrats as socialists who favor wasteful spending. Ossoff and Warnock insist their rivals haven't done enough to try to force a vote on the higher relief payments in the Senate.

The two Democrats reported staggering fundraising of more than $100 million each during the past two months. Their hauls far outpaced the Republican incumbents, with Perdue reporting $68 million and Loeffler just under $64 million.

Georgia voters, meanwhile, have already been turning out in huge numbers despite the holidays and the pandemic. More than 2.8 million have voted early either in person or by mail  more than half of the 5 million total votes cast in Georgia in November.

Both sides are calling on their heaviest hitters to help turn out supporters. Trump has scheduled a Monday rally with Perdue and Loeffler in conservative northwest Georgia. Harris plans to campaign with Ossoff and Warnock on Sunday in Savannah, followed by Biden in Atlanta on Monday.

Heading into the final days, Perdue's campaign said Thursday that he and his wife learned they had been in close contact with a staffer who tested positive for COVID-19 and the senator was in quarantine despite having tested negative.

Related: U.S. Senate run-offs in Georgia
 Flash

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a phone conversation with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Thursday, with both sides pledging to further strengthen the Sino-Pakistani all-weather strategic cooperative partnership.

Wang said that on the very last day of 2020, it is of great significance for China and Pakistan to communicate as "ironclad" friends, whose all-weather strategic cooperative partnership has stood the test and maintained a strong development momentum in the face of major changes unseen in a century and a once-in-a-century pandemic.

Wang stressed that whatever changes may take place in the world and whatever difficulties and challenges may confront the two countries, China will always stick to its friendly policy toward Pakistan.

China is willing to expand and deepen bilateral cooperation in a larger scope with Pakistan, and jointly build an even closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future, he said.

China highly appreciates Pakistan's valuable support on issues concerning China's core interests, and will always stand firmly with Pakistan on issues concerning Pakistan's core interests, Wang said.

The two sides should steadily advance the high-quality development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), focus on key projects such as the Gwadar Port and the upgrading of the Main Line-1 railway, promote cooperation in industry, agriculture, as well as in science and technology, and enhance Pakistan's capacity for development, he said.

China is willing to provide Pakistan with as much support as possible in anti-epidemic materials, technology and experience to help Pakistan defeat the coronavirus, Wang said.

Both sides should finish the phase III clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines in Pakistan at an early date, to ensure that the vaccine cooperation benefits the Pakistani people as soon as possible, Wang added.

For his part, Qureshi said that China is the anchor of regional peace and stability, and the progress made in Pakistan-China relations this year is encouraging.

No matter how the international and regional situation changes, Pakistan will continue strengthening its all-weather strategic cooperative partnership with China, he said.

Pakistan appreciates China's outstanding achievements in fighting the coronavirus, and is willing to further strengthen vaccine research and development cooperation with China, he said, expressing hope that China will facilitate Pakistan's procurement of Chinese vaccines.

Pakistan attaches great importance to the construction of the CPEC and is ready to push forward cooperation with China in major projects such as the Gwadar Port program, Qureshi said.
These pictures capture the shocking aftermath of a smash and grab raid on popular Grafton Street fashion store Canada Goose.

The high-end outlet that sells designer clothes including jackets that can cost well over 1,000 apiece was apparently targeted by thieves in the early hours of this morning.

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The front door of the shop was smashed open with one eye witness saying it looked like it had been "pulled off the hinges."

Another eye witness who was one of the first people on the scene watched as Dublin City workers swept up the remains of the door as shop workers watched on.

"The jackets in the shop are normally in place with a wire lock. I recently got one for my partner and some retail well over 1,000 per jacket, he said.

Expand Close The damaged door at the Canada Goose Store on Grafton Street which was robbed overnight. Photo by Steve Humphreys 2nd January 2021 / Facebook

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Whatsapp The damaged door at the Canada Goose Store on Grafton Street which was robbed overnight. Photo by Steve Humphreys 2nd January 2021

"There was a Dublin City road sweeper unit there cleaning up the glass that was shattered all over the street, he added.

Gardai are hunting the culprits behind the smash and grab but a full probe has been launched, they said.

Expand Close The Canada Goose Store on Grafton Street which was robbed overnight. / Facebook

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Whatsapp The Canada Goose Store on Grafton Street which was robbed overnight.

Gardai are investigating an incident of burglary at a retail premises on Grafton Street this morning, January 2 at approximately 4am, gardai said.

No arrests have been made at this time, they added. Investigations are ongoing.

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Yves here. I have difficulty understanding how anyone can convince themselves that the economics discipline is about to turn over a new leaf. The criticisms Snower lists are hardly new. Youll find them all and more in ECONNED, which is now over ten years old, as well as in Steve Keens earlier Debunking Economics. Keynes critique, that economies have no propensity to a stable equilibrium is even older and vastly better known, yet much to his frustration, his theories were treated as a mere special case of neoclassical economics.

Snower ignores that prospering as an academic economist depends on getting published in a handful of elite economic publications. Jamie Galbraith has explained that they are hostile to anything that dimly resembles a heterodox position; hes accomplished mathematically, has submitted non-mainstream arguments to them, properly mathed up. He reports that once they understand where he is going, his submissions are always rejected..with the spurious claim that his math is no good. There are plenty of corroborating examples.

The purpose of mainstream economics is to defend free enterprise against Communism by depicting market economies as generating full employment if left alone. Thats obviously false but the essential political role means that the notion that conventional economics is on its last legs is wildly overstated.

By Dennis J. Snower, President of the Global Solutions Initiative, which provides policy advice to the G20. He is Professor of Macroeconomics and Sustainability at the Hertie School of Governance, Berlin; Fellow at The New Institute, Hamburg; Senior Research Fellow of the Blavatnik School of Governance, Oxford University; Non-resident Fellow of The Brookings Institution and visiting Professor at University College, London. Published jointly by Evonomics and ThisViewofLife.com

This is probably the most exciting and fruitful time ever to become an aspiring economist. Why? Because economics is reaching its Copernican Moment  the moment when it is finally becoming clear that the current ways of thinking about economic behavior are inadequate and a new way of thinking enables us to make much better sense of our world. It is a moment fraught with danger, because those in power still adhere to the traditional conventional wisdom and heresy is suppressed.

Up to the 16th century, the conventional wisdom on astronomy conformed to Aristotles cosmology and Ptolemys astronomy. In Aristotles system, the earth is the center of the universe and the heavenly bodies are part of spherical shells of aether. These shells fit around one another in a clear order: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the fixed stars. All these spheres are put in motion by the Prime Mover. By the 16th century, Ptolemys astronomy was regarded as in accord with the conventional reading of the Bible, the ultimate source of all knowledge.

Ptolemys system encountered endless difficulties in accounting for the empirical evidence, which were addressed through the repeated application of geometric fixes (eccentrics, epicycles, and equants). The underlying methodological requirement was to retain the Aristotelian system as the foundation for our understanding of the universe and then to depict each fix as a divergence from this accepted foundation. Thus, to be taken seriously as an astronomer, it was necessary to master the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic systems and to develop superstructures on them. Copernicus did not follow this intellectual path, but he did not dare to publish his heliocentric theory until the year of his death, in 1543. In 1632 Galileo published a book supporting Copernicus heliocentric theory, was summoned before the Inquisition, and recanted. The Church had the hard power of the Inquisition and the soft power of scholastic theology on its side.

In the academic discipline of economics, we are currently experiencing a tame analogue to these first throes of the scientific revolution. The punishment for heresy is not execution, but intellectual oblivion.

Current Foundations of Economic Thought

The entire ecosystem of economics  the textbooks, the dominant journals, the places of higher learning, the prestigious conferences, the promising pathways to professional success, and the news media  is singing from the same song sheet, namely, the basic axioms of neoclassical and behavioral economics. The most important of these axioms are the following:

Microeconomics:

 Individuals are the only units of functional organization relevant for economic decisions. The economic activities of social and political groups are merely the sum of their members activities. Thus individuals are the only unit of selection, i.e. the success of an individual depends only on the characteristics of that individual. Methodologically, we have the claim that social phenomena must be explained by individual actions, which in turn must be explained by the decisions of individuals. This is the doctrine of methodological individualism.

 In neoclassical economics, consumption is the ultimate source of wellbeing. In other words, the utility of individuals depends, either directly or indirectly, on what they themselves consume. In behavioral economics, this axiom has been relaxed to allow for social preferences, whereby an individuals utility may depend on the consumption of others.

 Individuals are rational actors. This means that each individuals decisions can be explained in terms of maximizing utility subject to constraints (such as a budget constraint).

 This utility can be represented by a preference function which is complete (it covers all the individuals objects of choice) and transitive (if A is preferred to B and B is preferred to C, then A must be preferred to C). The individuals choices reveal her preferences, which implies that the preference function must be temporally stable at least for long enough for such preference revelation to take place. Behavioral economics relaxes this axiom to allow for preferences that depend on reference points (such as the status quo), loss aversion (more weight given to losses than gains) and differences between experienced utility (the source of wellbeing) and decision utility (the objective of decision making).

Macroeconomics:

 An economic market can be understood in terms of the demand for and the supply of goods in that market, which depend on the prices of these goods. In perfect markets (characterized by perfect information, perfect competition and no externalities), the price adjusts to equate demand and supply.

 Once this adjustment has taken place, the market is in equilibrium, which means that there is no tendency for any further change.

 Under market imperfections (imperfect information, imperfect competition, and externalities), markets may tend towards an equilibrium in which they do not clear. In such an equilibrium, for example, labor supply may permanently exceed labor demand.

 When all markets have reached their equilibrium, then the economy is in a state of general equilibrium, in which the entire economy experiences no further change.

 Macroeconomic activities can generally be understood as aggregates of market activities in the general equilibrium.

Knowledge:

 Individuals understand their environment imperfectly. Rational agents obey the axioms of probability. This means that they know the set of all possible events; they can assign a probability to each event; every event has a probability of at least zero; the probability of all events is 100%; and if the events are unrelated, then the probability that either of the events happens is equal to the sum of the probabilities that each event happens.

 Economic events can be understood through the application of econometrics (i.e. statistical theory, based on probability theory).

A major implication of these axioms is that under perfect market conditions, the general equilibrium is efficient, so that no one can be made better off without making someone else worse off. This is the basis for understanding Adam Smiths Invisible Hand, whereby the selfish activities of uncoordinated market participants serves the public interest. It is also considered the basis for understanding why the capitalist system has been so successful in delivering high and growing living standards.

Unless you accept these basic axioms and the Invisible Hand implication, you will not be taken seriously as an economist. This is important, since economics is particularly influential among policy makers, economic commentators and the general public  far more influential than the other social sciences.

Fixes That Fail

Thus, economists tend to accept the neoclassical economic system (comprising these axioms with regard to perfect markets) as the foundation for their understanding of the economic universe. They then explain each discrepancy between the predictions of this system and their empirical observations in terms of a fix, to be understood as a divergence from the accepted foundation.

They recognize that the axioms above are often not in accord with the empirical evidence. In fact, behavioral economics began as a compendium of anomalies that the neoclassical system could not explain. Some of these anomalies have been addressed by behavioral theories such as prospect theory or social preference theory, but many have not. Different theories explain different anomalies; there is no overarching theory to explain them all.

And since behavioral economics is devoted primarily to individual fixes, it has retained many of the basic axioms above, such as methodological individualism, consumption as central for wellbeing, understanding economic events in terms of probability theory and the tendency toward equilibrium. However, these axioms are also open to question.

Regarding methodological individualism, who says that the individual is the only level of selection? After all, Homo Sapiens owe their evolutionary success largely to their ability to cooperate with one another, in larger number than other mammals.

Regarding consumption as central to wellbeing, who says that our material appetitive needs dwarf our social needs, such as the need to care and be cared for, or the need to belong to a community, or the need to shape your fate through your own efforts?

Regarding our ability to understand economic events in terms of probability theory, who says that we can imagine all conceivable future states of the world and that we can assign probabilities to each of them? After all, many of the most important events that young people look forward to in the future  whom they will marry, where they will live, what jobs they will get, how much they will earn, what their state of health will be, when they will retire, how long they will live  are simply unknown unknowns.

Not only has the neoclassical system encountered endless discrepancies between predictions and evidence and thus has accumulated endless fixes, but it also has had little success in addressing the great economic questions of our time. For example: If the free-market system is meant to satisfy our needs efficiently, why is it despoiling our environment? Why is it generating inequalities and other inequities that threaten the social cohesion of our societies? Why does it leave so many people economically insecure, vulnerable to unemployment and trapped in dead-end jobs? Why does it not correct for the excesses of consumerism, workaholism and digital addictions, frequently leading to anxiety, depression, burnout, substance abuse and crime? Why is it giving us so little guidance in promoting public compliance with social distancing rules during the Covid-19 pandemic, even though such compliance has economic causes and consequences? Why does it keep so many businesses focused on short-term profit and shareholder value, even though so many business leaders are genuinely concerned about the environment and the wellbeing of their customers and employees?

Responses to Failed Fixes

To these great questions, mainstream economists (those whose economic knowledge is taken seriously) give one of two standard answers: (1) These questions may be important, but the answers lie outside the domain of economics. For environmental problems, turn to the life sciences; for social problems, turn to sociology and anthropology; for psychological problems, turn to psychology; for crime, turn to law; and so on. (2) Economics can deal with these questions through its standard policy toolbox: taxes and subsidies, government regulations, quotas, remuneration schemes and other instruments that provide monetary incentives for some behaviors and forbid others.

In the course of my policy and business advisory activities  supporting the G20 Presidencies through my leadership of the Global Solutions Initiative, advising international organizations and national governments with regard to labor, welfare and macroeconomic policy, and working with business leaders to address global economic problems  I have recognized a profound change in the way practitioners view mainstream economics. Economists used to be the high priests of public policy and business strategy, playing a leading role in the formulation of pricing policies, incentive schemes, contract design, monetary and fiscal policies, social and health policies, and much more. Mainstream economics promulgated a simple narrative on the division of responsibilities  a narrative that appeared to suit everyone well in todays capitalist economies: The purpose of business was to make profit; the purpose of consumers was to satisfy their selfish material desires; and the purpose of government was to devise rules that enabled the businesses in the free-market system to the satisfy the consumption desires efficiently (i.e. at minimum resource cost).

Now the practitioners patience with mainstream economics is wearing thin. Unlike the academic economists, the practitioners must actually address the great economic questions of our time. They cannot afford to be satisfied with the two above-mentioned standard answers. They cannot accept that these questions lie outside the domain of economics, even though they have many important economic causes (the world economy as driver of climate change, economic inequalities as drivers of populism and social fragmentation, and so on) and many important economic consequences (climate change driving migration, populism leading to protectionism, and so on). Nor can the practitioners be content with the economists standard policy toolbox, since these instruments are obviously not overcoming the growing problems of climate change, social conflict, deaths of despair, containment of the Covid-19 pandemic, and much more.

And finally, the practitioners are no longer enamored by the mainstream narrative on the division of responsibilities. Consumers in their millions are taking an interest in the social, political and environmental consequences of consumption and production activities, school children are out in the streets in protest about climate change, international organizations are beginning to measure economic performance beyond GDP (such as through the OECDs Better Life Index and the UNs Sustainable Development Goals), businesses are beginning to measure business performance beyond shareholder value (such as through Environmental, Social and Governance criteria along with the initiatives of the WEF International Business Council, the OECD Business for Inclusive Growth coalition, the Value Balancing Initiative, the British Academys Future of the Corporation programme), national governments are beginning to design budgets with regard to notions of wellbeing that extend beyond consumption of goods and services (such as New Zealand wellbeing budget). In short, the practitioners are not waiting for the mainstream economics profession to adjust to reality; instead, they are forging ahead on multiple fronts, extending the domain of economics to the existential challenges we face.

Intimations of Progress

Beyond any shadow of a doubt, there is a change in the air, as economics nears its Copernican Moment. We are gradually reaching the same sort of stunning realization that Copernicus must have reached before writing his revolutionary book On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres: What if we cant get there from here? What if incremental fixes dont permit a major new leap in our understanding? What if we need to encounter the world afresh?

Fortunately, we now have access to a powerful body of thought that can guide this new encounter. The evolution of our natural world can be understood in terms of variation, replication and selection. The evolution of ideas can be understood in such terms as well: new ideas keep cropping up; they are transmitted from person to person; and the ideas that get selected to survive are often to be ones that enable us to navigate our environment most effectively. Selection can act not only on individuals, but also on groups. Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.(E.O. Wilson and D.S. Wilson (2007), Rethinking the Theoretical Foundations of Sociobiology, Quarterly Review of Biology, 82(4), 327-348) The level of functional organization thus depends on the relative strength of within- and between-group selection.

This is a different starting point from the one underlying mainstream economics. The discipline of economics is based on classical physics, i.e. the inanimate world. Evolution, by contrast, is appropriate to the animate world. Not a bad point of departure for economics. After all, humans are living creatures. If we choose this path, economics will be reaching its Darwinian  not Copernican  Moment.

This is why now is probably the most exciting and fruitful time ever to become an aspiring economist. The Dutch philosopher Erasmus famously said, At the end, you will ask yourself: What have I made of my life? That wish you wish to answer then, do now. Who would not wish to be alive and active at such a moment, when a great contribution is waiting to be made and there is no one around to execute you for it?
The prince said the cancellation of cancer operations was creating 'despair' among sufferers - Chris Jackson/Getty Images

The Prince of Wales has warned that cancer is in danger of becoming the "Forgotten C" as vital operations and treatment for life-threatening conditions are cancelled during the Covid pandemic.

Prince Charles said the pandemic had taken "a devastating toll" on cancer services, making the burden of those with the disease even more unbearable, and warned that the cancellation of cancer operations was creating "despair" among sufferers.

Writing exclusively for the Telegraph, the prince, who is the patron of Macmillan Cancer Support, said: "In many cases, due to the pandemic, difficulties have become crises, a sense of isolation has become actual separation, and  as vital treatment or surgery has in some cases been postponed  anxiety has become despair.

"Macmillan has been adapting to this ever-evolving situation to ensure that cancer does not become 'the Forgotten C' during the pandemic but, even so, Covid-19 has still taken a devastating toll, with the charity losing a third of its fundraised income."

Experts have warned that the devastating toll of Covid on cancer services may not be fully realised for years to come. An estimated 33,000 people in the UK should have started treatment but have been unable to do so because of the disruption caused by the virus response.

According to Macmillan, up to 50,000 people could be living with undiagnosed cancer as a result of delays to NHS services. Unless cancer services are better protected, the number of undiagnosed patients could double to 100,000 next year, the charity warned.

One study estimated between 7,000 and 18,000 excess cancer deaths within the year because of Covid.

The prince said receiving a cancer diagnosis, or going through treatment, could be among the most frightening experiences imaginable, even in normal times. He urged those now looking ahead to the New Year to think of everyone affected by cancer, whose "own momentous, personal struggles" have been made all the heavier by the Covid crisis.

Story continues

Internal NHS data seen by the Health Service Journal last month suggested that waiting lists for cancer patients have almost doubled over the past seven months.

The total number of people waiting for cancer treatment within 62 days of referral by a GP had increased from about 90,000 in mid-May to about 160,000 by December.

Cancer Research UK said patients faced a "double whammy" of delays in getting GP appointments and long waiting times for vital tests. Almost three million people in the United Kingdom are already living with cancer, and that number is only expected to increase.

Meanwhile, Macmillan has predicted a loss of 175 million over the next three years as a result of so many fundraising events being cancelled.

The prince paid tribute to the way in which the charity, one of those chosen for The Telegraph's Christmas charity appeal, had responded to the pandemic.

"These are truly daunting circumstances. However, a charity set up to tackle cancer is not easily daunted and, as we have seen throughout this last year, right across our country the formidable will and compassion of the British people have outshone every darkness," he said.

The prince paid tribute to Britain's determination and 'spirit of sacrifice' - Ben Birchall/AFP

He acknowledged that the year ahead would hold challenges "undreamed of a mere 12 months ago" but paid tribute to the determination and "spirit of sacrifice" with which the nation had confronted the virus crisis.

"Compassion, we have learned, has not become fatigued; it has strengthened with use," he said. "Sacrifice has become second nature. Giving has become not an act, but an attitude."

He highlighted the qualities that had come to the fore over the last 12 months, saying: "We have lived through one of the most anxious and uncertain of years.

"Much has been suffered; much has been lost. But much, too, has been rediscovered: an endurance that we somehow always knew was the bedrock of our character; a compassion that we trusted lay at the heart of our values; a courage which we sensed could always be called upon in the hour of greatest need.

"In this crisis, the people of this country have not proved wanting. They have proved themselves equal to the highest of our ideals, inheritors of the best of our traditions and worthy of the momentous history in which they, too, have now played their part."
Officially, the habit of painting stuff on aircraft is called nose art. Historically, it was first used (some say as far back as the early 1910s) as a means for friendly units to identify themselves. It wasnt until the Second World War, though, that nose art became increasingly complex, with all sides coming up with their own designs, meant to either boost their own morale or defeat that of the enemy.On the allied side, legend has it that the first to use the shark mouth design on the nose of airplanes was the British 112 Squadron. Deployed in several war theaters during the war, from Greece to the Middle East and Italy, it was also the first air force unit to use the Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk ground attack/ fighter aircraft. Seeing the shark mouth used by Luftwaffes Messerschmitt Bf 110s, the unit decided to copy it and thus became known as the Shark Squadron.The plane you see here was never deployed by this particular unit but did see action as part of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. It is a Curtiss P-40 of the Kittyhawk variety, not a Tomahawk, and is presently for sale for $1,795,000 somewhere in Australia.After being sold for scrap following the war, it was rescued and entered the private circuit. The plane has been dressed up to look like a Shark Squadron machine, featuring the very menacing shark mouth and eyes up front. It was restored back in 2006 and is powered by an Allison engine (the same it had on when it rolled off the lines back in 1943) that saw just 265 hours of operation since restoration.
The Chinese government warned it will take action against the US for delisting the countrys largest operators from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), on claims the telecom firms had ties with the Chinese military.

Reuters reported, the NYSE delisted China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom on December 31, after President Donald Trump banned US investment in 31 companies the US claimed are controlled by the Chinese military.

The Chinese ministry of commerce said in a statement: This kind of abuse of national security and state power to suppress Chinese firms does not comply with market rules and violates market logic.

It not only harms the legal rights of Chinese companies but also damages the interests of investors in other countries, including the United States.

The move from the US government follows its long campaign against infrastructure and smartphone manufacturer Huawei, which the US claims has close ties with the Chinese government, potentially providing backdoors to a countrys infrastructure for spying. An accusation Huawei has long denied.

In December, the US Department of Justice was in talks with the legal team of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou over a deal that could lead to her release.
Is it fair or even patriotic to threaten states that do not conform to the Democratic Socialists' mandate to control the outcome of Free and Fair elections enacted by constitutionally guaranteed states' legislatures?

Yes, all elections must be federalized so that the whim of the majority political party can set the standard for all elections.

No, Our Founders purposefully decentralized elections by guaranteeing only states' legislatures the independent right to enact Free and Fair elections.
Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday's ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below.

S.H. writes: I used Trainline to buy a 7 Merseyrail ticket from Ormskirk to Liverpool Central Station, but when I arrived in Liverpool, staff would not accept it as valid.

An officer issued me with a 20 penalty notice, though at the same time he told a lady who said she had forgotten her ticket that she could buy another.

When I contacted Trainline and Merseyrail, the penalty notice was cancelled. However, Trainline then refunded the 7 to me, so Merseyrail sent me a fresh penalty notice for 27, and as I did not pay, it now wants 125.

Up the junction: You could not have collected your Trainline ticket without a detour to Burscough Junction

This could be a comedy of errors, but I know you have found it hugely stressful. The heart of the problem is that Trainline sells Merseyrail tickets online, but you have to go to a station to collect them  and absurdly, not a Merseyrail station.

So although you had a Trainline printout proving you had paid the fare, you could not collect your ticket at Liverpool Central or at Ormskirk in Lancashire where your journey began.

Trainline told me that its website explains that customers using Merseyrail have to collect tickets from another station. In fact, it offers a map covered in about 1,500 overlapping blobs showing where Trainline tickets can be collected. But it would make far more sense to avoid Trainline altogether.

What you were supposed to do was catch a train from Ormskirk heading in the opposite direction and collect your ticket at Burscough Junction, where Trainline is accepted.

Then you would have had to return to Ormskirk and wait for your train to Liverpool. As a result, your 34-minute journey to Liverpool would actually have taken two hours and 22 minutes, and you would have been charged an extra 3.50 for a day return to Burscough.

Merseyrail sensibly scrapped the original penalty notice, but as Trainline and Merseyrail seem to have no relationship, Trainline refunded the 7 fare to you instead of paying it to Merseyrail.

That left Merseyrail out of pocket so it reinstated its demand to you, including a 20 penalty. You were never a fare dodger, but you were treated as just that.

Not surprisingly, you offered to pay the normal 7 fare, but not the penalty, which then escalated to 125.

I contacted Merseyrail, where staff made clear that this was not the first time they had met problems involving Trainline.

After some discussions with me, and between Merseyrail staff and their prosecutions department, common sense and perhaps the spirit of Christmas prevailed.

On December 17, you were told that if you paid the 7 fare within 14 days, there would be no penalty, but fail to pay and the next stop was court. You duly went online to pay, but your attempt hit the buffers.

You telephoned, but Merseyrail refused to take your 7, with a recorded message insisting nothing was owed. That left you unable to pay, and facing a court appearance.

I retraced your steps with the same results, so I contacted Merseyrail and suggested I would come to their offices with a Mail on Sunday photographer and hand over the 7 in cash.

Merseyrail immediately decided a 'technical issue' was to blame, and when this was corrected a few days before Christmas, I used its automatic phone payment line and found a fresh demand for 7.

Sharing your frustration, I paid it for you, rather than let the matter drag on.

It would be good to see Trainline stop offering Merseyrail tickets that it has such trouble providing, but meanwhile Merseyrail passengers would do well to completely avoid it.

Please help! My 10,750 is stuck in a Spanish bank branch

Ms F.M. writes: I sold a property in Spain but kept my Banco Popular account open to receive a Spanish tax rebate. My account held 11,821 (about 10,750), but it has since been blocked.

I have been trying since 2018 to get my money out, but the bank told my Spanish lawyer I must go in person, which is difficult as I have serious health problems.

Banco Popular was taken over by Santander, which has a thriving presence in Britain

Judging by similar complaints I have received, it is far easier to open a Spanish bank account than to close it. Your Banco Popular account in Valencia has proved to be a lucky exception though, as the bank was taken over by Santander, which has a thriving presence in Britain.

Staff at Santander told me you could go to any branch, where they would set up online access to your Banco Popular account. You could then transfer cash to any bank in Britain. And when you explained that your health issues left you virtually housebound, Santander said it would send someone to your home.

A spokesman told me: 'To protect customers from fraud, it is important we ensure that identification requirements are met before closing accounts or transferring funds. We are sorry for the time it has taken Ms M to close her account.'

Your money landed in your British bank account a week before Christmas, and Santander has confirmed to me that your Banco Popular account is now closed.

Why is Singapore Airlines refusing to refund my axed flight to Sydney? Offer: Airline will now honour the flight Ms V.K. writes: Last February, I booked a Singapore Airlines flight from Heathrow to Sydney through STA Travel in London. The flight date was October 20, but on August 11 Singapore Airlines cancelled the flight  and soon afterwards, STA Travel went into administration. However, the airline refused me a refund, saying the STA Travel administrator first had to tell them to pay. What nonsense from the airline. Your flight had already been cancelled before STA Travel ceased trading in October, and the agent went into voluntary liquidation, not administration. I contacted the airline in Singapore and an official told me: 'We regret our call centre teams provided Ms K with incorrect advice.' The proper procedure is that the airline takes over responsibility in the absence of the travel agent. You can now have a full refund, or the airline will transfer you to a flight of your choosing, plus extra 'bonus flight credits' for any date in 2021.

Lloyds' empty apology

R.B. writes: I have held a Lloyds Bank account for over 50 years. I telephoned to give notice to withdraw 11,000 at the Twickenham branch, and the woman who answered said she'd email staff there.

However, when I phoned the branch, I was told no email had arrived  and I could not have the money.

You and your wife are in your 70s, and have been pretty well confined to your home during the pandemic. Your children have looked after your needs  and you wanted to repay them and have some cash in the house for future expenses.

When you explained this, Lloyds requested ten weeks of your shopping bills and your children's bank details, after which it would transfer the money to them.

Or, you could make 22 separate cashpoint trips and withdraw 500 a time. This is despite the bank's website advising that cash withdrawals up to 2,500 are allowed with no notice.

Banks walk a tightrope in circumstances like these. All banks tell staff to try to take care of senior citizens asking for large cash sums, in case they are victims of a scam. But requesting supermarket receipts does seem excessive.

Lloyds told me: 'We have apologised for the inconvenience and, after receiving further information, a branch colleague was able to help Mr B with a cash withdrawal.'

This would be fine  except that it did not happen. You received no apology, and went of your own accord to a different Lloyds branch where staff cheerfully let you have 5,000.

The bank tells me its original apology must have gone astray, so it has repeated it and emphasised it has your best interests at heart.

If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk.

Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.
After he didn't play in the midweek draw against Eibar, Lionel Messi is back in training for Barcelona as they prepare to face Huesca on Sunday night.

The forward was rested against Eibar because of a minor ankle injury, yet he was back in training on Friday and worked with the rest of the group.

Barcelona will be looking to get 2021 up and running with a victory, after dropping points in the last fixture.

Messi hasn't played since the victory over Real Valladolid on December 22, after which he flew to Argentina to spend Christmas there.

Coutinho's surgery

After suffering an injury to his left knee, Philippe Coutinho will go for surgery on Saturday.

Afterwards, a more accurate estimation of his recovery time can be established.
At least 70 civilians were killed in simultaneous attacks on two villages by suspected Islamist militants in Niger, near the border zone with Mali, two security sources said on Saturday.

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Four cases have been registered in different parts of the city against sellers of plastic kite strings, which is banned in the state due to the potential safety hazards.

The first case was registered by the Division Number 6 police, against Daljit Singh of Muradpura, Millar Ganj, after three rolls of plastic strings were recovered from his stationery shop near Dhuri lines. The case against him has been registered under Section 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) of the Indian Penal Code.

In the second case, Sadar police arrested Sandeep Singh of Manjit Nagar and Paramjit Sharma of Subhash Nagar with 45 rolls of plastic strings. The Sadar police arrested another person in a separate case after 250 rolls were found in his possession. The accused has been identified as Rajit Sharma of Gulchaman Gali. The two cases have been lodged under Section 188 and 336 (act endangering life or personal safety of others) of the Indian Penal Code, besides Sections 39, 51 of the Wildlife Protection Act.

The Division Number 4 police arrested two persons, identified as Ashish Bahadur Spreta of New Kundanpuri and Abu Talib of New Kundanpuri, and recovered 10 rolls of banned kite strings from their possession. They have been charged for disobedience to order promulgated by public servant and endangering the life and safety of others.

Police commissioner Rakesh Agrawal said that he has instructed all police stations to add sections of the Wildlife Act against the violators.

Know the punishment

Under Section 188 of the IPC, a convict shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to six months, or with a fine which may extend to Rs 1, 000, or with both.

Under Section 336 of IPC, a convict shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three months, or with fine which may extend to Rs 250, or with both.

Sections 35 and 51 of Wildlife Protection Act 1972 are punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years or with fine which may extend to Rs 25,000 or with both.
They escaped Tier 4 lockdown to head out to the Maldives for a New Year's 'work trip'.

And Nicola Adams' girlfriend Ella Baig certainly made the most of the sunny climes as she headed out for a swim on Friday.

The model, 22, caught the eye as she flaunted her figure in a tiny blue thong bikini.

Beach babe: Nicola Adams' girlfriend Ella Baig certainly made the most of the sunny climes as she headed out for a swim on Friday in the Maldives in a tiny blue bikini

The halterneck bikini top struggled to contain Ella's ample cleavage as she waded through the sea, while the thong bikini bottoms highlighted her taut waist.

The model's lion thigh tattoo was on display as she basked in the sunshine.

Ella wore her blonde locks in a sleek straight look and accentuated her bronzed tan with a polished make-up look.

All eyes on her: The model, 22, caught the eye as she flaunted her figure in the tiny blue thong bikini

Inking: The model's lion thigh tattoo was on display as she basked in the sunshine

The buxom blonde has been littering snaps of her enviable getaway on social media.

Marking the end of 2020, Ella took to her main grid where she posted a couples shot of the pair enjoying their night together, sipping on rose champagne over dinner.

Meanwhile Strictly star Nicola, 38, shared a wholesome shot of them posing together on New Year's Eve.

Ella stunned in a sheer white floral crop top and a gold satin maxi skirt, while the boxer opted for an Asymmetric print shirt and white trousers.

Racy: The halterneck bikini top struggled to contain Ella's ample cleavage as she waded through the sea, while the thong bikini bottoms highlighted her taut waist

Working hard: On Instagram, Ella's girlfriend Nicola updated her fans on their trip saying it was 'strictly business'

Cheers to Tier 4: Marking the end of 2020, Ella took to her main grid where she posted a couples shot of the pair enjoying their night together, sipping on rose champagne over dinner

On Instagram, Nicola updated her fans on their trip saying it was 'strictly business' as they made their way to the airport in the afternoon.

MailOnline contacted Nicola and Ella's representatives for comment at the time.

Amid yacht trips and wild nights out, a host of stars, including TOWIE's Amber Turner, Dan Edgar, Yazmin Oukhellou and James Lock, have all maintained their trips have been for business purposes.

Government guidelines for international travel currently state: 'Following identification of a new variant of the virus, international travel from your area may be increasingly restricted because of domestic regulations.

'Different rules apply in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. For example, those in tier 4 areas in England will not be permitted to travel abroad apart from limited exceptions, such as work purposes. Follow all the rules that apply to you.'
Foldable phones definitely gained major popularity during 2020. We saw several devices not only launch, but also gain momentum with sales numbers rising little by little. Given their growing popularity, many have wondered when Apple would jump on the foldable bandwagon, and while the company has not officially said anything on the matter, there are early leaks suggesting that Apple has begun working on its own foldable smartphone.

According to a report by Money, a Taiwanese publication, two prototypes of Apples foldable smartphone have passed the internal durability test at Foxconn. The report suggests that Apple is testing two different foldable form-factors, one of them being a clamshell design. The phone is said to use Samsungs flexible OLED display. The report concludes that Apple isnt looking to watch two foldable smartphones, but will instead evaluate which of the two form-factors works best, launching it while the other would be scrapped. The Apple foldable smartphone is rumoured to launch by late 2022 or 2023.

The launch timeline of 2022/2023 does make sense, given the amount of work it would require Apple to get the experience just right. Besides perfecting the form-factor, getting iOS to work seamlessly between the folded, non-folded, portrait and landscape orientations would require some work for sure. The time frame would also giver apple a way to figure out how to address the battery life concerns, given that foldable form factors can be difficult to pack more battery into, especially the clamshell design. We dont expect Apple to discontinue the regular candy-bar shaped iPhone form factor once it releases its foldable smartphone.

Back in 2019, several manufacturers and OEMs committed to promoting the foldable form-factor. While Samsung would be the premium segment, TCL in particular had said they would produce flexible panels that would help create affordable foldable smartphones, however, that hasnt happened yet. 2020 did slow things down, but hopefully, 2021 would see better and more affordable implementation of the foldable design.
Yesterday, gutless Senate Republicans (all interchangeable words) voted to override Trump's veto and ignored his request to take on the stifling censorship being imposed on us by Big Tech.

Tech giants are protected by a section of a law (Communications Act of 1934, Section 230) that grants them immunity from liability for third-party content. Trump rightfully takes issue with it because of how the law protects social media bias and allows it to run rampant with no consequence.

But back to the gutless wonders.

A few moments after voting to override Trump's request, the senators complained like a bunch of babies that Facebook had shut down the account for the Georgia Battleground Fund.

Waa, waa, waa. You tech overlords hurt us!

But hang on. Don't worry. The senators had some tough fighting words:

This is unacceptable with only 4 days to Election Day.

Well that ought to do the trick! Big Tech must quaking in their boots!

Another day and, regrettably, more evidence that we are represented by, for the most part, a bunch of corrupt, cowardly, untrustworthy, lazy, stupid, unworthy, dishonest, calculating, disingenuous, malevolent, loathsome fools.

Public domain image via Pixabay, rotated.
Aaron Brady is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of Garda Adrian Donohoe

Detectives investigating a campaign of witness intimidation during the trial of Aaron Brady for the murder of Garda Adrian Donohoe are expected to make more arrests.

The trial was the longest-running in the history of the State and continued amid an orchestrated effort to interfere with key witnesses.

Aaron Brady (29) was convicted of Detective Gda Donohoe's murder last August and is currently serving a life sentence with a minimum 40-year prison term for capital murder.

The Co Armagh man was also one of seven people arrested as part of the Garda inquiry into witness intimidation and perverting the course of justice.

The Herald has learned that detectives are expected to make more arrests as part of that investigation before submitting a file to the DPP.

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Several women who made direct contact with key witnesses via social media during the trial are also the focus of the major inquiry.

Detectives are also investigating the hiring of Dublin criminals to intimidate witnesses.

Gardai are hoping to bring a number of charges in relation to the campaign, including perverting the course of justice and using a mobile phone behind bars.

Four people with key testimony refused to come to court, but Brady was still convicted after two witnesses testified they heard him admit to shooting a garda in Ireland.

The inquiry is being led by gardai in the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation (NBCI) with a file expected to be submitted to the DPP early next year.

Investigations into the 2013 murder of Det Gda Donohoe are also continuing with gardai watching the movements of key suspects in the case and liaising with international colleagues.

One of the men, known as Suspect A, is a US citizen and is frequently moving between the US and Ireland.

The man's brother - who is also formally classified as a suspect - is currently appealing a serious conviction in the US.

Another man, Suspect B, was linked to a number of high-profile raids earlier this year but his crime network has been curtailed as he is now under regular garda surveillance.

While gunman Brady and four others were directly involved in the Lordship Credit Union robbery, gardai have identified more than 20 people who were either indirectly involved or have information about the murder of Det Gda Donohoe.

In early November, Brady was arrested in his Portlaoise Prison cell and quizzed in relation to the intimidation of witnesses.

Throughout the trial, gardai and the prosecution repeatedly raised concerns about witnesses being interfered with.

In May, during a hearing from which members of the public were banned, it emerged that a video had been leaked online of a witness giving a statement on camera to gardai.

Video

The video had been circulated widely on several social media platforms, branding the witness a "rat" and a "tout" while alleging they made the statement to secure a green card.

Presiding judge Mr Justice Michael White described it as the most outrageous contempt of court he had ever come across and said it was a sobering day for the administration of justice in Ireland.

Within hours, an investigation was launched by members of the Serious Crime Review Team attached to the NBCI.

Brady has appealed against his conviction for murdering Det Gda Donohoe.

Herald
India will start vaccinating its population once the drugs are formally approved. But is the country prepared to cover the massive numbers?

At a Boston hospital, health workers recently broke into a celebratory dance on receiving their first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. Meanwhile, in India, even before the vials are ready, competition is emerging over who will have the first access. With the vaccine in the final trial phase, India faces the looming challenge of producing the quantities necessary to provide immunity to all its citizens.

Globally, pharma companies are racing ahead to roll out vaccines to fight COVID-19 , including the new highly infectious strain that has been found in Britain. Daily life cannot find a new normal until populations have built up antibodies to fend off the virus. Never in history has the entire world come together to produce and distribute globally the much-awaited vaccines.

England took the lead on 8 December to administer the vaccine, developed jointly by Pfizer and BioNTech. It was followed by the US, which has approved two vaccines, with other countries set to follow suit soon.

India will start vaccinating its 1.39 billion population once the drugs are formally approved. But is the country prepared to cover the massive numbers?

Doubts aplenty

The current plans do not show signs of being based on any realistic numbers or estimates, says Dr Satyajit Rath, visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Science and Research (IISER), Pune.

Indias mega vaccination campaign, expected to begin in the first quarter of 2021, will cover 300 million citizens in the first round by August. The first shots will be given to 30 million people,10 million health care providers, and 20 million frontline workers, including police, defence and municipal workers. Next will be 270 million people above 50, and anyone with associated co-morbidities. Later, depending on the disease epidemiology and vaccine availability, the remaining population will be immunised.

States have been asked to prepare vaccination strategies and some have formed task forces at state, district and block levels. Over 20,000 health workers in about 260 districts have been trained so far to administer the vaccine.

So far, three vaccine groups have sought emergency approval in India Pfizer, Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech. SII is conducting phase-3 trials of the Covishield vaccine, developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University. Trials are on for Covaxin, developed indigenously by Bharat Biotech and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). Dr Reddys Laboratories is on the phase 2/3 trials of the Russian Sputnik V. Another pharma company Biological E. Ltd has recently started early phase 1 and 2 human trials of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

The vaccines can be approved only after complete data on Phase 3 trials is submitted to the countrys drug controller, which has so far refused to fast track approvals sought.

Pfizer, for instance, does not have enough data on trial participants of Indian ethnicity, and hence may be asked by the drug regulator to conduct a local trial.

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Dr Rakesh Mishra, Director, CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), points out that credibility is a major issue. We shouldnt take shortcuts which may backfire, says Dr. Mishra. I am not sure how good these vaccines are. That we will only know after one or two years. But, at least, the process will begin, though it is not known for how long the vaccines will offer protection. Most probably they are triggering an immune response. But whether that immune response is protected from infection for six months to a year we dont know. That is why vaccines take four years to develop. We have now done it in one year.

Pfizer and BioNTech SE claim that their vaccine candidate is 95 percent effective, while Modernas vaccine candidate has an efficacy of 94.5 percent, it claims. Their vaccine needs to be kept at -70 degrees C (94F) and lasts only five days in a regular fridge. Experts believe that India-made vaccines would be better suited for use in the home climate and more easily available.

Lack of clarity

Dr Nirmal Kumar Ganguly, former director-general of ICMR, however offers a different view. Since the Pfizer vaccine is the only available vaccine which has undergone reviews from UK FDA, US FDA, Canada health, Israel FDA and Saudi Arabian FDA, it can be first given in India to frontline health care workers, says Dr Ganguly. These can be assembled at the point of vaccination within hospitals or designated points in the districts.

Some vaccine groups may get a licence in the next few weeks, the health ministry has said, even though their efficacy is yet not clear. But the ministry has not specified a date. There is also the issue of liability to be sorted out, in case the vaccines cause serious side effects among recipients.

After receiving the Covishield (SII) vaccine on 1 October, a 40-year-old volunteer from Chennai had experienced severe headaches and was unable to respond to questions. Apart from SII, Bharat Biotech also saw an adverse event during clinical trials in August of its Covaxin. But these incidents did not lead to suspension of trials unlike the UKs AstraZeneca and the US Johnson and Johnson, which had paused its clinical trials. In the US, roughly five serious adverse reactions to Pfizer and BioNTech SEs vaccine were reported since the drive started on December 14th.

Indias decision makers say adverse events will not affect the timelines in any manner whatsoever. Ahead of the mass immunisation programme, the government expects to share guidelines on vaccine safety with states to make people aware of the benefits of a vaccine.

Once approved, vaccine distribution is bound to face a mammoth task in logistics, storage, supply and distribution. However, the government appears confident. The health ministry says that 29,000 cold chain points, 240 walk-in coolers, 70 walk-in freezers, 45,000 ice-lined refrigerators, 41,000 deep freezers and 300 solar refrigerators have already reached state governments.

Infrastructure issues

The government plans to use its existing universal immunisation programme (UIP) infrastructure. UIP, one of the largest and most cost-effective public health interventions in the world, covers nearly 27 million newborns and 29 million pregnant women annually.

However, public health experts believe that the government will have to increase the infrastructure manifold for COVID-19 vaccination, especially in large and dense population areas. This would mean colossal funding. The Serum Institute has said that a whopping Rs 80,000 crore would be required for vaccine distribution for the next one year.

There is still no clarity from the government on the distribution plan. The first step is dependable clarity on the kinds, numbers and delivery time schedules for the supply of vaccines from manufacturers, says Prof Rath. Major concerns are vaccine transportation and storage in far-flung and hard-to-reach regions.

For remote destinations, vaccine boxes with dry ice are shipped, says Dr Ganguly. The vaccine, once unpacked, can stay at 2 to 8 degrees Celsius for one week in the case of Pfizer. The vaccines are taken out of their storage three hours before vaccination. India already handles -20 degree Celsius for Rota vaccine.

Prof Rath disagrees, arguing that ultra-low-temperature-storage vaccines cannot be effectively deployed for large-scale vaccination for public healthcare in India as reliable decentralised storage facilities do not exist, nor can be created quickly enough on the appropriate scale. Such vaccines will have a relatively limited role, perhaps through the private health care market in metropolitan centres.

But Dr Shahid Jameel, Director, Trivedi School of Biosciences, Ashoka University, feels that all these challenges have already been handled in Indias UIP. There is experience and knowledge for managing all this, says Dr Jameel. The real challenge would be to achieve significant coverage.

Vaccination hesitancy

Very large numbers of adults would have to be immunised in a relatively short period, and the behaviour of adults is a factor. This has never been done earlier. One is already seeing all kinds of misinformation and recent studies show only 50 percent people are willing to take COVID-19 vaccines. Good communication will be the key, adds Dr Jameel, who believes herd immunity is the goal. That is how you end the pandemic. Herd immunity is a concept better applied to vaccines than infection. When a lot of people in a community are vaccinated, the virus has a hard time spreading as most people will develop immunity.

Prof Rath, however, adds that herd immunity is a post-facto explanatory concept for how a disease disappears even when absolutely everyone has not yet been vaccinated. I do not think there is any credible way of planning for herd immunity, especially for a disease that we do not understand too well.

An unexpected hurdle may be rising vaccine hesitancy, and apprehension among people about immunisation. According to a study by the Local Circles, a community social media platform at least 69 percent (increase from 61 percent in October) are in no hurry, as they are unsure of the vaccines efficacy, safety and side effects. The study was based on a survey of 18,000 participants. Many also believe that the population is naturally moving towards herd immunity, hence would prefer to wait and observe the vaccines efficacy before getting the jab.

So far, most vaccine makers have not submitted data on the phase 1 and phase 2 trials, except Bharat Biotech whose study of its COVAXIN in nearly 1,000 subjects in Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials showed promising safety and immunogenicity results.

Most vaccines may require at least two doses, possibly the second one after 21 days, which increases difficulties in logistics, supply and delivery. Oxford-AstraZeneca has signed a strategic deal with COVAX4, which will allow it to market it in developing countries at affordable rates. For India, a shot could be Rs. 250-300. Russias Sputnik V, which will be conducting phase 3 trials in India, has said a shot may cost Rs. 500-750.

The government has not clarified whether private health care networks will also be involved. The real picture will unfold once millions the world over, including India, start getting the shots.

This article was first published in Citizen Matters, a civic media website and is republished here with permission. (c) Oorvani Foundation/Open Media Initiative.
NEW DELHI: Former Union Home Minister Buta Singh passed away at Delhi's AIIMS on Saturday (January 2) morning. He was 86.

The senior Congress leader was in a coma since October last year when he was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) after he suffered a brain hemorrhage. His family said Singh died around 5.30 am.

Singh was a senior Rajasthan Congress leader and former MP from Jalore. A four-time MP from Jalore-Sirohi Lok Sabha constituency, he served as Home Minister of India in the Rajiv Gandhi government from 1986 to 1989, and National President of Scheduled Caste Commission.

He worked with former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and P.V. Narasimha Rao. He was the Bihar Governor from 2004 to 2006. Born in Jalandhar, he held key portfolios like railways, commerce, parliamentary affairs, sports, shipping, agriculture, communications and housing. He was chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes from 2007 to 2010.

His son Arvinder Singh Lovely Sidhu took to Facebook to inform about his father's passing. "My father, Buta Singh passed away today morning. May Waheguru bless his soul," his post read (roughly translated from Hindi).

Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered his condolence on Singh's demise. Terming him an "experienced administrator", Modi said that Singh used his voice for the welfare of the poor. "Shri Buta Singh Ji was an experienced administrator and effective voice for the welfare of the poor as well as downtrodden. Saddened by his passing away. My condolences to his family and supporters," the Prime Minister wrote on Twitter.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi offered his condolences to Singh's family and said the veteran party leader had spent his life in service of common man.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot expressed grief at the demise of the Congress leader and extended condolences to his family. "Sad to learn about the demise of a former union minister, senior Congress leader and former MP from Rajasthan, Shri Buta Singh ji. My heartfelt condolences to his family members in this difficult time, may God give them strength to bear this loss. May his soul rest in peace," Gehlot wrote on Twitter.
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With the second wave of Covid-19 expected to peak in Africa in January or February, the prospect of a vaccination program is still not on the horizon.

By Sr Bernadette Mary Reis, fsp



2020 will long be remembered in the annals of history because of the Covid-19 pandemic. As that year drew to a close, the Covid-19 vaccine made its debut in several countries.

The question we need to ask, however, is whether the disease will wane as quickly as it spread if this vaccine is not made available to everyone. Will countries who have the bargaining power to obtain the vaccine quickly be adversely affected should poorer countries not have equal access to the vaccine?

In an interview with Vatican News, we asked Father Charles Chilufya to shed some light on the current situation in Africa, and specifically in Kenya, regarding Covid-19. Father Chilufya is the Coordinator of the Africa Task Force of the Vatican Covid-19 Commission, and the Director of the Justice and Ecology Office of the Jesuit Conference of Africa and Madasgascar, also known as JCAM.

Second wave hits Africa

Many countries in Africa now are experiencing the second wave of the virus, Father Chilufya told Vatican News. A number of countries have reported a new surge in the past month. What is new about this second wave is that the virus has now started spreading to high density areas. This has become worrisome to government officials in Kenya and other countries because house is not good in these areas, Father Chilufya tells us.

This information was confirmed by John Nkengasong, Director of the Africa Centres of Disease Control and Prevention on December 17 in a virtual news conference. We are very close, he said, to where we were at the peak of the pandemic in July and August. He predicted that in January or February, after the Christmas and New Year holidays, the numbers of coronavirus cases would exceed those recorded in July and August.

General Covid-19 statistics

Africa is home to approximately 17% of the worlds population. As of December 31, John Hopkins University reported 2,743,670 cases of coronavirus in Africa and 64,868 deaths, representing 3.31% and 3.58% respectively of worldwide cases and deaths. Whether this data is accurate or not is difficult to ascertain since the World Health Organization has reported that, compared to other areas in the world, testing for the Coronavirus in Africa is low. Records show that 70% of the tests conducted originated in 10 of Africas 54 countries. South Africa leads the list in Coronavirus cases in Africa, with just over 1 million reported cases and approximately 28,500 deaths.

Effect on economy

Other consequences caused by the pandemic faced by the populations in Africa are manifold. As in other countries, many governments imposed lockdown measures at the height of the first wave of the virus. Naturally, this put a stop to normal commercial activity and the movement of people, Father Chilufya explains. This curbed the flow of income to many people all across Africa, he says. In this case, the direct consequence for many people was the inability to put food on the table.

Already back in May, the International Monetary Fund predicted that Africas economy would contract by 1.5% this year. In numeric terms, this represents a loss of about 200 billion USD (approximately 825 million Euro). What should have been a year in which Africa was on target for an approximate 3.2% growth in GDP, some estimate that Africas GDP will instead fall by approximately 1%.

As restrictions were eased, Father Chilufya says there was a slow comeback to business as usual,  but not a pre-covid business as usual. There are still limitations, Father says, in terms of people getting their income and getting their day to day needs.

Listen to our interview with Father Charles Chilufya, SJ

Effect on children

Father Chilufya tells us that schools have reopened in some countries, but this is not the case in many others. In some countries, such as Kenya, only exam classes have been reopened since October. A general reopening of schools is hoped to take place in January, he says. Attempts to provide online learning catered to a very, very few students  less than 10%, he says, and it was impossible for students in rural areas. There are other consequences, Father Chilufya tells us, as children stay longer at home doing nothing.

Gender-based violence

Economic hardship has not only affected the ability to put food on the table, school closures has not only affected learning, and lockdown measures did not only result in keeping people safe from contagion. All these realities have contributed to a rise in sexual and gender-based violence and teenage pregnancy. This is a worry for many, and its real! And it is something that is problematic at the moment.

A report published in October 2020 by the International Rescue Committee states that 73% of the 850 refugee and internally displaced women were interviewed report an increase in domestic violence. The same report cites a 51% increase in sexual violence and 32% had observed an increase in early and forced marriages. The lockdown and school closures forced women and girls to remain in places where their abusers had access to them. Economic hardship in families led some to sell the women and girls in their family for sex or to arrange premature marriages.

Protesting Kenyan doctors hold photos of deceased colleagues who died of Covid-19

Access to healthcare

As in the past, Africa has faced difficulties in responding adequately to the Coronavirus crisis. "Clearly, poor countries like those in Africa," Father Chilufya explains, "especially the most densely populated ones like Nigeria, Kenya, and others, lack medical infrastructure and resources." They are always "left vulnerable" and at the "mercy of wealthier states," he says. "And this is not the first time."

"Access to health facilities is a longstanding battle being fought on the African continent in particular. The issue, therefore, here is, in fact, not only about access to drugs but also access to general health facilities."

Father Chilufya followed this statement up with two specific examples:

 Kenya: the recent strike of medical personnel in Kenya "complaining of insufficient protection as they watched some of their colleagues succumb to Covid-19". Other reports cited Doctors in Kenya describing their jobs as "suicidal", while others who contracted Covid-19 cannot afford the same care they have been providing to other Covid-19 patients.

 Liberia: during the ebola outbreak (2014-2015), medical workers "used plastic bags instead of medical gloves to protect themselves. And several deaths were reported among health workers in government-run health care centers."

"Failures like these...not only violate health rights of patients but also put health workers and their family at risk."
Did you buy a Powerball ticket in Hedgesville? You might have won $50G
TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

A Bahraini court slapped fines totalling BD41,000 against restaurants and cafes for violating COVID-19 precautionary measures during New Year celebrations. The fines issued by the Lower Criminal Court ranged from BD1,000 to BD5,000.

Thirteen defendants and ten commercial shops stand accused of violating mandatory precautionary measures. The court also ordered a one-year jail term for one of the accused.

Violations ranged from non-commitment to social distancing, holding gathering exceeding the permitted limit of 30 persons and lack of compliance regarding the number of people allowed at tables. Some of the shops also used multi-use shisha hoses, said the Chief Prosecutor at the Ministries Prosecution.

As per instructions, on single-use shisha hoses are allowed at shisha shops. All of the violating restaurants and shops were closed.

The Public Health Directorate at the Ministry of Health reported the violations to the Public Prosecution. Health measures say, Restaurants and coffee shops must encourage reservations, but may allow entry for guests without reservations, provided that social distancing guidelines may still be met.

The Public Prosecution also ordered the detention of one of the accused pending investigation. Investigators have booked him for holding a New Year party with more than 200 people.

He is also facing charges for violating precautionary measures at his cafe. The prosecution initiated an investigation soon after receiving the reports and presented the cases to the Lower Criminal Court authorised to hear cases related to COVID-19 violations.

The Public Prosecution urged all the relevant authorities to step up their cooperation in order to combat the pandemic and limit its spread.
WASHINGTON (AP)  A coalition of 11 Republican senators announced Saturday it will challenge the outcome of the presidential election by voting to reject electors from some states when Congress meets next week to certify the Electoral College results that confirmed President-elect Joe Biden won.

President Donald Trumps extraordinary refusal to accept his election defeat and the effort to subvert the will of the voters has become a defining moment for Republicans and is tearing the party apart. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has urged Republican not to try to overturn the election.

The 11 senators, led by Ted Cruz of Texas, said they will vote against certain state electors unless Congress appoints an electoral commission to immediately conduct an audit of the election results. They acknowledged they are unlikely to change the results of the election.

We intend to vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not regularly given and lawfully certified (the statutory requisite), unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed, they wrote in the statement.

We do not take this action lightly, they said.

In response to Trumps unfounded claims of voter fraud, bipartisan election officials and Trumps then-Attorney General William Barr have said there was no evidence of widespread fraud and the election ran smoothly.

The days ahead are expected to do little to change the outcome. Biden is set to be inaugurated Jan. 20 after winning the Electoral College vote 306-232.

Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri was the first to defy McConnell by announcing he would join House Republicans in objecting to the state tallies during Wednesday's joint session of Congress.

On the other side of the partys split, Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska warned such challenges are a dangerous ploy threatening the nations civic norms.

The issue is forcing Republicans to make choices that will set the contours of the post-Trump era and an evolving GOP. Caught in the middle is Vice President Mike Pence, who faces growing pressure and a lawsuit from Trumps allies over his ceremonial role in presiding over the session Wednesday.

I will not be participating in a project to overturn the election, Sasse wrote in a lengthy social media post. Sasse, a potential 2024 presidential contender, said he was urging my colleagues also to reject this dangerous ploy.

Trump, the first president to lose a reelection bid in almost 30 years, has attributed his defeat to widespread voter fraud, despite the consensus of nonpartisan election officials that there wasnt any. Of the roughly 50 lawsuits the president and his allies have filed challenging election results, nearly all have been dismissed or dropped. Hes also lost twice at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Still, the president has pushed Republican senators to pursue his unfounded charges even though the Electoral College has already cemented Bidens victory and all thats left is Congress formal recognition of the count before the new president is sworn in.

We are letting people vote their conscience, Sen. John Thune, the second-ranking Republican, told reporters at the Capitol.

Thunes remarks as the GOP whip in charge of rounding up votes show that Republican leadership is not putting its muscle behind Trumps demands, but allowing senators to choose their course. He noted the gravity of questioning the election outcome.

This is an issue thats incredibly consequential, incredibly rare historically and very precedent-setting, he said. This is a big vote. They are thinking about it.

Pence will be carefully watched as he presides over what is typically a routine vote count in Congress but is now heading toward a prolonged showdown that could extend into Wednesday night, depending on how many challenges are mounted.

The vice president is being sued by a group of Republicans who want Pence to have the power to overturn the election results by doing away with an 1887 law that spells out how Congress handles the vote count.

Trumps own Justice Department may have complicated what is already a highly improbable effort to upend the ritualistic count. It asked a federal judge to dismiss the last-gasp lawsuit from Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and a group of Republican electors from Arizona who are seeking to force Pence to step outside mere ceremony and shape the outcome of the vote.

In a court filing in Texas, the department said they have have sued the wrong defendant and Pence should not be the target of the legal action.

A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction, the department argues.

A judge in Texas dismissed the Gohmert lawsuit Friday night. U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, wrote that the plaintiffs allege an injury that is not fairly traceable to Pence, and is unlikely to be redressed by the requested relief.

To ward off a dramatic unraveling, McConnell convened a conference call with Republican senators Thursday specifically to address the coming joint session and logistics of tallying the vote, according to several Republicans granted anonymity to discuss the private call.

The Republican leader pointedly called on Hawley to answer questions about his challenge to Bidens victory, according to two of the Republicans.

But there was no response because Hawley was a no-show, the Republicans said.

His office did not respond to a request for comment.

Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., who has acknowledged Bidens victory and defended his states elections systems as valid and accurate, spoke up on the call, objecting to those challenging Pennsylvanias results and making clear he disagrees with Hawleys plan to contest the result, his office said in a statement.

McConnell had previously warned GOP senators not to participate in raising objections, saying it would be a terrible vote for colleagues. In essence, lawmakers would be forced to choose between the will of the outgoing president and that of the voters.

Several Republicans have indicated they are under pressure from constituents back home to show they are fighting for Trump in his baseless campaign to stay in office.

___

Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani in Chicago contributed to this report.
Vietnam one of few bright spots in global economy in 2021: experts

Vietnam begins 2021 with strong growth prospects underpinned by robust exports and FDI flows after having successfully contained the Covid-19 pandemic.

Forecasts are unanimous that the economy is on track for a strong recovery, with HSBC projecting 8.1 percent growth this year and the World Bank, 6.8 percent.

With the country being one of the few in the world to achieve positive growth last year, of 2.9 percent, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said earlier this week that the government targets growth of 6.5 percent this year, up half a percentage point from the earlier target, after the country succeeded in containing the novel coronavirus, clearing the decks for an economic rebound.

Exports and foreign direct investment are set to be the main drivers. World Bank analysts said in a recent note: "The strong management of the Covid-19 crisis has been Vietnams best promotional tool, encouraging foreign companies to reallocate their production activities to Vietnam from other countries where their factories are still closed, thus contributing to the countrys robust export performance."

Economist Ngo Tri Long said growth of 6.5 percent or higher is achievable, but depends on how the Covid-19 situation pans out this year since Vietnams economy is heavily dependent on trade.

Vietnams exports grew at 6.5 percent in 2020, down from from 8.1 percent in 2019. Textile and garment exports, the third largest earner, declined for the first time in 25 years, falling by a substantial 10.2 percent.

But most other items making up the top five saw growth. Electronics and computer exports were up 24.4 percent and machinery was up 47.8 percent.

Long said this indicated the likelihood of robust growth this year if global demand rises.

"With the Covid-19 vaccine becoming increasingly available in many countries, the world can expect a recovery in demand which will largely benefit Vietnamese exporters of garments, agriculture produce and other products."

Free trade agreements are expected to be another driver of growth. Despite the pandemic, the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement came into effect last year while the Vietnam - U.K. Free Trade Agreement was signed.

Vietnam also inked the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the worlds largest trade deal, which covers nearly a third of global GDP.

Tim Evans, CEO of HSBC Vietnam, said: "These agreements will help Vietnam diversify export markets and trading partners, which is also one of the best ways to minimize risks from excessive dependence on a specific trading partner which Covid-19 has made apparent."

FDI is likely to surge since experts believe the shifting of production out of China will continue.

Although foreign direct investment pledges in Vietnam has dropped by 25 percent last year to $28.5 billion due to travel restrictions and dampened investor sentiment, foreign companies still poured $6.4 billion into existing FDI projects, up 10.6 percent year-on-year, showing that they were still confident in their investment in Vietnam and expect further growth.

Major foreign companies in Vietnam are eyeing expansion this year, and FDI would flow in faster with the distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine, Nguyen Mai, chairman of Vietnams Association of Foreign Invested Enterprises, said.

Last year many foreign companies established production facilities in Vietnam or expanded, with Apple starting to make its wireless earbuds AirPods Pro and Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn calling the country its largest manufacturing hub in Southeast Asia.

Pegatron, an Apple manufacturing partner, plans to invest $1 billion in the northern port city of Hai Phong in the next few years.

Vietnam has been forecast to become one of the largest laptop manufacturing hubs in Southeast Asia.

"Many global companies are flocking to Vietnam, which is a boon for its exports," Yuta Tsukada of the Japan Research Institute was quoted as saying by Nikkei.

Given the low production costs in the country, he foresaw more companies shifting operations to Vietnam from China should the trade war between Washington and Beijing continue.

Much work is needed nevertheless for Vietnam to achieve a strong recovery this year.

Long said the key to sustaining growth is keeping the Covid-19 situation under control given that authorities have caught around 14,000 people crossing the border illegally in 2020.

"There is no growth prospect if illegal entrants cause new outbreaks and destroy all the efforts of the government and people in containing the pandemic."

Evans said improving customs and administrative procedures would be key to attracting FDI.

Mai said more reforms, especially to foster the establishment of e-governance, would push growth even further in 2021-25.
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The Indian start-ups of today are the Multinational Corporations of tomorrow that can go a long way in achieving the goal of 'Atmanirbhar Bharat', Prime Minister said on Saturday.

The last few decades saw Multinational Corporations from abroad do business and prosper in India but this decade will belong to the Indian MNCs, he said, after after laying the foundation stone for the permanent campus of IIM-Sambalpur in Odisha through video conference.

"Today's start-ups can become tomorrow's MNCs as India seeks to make its start-up ecosystem inclusive to ensure speedy development," he said.

Noting that start-ups are mostly coming up in Tier-II and Tier-III cities in the country, Modi said, they need professional managers, and the youth require to be prepared for the massive opportunities that lie ahead.

"In this new decade, we all are accountable to give a new image to brand India globally," he said, asking young managers to align their career goals to the aspirations of the country.

The country had 13 IIMs in 2014 and 20 now, and this talent pool can expand the scope and boost the mission of creating a self-reliant India, he said.

"Innovation, integrity and inclusion have emerged as the key mantras in the field of management which are important for 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' mission. The goal of a self-reliant India will also be achieved with the help of collaborative, innovative and transformative concepts in management," Modi said.

"Technology management is as important as human management," he said, adding the country has been able to build substantial capacity over the last decade which was evident in the handling of the COVID-19 crisis.

Modi said the new campus of IIM Sambalpur will give Odisha a new identity in the world of management education with proper recognition of the state's great culture and resources.

Management experts, who are coming out with new experiences in fresh areas, will play a big role in taking India to new heights, Modi said, underlining that despite the COVID-19 crisis the country has given more unicorns this year than the previous years.

A unicorn is a term used in the venture capital industry to describe a privately held start-up company with a value of over USD 1 billion.

Speaking about the role students could play in making the "local rise to the global" level, he asked them to work on ideas to improve tourism in the light of the immense potential for it in Sambalpur and also promote its textile, tribal art and craft.

The IIM students can work as a bridge between the "local and global" as part of the 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' mission.

"You have to show your management skills with the mantra of innovation, integrity and inclusiveness," Modi said.

Referring to the new management challenges in the light of new technologies like additive printing, changing production techniques, logistics, and supply chain management, he said, these technologies coupled with digital connectivity, and work from anywhere concept have turned the world into a global village.

India has undertaken rapid reforms in recent months and tried not only to keep pace with the changes but also to anticipate and adapt to them, he said.

The changing work styles are impacting demands on management techniques and top-down or top-heavy management skills are being replaced by collaborative, innovative and transformative management, Modi said.

With bots and algorithms in picture, he repeated, technological management has become as important as human resource management.

The prime minister also asked the students to research the way the COVID crisis was handled in the country with innovation and collaboration on such a big scale.

During the COVID-19 crisis the country found permanent solutions for tackling shortage of PPE kits, masks and ventilators, he said.

"Management is not just about handling big companies. It also means taking care of lives," Modi said.

It is important to understand the challenges before the country to become good managers for which higher educational institutions should not limit their focus on their areas of expertise, the prime minister said.

He said the new Education Policy emphasises a broad-based, multi-disciplinary and holistic approach to remove silos in professional education that have emerged over a period of time.

Odisha Governor Ganeshi Lal, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Union ministers Ramesh Pokhriyal, Dharmendra Pradhan and Pratap Sarangi attended the function virtually.

The state government has provided 200 acres for the construction of the proposed campus, while the Union Ministry of Education has extended continued administrative support and financial grant of Rs 401.97 crore.

IIM Sambalpur is the first Indian Institute of Management to implement the flipped classroom, a learning environment where the basic concepts are learnt in digital mode and in the class the experiential learning happens through live projects from the industry.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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With Massachusetts first responders standing next in line to receive the coronavirus vaccine, the Auburn Police Department, like many law enforcement agencies across the state, surveyed its officers earlier this month to see how many plan to get vaccinated for the viral respiratory infection.

The results were compelling. Fewer than half the members of the department, 29 officers, said they plan to get vaccinated, while 31 answered they do not, with the towns chief of police among those opting out of getting immunized.

Given my age and the fact that I dont have any underlying health conditions, if I caught COVID, I would have an over 99% chance of surviving, Auburn Police Chief Andrew J. Sluckis Jr. told MassLive in a phone interview.

The 56-year-old police chief pointed out the longterm side effects of the recently developed vaccine are still unknown, and unlike previous vaccines that took years to develop, those for COVID-19 took months.

Ill take my 99-to-1 odds of not getting the vaccine, Sluckis said. You couldnt pay me to take it.

The findings in Auburn are not atypical.

Authorities in Massachusetts have said there are a number of first responders who do not plan on getting vaccinated, whether due to allergies or personal reasons. While the split may not be nearly 50-50, as it is in Auburn, the number of those opting out of being vaccinated is significant.

People have legitimate concerns, Sluckis said.

For many residents, though, coronavirus vaccines, like those manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, have been a godsend, a light at the end of the tunnel amid a pandemic that has taken a monumental toll across the globe, with no country seeing a higher number of infections or virus-linked deaths than the United States.

First responders and others who have put themselves on the frontlines of the pandemic have witnessed its toll firsthand.

Numerous police officers and firefighters across Massachusetts - in Boston, Attleboro, Worcester, Springfield and other communities - have contracted COVID-19 at various points during the public health crisis, and several have been hospitalized with the virus.

Among them is Norton Det. Sgt. Stephen Desfosses, who was sedated and intubated recently after contracting the virus as well as pneumonia and the flu in early December.

Other first responders, like Taunton Police Officer John Borges and Rutland Police officer John D. Songy, have died from the viral respiratory infection.

Under the states three-phase plan for rolling out the coronavirus vaccine, first responders are expected to receive doses of the immunization by as early as Jan. 11, according to officials. Their vaccinations follow those of other at-risk demographics, including frontline workers at hospitals and residents of long-term care facilities.

Firefighters in Quincy, Massachusetts were among the first first responders in the state to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. As the officials look to roll out more doses of the vaccine, though, many police officers and firefighter say they don't plan on getting vaccinated. (Friends of Quincy Firefighters IAFF Local 792)

On Dec. 31, firefighters in Quincy, became some of the first in their profession in Massachusetts to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, according to a Facebook post from the towns firefighters union.

Other municipalities continue to make plans for the inevitable vaccine administration.

The towns of Ashland, Hopkinton, Northborough, Southborough and Westborough announced Thursday they are partnering to coordinate a vaccination clinic for all public safety employees and first responders in their communities.

Its a crucial step for first responders to be able to ensure their personal safety and the safety of their family and loved ones as we deal with the pandemic together, said Mark Leahy, the executive director of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association and former Northborough police chief. People have to protect themselves, their families, their loved ones and their coworkers.

Pfizer and Modernas vaccine have already shown to be reliable. The two immunization candidates underwent months-long, large-scale testing and were authorized for use by the federal government earlier this month, each proving to be close to 95% effective by the end of their trials.

No serious safety concerns were observed during the vaccine trials either, and adverse effects from the immunization candidates were limited, according to Pfizer and Moderna.

Efficacy and safety data surrounding the tens of thousands of people who participated in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine trails will be tracked for another two years, according to the companies.

Still, a significant portion of the worlds population is wary of the vaccines, skeptical, like Sluckis, about the speedy development timeline and how the immunizations may impact the human body in the long run.

Sixty to 70% of the Auburn Fire Department, for instance, plan to get vaccinated, leaving 40 to 30% who dont plan to do so, according to the towns fire chief, Stephen Coleman.

Its a little more than half. Its probably closer to 70% for us that are getting it, the fire chief said, adding that he is in the majority of those who plan to get vaccinated.

Some members of the department who do not plan to get the vaccine know they will get an allergic reaction if they do, he added.

Coleman pointed out firefighters in Auburn and other communities, especially those with dual paramedic roles, routinely come in contact with COVID-19 patients, making the need to be vaccinated more pressing.

Were just in closer contact with truly sick people, he said.

The fire chiefs sentiment was echoed by Sluckis, who noted that if he was a firefighter and not a police officer, his opinion about receiving the vaccine would likely change.

If I were working on the ambulance and transporting COVID-positive people on a daily basis to the hospital, I would elect to take the vaccine, he said. But Im not working in that capacity. In my set of circumstances, I wouldnt take it. If youre working in the hospital with COVID patients, I would probably opt to take the vaccine, but working in a police capacity, those are a whole different set of circumstances.

The Auburn Fire Department. (Google Maps)

The percentage of firefighters in Auburn who plan on getting vaccinated appears to match the numbers of other fire departments across the state, according to Rich MacKinnon Jr., the president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts (PFFM). The union represents more than 12,000 firefighters and emergency medical technicians throughout the commonwealth.

Within Bostons department, roughly 60% of the firefighters want to take the vaccine, and based on surveys conducted among other departments in the state, around 60 to 70% of firefighters in the commonwealth as a whole plan on getting vaccinated, according to MacKinnon.

The high risk of exposure to COVID-19 on the job is a primary reason why firefighters need to be vaccinated as soon as possible, he argued.

Weve had firefighters in ICU units, hospitals, MacKinnon said. Currently (as of Dec. 31) we have 802 members with the virus and 615 in quarantine. The more responses we go on, the more exposures we encounter. Our COVID responses have obviously gone up as the numbers have gone up. This is a risk we willingly take on, but that is why we need to be among the first to get vaccinated.

The push to get firefighters in Massachusetts vaccinated has been thrust into the spotlight in recent weeks, with the PFFM lambasting the state for its vaccination plan for first responders.

MacKinnon claimed the state has no viable plan to vaccinate firefighters in Massachusetts cities and towns, instead leaving the task of vaccinating municipal first responders up to local boards of health, many of which differ greatly in their size and resources.

Where a firefighter can go to get vaccinated, when they will be able to do so and who will be vaccinating them are some of the basic questions that have yet to be answered by the state, according to MacKinnon.

Were seeing our brother and sister firefighters across the country and even neighboring states getting vaccinated now, MacKinnon noted. Theres a lot of unanswered structural issues.

1/4 Over 12,000 Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts are sounding the alarm. Nearly 350 firefighters have tested positive for COVID-19 in December, and the State has no viable plan to vaccinate your local firefighters. pic.twitter.com/kZt0Oj8QB4  Fire Fighters of MA (@THE_PFFM) December 29, 2020

Unlike the push to get firefighters vaccinated, the effort to get police in Massachusetts immunized for COVID-19 has not received as much attention. However, officers attitudes toward the vaccine may be improving as more and more people get immunized, according to Leahy.

Police throughout Massachusetts have been surveyed for weeks about their attitudes toward the vaccine, whether they have a good, bad or indifferent opinions about it.

At first, many officers expressed negative attitudes toward the vaccine, but opinions have slowly shifted to become more trusting of the immunization, according to Leahy.

A month ago, there was a lot of hesitancy, and there seemed to be a lot of concern about the unknown, he said. Now the tide has really shifted to: How soon can we get this done? "

The positive attitudes are strongly prevailing, he added.

Tragedies involving police officers, like the death of Borges in Taunton, have shown just how important it is that first responders get vaccinated, according to Leahy.

I frankly hope people take this as a wake up call, he said. This is important, and first responders have considerable exposure to the virus in their daily tasks.

While both Leahy and MacKinnon believe it is important for first responders to get vaccinated, they shy away from saying there should be a mandate. Both stated getting the coronavirus vaccine is a personal decision.

There is no indication authorities will require first responders to get vaccinated. Spokespeople for Springfield and Worcesters police departments said officers will not be required to do so, and officials with Massachusetts State Police refused to comment when asked.

We are finalizing logistics for vaccine administration to Department members. We anticipate administering the vaccine at regional MSP facilities in a manner that will prevent shortages of coverage at barracks and units, and expect we will be in a position to begin vaccinations in January, a state police spokesperson said.

In Auburn, the town manager as well as the communitys police and fire chiefs discussed whether to require officers and firefighters get the vaccinate. They opted to make vaccinations voluntary, according to Sluckis.

I dont think you should be able to enforce a vaccine that in my opinion is still experimental, the police chief said. That doesnt seem right to me.

Officials from the states COVID-19 Command Center and Executive Office of Public Safety were expected to meet Thursday with first responders to review planning for the vaccination process. More information will soon be made available about the vaccine rollout, according to a spokesperson with the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services.

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Congress has overturned President Donald Trump's veto of a defense policy bill on Friday. It was the first time that lawmakers rejected Trump's veto in his almost four years of presidency, according to an Associated Press report.

The Republican-led Senate has easily turned around the veto in a New Year's Day session, setting aside Trump's objection to the $740 billion bill. To secure the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto, senators voted 81-13.

Trump then turned to Twitter to criticize the lawmakers' call on the measure, saying that the Senate missed an opportunity to eliminate protections for the social media platforms.

Trump tweeted that the Senate gave social media platforms unlimited power to Big Tech companies. Aside from the Big Tech provision, Trump also objected to language requiring the U.S. military to rename bases to named for Confederate figures during the U.S. Civil War.

The 4,500-page defense bill also marked a new changed in the U.S. military priorities, eyeing China as the country's top strategic threat. The measure includes a new "Pacific Deterrence Initiative" designed to refocus the Pentagon on key gaps in the U.S. military abilities in the Pacific.

The Pentagon intends to invest more than $18.5 billion in the next five years under the new plan.

Senator James Inhofe, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that the U.S. is in the most dangerous situation that they have been before.

Inhofe, who wrote the bill, has viewed China's construction of military bases in the South China Sea as preparation for another world war.

Related story: Trump Vetoes Defense Bill, While COVID-19 Relief Bill Awaits Approval





Trump has also commented on the lawmakers' decision not to increase the stimulus check to $2,000 from $600. He called the decision "not fair or smart."

Overriding Trump's Veto

On Monday, the House overrode Trump's veto of the defense bill by a vote of 322-87.

The $740 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) affirms a three percent pay raise for U.S. troops and guides defense policy. It also solidifies the decisions about troop levels, new weapons system, and military readiness, as well as personnel policy and other military goals.

Trump vetoed the measure on Dec. 23 after lawmakers refused to include his request to add a provision repealing an internet liability law, known as Section 230, that protects social media companies.

Republicans Sens. Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Rand Paul, and Josh Hawley were among the lawmakers who voted against the override, according to an NBC News report.

Democrats who voted against the override were Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, and Ron Wyden. Sen. Bernie Sanders also threw a "no" vote. Vice-president elect Sen. Kamala Harris voted in favor of the override.

Meanwhile, some Congressional Republicans are still refusing to acknowledge president-elect Joe Biden's win.

Many House Republicans and at least one senator are expected to challenge the results of the election on Jan. 6, when Congress convenes to tally electoral votes, according to a CBS News report.

A few Republicans have accused their colleagues of being willing to undermine the electoral process and challenge a duly elected president.

"We have a bunch of ambitious politicians who think there's a quick way to tap into the president's populist base without doing any real, long-term damage," Republican Senator Ben Sasse said in a report. Sasse noted that this issue is bigger than anyone's personal ambitions.

Related story: House Moves To Override Trump's Veto of Defense Bill



Here are todays top news, analysis and opinion at 1 PM. Know all about the latest news and other news updates from Hindustan Times.

Covid-19 vaccination dry run underway; health minister urges people not to pay heed to rumours

Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Saturday urged people not to pay heed to rumours as the dry run for Covid-19 vaccination got underway across the country. I appeal to people not to pay heed to rumours. Read more

India recorded 29 cases of Covid-19 UK variant this week: A timeline

India has seen 29 cases of the new coronavirus variant, that is spreading rapidly around Britain and other countries, within five days of tracing its first such infection. The new United Kingdom variant genome of Sars-CoV-2  B.1.1.7, which is much more infectious, has prompted comprehensive contact tracing for co-travellers, family members and others of those who have travelled to the UK in the last 38 days. Read more

Shah Rukh Khan fights flies as he records New Year message for fans, asks them to not send him long greetings as they all mean the same thing

Shah Rukh Khan has shared a hilarious video to wish his fans a happy new year and asked them to not send him lengthy messages on New Year as they all mean the same thing. He also apologised for the quality of the video which shows him struggling with flies and mosquitoes, claiming that he made it all by himself as his staff wasnt available. Read more

India vs Australia: Back-to-back overs in a Test match? Not sure, David Warner has reservations about T Natarajan as Test bowler

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Florida-based Indian eaterys server gets $2020 in tip. Post wins people over

The new year started on a sweet note for a server at a US restaurant after a customer left them a generous tip. The incident took place at Florida-based Indian eatery called Masala Mantra Indian Bistro. They shared this story of random act of kindness on Facebook and its such a tale which may leave you with a smile. Read more

Nora Fatehi welcomes New Year in bedazzled bodycon dress: New Year, new me

Kickstarting her New Year on a super chic note, Nora Fatehiwas dressed to impress while welcoming 2020 with open arms. The acclaimed dancer has also made a name for herself as a fashionista. Every time Nora posts a picture from a photoshoot on her social media, it breaks the internet and this time was no different. The Bharat actor recently flaunted a bodycon gown and left us swooning. Read more
Mumbai, Jan 2 : Bollywood star Ayushmann Khurrana posted birthday wishes for son Virajveer on Saturday, telling him to nurture the artiste within and saying he sees his reflection in the child.

The actor shared a photograph of his son on his verified Instagram account, which captures the boy playing the guitar.

"Happy birthday son! I see my reflection in you. You are your own person. Mostly lost in your thoughts. You love your music. I remember you watching and admiring the moon all alone at the New Year's Eve while the other kids were running around the bonfire. Nurture the artiste within, coz artistes are humane," Ayushmann wrote.

The actor recently wrapped up the shoot of his upcoming film "Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui", shot in his hometown Chandigarh. The love story directed by Abhishek Kapoor co-stars Vaani Kapoor, and was shot in Chandigarh over just 48 days amid the pandemic.

Meanwhile, Ayushmann recently announced his next film, a campus comedy drama titled Doctor G. The film will be directed by Anubhuti Kashyap.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
The defense industry apparently remains unwavered in the midst of the coronavirus crisis. Defense budgets are expected to expand worldwide and analysts believe defense stocks are ripe for investment to take profits in 2021 and beyond. In this article we take a look at the 10 best defense stocks to buy for 2021 by analyzing the hedge fund sentiment and core business outlook of these companies. sent a solid investment opportunity for those who are willing to wait for the inevitable rebound of the travel industry. Click to skip our detailed discussion and jump to the 5 Best Defense Stocks to Buy for 2021.

The defense industry is one of the evergreen sectors to invest in, owning to the evolving warfare techniques, increasing demand amid a rapidly changing world order and geopolitical tensions. According to a report titled United States of America's Defense Budget Analysis - Competitive Landscape and Forecasts published by ResearchAndMarkets, the U.S. defense budget will reach $716.2 billion in fiscal 2021. The arrival of Joe Biden in the White House is expected to spur growth in the defense sector, as the upcoming President is a staunch supporter of U.S. supremacy on the global stage, especially against China and Russia. Biden also supports investing heavily in emerging warfare trends and futuristic weapons instead of spending on traditional weapons.

Deloitte said in a report that the defense sector will remain stable in 2021 as most countries have no plans to cut their defense budgets amid geopolitical tensions. The firm estimates that global defense spending will rise about 2.8% in 2021 and cross the $2 trillion mark. Deloitte, however, said that domestic defense spending will be lukewarm and there would be an additional downward pressure on defense budget in fiscal 2022 amid the coronavirus-related stimulus packages. However, the report said that this slowdown will be offset by huge foreign military sales of the United States army, which reached $83.5 billion in 2020.

Story continues

A Thriving Defense Industry and Exports

U.S. defense stocks are the biggest beneficiaries of massive deals signed by the government to sell weapons and defense equipment to other countries. Since 2002, the U.S. has sold over $197 billion worth of conventional weapons and equipment to 167 countries. Notable deals signed by President Trump include the $23 billion arms sale agreement with the United Arab Emirates and the 2017 agreement with Saudi Arabia for a whopping $110 billion worth of weapons. Major companies working with the U.S. government to sell defense equipment to other countries include Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT), Boeing Co (BA), Northrop Grumman Corporation (NOC), Raytheon Technologies Corp (RTX) and General Dynamics Corporation (GD).

According to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the U.S. has the biggest arms industry in the world, followed by China. SIPRI said that sales of arms and military services by the worlds top 25 companies increased 8.5% in 2020 to reach $361 billion last year. Twelve of these companies are from the U.S, with big 5 accounting for $166 billion of total sales.

Foreseeing the trajectory of financial markets is becoming harder than ever. Even the so-called experts are failing at it. The hedge fund industrys reputation has been tarnished in the last decade during which its hedged returns couldnt keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. On the other hand, Insider Monkeys research was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 88 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that significantly underperformed the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 13% through November 16. Thats why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to. You can subscribe to our free newsletter on our homepage to receive our stories in your inbox.

Defense stocks have historically been recession-proof, mainly because of the governments ability to pay huge bills even during harsh times. The S&P Aerospace & Defense Select Industry Index is up over 5% in 2020. As the U.S. government seeks to rid itself of the cold war remnants and update its weapons arsenal to compete with China and Russia, defense stocks will continue to experience growth in 2021 and beyond.

best defense stocks to buy for 2021 Oshkosh OSK Army Truck Pentagon

Keith Bell/shutterstock.com

Let's see the 10 best defense stocks to buy for 2021 by analyzing the data released by famous hedge funds and fundamentals of top defense companies.

10. Leidos Holdings Inc (NYSE: LDOS)

Leidos Holdings Inc (NYSE: LDOS) ranks 10th in our list of the 10 best defense stocks to buy for 2021. The company provides aviation, IT, integration and technical services in the defense sector. It acquired Cloud service provider 1901 Group for $215M in December. The company beat third-quarter earnings estimates, posting a non-GAAP EPS of $1.47 and revenue of $3.24 billion.

In October, Leidos won a $306 million follow-on contract by Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. The company will provide ground and flight operations services for the Saturn Arch aircraft in Outside the Contiguous United States contingency environments.

A total of 25 hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held stakes in Leidos at the end of the third quarter, down from 35 funds a quarter earlier.

9. Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc (NYSE: HII)

HII ranks 9th among the 10 best defense stocks to buy for 2021. Virginia-based Huntington Ingalls Industries is the nations largest shipbuilding company, which was created as a result of a spinoff of Northrop Grumman in 2011. In November, the company won a $2.2 billion contract modification from General Dynamics Electric Boat for the construction on the first two Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines. In the third quarter, the company posted an adjusted EPS of $3.73, versus $3.23 in the same period of 2019. The company expects its revenue to fall in the upper range of its 2020 outlook.

Cliff Asness AQR Capital Management is among the 29 hedge funds long Huntington as of the end of the third quarter, with 874,708 shares, worth $123.12 million. We shared an investor's bullish HII thesis in this article a couple of months ago.

8. Perspecta Inc (NYSE: PRSP)

PRSP ranks 8th in our list of the 10 best defense stocks to buy for 2021. A total of 36 hedge funds reported owning stakes in Perspecta as of the end of the third quarter. The combined value of these stakes is $689.1 million. Barry Rosensteins JANA Partners is the top shareholder, with 12,799,872 shares of the company, worth $248.96 million. In December, Perspecta was awarded an extension of the NGEN (Next Generation Enterprise Network) contract from the U.S. Department of the Navy with a maximum value of $797 million.

The company also won a contract for systems engineering and integration for Space Development Agency. The company will establish transport Layer, tracking Layer and ground segment operations for the agency.

In its Q3 2020 Investor Letter, Carillon Eagle Mid Cap Growth Fund said the following about Perspecta.

Perspecta provides end-to-end enterprise information technology services to government customers across the U.S. federal, state, and local markets. Investors were disappointed as the company has been unable to accelerate revenue growth after an unforeseen loss of a major contract in the earlier part of the year. We remain shareholders due to the combination of healthy project wins that foreshadow growth, very attractive valuation vs. peers, and activist investor involvement.

7. General Dynamics Corporation (NYSE: GD)

GD ranks 7th in our list of the 10 best defense stocks to buy now. General Dynamics Corporation is a Fortune 500 company and the fifth-largest defense contractor in the United States. The company recently won a $4.6 billion contract from the U.S. Army to build the latest iteration of the M1 Abrams battle tank. The company also won a $100.04 million contract for the execution of the USS Comstock fiscal 2021 Chief of Naval Operations scheduled docking.

In the third quarter, General Dynamics crushed analysts forecasts for EPS. Operating margin in the quarter came in at 11.5%, a 240 basis-point increase, driven by a 620 bps jump in the Aerospace segment's margin. The stock is down 15% year to date.

Out of 816 hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey, 37 had General Dynamics stock in their portfolios, as of the end of the third quarter. James A. Stars Longview Asset Management owns 32,212,32 shares of the company, worth $4.4 billion. Oakmark Funds shared its long-term bullish thesis in its 2020 Q2 investor letter:

General Dynamics is one of the leading U.S. defense contractors and controls the worlds premier business jet franchise (Gulfstream). Short-term fears that the coronavirus will hurt demand for business jets drove down the share price, so we were able to purchase this high-quality business at a large discount to both its historical and peer valuation levels. Taking a longer term view, we believe the company is poised to benefit from new product introductions within its business jet division, an improvement in free cash flow conversion and a highly visible, decade-long increase in deliveries of next generation nuclear-powered submarines. As these positives come into clearer view, we believe the discount to intrinsic value will close.

6. Honeywell International Inc. (NYSE:HON)

Honeywell stands 6th on the list of 10 best defense stocks to buy for 2021, as 41 hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey own stakes in the company, worth $970.92 million.

Honeywell is a North Carolina-based company that makes aerospace systems and defense technologies, along with performance materials and safety solutions. The company recently won a $1.11 billion modification to the contract for the Automotive Gas Turbine 1500 engine program by the U.S. Army Contracting Command, Detroit Arsenal, Michigan.

In the third quarter, Honeywell posted upbeat results amid a double-digit growth in its defense and space, warehouse automation and PPE products business.

Billionaire D E Shaws hedge fund owns 582,179 shares of the company, worth $95.83 million. Here is what Fiduciary Management said about Honeywell earlier in 2020:

Honeywell has established market-leading positions in innovative technologies. They have an excellent service and support network, with a large installed base of equipment. This installed base is mission-critical and creates aftermarket sales opportunities. The ROIC is greater than 20%. The company has a strong and deep management bench and an excellent corporate culture. Honeywell is conservatively-run from a business, accounting, and balance sheet perspective. With exposure to Aerospace (45% of profit) and Oil & Gas (15-20% of profit), the stock came under recent pressure. Within Aerospace, commercial aftermarket, defense, and commercial original equipment account for 16%, 14%, and 8% of total company sales, respectively, the latter of which includes business jets and general aviation. Oil & Gas has proven to be resilient as it is predominantly mid/downstream, with the upstream accounting for just 2-3% of total sales. The company has a strong balance sheet. The stock trades at a mid-teens free cash flow multiple.

Click to continue reading and see the 5 Best Defense Stocks to Buy for 2021.

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Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/insidermonkey Disclosure: None. 10 Best Defense Stocks To Buy For 2021 is originally published at Insider Monkey.
Congress MP Karti Chidambaram on Saturday criticised his own party after the All India Congress Committee (AICC) made organisational changes to the Tamil Nadu unit ahead of the 2021 assembly polls in the state.

These jumbo panels serve no purpose, tweeted Karti Chidambaram, the son of former Union finance minister P Chidambaram. None will have any authority which means no accountability. In his tweet, Karti tagged Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi and party general secretary KC Venugopal.

The Congress has named 32 vice-presidents, 57 general secretaries and 104 secretaries along with several committees including campaign, manifesto, media coordination, election management and publicity. Karti and his father, Chidambaram are members of some of these committees. Honorable Congress president has approved the proposal for the appointments, with immediate effect, said a release signed by Venugopal.

The Congress in Tamil Nadu is part of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)-led alliance, which will fight the 2021 polls together. After actor Rajinikanth announced his decision of not launching a political party last week, P Chidambaram had tweeted in Tamil that Rajinikanth would continue to be a moral force for whoever he desired to work with in the 2021 and 2024 elections.
The parents of the 11-year-old boy alleged to have been sexually abused by some senior students of the Deeper Life High School in Akwa Ibom State have demanded N100 Million as compensation from the school, according to a report by Punch on Saturday.

Iniobong Archibong and his wife, Deborah, in a letter from their lawyer to the Deeper Life High School, said the victim, a JSS1 student, went through physical and inhuman torture of debilitating dimension with resultant castration of his human person, dignity and childhood innocence while he was at the schools dormitory.

The parents said the compensation money should be paid within 21 days, in addition to a letter of apology from the school published in some national dailies, Punch reported.

This is a sudden turn of event, considering that parties to the case were said to have agreed that the victim should be taken to a sexual assault centre in the state for examination, according to a statement from the Akwa Ibom State government.

The Akwa Ibom government on Wednesday announced that it was discontinuing its investigation into the case, so the police could handle it.

It is yet to be established medically that the victim was sexually abused as alleged by his parents.

A medical report issued by St. Athanasius Hospital, a private hospital where the victim was taken to by the parents, did not state if he was abused or not.

In physical examination, you need to watch which area was molested and this one they are thinking of the anus, which that report has shown that there was no injury seen, Emmanuel Akpanobong, the medical director, St. Athanasius Hospital, told PREMIUM TIMES, Wednesday morning, when asked why the report did not state clearly if the boy was sexually abused or not.

Mr Akpanobong, a medical doctor, said tests were done to ascertain if the boy had any infection.

Outside of that, he said the doctors were not magician to verify what happened to the boy while he was at the dormitory. We rely on the physical findings which is what we reported there, he added.

In fact, if a girl is molested, especially a virgin, you need to look for the evidence of recent issues, you look for the damage to the hymen which, even in most cases, if a rape or whatever had taken place and the person has had bath, has done normal things thereafter, the evidence maybe obscured.

(It is) the same thing here. In fact, one would have expected that if the molestation was done that very day and maybe there is evidence of contamination  smearing with semen and all that. But these were not available at the time of seeing the child, Mr Akpanobong said.

Allegations

The victims mother, Deborah, said some senior students of the Deeper Life High School sexually abused her son when the school authorities switched him from his dormitory to another dormitory filled with senior students.

They will remove his boxer and push their legs and hands into his anus, Deborah said in a video which has gone viral on Facebook and Twitter.

Look at a child I sent to school, he came back with a broken anus, she added.

She said her son was frequently starved and beaten up by the senior students.

The authorities of Deeper Life High School suspended the principal of the Uyo campus, Ndidi Solomon, when they announced an investigation into the case.

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We will like to state that Deeper Life High School stands on the core values of integrity and uprightness and will not attempt to cover up any immoral act under any guise, Thelma Malaka, the schools education secretary, said last week.

We have unflinching confidence in our God to resolve the issue such that at the end the truth will ultimately prevail, Mrs Malaka said.
Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday courted controversy with his statement that he wont accept a vaccine against Covid-19 as he doesnt trust the vaccine that will be given out by the BJP government.

I will not get vaccinated by the shot given by the BJP government as I don't trust them. When we (SP) will come to power, we will ensure free vaccine to everyone," he told mediapersons.

The statement came just as India is on the brink of approving its first Covid-19 vaccine, after an expert panel of the countrys drug regulator cleared the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot for rollout. The panels recommendation has now been sent to the Drug Controller General of India, whose approval is the final step.

Ahead of the rollout, all states are also conducting a dry run on Saturday to prepare for and to iron out any kinks in the delivery and distribution system.

The SP chief, however, alleged that the BJP government at the Centre only gets concerned about coronavirus, when the opposition parties do something.

"Money is being extorted by people in the name of coronavirus. This government is concerned about corona only when opposition parties do something. The same BJP government wanted to get rid of corona by clapping and banging of plates, he said, adding that the government has also failed to ensure that people wear masks to curb the spread of the virus.

Yadavs statement against the vaccine invited the scorn of UPs deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, who demanded an apology for questioning the scientific communitys hardwork in producing the vaccine in a record time.

"Akhilesh Yadav doesn't trust the vaccine and the people of Uttar Pradesh dont trust Akhilesh Yadav. The questions raised on vaccine is an insult to doctors and scientists of our country. Akhilesh should apologize for this," he said.
London, Jan 2 : As vaccination drive to end the pandemic slowly heats up, Israel is leading the world in Covid-19 vaccine doses per capita as the country has given vaccinations to more than one million people, more than 10 per cent of the country's nine million population.

Israel is leading the race with a rate of 11.55 vaccination doses per 100 people, according to statistics from the 'Our World in Data' website affiliated with Oxford University.

Israel began vaccinations on December 19 as the country secured supplies of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine after negotiations early on during the pandemic, according to a BBC report on Saturday.

More than one million people in the country have now received the first of the two doses of the vaccine.

Israel is followed by Bahrain at 3.49, the UK at 1.47 and the US at 0.84, the data showed.

The data revealed that 9.95 million people globally have received Covid-19 vaccine doses.

While China has administered Covid-19 vaccine doses to 4.5 million people, the US has given doses to 2.79 million people, less than one per cent of the country's population.

The UK has also given vaccine doses to more than one million people, according to 'Our World in Data' which is a collaboration between researchers at the Oxford University and the non-profit organisation 'Global Change Data Lab'.

Globally, more than 1.8 million people have lost their lives due to the pandemic.


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Bitcoin surged past $30,000-mark on Saturday as the ongoing rally in the digital currency's value continued in the new year. After crossing the new record high, Bitcoin almost touched $31,000 during the day, before settling down around $30,800.

The most popular cryptocurrency had dipped more than 25 per cent in March amid the coronavirus condition. Since then, Bitcoin has staged a marvelous recovery, rising to record highs during the latter end of 2020. In December, Bitcoin surged 50 per cent, breaching $20,000 for the first time.

Bitcoin has seen an unprecedented rise this year, with its value witnessing a 240 per cent jump in 2020, giving investors better returns than other traditional mainstream investment platforms.

The main reason behind the rise of Bitcoin may be bulk buying by big US investors. They expect to make quick gains amid some positive developments around the cryptocurrency, including speculations that it could become a mainstream payment method.

A major jump in Bitcoin price - from $5,000 to $25,000 - was seen after online payment major PayPal announced in March that it'll enable its account holders to use Bitcoin. This marks a colossal 400 per cent increase in the past eight months. ZebPay, one of India's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has predicted that Bitcoin's value could hit over $135,000 by 2030.

As Bitcoin grows in popularity, Indian government is planning to impose 18 per cent GST on its transactions. The Central Economic Intelligence Bureau (CEIB), an arm of Finance Ministry, has put forward a proposal to impose 18 per cent GST, saying it could potentially gain Rs 7,200 crore annually on bitcoin trading. The CEIB came to the conclusion based on a study on levying GST on cryptocurrencies.

ALSO READ: Centre may impose 18% GST on bitcoin trading

ALSO READ: Gold price rose 28% in 2020; check out targets for next year
According to information published by the Republic of Korea Armed Forces Facebook account on January 1, 2021, the South Korean Navy took delivery of ROKS Gyeongnam (FFG-819) Daegu-class guided missile frigate just before the end of the year.

According to information published by the Republic of Korea Armed Forces Facebook account on January 1, 2021, the South Korean Navy took delivery of ROKS Gyeongnam (FFG-819) Daegu-class guided missile frigate just before the end of the year.

Follow Navy Recognition on Google News at this link

New ROKS Gyeongnam (FFG-819) Daegu-class guided missile frigate of South Korean Navy. (Picture source Facebook Republic of Korea Armed Forces)

The ROKS Gyeongnam is a Daegu-class guided missile frigate built from the South Korean Navy by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) and Hyundai Heavy Industries. The ship was launched in June 2019 and must be commissioned in early 2021.

South Korea has ordered a total of 8 Daegu-class frigates that are built by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) and Hyundai Heavy Industries.

The Daegu-class is an improved variant of the Incheon-class frigate. Modifications to the Incheon-class include a TB-250K towed array sonar system and a 16-cell Korean Vertical Launching System (K-VLS) that is able to deploy the K-SAAM, Hong Sang Eo anti-submarine missile, and Haeryong tactical land attack cruise missiles.

The hull design is generally based on the Incheon-class, also known as the Future Frigate eXperimental or FFX during development. The superstructure has been significantly changed. The hangar and a helicopter deck on stern has been enlarged to support the operation of a 10-ton helicopter.

The Daegu-class frigate is powered by a combined diesel-electric or gas (CODLOG) propulsion system including one Rolls-Royce MT30 gas turbine, four MTU 12V 4000 M53B diesel engine, and two Leonardo DRS electric motors. She can reach a top speed of 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph) with a maximum cruising range of 4,500 nautical miles (8,000 km). The ship has a crew of 140 sailors.

The Daegu-class frigate is armed with one 5 inch (127 mm)/L62 caliber Mk 45 Mod 4 naval gun, one 20 mm Phalanx CIWS (Close-In Weapon System), two triple torpedo tubes for K745 Blue Shark torpedo, eight SSM-700K Haeseong Anti-ship Missile and 16-cell K-VLS (Vertical Launching System) able to launch Haegung K-SAAM surface-to-air missile, Haeryong VL-Tactical anti-ship cruise Missiles and K-ASROC Red Shark anti-submarine missile.
Two of Australia's leading authorities on labour law say businesses have the power to compel their staff to get vaccinated against COVID-19 under workplace laws that enable them to make "lawful and reasonable" directions to employees.

But employers are looking to the federal government to provide clear direction before testing this complex area of the legal system, wary of being seen to infringing on individual rights.

Discussions between the government, unions and businesses on the vaccine rollout, which is expected to begin in March, have already started but are not yet at a formal level.

Australia has not rushed a vaccine through its approval process as the government works to build confidence in its safety. Credit:AP

Conversations about the vaccine have assumed a new urgency as Victoria and NSW both grapple with coronavirus cases, which have sparked clusters in workplaces including meatworks and nursing homes in previous waves of the virus.
American tourist drowns while swimming off Cozumel coast

Cozumel, Q.R.  An American tourist has died of likely respiratory complications while swimming in the southern coastal area of the island of Cozumel. The body of the man was seen floating in the sea by the captain of a passing vessel Beep Exposure.

Captain Francisco Bacelis Chan said he had returned to the coast and was docking at the Sandollar pier when he spotted the body. In his testimony, he explained to authorities that upon seeing the man, he went to help while requesting assistance from emergency personnel.

The deceased has been identified as a 55-year-old man from Dallas

Paramedics responded to the call, however, they arrived only to pronounce the man. Police were also called to the scene to cordon off the area, since the death had been confirmed.

The deceased has been identified as 55-year-old D.K. from Dallas, Texas. His partner, 48-year-old M.K. told police the pair had been in Cozumel for vacation.
Auburn, IN (46706)

Today

Partly cloudy skies early then becoming cloudy with periods of rain late. Low 64F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early then becoming cloudy with periods of rain late. Low 64F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
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The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Lagos branch, said it will not relent in its collective resolve to ensure a robust health care delivery as critical partners and improvement in its strategies in order to win the fight against COVID-19.

The NMA Chair, Adetunji Adenekan, made this known in the associations New Year message, issued on Friday in Lagos.

Mr Adenekan, however, said utilising the lessons learnt in the failure to prevent the second wave of COVID-19 was key in ensuring its containment and the strengthening of the countrys health system, especially against the emerging and reemerging biologic agents and other hazards.

We must state, with utmost sense of responsibility, that the care-free or non-challant attitude of the Nigerian public towards the COVID-19 protocols is largely responsible for the second wave of the pandemic.

There is no gainsaying the fact that the lives of the frontlines, the Nigerian Medical and Dental Practitioners and the health workers in general, have been put at great risk.

This was along with the sharp rise in the number of doctors who lost their lives to the dreaded viral disease recently; our condolences to their families, he said.

The chairman urged all frontline personnel to continue to respond to the challenges brought upon the citizenry by the fragility of the healthcare system, including COVID-19.

He also appealed to the people of the state and Nigerians in general to adhere strictly to the COVID-19 protocols.

This also underscores the imperative for government and enforcement personnel at various levels to live up to the herculean task.

The need for high index of suspicion among healthcare professionals, especially medical and dental practitioners cannot be over-emphasised, Mr Adenekan said.

(NAN)
OTTAWA - The fraught, often frightening year of 2020 may be over, but experts warn the dawn of a new one doesn't leave behind the troubles caused by the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

People are ushered in to a COVID19 testing centre at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto December 12, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn

OTTAWA - The fraught, often frightening year of 2020 may be over, but experts warn the dawn of a new one doesn't leave behind the troubles caused by the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Patients in multiple Canadian hotspots are flooding hospitals at an alarming rate and expected to arrive in even greater numbers in the weeks to come, doctors and health centres said Friday.

If these rates of increase continue the way they are, the months of January and February are absolutely going to be brutal. Its just a question of how brutal will it be," said Anthony Dale, head of the Ontario Hospital Association.

One-fifth of the province's intensive care capacity is now devoted to COVID-19 patients, with Toronto and the regions of Peel, York, and Windsor-Essex hardest hit.

Dale said 45 of the 149 COVID-19 patients admitted into intensive care in Ontario last week have died.

We will see accelerating numbers of unnecessary deaths  more people dying. We will see more people suffering in intensive care and in hospitals," he said, calling the situation "totally unsustainable."

The spike could jeopardize elective surgeries and other care. Some hospitals have already started to cancel procedures, adding to the backlog created after 160,000 were nixed in the first wave, he added.

"Even though COVID's going on, people still get cancer, they still get heart disease, they still need organ transplants."

He said the pandemic has prompted staff shortages at numerous hospitals, with some front-line workers redeployed to testing centres, labs and long-term care homes.

Hospitals in the greater Montreal area are on track to exceed capacity within the next three weeks, with almost two-thirds of beds designated for coronavirus patients already occupied, according to a report from INESSS, a government-funded health institute.

"Unfortunately, if the trend continues, this will have to be compensated in particular by the additional shedding of non-COVID treatments in our hospitals," Quebec Health Minister Christian Dube said Thursday in a Twitter post in French.

However, the projection did not take into account Premier Francois Legault's shutdown of all non-essential businesses in the province from Dec. 25 to Jan. 11., which could help curb the spread, said Dr. Luc Boileau, who heads the institute.

The good news behind all of this is the vaccinations coming on," Boileau said. The impact of this will be manifest on the outbreaks inside health services and of course lowering mortality.

Nearly 500,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which requires ultracold storage, have been distributed across the Canada since Health Canada approved it on Dec. 9.

The Moderna vaccine  green-lighted on Dec. 23  has also started to roll off tarmacs, beginning to reach remote and First Nations communities over the past week. Its -20 C storage temperatures make for easier delivery compared to the -70 C needed for the Pfizer vaccine.

The country's not in the clear yet.

Individuals need to make sensible choices around social distancing and staying home, said Tim Sly, an epidemiologist and professor emeritus at Ryerson University's School of Public Health.

"We're still seeing knucklehead parties from seven to 14 to 25 people, raving out there with no masks, lots of booze and drinking and hugging and kissing and so on," Sly said. "That's avoidable."

Public officials are not above making dubious travel choices, with several prominent politicians taking heat for holiday travel despite public-health guidelines to stay home.

On Friday evening, the federal NDP released a statement saying that MP Niki Ashton travelled to Greece to see an ill family member, and would consequently be relieved of her shadow cabinet roles, which include transportation.

"While we are sympathetic to Ms. Ashton's situation and understand her need to be with her family, millions of Canadians are following public health guidelines, even when it made it impossible for them to visit sick or aging relatives," the party said.

Earlier, Rod Phillips resigned as Ontarios finance minister after cutting short a Caribbean vacation, while Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Tracy Allard came under fire for a Hawaiian getaway from Dec. 19 to Dec. 31.

Surgeries typically ramp-up following a winter holiday lull, but more could now be sidelined due to the ripple effects of rule-flouting, said Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious disease physician at St. Joseph's hospital in Hamilton and an associate professor at McMaster University.

"If theres no beds to put those patients in afterwards, unfortunately those surgeries just get cancelled," he said.

St. Joseph's has opened a satellite site in a revamped hotel, transferring dozens of patients to the renovated facility in order to keep the main health centre's occupancy rate below 90 per cent to handle the expected surge.

We're filled to the brim," Chagla said.

I have patients that didnt have COVID but had horrible outcomes because ... they werent able to access care the way they should," he added, recalling the first wave.

"Im very worried about those individuals again going into the next three to four months, that were going to see a fallout of people that have missed cancer diagnoses or infections that needed to be treated earlier.

Its a lot of strain on a system that is already strained, he said.

Canada's two largest provinces reported new record highs of COVID-19 cases on Thursday.

Ontario reported 3,328 new cases and 56 more deaths linked to the virus, matching the highest death toll from the first wave. In Quebec, there were 2,819 new cases and 62 deaths.

The Public Health Agency of Canada said Thursday more than 720 patients hospitalized with the virus are now receiving treatment in ICUs, including 337 in Ontario and 165 in Quebec.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 1, 2021.
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It's long been the bane of traveling New Yorkers' lives, and incoming president Joe Biden once described it as "third world."

But while the aviation industry has been decimated by the Covid-19 pandemic, LaGuardia Airport has been quietly undergoing major renovations.

And now, $8 billion later, the new Terminal B is almost finished.

"New Yorkers love to criticize, and they love to hate. I think if you looked at every single passenger survey, LaGuardia was always the worst," says Rick Cotton, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

"Our challenge was to take it from worst to first," he tells CNN.

Today, filled with art installations including one of the largest mosaic walls in the US, and even a breathtaking water feature which projects images of New York icons such as the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge onto a cascading fountain, LaGuardia is a very different place.

Passengers for Air Canada, American Airlines, Southwest and United -- which are all housed at the new terminal -- have been enjoying the new public spaces since the summer.

From worst to... best?

It was Joe Biden's comments in 2015 that sparked the renovation effort.

New York authorities green-lit the works after the then-Vice President said, "If I blindfolded you and took you to LaGuardia Airport in New York you'd think I must be in some third-world country."

The central terminal, B, was built in 1964, and had barely changed since then.

And LaGuardia was, according to travelers, among the most outdated, noisiest and least accessible airports in the country. Not to mention its on-time record, which was one of the worst in the United States.

The redevelopment is the largest public-private partnership in US aviation history, and is still only 80% complete -- there are still some last gates to demolish and reopen. The project will be fully completed in 2022, and will see three out of the four terminals completely redeveloped.

But for now, travelers in Terminal B can enjoy the new breezy, light-flooded departures hall, its entire back wall covered in Laura Owens' colossal, 25,000-square-foot mosaic mural, "I NY," in which NYC icons, such as signs for the Stonewall Inn, Apollo Theater, and Coney Island's Cyclone roller coaster, are depicted against a background of blue skies and fluffy white clouds. It's accompanied by a monumental aviation-themed sculpture by Sarah Sze, "Shorter than the Day," hanging in mid-air.

In the Connector area is Sabine Hornig's "La Guardia Vistas," a modern stained glass installation (of latex ink and vinyl mounted on glass) pairing over 1,100 photos of New York City into a cityscape in honor of the airport founder and former NYC mayor, Fiorello La Guardia.

Jeppe Hein's 70 steel balloons dangle from the ceiling throughout the terminal, and his bench sculptures provide photo-friendly seating.

Free Covid tests for all

2020 isn't the best year to be relaunching an airport.

When New York was the US center of the epidemic in March, passenger numbers across the city's three airports plummeted by an astonishing 98%. Numbers are still down 75-80%, according to Cotton.

But the airport is offering free Covid tests, alongside the art, to attract passengers back.

Cotton thinks the offering -- which spans 840,000 square feet and four floors -- is now "best in class."

The Port Authority will be hoping that more travelers get to experience it in 2021.
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President Trumps private social club in Palm Beach, Fla., hosted a New Years Eve gala at which revelers without masks dined indoors and danced to performances by Vanilla Ice and members of the Beach Boys.

Mr. Trump himself did not attend the black-tie party at the club, Mar-a-Lago, as he usually does, instead cutting short his holiday vacation and returning to Washington on Thursday without explanation.

But members of the presidents family and extended political circle partied on anyway at an event that flouted warnings against indoor gatherings during the holidays as the coronavirus surges to its deadliest levels yet. The gala also appeared to violate specific guidelines posted on the Palm Beach County website mandating facial coverings in all businesses and establishments.

Attendees included Mr. Trumps oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and his girlfriend, the former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle. Rudolph W. Giuliani, the presidents personal lawyer and a former New York mayor, was shown in online footage ballroom-dancing with a female partner to a rendition of New York, New York. More than 500 guests were expected, according to The Palm Beach Post.
Next India-China military commander level talks likely on May 9

11th round of India-China military commander level talks likely to be held on Friday

As India-China stalemate continues, top IAF officers grouping to be held this week

Army fast-tracked 12 specialised patrol boats for surveillance of Pangong Lake

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Jan 02: The 12 specialised fast patrol boats would be deployed at the Pangong Lake, amidst the standoff with China.

The orders for the boats with advanced surveillance gear and equipment for patrolling were fast-tracked for patrolling the Pangong lake.

The Army said it inked a contract with Goa Shipyard Ltd, a state-run public sector undertaking, for 12 fast patrol boats for surveillance and patrolling of large water bodies, including those in high altitude areas.

China, India in talks to hold 9th round of Commander-level meet on Ladakh standoff: Def Ministry

"Delivery would commence from May 2021," the Army tweeted.

Official sources said the boats are being procured for surveillance of Pangong lake as well as other water bodies in mountainous areas.

In a statement, Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL) said it signed a contract with the Indian Army for supply of the ''high performance specialised patrol crafts'' on Thursday and that they will be fitted with specialised equipment to meet the requirement of the force.

"These craft will be constructed at GSL, Goa and will be only few crafts in the world for such specialized operations," it said in a brief statement.

Nearly 50,000 Indian Army troops are deployed in a high state of combat readiness in various mountainous locations in eastern Ladakh in sub-zero temperatures as multiple rounds of talks between the two sides have not yielded concrete outcome to resolve the standoff.

To match Chinas Army lake fleet, Indias super surveillance equipped boats off to Ladakh

China has also deployed an equal number of troops, according to officials.

The eighth and last round of military talks had taken place on November 6 during which both sides broadly discussed disengagement of troops from specific friction points.

Last week, Army Chief Gen MM Naranave visited various high-altitude forward areas in eastern Ladakh, including those around the Pangong lake, and reviewed India''s overall military preparedness.

Around three-and-half months back, Indian troops occupied a number of strategic heights in the Mukhpari, Rechin La and Magar hill areas around the southern bank of the Pangong lake after the Chinese military attempted to intimidate them in the area on the intervening night of August 29 and 30.

The Pangong lake and areas around it are considered very important. India has stepped up surveillance of the lake after the standoff began in early May.

Vaccines to be provided for free across India, says health min | Oneindia News

The face-off began on May 5 following violent clashes between the two armies in the Pangong lake area.

The incident in Pangong Tso was followed by a similar incident in north Sikkim on May 9.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Saturday, January 2, 2021, 8:31 [IST]


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Hopes for a secondary school for Duleek have been effectively dashed in a letter from the Dept of Education to local Senator Sharon Keogan.

In the correspondence, Minister for Education Norma Foley outlines the decision to locate a 1,000-pupil school in South Drogheda, which will serve children in the Duleek area. The letter was in response to a query by Senator Keogan in October regarding the location of a new post primary school in the Meath village.

'Shortly after the announcement of the school, a proposal was received that it should be located in Duleek...full consideration was given at the time; however, the determination was made that South Drogheda was the optimum location for a number of reasons,' outlines the Minister. 'While there is a significant cohort of primary pupils in Duleek, the numbers are not sufficient to support a 1,000 pupil school, and its location is not appropriate to serve emerging demand in both Drogheda and Laytown'.

The former Meath councillor turned Senator Keogan has been campaigning for a secondary school for the area since she was seeking election in 2011, when she was urgently seeking a facility for the village and surrounding areas which include Cushenstown, Bellewstown, Donore, Mounthanover, Clonalvy, Knockcommon, Kentstown and Whitecross.

There is a glimmer of hope in the last paragraph, when the Minister writes 'the post primary requirements in Duleek will continue to be kept under review as part of regular nationwide demographic exercises', however, with nothing concrete mentioned, any decision would seem to be a long time in the future.

Drogheda Independent
Tom Selleck Tips Server $2020 in Viral Tip Challenge Just Days Before 2021

The 2020 Tip Challenge has gone viral after several celebrities have left $2,020 in tips. The latest star to participate in the challenge is Tom Selleck, who tipped his food server $2,000, plus $20.

Sellecks $204.68 tab was just a fraction of the tip he left for his server at Elio, an Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side of New York City.

Two days before Christmas, Blue Bloods co-star Donnie Wahlberg wrote in a tweet, I found out that my TV Dad #TomSelleck has generously accepted the #2020TipChallenge at Elios Upper East Side! Love ya dad.

Tom Selleck on Nov. 14, 2013, in New York City. (Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images)

Elios Italian restaurant in Manhattan (Screenshot/Google Maps)

The former New Kid on the Block included a photo of Sellecks receipt, showing the note he wrote to the server:

I am honoring my friend Donnie Wahlbergs tip challenge with my sincere hope for a better 2020.

In his tweet, Wahlberg also clarified that he didnt start the challenge but is proud to be part of it.

To those who gave even the smallest extra amount this yearTHANK YOU, he wrote.

According to People, the 2020 Tip Challenge began in Michigan in January 2020, when someone tipped their server $2,020 on a $23 bill at Thunder Bay River Restaurant. Shortly afterward, Wahlberg and his wife, Jenny McCarthy, followed suit with tipping in kind at an IHOP in their hometown of St. Charles, Illinois.

Donnie Wahlberg reveals his photographs printed on the Canon PIXMA PRO printers at the Canon PIXMA PRO City Senses Gallery at EpiCenter in Boston on Sept. 17, 2014. (Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)

Other celebrities jumped on the tipping train, too, People reports, including Amy Schumer, Harry Styles, Jon Stewart, and Johnny Depp.

Selleck is humble about his act of kindness. Wahlberg told Daily Mail that the 75-year-old actor never mentioned it to him even though they work closely together.

Weve done three dinner scenes since he did it, Wahlberg said. He never [even] told me.

Im a fairly private person, Selleck said in an interview with People. Ive always treasured the balance between work and time with my family. Its always about them.

He added that his relationships and ranch keep him sane, and that when he isnt busy in New York City filming Blue Bloods, hes relaxing at home with his wife, Jillie, on their ranch in Ventura, California.

We would love to hear your stories! You can share them with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com
Arizona News

Phoenix, Arizona - The Phoenix Police Department, Peoria Police Department, and FBI are asking for the publics help in seeking potential victims and additional information about an alleged sexual offender and homicide suspect, Lance David Ray.

Ray, 53, was recently arrested in connection with three separate incidents in 2000. In the Peoria incident, it is alleged that Ray kidnapped a 14-year-old, held him at gunpoint, and sexually assaulted him. In the first of the two Phoenix Incidents, the charges allege that Ray kidnapped, bound, and sexually assaulted a 17-year-old at gunpoint. The other incident involved an 18-year-old male victim who was shot and killed after a struggle.

In 2020, D.N.A. evidence linked Ray to these crimes. In October of 2020, Ray was arrested in Bloomington, Indiana, where he was visiting. He was extradited to Phoenix and booked into the Maricopa County Jail. The investigation is ongoing, and it is believed that additional victims may exist.

Ray lived in the San Francisco, California, area in the early 1990s before moving to Portland, Oregon, in 1993. Ray resided in Oregon, Washington, and California until 1999, when Ray moved to Phoenix, Arizona, from 1999 to 2003. Ray then resided in California again from 2003 to 2017 before moving to St. Louis, Missouri, in 2017.

If you believe you or someone you know may have information regarding Lance David Ray, please e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 1-800-CALL-FBI. In your e-mail please provide your name, date of birth, phone number, and address.

We would like to thank all of our partners who have helped in this investigation, including FBI St. Louis, FBI Los Angeles, and FBI Indianapolis.


MBABANE  It is not every time that the number one bodyguard of the countrys prime minister is reshuffled; at least not without a serious reason.

However, within a year into office, the late Prime Minister, Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini, saw his security detail undergo a significant change.

He had his chief bodyguard, otherwise referred to within the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS) as the Personal Protection Officer (PPO), replaced.

The PPO is effectively the prime ministers right-hand man and travels with him everywhere he goes as well as being in charge of his overall security.

When the late PM was appointed to the position of Prime Minister in late 2018, Superintendent Mduduzi Joseph Matsebula was given the task of being his chief bodyguard. Soon, Matsebula became a familiar face wherever the prime minister went; always walking and standing behind him when he was in public and when making public addresses. The countrys prime minister always had about eight police officers providing him with security each time he travelled around the country. These police officers took occupancy of two escort vehicles that drove in front and behind the official vehicle chauffeuring the PM. All these officers were under the direct orders of the PPO who led them and always took occupancy of the front passenger seat of the vehicle in which the PM was chauffeured. Matsebula took these responsibilities under the late PM, but was quietly removed and replaced around November 2019. His removal was never explained nor was it publicised as he was transferred to take up the position of Nhlangano Police Station Commander. William Dlamini, the National Commissioner (NatCom), said the reason to transfer Matsebula was solely because his skills were needed somewhere else. He said the late PM was consulted before Matsebula was transferred and he agreed to it.

position

We needed someone to take up the position of Station Commander in Nhlangano because we had challenges there. The person had to have the experience that Matsebula has. There was nothing else, the police boss said. He said the PMs security detail was the responsibility of the NatCom and officers assigned there were appointed and removed at his discretion. He said removing the PPO did not compromise the security of the PM because it was the national commissioner who, in the first place, had decided on the person to be appointed the chief bodyguard. When we assign the person into the position of PPO, we dont even specify the length of time he would spend there; we just assign him. The only exception would be when the principal would resist or oppose the PPOs removal. Otherwise, if the principal agrees, then we redeploy that officer, the NatCom said.

He said the responsibility that Matsebula was redeployed to was of a much more considerable nature than that of PPO because he was now in command of many people. Nhlangano is big and has border posts that are now under him. That station has many departments including CID (Criminal Investigations Department) and others hence the position needs someone who has vast experience to be able to be commander. With the PPO position, its more technical, added the Natcom. Nhlangano is situated in the Shiselweni Region, which is in the southern part of the kingdom. In an interview, Matsebula, who indicated that he was uncomfortable talking to the media without the NatCom giving him permission because this bordered on national issues, said his relationship with the late prime minister was a pleasant one and they never had any altercations. It was great working with him. The national commissioner can also attest to the working relationship I had with the prime minister, he is aware of it, he said. Matsebula said he was the only one who was transferred from the PMs security detail and stated that he saw nothing strange with this. I suppose my transfer was for development purposes and nothing else, he said. Matsebula was replaced with one Superintendent Ntshakala who has been at the helm until the PMs death on December 13, 2020.

During the PMs State Funeral last week Friday, Ntshakala was present and made his presence felt when he chucked journalists out of the prayer service that was held at Dups Funeral Home before the PMs body was transported to his home area of Nhlanhleni at Mbekelweni in the Manzini Region.

Ntshakala, despite other senior police officers having no problem with the journalists presence at the prayer service, said the media was not allowed inside the chapel and outside the funeral parlour. He said no pictures should be taken either within the funeral parlours premises or outside on the streets.
For a super-size case, consider the scuff-proof suitcases in Antlers Clifton range

Tripp has cabin bags from 30, designed to meet strict size limitations

A top choice for adventurous travellers is the hybrid holdall from Craghoppers

Every week our Holiday Hero Neil Simpson takes an in-depth look at a brilliant holiday topic, doing all the legwork so you dont have to. This week: Best-buy luggage in the January sales.

Desperate to go on holiday as soon as permitted? Heres how to get ready for that big day with the best bags in the business.

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For a super-size case that will look new for years, consider the scuff-proof suitcases in Antlers Clifton range. The colour-fast materials on the hard-shell cases mean scratches or dents from clumsy baggage-handlers dont show up as ugly white marks. Its why the cases are so popular with frequent fliers, who also praise the solid, reliable wheels.

Bags of style: Italian film star Gina Lollobrigida definitely didnt believe in travelling light in the 1950s

The biggest Clifton cases are 31in (80cm) tall and can expand to swallow up to 132 litres of luggage, and are now available at a chunky discount from about 200 in high-street shops or at antler.co.uk.

Antler also offers sets of discounted packing cubes that maximise space by squeezing the air out of clothes as you pack.

For an equally good pedigree but with a cheaper price tag, look at the ultra-lite range from British brand Tripp. These are the bags used by many cabin crew and pilots, and a four-wheel case starts at about 50.

Tripp also has a range of cabin bags from 30, designed to meet the strict size limitations of British Airways, easyJet, Ryanair and other airlines. Find the range at Debenhams, John Lewis, bigger M&S branches or at tripp.co.uk.

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A top choice for adventurous travellers is the hybrid waterproof holdall from outdoor specialist Craghoppers. Its clever design  made from recycled materials  means it can be used as a backpack, suitcase or shoulder bag.

And to keep contents safe, it has secure everywhere features, such as slash-resistant side panels, hard-to-break zips and cafe clips to secure it to chairs or table legs in public places.

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Find the bags, now priced at about 120 to 150, at adventure stores such as Ellis Brigham, Cotswold Outdoor or at craghoppers.com.

Holidaymakers wanting to cut their carbon footprint should turn to Groundtruth, an award-winning British company set up by three travel-mad sisters in 2017. Its rucksacks, camera bags and tech pouches are made from 100 per cent recycled materials and are built to last  the sisters had them field-tested by Antarctic explorers and back them with 15-year guarantees.

Worried that such worthy bags might not be stylish? Its travel wallet was selected as an official gift for 2020s virtual Bafta ceremony and is still for sale at 76 at groundtruth.global.

Children can stay safe and raise a smile on their travels with the new, germ-resistant Abbie the Ambulance case from Trunki. The company asked customers to nominate 2020s key worker heroes when choosing the name, and paramedic Abbie came top.

As well as the usual Trunki features  children can ride on the wheeled case or strap teddies to it  it has had a new anti-bacterial solution mixed into the plastic for long-lasting germ protection.

The UK-made bags start at 40 or you can join forces with your children and design their own case from 45 at trunki.co.uk.

Already got the perfect luggage for your holiday? Stop anyone else walking off with it at the baggage carousel by labelling it with a personalised leather tag.

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The labels, from notonthehigh street.com, come in a range of colours, from 12, and are printed to say: Keep calm and move on  this is [your name]s bag.
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Zoey April Rose Roulette is Brandons first baby of 2021.

Zoey was born at 6:25 a.m. Friday morning to proud parents Misty Brown and Les Paul Roulette at the Brandon Regional Health Centre.

According to a press release from Prairie Mountain Health, Zoey weighed approximately seven pounds and 14 ounces and was approximately 20 inches long.

The family wasnt expecting Zoey to be the first baby born in Brandon in 2021 given she came relatively late in the morning, Roulette said.

"She is healthy and she is good  they said she came out just about the time she needed to come out," Roulette said.

"It was incredible ... I was like Oh my God she is the first baby (of 2021)."

The Sun reached Roulette as he was preparing the home for Zoeys scheduled arrival on Saturday.

The couple wanted to name the baby a name starting with Z, Roulette said, and would have named a boy Zevin. Zoey means "life" in Greek.

"Im hoping she likes to laugh and be a kid, giggle and smile and just bring joy to life and that I bring joy to her," he said.

Zoey has a 12-year-old sister, Bella. Roulette said due to COVID-19 she couldnt come to meet baby Zoey at the hospital, but will soon.

"Her big sister is very happy, she was very excited," he said.

The family was presented with a gift basket from the Brandon Regional Health Centre Auxiliary Gift shop, along with a bouquet of flowers. The gift basket includes childrens toys and accessories.

"Prairie Mountain Health sends congratulations to the family and their new daughter," the health region said in a press release.

The first baby in Winnipeg came earlier in the morning, at 12:38 a.m. at St. Boniface Hospital, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority said over Twitter. The family wanted to celebrate privately, and the health region did not disclose the babys name or gender.

 dmay@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @DrewMay_
The hiring of these expert engineers is part of the HEAs strategic plan to strengthen their position as industry experts that continually invest in the quality of their teams.

Horizon Engineering Associates, LLP (HEA), a professional engineering firm specializing in commissioning, energy consulting and LEED services, has recently hired a diverse array of distinguished industry leaders who will provide a depth of experience and unmatched expertise.

Introducing the newest, Senior members of the HEA team:

Four engineers have joined our New York City headquarters office:



Paul Liesman, CxA, EMP, CFM, VP of Engineering, has over 20 years of commissioning experience in a wide variety of markets. His background includes building commissioning for mission critical, healthcare, transportation, higher education, residential and commercial facilities.

Colin Milner, CEM, CBCP, MFBA, Senior Engineer, has nearly 20 years of experience and specializes in energy audits, commissioning and retro-commissioning. Mr. Milner leverages his experience and expertise to help HEAs clients meet their building needs and goals regarding energy reduction and efficiency.

Eric Fichtl, Senior Engineer, has over 20 years of construction and facility management experience with an emphasis on hospitals, heavy construction and facilities. Mr. Fichtl most recently provided oversight of multi-million dollar contracts for construction of facilities at LaGuardia Airport and provided facility management for Mount Sinai Queens Hospital.

Wes Gadient, PE, CEM, BCxP, Senior Project Engineer, has extensive experience working on and managing sustainable energy projects. Mr. Gadient has exceptional analytical and planning abilities developed through various project types, companies and metrics of success.

Joining our Maryland office is Brad Zeamer, Senior Project Engineer. With over 30 years of expertise in building automation, HVAC, industrial refrigeration and instrumentation, Mr. Zeamer is an expert with industrial, plant-wide systems and facility commissioning, CGMP, performance contracting and project development.

The hiring of these expert engineers is part of the HEAs strategic plan to strengthen their position as industry experts that continually invest in the quality of their teams. These exceptional engineers were brought on, as they all embody HEAs values (accountability, collaboration, expertise, innovation, sustainability, quality and impact).

About Horizon Engineering Associates, LLP

HEA is the nation's premier commissioning firm that uses a collaborative, hands on approach to deliver innovative solutions to our clients. Headquartered in New York City, with nine additional offices across the nation, HEA has one of the largest and most respected staffs dedicated to providing commissioning services for new construction and existing buildings for more than 200 million square feet, worth over $35 billion in construction cost.

Please visit https://www.horizon-engineering.com for additional resources.
The following list includes recent reports from the Midland County Sheriffs Office and the Midland Police Department. Compiled by reporter Mitchell Kukulka.

Tuesday, Dec. 29

11:11 p.m. -- A 27-year-old Jerome Township woman reported she was being harassed by her ex-boyfriend. Deputies contacted the boyfriend and left a voicemail advising him not to contact the woman. She was referred to the courts in regards to obtaining a Personal Protection Order.

10:33 p.m. -- Deputies responded to a Homer Township residence after a 7-year-old boy was bitten by their dog.

4:18 p.m. -- A deputy assisted an MSP Trooper with a disorderly man in Edenville Township.

8:37 a.m. -- Deputies responded to a car-deer crash in Ingersoll Township.

8:31 a.m. -- A deputy responded to a single-vehicle traffic crash in Ingersoll Township.

5:28 a.m. -- A 50-year-old man reported an unknown man was attempting to get under the hood of his vehicle at his Mount Haley Township residence. The 50-year-old confronted the unknown suspect, and he fled on foot. Deputies checked the area and were unable to locate the unknown man.

3:24 a.m. -- Officers responded to a larceny and assault in the 1100 block of Franklin Street.

Monday, Dec. 28

10:32 p.m. -- A deputy was dispatched to the MidMichigan Medical Center emergency room to meet with a 30-year-old Larkin Township woman who was bitten by her own dog at her Larkin Township residence. The deputy made contact with the woman, who said she tried to stop two of her dogs from "playing rough" and was bitten in the process. The woman was treated at the emergency room for minor injuries and was issued an isolation notice.

8:58 p.m. -- A 53-year-old Ingersoll Township woman reported that her 57-year-old husband had not returned from his afternoon walk. A brief investigation took place, and the man was later located in Mackinaw City. He was having suicidal thoughts. Mackinaw City Police transported the man to the McLaren Hospital in Petoskey.

7:50 p.m. -- A deputy received a drug tip from a 40-year-old Mills Township man in reference to illegal drug activity at a Mills Township residence. The information was turned over to Bayanet for investigation.

7:44 p.m. -- Officers responded to a hit-and-run crash in the 900 block of Joe Mann Boulevard.

3:32 p.m. -- A deputy was dispatched to a Larkin Township address in reference to a property line dispute and civil matter. A 57-year-old Larkin Township man reported that a 69-year-old Midland man and a 72-year-old man cut down trees along the property line. The 57-year-old believed that several small trees and two larger trees were cut down on his property. The other men admitted to cutting down two stumps and the smaller trees. The property line is marked with survey stakes and its believed that some of the trees were on the 57-year-old's property. The section of trees in question runs about 150 feet long and are 1-2 feet on each side of the property line. The 72-year-old and 69-year-old said they would work with the 57-year-old toward financial reimbursement.

1:48 p.m. -- Officers responded to a vehicle crash in the 200 block of Cambridge Street.

1:38 p.m. -- A 55-year-old Larkin Township man reported to a deputy that an unknown suspect filed for unemployment insurance in his name out of the state of Kentucky. The man is following up with LifeLock and is not out any money from the attempted scam.

12:32 p.m. -- The Midland County Sheriff's Office Detective Bureau received information from a local resident who claimed to know of a suspect who committed a serious crime that occurred in Midland many years prior. The informant purported to have taken a confession from a man and alleged that this same man also gave him details of the crime. After the "suspect" was investigated by law enforcement, the informant ultimately admitted to lying and "perverting the course of justice."

12:06 p.m. -- A deputy was dispatched to a Lee Township location in reference to a two-vehicle crash. Prior to the deputy's arrival, one vehicle left the scene. The area was checked but the vehicle was not located.

8:54 a.m. -- Officers responded to a vehicle crash in the area of Isabella Street and Currie Parkway.

8:36 a.m. -- Deputies responded to a car-deer crash in Porter Township.

7:13 a.m. -- A deputy was dispatched to an Ingersoll Township roadway for a report of a single-vehicle traffic crash. There was no damage to the vehicle. The vehicle was removed from a ditch and a 21-year-old Lee Township man was issued a warning for violation of the basic speed law.

5:40 a.m. -- A 21-year-old man was bitten by his friend's dog while at her Warren Township residence. The victim received medical treatment at MidMichigan Medical Center ER.

2:43 a.m. -- Deputies were dispatched to a Mount Haley Township residence in reference to a domestic assault between a 17-year-old girl and her 15-year-old foster sister. Both girls were separated, and a report is being sent to the courts.
TORONTO  The snow was falling outside Ali Haberstrohs apartment in late November when the idea came to her.

At the time, Canada was nearing a second lockdown to curb rising coronavirus cases. In anticipation, the owner of a vintage clothing store in Toronto who is a friend of Ms. Haberstrohs had put together a list of other local vintage shops offering curbside pickup and deliveries in lieu of being able to open their doors.

It was a wake-up call, Ms. Haberstroh, 27, said of the list, which reminded her how enormous retailers like Walmart, Costco and Amazon had thrived during the pandemic while many smaller, local businesses had been shut. I thought if there is one tiny thing I can do to help, then I should get on it.

Inspired to build a more comprehensive list, Ms. Haberstroh promptly created an Instagram post, tagging independent businesses and shopkeepers across Toronto. Included was a new website, Not-Amazon.ca  a URL that she had bought for $2.99.
Registered nurse Michael Lowman (L) receives the first Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine injection in Orange County at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, Calif., on Dec. 16, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

High Share of Health Care Workers Reluctant to Get COVID-19 Vaccine: Reports

Reports and studies have emerged showing that a relatively high percentage of those working in health care settings are reluctant or refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

A research project tracking the publics attitudes and experiences with COVID-19 vaccinations has found that nearly one-third of health care workers are vaccine-hesitant, saying they probably or definitely wouldnt get a COVID-19 vaccine even if it were available for free and deemed safe by scientistsa figure slightly higher than the share of the general population.

A December survey published by the Kaiser Family Foundation vaccine attitude tracking project shows an increase in the percentage of the general public saying they would definitely or probably get a COVID-19 vaccine, which now stands at 71 percent, up from 63 percent in September. At the same time, 27 percent of the general population is vaccine-hesitant.

Vaccine hesitancy is highest among Republicans (42 percent), people aged 30 to 49 (36 percent), and rural residents (35 percent), followed by essential workers (33 percent), according to the survey. The lowest vaccine hesitancy is among Democrats (12 percent), those aged 65 and over (15 percent), and members of households with serious health conditions (22 percent).

The chief concerns among those who are hesitant to get a COVID-19 vaccine are worries about possible side effects, with 59 percent citing this as a major reason, followed by a lack of trust in the government to ensure vaccine safety and effectiveness (55 percent), and concerns that the vaccine is too new (53 percent), according to the survey.

Meanwhile, the share of vaccine-hesitant health care workers, at 29 percent, is slightly higher than the general population, according to the survey. At the same time, a handful of reports have emerged showing high rates of frontline health care staff refusing to get the shot.

Earlier this week, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said that about 60 percent of the nursing home workers in his state have so far opted not to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

We arent going to make them, but we wish they had a higher compliance, DeWine said at a Dec. 30 press briefing, in reference to nursing home staff, The Columbus Dispatch reported.

His remarks came as Ohio had just experienced its deadliest month of the pandemic, with the report noting 2,426 deaths from COVID-19 in December.

California and Texas are also experiencing a high rate of health care worker refusals, reports indicate.

Public health officials said that around 50 percent of frontline workers in Riverside County in the Golden State have chosen not to get the vaccine, the Los Angeles Times reported, while more than half the hospital workers at Californias St. Elizabeth Community Hospital opted against getting the shot.

In Texas, a doctor at Houston Memorial Medical Center told NPR earlier in December that around half the nurses in the facility wouldnt get the vaccine.

Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch told The Los Angeles Times that a high percentage of vaccine refusals may be problematic.

Our ability as a society to get back to a higher level of functioning depends on having as many people protected as possible, Lipsitch told the outlet.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in December that between 70 and 75 percent of Americans would need to get the vaccine in order to get that umbrella of herd immunity.

Two COVID-19 vaccines have been authorized for emergency use in the United States, one from Pfizer and the other from Moderna, with scientific panels deeming both products safe and effective, and that the benefits outweigh the risks.

The issue of vaccines is the subject of longstanding controversy, in part because some see the inoculation push, driven by the imperative of achieving herd immunity as quickly as possible, as an infringement on personal liberties.
There were no casualties over the period under review.

The Command of Ukraine's Armed Forces has reported nine violations of the latest ceasefire agreement committed by Russia-controlled armed groups in the Donbas warzone on Friday, January 1.

"In the past day, January 1, nine ceasefire violations were recorded in the area the Joint Forces Operation (JFO)," the press center of the Ukrainian JFO Command said on Facebook in an update as of 07:00 Kyiv time on January 2, 2021.

Read alsoSweden takes over OSCE Chair: End of Donbas war among prioritiesIn particular, the enemy fired 82mm mortars, grenade launchers of various systems and small arms near the town of Avdiyivka.

An enemy UAV had been spotted incoming from the village of Yakovlivka, crossing the contact line in that area before it was jammed.

The Russian Federation's armed formations also employed a hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher and small arms near the village of Vodiane in the Pryazovia area (the north coast of the Sea of Azov), as well as small arms near the village of Pavlopil.

What is more, the occupiers fired grenade launchers of various systems and a heavy machine gun near the village of Zolote-4 in the Pivnich (North) sector, as well as small arms near the village of Novoluhanske.

The violations were reported to OSCE representatives through the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC) of the ceasefire in Donbas.

Ukrainian units delivered an adequate rebuff to enemy provocations, the JFO HQ said.

No casualties were reported in the past day.

Since midnight, enemy forces have not attacked Ukrainian troops.

The situation is under full control of the Ukrainian military.

Donbas ceasefire: Background

Participants in the Trilateral Contact Group (Ukraine, Russia, and the OSCE) on the peace settlement in Donbas on July 22 agreed on a full and comprehensive ceasefire along the contact line from 00:01 on Monday, July 27.

On the very first day of the newly-agreed truce, Russia's hybrid military forces mounted three attacks on Ukrainian positions in Donbas, eastern Ukraine. Ukraine has reported more such violations over the latest period.

Reporting by UNIAN
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan appealed to people on Saturday not to be misguided by "rumours" and disinformation campaigns regarding the safety and efficacy of the coronavirus vaccine, stressing that there would be no compromise on any protocol while approving it. Vardhan, who visited two mock vaccination sites in Delhi to review the drill, said free vaccine would be provided in the first phase of the inoculation drive to the most prioritised beneficiaries, including one crore healthcare and two crore frontline workers.

He added that details of how 27 crore priority beneficiaries  those above 50 years of age and those below it having comorbidities  would be vaccinated until July were being finalised. The minister dispelled doubts regarding the country's capability to undertake such a massive vaccination drive, describing how India had unparalleled experience in dealing with immunisation and run one of the largest such programs in the world.

"It is as a result of our steadfastness and dedication that India was declared polio-free in 2014. Our rich learning from the earlier immunisation drives, including the polio vaccination campaign, is being used to guide our present countrywide COVID-19 vaccination campaign," he said. The Union minister first visited the GTB Hospital in Shahdara and later an urban primary health centre (UPHC) in Daryaganj, according to a Health Ministry statement.

"I appeal to the people not to be misguided by rumours regarding safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccine," he said, dismissing such buzz on social media over its side effects. "We will not compromise on any protocol before approving a vaccine." The health minister underlined that vaccine hesitancy was an issue even when the country started polio immunisation drive, but "we must remember its success". He urged the media to exercise caution, behave "responsibly" and check all facts before publishing or broadcasting any reports, the ministry said.

At the UPHC in Daryaganj, Vardhan reiterated that the Modi government was committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of all citizens. "I have ample personal experience from the polio eradication campaign of 1994 about how the people of the country placed their trust in the science of the vaccine rather than the falsehoods and canards being spread by some rumour-mongers," Vardhan told the media.

On ensuring that the vaccine reaches the remotest corner, Vardhan said the country's cold chain infrastructure had been sufficiently upgraded to ensure last-mile delivery, and adequate supplies of syringes and other logistics had also been provided for. Expressing his satisfaction at the preparations at the GTB Hospital, Vardhan said the entire exercise of the vaccination process, including training of personnel, was being systematically taken forward.

"Detailed guidelines have been issued to multiple stakeholders after extensive deliberations, paying attention to each and every minute aspect," he said. "Ahead of the actual vaccination drive, the Ministry of Health on Saturday conducted a nationwide mock drill at 285 session sites to test the end-to-end planned operations and the mechanism that has been set up to ensure smooth conduct of the COVID19 vaccination that is expected to begin soon," it said.

Vardhan appreciated the tireless efforts being made by multiple stakeholders, including the central and state government officials who have worked proactively in the last few months to ensure the success of this humongous operation. He said the digital platform, Co-WIN, was the real game changer and would provide real-time information of vaccine stocks, their storage temperature and individualised tracking of beneficiaries of the COVID-19 vaccine.

This unique platform will assist in automated session allocation for pre-registered beneficiaries, their verification and for generating a digital certificate upon successful completion of the vaccine schedule. More than 75 lakh beneficiaries have been registered on Co-WIN platform till date, he said. The minister said the entire operational planning and IT platform had been field-tested in four states  Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Punjab  and certain enhancements had been made in the system on the basis of feedback received.

The dry run will end with review meetings at the district and state level to discuss the issues and challenges encountered during the exercise. States and Union territories have been requested to share with the Health Ministry the feedback, which will be analysed for ironing out any glitches in the final execution and refinement of the operational procedures.
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Just before Christmas, as noted in this post, a federal district judge vacated an order from the director of the Bureau of Prisons that had set Lisa Montgomerys execution date for January 12. But, on New Year's Day, a DC Circuit panel issued this order putting the execution back on track. This CNN article about the ruling provides some context:

Montgomery's execution had been scheduled for December 8, but a judge postponed it after her attorneys said they were diagnosed with Covid-19 after flying from Texas to visit with Montgomery at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.

On November 23, the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Michael Carvajal, rescheduled Montgomery's execution for January 12. Friday's order said he was acting under the "governing regulation," which allowed him to reschedule the execution because the original execution date had not passed. The order said he was acting under the law, clearing the way for Montgomery's execution later this month.

Montgomery's attorney, Meaghan VerGow, said in a statement that she disagrees with the judges and is going to file a petition for them to reconsider their decision. The judges gave VerGow until Saturday to file. "The federal government must be required to follow the law in setting any execution date, as the district court correctly held ... Given everything we know about Lisa Montgomery's mental illness, her lifetime of horrific torture and trauma, and the many people in positions of authority who could have intervened to save her but never did, there can be no principled reason to carry out her execution," VerGow said. "The government should stop its relentless efforts to end her life."...

The Trump administration has overseen 10 federal executions in the final months of his presidency, the most in a single year in the United States in decades, and a revival after years of having none. Montgomery would be the first woman executed by the US government since 1953.

In 2004, Montgomery was convicted of strangling a Missouri woman who was eight months pregnant, then cutting out and kidnapping the baby. The baby survived.

The last woman executed by the US government was Bonnie Brown Heady in 1953, according to US Bureau of Prisons records, for kidnapping and murder. The US also famously executed Ethel Rosenberg that same year for espionage.
YEREVAN, JANUARY 2, ARMENPRESS. Human Rights Defender of Armenia Arman Tatoyan has commented on the statement made by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev over the Armenian servicemen who are currently in the Azerbaijani captivity.

Yesterday, on December 31, 2020, the President of Azerbaijan, when talking about Armenian servicemen being held in captivity in their country, stated that they are not prisoners of war. He also stated that they are arrested and qualified them as terrorists.

As the Human Rights Defender of Armenia, I specifically declare that the mentioned statement and other similar statements are in gross violation of the post-war humanitarian process and the international human rights protection standards. The statement by the President of Azerbaijan also directly contradicts the requirement reflected in point 8 of the trilateral statement signed on November 9, 2020 which concerns the exchange of prisoners of war or persons who are in other way deprived of liberty.

The Armenian servicemen captured by Azerbaijani soldiers should be immediately released and returned to Armenia. This must be done immediately and without any precondition since they have the status of prisoners of war.

During and after the war activities, the Azerbaijani authorities have constantly violated international human rights standards and humanitarian commitments by artificially delaying the return of prisoners of war and captives and not reporting the real number of prisoners of war and captives, during this whole process Azerbaijani authorities have continued torture and inhuman treatment, they have been publicizing videos on torture and inhuman treatment in a targeted way, obstructing exchange of bodies, etc.

The studies and reports of the Office of the Human Rights Defender of Armenia confirm that the aim of all these is to cause mental suffering to the families of the prisoners of war, to play with emotions of the Armenian society and generate tension in Armenia.

The monitoring clearly confirms that, in the case of the Azerbaijani authorities, it is necessary to always act with specific guarantees that will ensure full implementation of their humanitarian commitments and inviolability of international human rights standards.

Thus, I draw the attention of international community and particularly international bodies with human rights protection mandate to the mentioned statement of the President of Azerbaijan to exclude any violation of the humanitarian process and ensure strict compliance of the process with international human rights standards, the Ombudsman said in a statement.
Highlights Telecom giants Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea have made major announcements.

Jio has announced that it will stop charging its customers for off-net or Jio to non-Jio voice calls

Vodafone is set to shut its 3G services in Delhi.

Telecom giants Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea have made major announcements. Jio has announced that it will stop charging its customers for off-net or Jio to non-Jio voice calls and Vodafone is set to shut its 3G services in Delhi. While Jio's announcement would make the subscribers happy, Vodafone's decision to shut 3G services can be worrisome.

Jio announced that due to the abolition of interconnect usage charges (IUC) charges by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), it is waving off the charges for off-net or Jio to non-Jio calls.

"Honouring its commitment to revert off-net domestic voice-call charges to zero, as soon as IUC charges are abolished, Jio will once again make all off-net domestic voice calls free, starting 1st January 2021. On-net domestic voice calls have always been free on the Jio network," the telco noted in an official release.

"Jio is committed to lay the foundation of a digital society a society where everything, everyone everywhere is connected with the best quality service, at the lowest price globally, and has access to the most advanced digital platforms. Through technological innovation, Jio will continue to deliver revolutionary products and services to its users, with a customer-first approach," Jio said in a statement.

The new change would make the Jio subscribers happy because until now, Jio gave 300 to 12,000 FUP minutes depending on the price of the prepaid plans.

Vodafone, on the other hand, has been sending out messages to its subscribers about the discontinuation of the 3G services for a while now. A Gadgets 360 report has also confirmed that Vi is all set to shut its 3G services. Subscribers who did not upgrade their SIM to 4G will get voice calling through 2G. This means that the data services will not be available on the old sim connections.

"The year 2020 has brought about massive changes in consumer behaviors. While the data demand has grown manifold, telecom network today has become the mandatory layer to exist in a digital society. This has drawn focus on the criticality of 24x7 high-speed mobile network connectivity across both- commercial as well as residential areas," Vi had said in a statement.

However, this would force the subscribers to move to their nearby Vi store to upgrade their SIM to 4G to continue to get data and voice services on their phones. This would not have been a problem on normal days but during COVID, stepping out does not seem like the best idea. But in order to continue getting the data and calling services, Vodafone subscribers who do not have 4G SIM will need to step out and get the new SIM. However, Vodafone Idea is yet to make an official announcement about the same.
The moves came as an emphatic double rebuke of the defeated president at the end of a chaotic Congress

The Senate wrapped up a rare New Years Day session with Republicans rejecting President Donald Trumps demand for $2,000 Covid-19 aid cheques and overriding his veto of a sweeping defence bill.

The moves came as an emphatic double rebuke of the defeated president at the end of a chaotic Congress.

Democrats tried a final time to push forward a House-passed bill that would boost the $600 direct aid payments just approved by Congress to $2,000 as Mr Trump demanded for millions of Americans.

Republicans blocked a vote, arguing in favour of a more targeted approach.

The rejection of Mr Trumps top priorities, along with the first veto override of his presidency, offered an unusual willingness by the presidents party to confront Mr Trump, now in his final days in the White House after losing the November election to President-elect Joe Biden.

Mr Trump lashed out at GOP leadership on Twitter. Pathetic!!! he wrote.

But Mr Trump appeared more focused on his next battle to overturn the results of the election during next weeks session tallying the Electoral College votes.

Read More

Congress is ending a dizzying session, a two-year political firestorm that started with the longest federal government shutdown in US history, was riven by impeachment and a pandemic, and now closes with the GOPs rare rebuke of the president.

Democrats vowed to swiftly revive the plan for $2,000 cheques after the new Congress is sworn in Sunday.

President-elect Joe Biden has made clear that the pandemic relief bill that Congress passed is simply a down payment on the work that needs to continue, said Democratic representative Hakeem Jeffries, the chair of the House Democratic caucus. Were going to continue to fight for a $2,000 direct payment cheque.

Tensions ran high as senators sniped over slogging through the holiday season at the Capitol.

Mr Trumps demands for additional aid upended the year-end Covid-19 relief and federal funding package, forcing his Republican allies to stand alone as Democrats embraced his push for more direct payments to struggling American households.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer tried, as he has all week, to push the proposal for a vote, saying the only thing standing in the way was Republican senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and other Republican senators.

The second-ranking Republican, Senator John Thune of South Dakota, rose to object, saying the proposal was not an effective way to meet the needs of Americans.

That drew an angry tweet from Mr Trump, who said the states Republican governor Kristi Noem should pose a primary challenge to Mr Thune, who faces a re-election battle.

But presidential tweets that once sparked fear in Republicans may be losing their punch.

Republican senator Lisa Murkowski told reporters she found it very dispiriting at this time, New Years Day, that the president would be working to pit Republicans against Republicans.

Mr Trumps last-minute demands threw Congress into a tumultuous year-end session that deepened the divide within the party between the GOPs new wing of Trump-styled populists wary of defying the president and what had been mainstay conservative views.

Senator Josh Hawley, who has pledged to lead Mr Trumps challenge to overturn the election during next weeks session, was among those senators who also supported Mr Trumps push for Covid-19 aid.

Mr Hawley found himself in common cause with Senator Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, who argued on Friday for a vote.

The influential Mr McConnell has shown little interest in Mr Trumps push to bolster the $600 relief cheques just approved in a sweeping year-end package, declaring Congress had provided enough pandemic aid, for now.

He dismissed the proposal, as passed by the House, as socialism for rich people who did not need the federal help.

Mr McConnell proposed his own bill, loaded up with Mr Trumps other priorities to rein in big tech companies and investigate the 2020 presidential election. But it was not a serious effort, and he did not push it forward for a vote.

The refusal to act on the cheques, along with the veto of the defence bill, could very well be among Mr McConnells final acts as majority leader as two GOP senators in Georgia are in the fights of their political lives in run-off elections next week that will determine which party controls the Senate.

The 81-13 vote in the Senate to pass the defence bill followed an earlier 322-87 override vote in the House of Representatives of the widely popular defence measure.

The bill provides a 3pc pay rise for US troops and guides defence policy, cementing decisions about troop levels, new weapons systems and military readiness, personnel policy and other military goals.

Mr Trump rejected the defence measure last week, saying it failed to limit social media companies he claimed were biased against him during his failed re-election campaign.

He also opposed language that allows for the renaming of military bases that honour Confederate leaders.

PA Media
Did you buy a Powerball ticket in Hedgesville? You might have won $50G
Senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty and Congressman Chuck Fleischmann announced Saturday they will oppose the Electoral College certification of the presidential election.



Rep. Fleischmann said, The 2020 Presidential Election was rife with irregularities in many states. After speaking with constituents across the third district of Tennessee, I will object to the certification of the Electoral College on Wednesday. We must protect the integrity of our elections by ensuring only legal votes are counted, and illegal ones are not. I continue to stand with President Trump and support his efforts to bring transparency to our election system.

"On Jan. 6, 2021, I will support efforts by my colleagues in the House and Senate to cast light on concerns about the integrity of the 2020 presidential election by objecting during the Electoral College certification. While it has been largely ignored by the media, there are a large number of Americans who do not have faith in the integrity of the 2020 presidential election, including many of my own constituents who have voiced their concerns to me and my office. It would be a disservice to our future elections if we certify the Electoral College results and move on when there has not been any attempt to put the worries of many Americans at ease with a thorough investigation into the allegations of fraud and questions of election integrity.

My support of the objections will not be unprecedented. Following the 2000, 2004, and 2016 elections, Democrats in Congress objected during the certification of electoral votes in order to raise concerns about election integrity. We are now also entitled to voice our concerns about the integrity of the 2020 election.



Many Americans are genuinely concerned and do not have faith in this election. It should be our number one priority to ensure that all Americans have faith in the integrity of our elections. Certifying and moving on without an investigation will only go to further fray and dissolve the trust Americans have in the foundation of our country, our elections. I cannot vote to certify the 2020 Electoral College results when real concerns about election integrity from many Americans across this nation, and in East Tennessee, have been mocked and ignored.



Senator Marsha Blackburn and Senator-elect Bill Hagerty said, Tennesseans elected us as their United States Senators to represent their views and values in Washington and to always fight for them, which is why we have concluded without any reservation that we will stand against tainted electoral results from the recent Presidential election. We know that our elections, built around the Electoral College which is a fundamental element, are the envy of the world. Protecting their integrity and ensuring the results are free and fair are critical to maintaining the trust of our own citizens.

"Since Nov. 3, hardworking men and women from across Tennessee have contacted us to justifiably express anger and concern that some states conducted the recent election in a manner that did not respect the rule of law and may have violated many of their state constitutions as well as Article II of the U.S. Constitution. Many are concerned about the sanctity of the one person one vote guarantee. Our founders understood that it is ultimately the peoples job to preserve the sanctity of these most fundamental American systems, and so they charged the peoples representatives in Congress with a specific role in the process. We plan to exercise that role fully in the new Congress.

TNDP Chair Mary Mancini said, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the election. As of today, Donald Trump has lost 60 out of 61 lawsuits contesting the results, and countless state election officials - both Republican and Democrat - have demonstrated the integrity of the November election. There is simply no proof that the results are anything but the legitimate will of the American people. The decision by Senators Blackburn and Hagerty to refuse to accept the results of this fair and free election undermines the electoral process we have relied on for more than two centuries That they would bend their conscience and character to please one man, Donald Trump, is un-American, a betrayal of the oath they took to defend and protect the constitution, and a slap in the face of the Tennesseans they swore to serve.
NOIDA: The test reports of three primary and 28 secondary contacts of the 33-year-old woman, who was found positive for the new strain of the coronavirus (Covid-19) disease, have confirmed that none of them has been infected so far. However, as a precautionary measure, all of them have been asked to be under quarantine at home, said officials.

Gautam Buddha Nagars chief medical officer (CMO) Dr Deepak Ohri said the three primary contacts of the woman were administered the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), considered the golden standard for testing for Covid-19. After their reports came negative, RT-PCR tests were conducted on the 28 secondary contacts, identified through surveillance. All of them have been found negative. The three primary contacts of the patient, including two family members and one domestic helper, were also tested via RT-PCR and their results came out negative, he said.

He added that ever since the new variant, referred to as SARS-CoV-2 VUI 202012/01 (Variant Under Investigation, year 2020, month 12, variant 01), was detected in India in early December last year, the district administration has identified as many as 260 people who had returned from the UK after December 8  the new strain is said to have first been detected in the UK. While 189 of them had been tested with the RT-PCR method, the remaining 71 are either on vacation or have permanently shifted to other places in the country. Weve cross-notified them to their present locations, based on telephonic conversations with them, he said.

The CMO also said that only two out of the 189 were found positive for Covid-19 through the RT-PCT testing method. For confirmation of the presence of the new variant among positive patients, samples of both patients were sent for genomic sequencing to the Indian Council of Medical researchs (ICMR) laboratory in Delhi. While the ICMR reports confirmed the 33-year-old woman case on Tuesday, the other  a 28-year woman from Greater Noida  was found negative for the new strain, Dr Ohri said.

Meanwhile, Covid-dedicated healthcare facilities in the district have started making arrangements to accommodate patients infected with the new variant, if any. While the administration has prepared an international traveller ward at the Government Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS), the Sharda Hospital has readied a 30-bed ward for patients of the new strain.

Dr Saurabh Srivastava, the head of the Covid-19 ward at GIMS, said the hospital is ready to tackle any critical situation. The condition of the patient infected with the new strain is quite under control. We believe in controlling the pandemic instead of panicking, he said.

Dr Bhumesh Tyagi, a physician at the isolation ward of Sharda hospital, said that as the new strain is more contagious, the hospital management has readied a 30-bed exclusive ward to accommodate patients infected with new strain, if any. The new strain appears very unpredictable, as it infects mostly younger people. However, our fingers are crossed regarding the lethality of the new strain. But to avert any mishap, we are ready with our resources. Weve deployed 13 doctors for this ward, he said.
BEIJING, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- With best wishes to a fresh start, thousands of visitors gathered in Tian'anmen Square in downtown Beijing at around 6 a.m. for the first national flag-raising ceremony of 2021, after a year of a hard slog against COVID-19.

Guo Jiangfeng, 37, together with his family, joined the crowds, expecting an inspiring new year for his start-up business.

"Despite the impact of COVID-19, my company doubled the size in terms of employees and went full steam ahead thanks to government support measures in rent, taxes and social security fees," Guo said.

Festive atmosphere was felt across the country. From Thursday night to Friday morning, the Hanshan Temple in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou livestreamed its bell ringing for the coming new year.

The city of Qufu in east China's Shandong Province, the birthplace of Confucius (551-479 BC), an educator and thinker, kicked off a series of online and offline traditional folk activities including couplets-writing and bell-striking for blessings.

As citizens enjoy their family reunions and holiday celebrations, medical workers in different places are still on duty to fight COVID-19.

Fu Yanyang, a 29-year-old nurse in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, got up early. The province has recently reported multiple locally transmitted COVID-19 cases.

"In my hospital, we test around 1,800 people a day," he said, referring to the ongoing large-scale nucleic acid testing in Shenyang.

Yin Ling, a researcher with the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, waved goodbye to the bittersweet year 2020 laden with both risk and reward.

With the help of big data, the tech-savvy researcher studies the spread characteristics of the virus among the population. Her model, built on collected data, simulates the temporal and spatial spread of the coronavirus and provides a reference for disease prevention and control.

"As the country places independent innovation at a more prominent position, we will continue to work hard in research to expand the role of big data in various sectors," she said.
Gibraltar has slapped down Spain's claim to have the final say on who enters the British territory, setting the stage for more wrangling over sovereignty.

Chief minister Fabian Picardo today tersely declared that 'this is our land' after Madrid's top diplomat said her government would oversee cross-border travel.

The row comes a mere two days after an 11th-hour post-Brexit deal was struck to integrate Gibraltar into the EU's passport-free Schengen Zone to avert a hard border.

Almost 30,000 people crossed between Spain and Gibraltar every day before the pandemic, half of whom were workers.

That Spain has access to Schengen's database and the UK does not means it now will police who enters Gibraltar, foreign minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya insisted.

Chief minister Fabian Picardo today tersely declared that 'this is our land' after Madrid's top diplomat said her government would oversee cross-border travel

That Spain has access to Schengen's database and the UK does not means it now will police who enters Gibraltar, foreign minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya (pictured) insisted

She told El Pais newspaper: 'Schengen has a set of rules, procedures and instruments to apply them, including its database, to which only Spain has access. Gibraltar and the United Kingdom do not.

'In order to enter a Gibraltar integrated into the Schengen area, the responsibility for border control is in Spanish hands.

'That is why the final decision on who enters the Schengen area is Spanish, of course.'

Mr Picardo quickly challenged her interpretation and rejected her claim to control arrivals.

He tweeted: 'Under the New Year's Eve Agreement only Gibraltar will decide who enters Gibraltar & Spanish officers will not exercise any controls in Gibraltar at the Airport or Port now or in four years time. This is our land. Couldn't be clearer.'

Gibraltar's new travel arrangements with Spain came into force at 11pm London time on New Year's Eve, when the UK's Brexit transition period ended.

With a land area of just 6.8-square kilometres, Gibraltar is entirely dependent on imports to supply its 34,000 residents

Boris Johnson offered his 'wholehearted welcome' to the deal and underscored his commitment to preserving the protection of the interests of Gibraltar and its British sovereignty'.

Schengen covers most of the 27 EU members, along with Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Lichtenstein. Gibraltar's arrangement will be in place for an initial four-year period.

Even when the UK was in the EU, it never joined Schengen, meaning passports were requited to travel to EU member states.

With a land area of just 6.8-square kilometres, Gibraltar is entirely dependent on imports to supply its 34,000 residents.

A No Deal scenario would have slowed the cross-border movement of goods with new customs procedures.

Border fluidity is also key for some 15,000 people who cross into Gibraltar every day to work, accounting for half of the territory's workforce. Most are Spanish and live in the impoverished neighbouring area of La Linea.

In the 2016 referendum, Gibraltar voted 96 per cent in favour of remaining in the EU.

Its status as a British overseas territory has always been a thorny issue and remains disputed by Madrid.
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Acts of violence ushered out 2020 and brought 2021 to the streets of Philadelphia Friday.

The violence came as Philadelphia closed the book on a bloody 2020, which saw 499 homicides, the most since 1990. And it accompanied a similarly deadly start to 2021, with three homicides just in the morning hours of Friday.

Police were investigating the nonfatal shooting of a 22-year-old man on the 1600 block of Cumberland Street, in North Philadelphia, at about 4:25 a.m. Friday. The man was hit once in his left leg and once in his back. He walked into Temple University Hospital for treatment and was listed in stable condition.

At about 3:35 a.m. Friday, a 24-year-old male was stabbed in the neck while in a building on the 2300 block of North Park Avenue in North Philadelphias Hartranft section. Police took him to Temple University Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition.

Shortly after 3:10 a.m., police responded to a report of a 19-year-old woman shot once in the hip while on the 1100 block of West Montgomery Avenue. The teenager walked to Temple University Hospital and was in stable condition.

At about 2:20 a.m., a 24-year-old man was shot once in the upper thigh while at a private party in the vicinity of 59th Street and Lansdowne Avenue, near the Overbrook section of West Philadelphia. The victim was taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and listed in stable condition. He was expected to be transferred to Penn Presbyterian Hospital.

A 25-year-old woman was stabbed in both her left and right hands at a building on the 4600 block of Walnut Street. She was taken by police to Penn Presbyterian Hospital and was in stable condition.

Inside an apartment on the 2100 block of Walnut Street at about 1:50 a.m., a 22-year-old woman was shot twice, once in her arm and once in the hip. The woman was taken to Jefferson Hospital and was in critical condition. A weapon was recovered and an arrest was made, but no further information was available.

At 10:30 p.m. on Thursday, a 46-year-old man was shot once in his right foot. He walked to Temple University Hospital and was in stable condition. No arrest was made.
ALBANY, Ga. - On a mild December night, deep in the southwest corner of the Peach State, the opening keyboard riff to Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground" plays in the parking lot of a civic center. It feels like a Sunday service. A warm-up act leads everybody in prayer; the mostly Black congregants bow their heads. Some proudly sport their Black fraternity and sorority paraphernalia on cars, T-shirts and jackets. A woman sprays the podium with Lysol. Then the Rev. Raphael Warnock bounds onto the stage.

He winds his way through a stump speech with the same inflections and cadences of a Southern preacher. The call-and-response includes melodic repetition of the line "Who are we?" imploring the audience to answer "We, the people." Resting one arm against the lectern while looking off to the side, he delivers rehearsed dad jokes, pleas for voter turnout and broadsides against his political opponent. The preacher sprinkles his calls for affordable health care with Biblical allusions, reminding voters that Bartimaeus, a blind man healed by Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, "suffered from a preexisting condition." To this point, Warnock testifies on the need for Medicaid expansion and cheaper college tuition.Audience members punctuate the applause lines with cries of "C'mon, Rev!"

For the last 15 years Warnock has been the senior pastor at the storied Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the same church once led by his hero, Martin Luther King Jr. The flamboyant, preacher-pol style that Warnock cultivated at Ebenezer may be alien to many Americans, including many White Christians. But it is deeply familiar to those who grew up in and around Southern, Black churches. In those churches, preachers make it their business to tell uncomfortable truths about American life, including the shameful ways the country treats its African American citizens.

Warnock's identity as a Black preacher has become central to his bid to reach the higher ground of the U.S. Senate. Republicans, who tend to perceive less conflict in the relationship between God and country, have cast him as a dangerous departure from the norm. In a recent debate, a conspicuously scripted Sen. Kelly Loeffler, the Republican incumbent whom Warnock is trying to unseat, called him a "radical liberal" more than a dozen times. A pro-Loeffler attack ad features a video clip of Warnock warning members of his congregation that they cannot serve God and money, or God and the military, at the same time (Matthew 6:24). The ad is spliced with snippets of Warnock yelling during sermons. Over action-movie-trailer music and lo-fi lighting, a grim-sounding narrator explains the "threat" Warnock poses to the republic: Raphael Warnock attacks our soldiers. Warnock attacks our police. . . . Raphael Warnock is radical and dangerous.

Warnock's style also might be his best asset in the runoff, helping him match the emotional pitch of the moment as Americans suffer through the hardest stretch of the pandemic and President Donald Trump spreads wild conspiracy theories about America's voting system and the officials (including Republicans, and especially Georgia Republicans) who administer it.

"There should be more people being so-called 'radical' for change,"says Mawuli Davis, an attorney who attends Ebenezer and represented Warnock when he got arrested at the Georgia Capitol in 2014 for protesting the Republican governor's decision not to expand Medicaid under the Obamacare law.

What's truly radical, Davis says, "is trying to overturn a freaking election."

On the stage in Albany, Warnock is dressed in a light blue quarter-zip pullover, looking like a suburban dad returning from Home Depot with a bag of mulch. To counter the "radical" label Warnock has expressed his support for police and the military (his dad was a veteran). In one ad he walks a dog along the sidewalk in front of suburban homes with picket fences. The dog is a beagle, a breed associatedwith White ownership.

Early voting numbers indicate high enthusiasm among Democratic-leaning voters such as young people and African Americans- voting blocs Warnock aims to inspire with a vision of change while not alienating moderate voters in the suburbs who helped carry Joe Biden to victory here in November. To paraphrase the apostle Matthew, Warnock may have to serve two masters, electorally speaking. And his success may depend on his identity as a man who serves God.

As the Albany event ends, a man who addressed the crowd earlier wanders among the cars.

"I think it is important that we have people in politics on the liberal side, on the progressive side, that represent faith, that take back the meaning behind faith, that it is not a conservative ideal," says Alex Moreschi, a White Episcopal minister. "At its heart, Christianity is a progressive movement. It is a radical movement for the health and security and love of neighbor. And I see Rev. Warnock representing that."

- - -

In Georgia, they worship God. In small, red-brick buildings next to cotton fields. In strip malls next to bargain outlets. In large multimillion-dollar complexes with expansive parking lots, they praise His name. But Georgians do not always worship together. And they do not always receive God's message in the same way. Centuries of racial and social segregation mean that while Black and White may be a part of the same body of Christ, they aren't necessarily in communion with each other.

For hundreds of years the Black Christian church has been the central religious, social and political institution in Black American life. The church has survived racial acts of terror, including bombings, fires and mass shootings. As recently as December a group of neo-facists marching in D.C. vandalized Black churches displaying "Black Lives Matter" signs. The "most elaborate and well-planned slave insurrection in the history of the United States" was organized by Denmark Vesey, the co-founder of "Mother" Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., according to Vesey biographer David Robertson. Richard H. Cain, who was elected to the House of Representatives during Reconstruction, served as Emanuel's pastor. And the Black church is where a charismatic young preacher from Atlanta plotted a nonviolent overthrow of the racial caste system in the South.

"I seek to live in a way that honors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King and the entire King family. Not just on this special occasion, but every day," Kelly Loeffler reportedly told a congregation last January when she appeared at Ebenezer in honor of King.

It was a thoroughly uncontroversial remark for a modern conservative politician to make - the kind that makes it easy to forget how unpopular King was when he was alive. Gallup polling estimated that Americans felt more negatively toward him as the 1960s progressed. Critics branded King a radical communist hellbent on destroying America, and those accusations continued well after he was killed; President Reagan initially opposed the proposal to make King's birthday a national holiday, and more than 100 lawmakers in the House and Senate voted against it. In a 1983 debate on the matter Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., accused King of harboring "radical political" views rooted in Marxist communism.

King was not a communist; he criticized communism for denying God. But he was a political radical in his time, promoting peaceful lawbreaking to protest racial injustice - in God's name, no less. And he was unsparing in his criticism of godly men who failed to do the same. Writing from a Birmingham, Ala., jail, in 1963, King expressed his disappointment in White ministers for failing to call out segregation as morally sinful. He also had choice words for White moderates, whom he described as a greater stumbling block to racial justice than even the Ku Klux Klan. (Suffice it to say, King never ran for statewide office in Georgia.)

Warnock is not Martin Luther King Jr., but he has borrowed a sheet or two from King's playbook. Warnock speaks of government-backed health care the same way King spoke of ending segregation: This is what God wants us to do.

Warnock's attempts to claim the moral high ground haven't sat well with everyone in the Black church. In December, more than two dozen church leaders politely asked him to reconsider his pro-choice views, saying his rationalizations reflected "grave errors of judgment and a lapse in pastoral responsibility."(At the same time, those leaders praised his "efforts to share Christ while pursuing political solutions to our most pressing problems today.")

But the fact that Warnock has pastoral responsibilities puts him in an unusual strategic position - not just with voters who want to walk a righteous path, but also with respect to the "radical liberal" attack line from Republicans. In December, the New York Times reported that a different group of religious leaders wrote an open letter to Loeffler, asking her to stop calling Warnock a radical, saying that doing so amounted to "a broader attack against the Black Church and faith traditions for which we stand." The pastor's "social justice theological and faith traditions," they reportedly wrote, are "not only accepted as an authentic prophetic message in the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King, but also a central message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

- - -

"The man is not radical," says the Rev. Ralph Huling, senior pastor of St. James Missionary Baptist Church.

It is a Sunday morning in Columbus, a city near the Georgia-Alabama line. Covid restrictions have forced the event at St. James into the parking lot, where the "amens" have been replaced by gratuitous horn-honking.

"The man is just a proponent of change," continues Huling. By calling for Medicaid expansion Warnock is simply asking America to live up to its ideals, he explains. "If that is radical," says Huling, "then we need more radicals."

Warnock is fond of telling crowds that Jesus "healed the sick, even those with preexisting conditions." He wants college to be cheaper because he went to Morehouse on the "full faith scholarship" which means he "didn't have enough money for the first semester." It works on multiple levels. If you are a progressive hoping for the same policy outcomes, Warnock is speaking your language. If you want someone who understands your culture because he comes from where you come from, that works too.

The cruel irony of the pandemic is that, in times of social strife, Black people have counted on the comforting rhythms of church life. But on this day there is no clapping from the Amen corner, no church ladies in decorative hats filing in early to grab their favorite seats, no ushers rushing in with fans to cool parishioners who've been overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit. No little girls in their finest dresses scrounging through grandma's purse in search of hard peppermint candies, no little boys negotiating with the serving ladies for an extra piece of fried chicken or another dollop of potato salad after the second sermon.

That is, perhaps, why Huling looks particularly excited to be performing in front of a large audience this morning. "I didn't come to prolong the time," he says before giving his remarks- a warning to anyone who's spent time in a Black church that they'd better get ready to settle in.

What follows is a 30-minute stemwinder that starts with "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and veers to a treatise on the horse trading between President Lyndon Johnson and Republican Minority Leader Everett Dirksen over the Civil Rights Act. The sermon reaches a singsong crescendo with Huling in an Ozzy Osbourne rock-star crouch screaming into the microphone.

He's a bridge (ah) over troubled water. . . . He's a doctor (ah) in a sickroom. . . . He's a lawyer (ah) in a courtroom. . . . Ain't he all right . . . ? There oughta be two or three folks here today, don't mind being a witness that the LAWWWWD, the LAWWWWD, the LAAWWWWD's been good to you. . . . If you know he's all right and you ain't ashamed then say YEAHHHHHH . . . YEAHHHHH . . . YEAHHHHH!

As Huling performs his sermon, Warnock stands attentively to the side with his hands clasped in front of him. On another Sunday, he might be throwing them in the air, or using them to playfully fan Huling's brow. At the moment, the reverend seems content in the role of visiting politician, passing through on his way to higher ground.
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Morris was shot during the incident and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was in good condition. Morris will not appear before a judge in bond court later Saturday because he is a person of interest in another, unrelated case, Chicago police said in a statement.
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An inmate of the Lehigh County Jail died Thursday due to complications related to a COVID-19 infection, the countys director of corrections said.

The 54-year-old man had been hospitalized for several weeks in St. Lukes Hospital in Allentown, according to a news release from the corrections director, Janine Donate.

Authorities did not immediately release the mans name. He had been incarcerated since October 2019 in an aggravated assault case, as well as on a state parole violation, Donate said.

Cases of the coronavirus illness have been on the rise at both Lehigh and Northampton counties prisons.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health this coming week is offering free COVID-19 testing, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday at Coca-Cola Park in Allentown.

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Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.
City, volunteers to line Highway 81 with flowers

The City of Watertown Parks and Recreation Department and volunteers will be planting flowers along Highway 81 starting at 8 a.m. Wednesday, May 26.
Home > 2021 > Twenty 20, A Dangerous Trend from Kerala | Sukumaran C V

Kerala may perhaps be the most political state in India. But in the recently concluded local body elections, the people of four panchayats in Ernakulam district of the state proved that Kerala can dangerously be apolitical too. Kitex Garments, the company that pollutes the surrounding water bodies and paddyfields in Kizhakkambalam Panchayat was denied licence by the panchayat governing body 8 years ago. Then, the Kitex Garments-Anna Aluminium group CEO Mr. Sabu Jacob, in accordance with the Companies Act, 2013 that makes it mandatory for the corporate companies to spend 2% of their average net profit for social services, formed the charity organization Twenty20 to utilise the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) fund of the corporate group. The business group does have an annual turnover of more than 1000 crores. That means the group can use huge amounts as CSR fund. And in the 2015 local body elections, Sabu Jacob fielded candidates in all the wards of the Kizhakkambalam panchayat under the aegis of Twenty20 and captured 17 wards out of 19, routing the Left and Right political combinations, and formed the very governing body which denied him licence!

In the 2020 elections, Twenty20 repeated its victory in Kizhakkambalam by winning 18 out of the 19 wards and captured three more local bodies anew. The company CEO managed to have this feat by distributing freebies to the people using the CSR fund! Twenty20 distributes its own ration cards to the people and the cardholders get everything for a minimal price from the hypermarket [Twenty20 Bhakshyasuraksha (food safety) Market] run by the Kitex-Anna group! The culture of running after whatever that is available free is encouraged by both the UDF and LDF political combinations in the state and it makes the people apolitical. This freebie culture is skillfully exploited by the Kitex CEO in 2015 and yet the rulers and politicians didnt mind the dangerous trend. Now the canker is spreading far and wide; and the politicians sense the danger and start criticising the apolitical Twenty20, but they are not ready to critically examine the reasons that facilitate Twenty20 to keep winning. They are unwilling to look inwards and see the enemy within that strengthens the apolitical trends Twenty20 subscribes to. They dont know criticising Twenty20 without addressing the rot within that prepares the soil for such outfits to grow will only make their criticism counterproductive. The politicians and political parties have yet to learn that the enemy is within.

In 2015, the Panchayat President ousted by the Twenty20 said: They want to gain control of the panchayat for the smooth operation of their company. We had denied licence to them citing contamination of water and wetlands. By gaining control of the panchayat, the group wants to have the final say in such matters. [1]

But a newspaper report that praises the initiative of the company says: Kitex Garments which exports quality apparel items to international brands such a Mother Care, Walmart, Jockey and Kohls has been denied a permanent licence by the Kizhakkambalam panchayat despite fulfilling all criteria...the group has launched a charitable mission that has invested around Rs. 28 crore in the last two years to usher in unprecedented development in the panchayat and to emerge as a credible alternative to the entrenched political parties in the area. [2]

The unprecedented development is nothing but distributing freebies among the people and virtually purchasing the votes and thus the control of the local body too. What we saw in Kizhakkambalam in 2015 and in Kizhakkambalam and other three surrounding panchayats in 2020 is democracy being sabotaged democratically, using the mechanism of democracy itself!

In relation to the Writ Petition WP(C). No. 21782 of 2012 (W) filed in the High Court of Kerala in 2012 by the company (M/S. Kitex Garments Ltd.) against 17 respondents including the Superintendent of Police, Aluva Rural, Ernakulam (Respondent 1) and Kerala State Pollution Control Board (Respondent 17), the court says that the 1st respondent has filed a statement stating thus: 1. The Kitex Garments Ltd. is a garments manufacturing company and its main factory is situated at Choorakkode near Kizhakkambalam within Kunnathunad police station limits. There exists dispute between the company and local inhabitants over the pollution of nearby ditches and PVIP canal allegedly due to the flowing of the untreated effluent water from the company containing hazardous chemical elements, and liquid containing human excreta, for over a long period. The local people formed an Action Council about one and half year back, demanding to take steps for urgent solution to the pollution."

A news report published in The Hindu in 2012 says: Addressing the media, the action council members said the local residents of Choorakode-Chelakkulam areas in Kizhakkambalam have been protesting against the extensive pollution caused by the company in the last 100 days. The council alleged that the company not only discharged effluents in to the Periyar valley canal and paddy fields in the neighourhood, but also consumed water to the tune of more than eight lakh litres per day. [3]

The company, instead of solving the pollution it causes, distributed freebies and virtually bought the voters. The only one ward in which it failed this time is the one where its factory is located. It means that the people of the same local body are ready to look the other way while their fellow beings suffer from the pollution caused by a company if the company gives everything they want freely!

The governments are generally unwilling to take stringent action against the companies that pollute the environment. Nitta Gelatin India Ltd (NGIL) is a company promoted by the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation in technical collaboration with the Japanese gelatin manufacturing company, Nitta Gelatin Inc. Situated on the banks of Chalakkudy river at Kaathikkoodam, it manufactures Dicalcium phosphate (DCP) from crushed animal bones using hydrochloric acid and water (6500m3 per day). The company draws such huge quantities of water from the river and dumps the toxic effluents to the river making it highly polluted. Often and again the fish in the river are seen floating dead in large numbers.

On 29th 30th and 31st May (2013),there was large-scale fish kill in the river for a 20km stretch below the effluent discharge point of this firm. Massive protest followed and people from downstream panchayats also became part of this agitation... The industry has been polluting the land and air in the surroundings and is discharging huge volume (almost equal to the in-take) of polluted effluents into the Chalakkudy river via a concrete pipe of 750m length. The foul smell from the industry can be felt for a radius of about 2kms (and even beyond) according to wind direction. As a result, majority of people around NGIL have various respiratory diseases. The number of cancer patients is also very high. Water in the nearby wells is contaminated. The effluent is polluting the Chalakkudy river. [4]

On July 22, 2013 when more than 3000 people gathered in front of Nitta Gelatin at Kaathikkoodam in a peaceful protest, the police under the then UDF government brutally attacked them and more than hundred people were seriously injured. In this incident we saw a democratically elected government acting in favour of a company that pollutes the environment denying the people their right to have fresh air to breathe and fresh water to drink. In the 2015 local body elections, while the same government was in power in Kerala, we saw Twenty20, the charity hand of a corporate company that pollutes the surroundings, capture power in Kizhakkambalam panchayat winning 17out of 19 wards! In one case we see a corporate company helped by the democratic government(s) crushing peoples protest and in the other case we see a corporate company purchasing the people and democracy! In both cases the environment suffers and ultimately the people lose.

In 2020, the Twenty20 sustained Kizhakkambalam by winning 18 out of the 19 wards and captured three adjoining panchayats too: Mazhuvannoor (13/19), Kunnathunad (11/19), Aikkaranad (14/14)! [5] And the CEO of Kitex Garments says that Twenty20 will field candidates in the upcoming Assembly elections too!

Around Kaathikkoodam, Nitta Gelatin continues to pollute the Chalakkudy river; In Kizhakkambalam, Kitex Garments continues its air and water pollution. But the LDF government that came to power after defeating the UDF government in 2016 too favours not the people but the company/companies. Both the LDF and UDF are routed by Twenty20 in the four panchayats in which it won. But no political party in Kerala is seen really bothered by this apolitical phenomenon that is detrimental to democracy. The reason is almost all political parties are doing what Twenty20 is doing to the people and environment. Political parties favour the companies by accepting enormous party funds from their owners; Twenty20 utilises the fund directly distributing it among the people and muffling criticism and generating praise! Imagine the democratic ethos of the political parties and what they inculcate in the people! (The panchayat members in Kerala get monthly honorarium of Rs 7000, Panchayat presidents get 13200 and vice presidents get 10600. Apart from this, Twenty20 gives Rs 14000 to its ward members, Rs. 25000 to the president and Rs. 20000 to the vice president. And Mr. Sabu Jacob says that Twenty20 distributes extra monthly remuneration to check the temptation of being corrupt. It is a direct hit at the politicians who thrive taking politics as their livelihood means.)

The political parties and the people of Kerala often boast themselves of being the most educated and most progressive people in India. And it is in this most educated and most progressive state the most apolitical and hence the most dangerous phenomenon of a charity organization hijacking democracy for keeping the business interests of a corporate company is being enacted. And the general public and the political parties dont seem to be bothered at all. It reveals that the much hyped most educated and most progressive tags attached to Kerala are mere sham.

The phenomenal success of Twenty20 is praised by many. Dr. G. Gopakumar, the former Vice Chancellor of Central University of Kerala, was recently heard saying participating in the News Hour debate of a prominent Malayalam News Channel: "I wont say Twenty20 is apolitical, it is a politics of rejecting politicians."

The victory of Twenty20 should frighten all democrats and every political party that believes in real democracy because it points to the dangerous rot within Kerala, within our democracy. Political parties should reform themselves to cleanse the entrenched corrupt practices that are exploited by Twenty20 to make the people believe that political parties are corrupt and corruption hinders development of the people, and the politicians develop at the cost of the people.

Actually, Twenty20s peoples development is a mask to cover the pollution of the company and under the mask the company and its business develop. But the residents of Kizhakkambalam praise Twenty20 wholeheartedly. The food safety market was opened exclusively for the residents of the Kizhakkambalam panchayat and all the residents irrespective of caste, creed and political affiliation are the beneficiaries. The food safety market of Twenty20 provides provisions for half the price and since the Covid-19 pandemic, the people have been receiving 80% discounts. When I mentioned the dangers of the apolitical Twenty20, I was vehemently opposed. The politicians are parasites and they squeeze the entrepreneurs like the Kitex garments and create insurmountable hurdles to make them their dependents, people say. What people want is better living conditions and under the governance of Twenty20, people are well off and better than they have been under the governance of the politicians, I was told. And the company provides employment for thousands of local residents with better pay and allowances. These are the opinions I could gather from the people of Kizhakkambalam. I myself saw that the infrastructure development inside the panchayat area is far better than that of the panchayats run by the political combinations in Kerala. From what I have seen in Kizhakkambalam, and heard from the supporters of Twenty20, I am pretty sure that it is the politicians and their way of doing business not for the peoples well being but for their own, and the corruption and nepotism that are all pervasive under the governance of the political parties, have driven the people to select and elect an apolitical innovation of an entrepreneur to govern them. If the politicians are not ready to indulge in self-criticism and see politics is a means to serve the people instead of serving themselves by exploiting both the poor and the rich alike, in future, democracy will directly be run by corporate companies without the politicians as the intermediaries. Twenty20 has successfully demonstrated that a corporate company CEO can govern better than the politicians. What is being enacted in Kizhakkambalam seems to be a kind of Owenism. Of course, the Kitex company CEO is not like Robert Owen. He has his business interests, but he serves the peoples interests through Twenty20 better than the politicians and hence the people prefer Twenty20 to the political parties. I think that he may be serving the peoples interests better than the politicians only to protect his business interests, but the people dont agree and ask me whether the politicians serve the people without having their own interests. As I am not a politician I cant answer the question. But I dont think that the politicians can honestly answer the question in the affirmative and that is where the success of Twenty20 lies.

(Twenty20 has its own office and there are three phone numbers ending with 2020. When I called them to know about their modus operandi from themselves, their response was not cooperative. The person who attended the call was not ready to answer my questions and cut the call asking me to visit their FB page!)

We have heard about the dictatorship of the proletariat, but we havent heard about the dictatorship of the corporates, even if the democracies of the world are more or less controlled by the corporates. What we see in the democratic victory of the Twenty20 in Kerala, where in 1957 the Communist party was elected to power for the first time in the whole world, is a kind of dictatorship of the corporates.

Outfits like Twenty20 are as dangerous as communal politics is.
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The U.S. Senate on Friday voted to override President Donald Trumps veto of the National Defense Authorisation Act (NDAA), a major national security bill worth $740 billion.

The vote marked the first veto override of the Trump presidency and is widely viewed as a sharp rebuke of the president during his final days in office.

The Senate needed a two-thirds majority to override the veto, which it obtained by a wide margin, with 81 senators voting in favour of the override and only 13 against.

The NDAA, which sets the policy for the U.S. Department of Defense, has passed every year since the 1960s.

Both chambers of Congress approved this years bill with large majorities.

Mr Trump, however, vetoed the bill over a plan to rename military bases that are named after leaders of the Confederacy, the alliance of pro-slavery southern states during the Civil War.

He also called for the bill to strip social media companies of some liability protections and objected to language that would slow-walk his plans to reduce the number of U.S. troops in places like Afghanistan and Germany.

The debate over whether to override the veto pitted Trump against members of his own party and some of his staunchest allies in the Senate.

Speaking from the Senate floor, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell said that the passage of the bill is a serious responsibility and a tremendous opportunity to direct our national security priorities to reflect the resolve of the American people and the evolving threats to their safety, at home and abroad.

Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat, called the vote a bipartisan rebuke of the president.

Trump tried to make this vote a loyalty test and an overwhelming majority of U.S. Senators demonstrated their loyalty is to the common defense and to the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces who help defend our nation, Mr Reed wrote on Twitter. (dpa/NAN)


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The Memphis Bus Riders Union isnt really a union. Its not a group of employees; it doesnt engage in collective bargaining; there arent any dues. But the group of grassroots volunteers has nonetheless begun to influence Memphis transit policy in a very real way.Born out of the Occupy movement, the organization first started showing up at Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) board meetings nearly three years ago. The agency was caught off guard. When we got to the board meeting, they didnt know how to accommodate us, says Bennett Foster, one of the groups organizers. The activists initially had to email the agency ahead of time to get an agenda; then they had to send another message to let officials know they wanted to speak. And they were only allowed to speak at the conclusion of the meeting, too late to influence any votes taken.But the relationship has since improved. Earlier this year, Memphis Mayor A.C. Wharton appointed one of the groups leaders, Shelia Williams, to the MATA board. Williams is a college student and a single parent who relies on the bus to get around the city. Her appointment signals how far the Memphis Bus Riders Union has come, from an outside group of agitators to an accepted political player that has found common ground with city officials, environmentalists, bus drivers and even MATA itself.Memphis, the nations poorest large urban area, has a very long way to go to achieve the unions vision of access to transit as a civil right. The transit system in particular has suffered years of hard times. Decades of white flight and suburban sprawl have left poor neighborhoods cut off from the parts of the city that are bringing in new jobs. Neighborhoods spread out more and more, and transit couldnt keep up, Foster says. The trend has been cutting routes, not building new routes.Many of the major employment centers are in the suburbs east of the city, but most of MATAs bus routes go to and from downtown. That means passengers in north and south Memphis -- where most of the unions members live -- must switch buses downtown. But some buses stop running as early as 6 p.m., leaving workers stranded downtown after a late shift, or preventing them from going to work in the first place.The union has spent its first few years trying to stave off further service cuts. MATA has lost $3 million a year in government funding over the last two years. Meanwhile pension payments and other expenses have continued to rise. Since the start of the recession, the agency has cut 30 percent of its service and reduced its number of employees by one-fifth. This year, Wharton proposed restoring some funding for the agency, but its not enough to prevent fare hikes or even more service cuts.So the union and the transit agency are looking for other sources of income. One idea is to have college and university students pay for bus passes as part of their student fees. They would get an individual discount, but the overall funding for the agency would go up because it would get so many new passholders. A harder sell would be to get funding from the Tennessee communities that surround Memphis but dont currently help pay for transit.In the meantime, the union is working with local employers to encourage them to locate more jobs on existing transit routes. We can create jobs, but if people cant get to them, its really only helping a certain percentage of the population, Foster says. Its not going to address the problems of poverty and joblessness in Memphis if we dont create an infrastructure for people to get to those jobs, the ones who need them the most.
(Newser)  The US Coast Guard on Friday suspended its search for a boat that went missing with 20 people on board, the AP reports. The travelers had taken the white and blue 29-foot Mako Cuddy Cabin vessel to Bimini, a chain of islands in the Bahamas, the Sun-Sentinel reports. It departed Bimini Monday and was expected to reach Lake Worth Beach in South Florida the following day. No information about who was on the boat has been made public.

story continues below

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the missing people, said Capt. Stephen V. Burdian, Seventh District Chief of Response. I encourage anyone with information about the people aboard to contact us as soon as possible. (Read more Bahamas stories.)
US: 1,100 pounds of methamphetamine found in watermelons

Tesla owners will be paid $ 16,000 each due to slow charging

Advisor to Armenia Prosecutor General provides details about incident with Armenian soldier killed in Verin Shorzha

Banksy's painting of punk Lenin sold at auction in Hong Kong for $ 960,000

CSTO Deputy Secretary-General: Escalation on Armenia-Azerbaijan border requires undertaking of urgent measures

Catholicos of All Armenians receives newly appointed Ambassador of Japan

Australia closing its embassy in Kabul for security reasons

Biden to discuss issues related to Belarus and Ukraine with Putin

Armenian acting FM meets with ambassadors of CSTO member states accredited to Armenia

Armenia Ombudsman presents human rights protection in post-war period to CoE Programmes Directorate General

Germany is investigating Google's position in market

France: Sanctions against Belarus will continue

Armenia opposition party MP: Azerbaijan is a terrorist state, negotiations can't be led with such a country

US to reopen its Consulate General in Jerusalem

EU expects to receive over 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine by end of September

Armenian MFA strongly condemns Azerbaijan's blatant armed encroachment on Armenia's sovereign territory

UN still awaits strong evidence that Dubai ruler's daughter is alive

Opposition Bright Armenia Party urges Government to immediately address UN Security Council

Armen Sarkissian receives Russia Ambassador to Armenia

Armenia President, France Ambassador discuss situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border

Overchuk: We hope unblocking of links between Armenia and Azerbaijan is a success

Armenia police officer commits suicide, criminal case launched

Armenia Environmental Protection and Mining Inspection Body has new deputy heads

Zarif, Aliyev discuss railway routes connecting Iran, Azerbaijan and Armenia

EU leaders agree to donate at least 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to poor countries

Armenian serviceman Mher Hovhannisyan fires gunshot at his head, criminal case launched

Soldier who died in Armenia's Verin Shorzha was son of ARF-D member, father of 2

Blinken promises to continue close consultations with Israel on Iran

Armen Sarkissian: Armenia's relevant state institutions need to take the tightest measures

Armenian soldier commits suicide, opposition speaks on tense situation on border, 25.05.21 digest

Yerevan man's body found at Tatul Krpeyan Park

Armenia MOD: Reports about Armenian soldiers being injured in Sisian section of border not confirmed

EU summit calls for rarly implementation of vaccination certificates

Parliament of the Netherlands adopts resolution, EU must demand that Azerbaijan pull out troops from Armenia

Kremlin: Russian and US presidents to meet in Geneva on June 16

Spokesperson of community council of Armenia's Sisian: Men got enlisted and climbed to military posts

Bright Armenia Party: We are not satisfied with CSTO response

EU leaders urge council to review internal border guidelines by mid-June

Armenia MOD: Fixed-term serviceman receives lethal firearm injury in head area

Dollar still stable in Armenia

Armenian Catholic Catholicos-Patriarch passes away

Kathimerini: US seeks to increase military presence in Greece due to doubts about Turkey's reliability

US Congress members call on Biden to suspend all military assistance to Azerbaijan

Armenia acting economy minister receives Montenegro's newly appointed Ambassador

Armenia MOD: Soldier killed during shootings from Azerbaijani side in Verin Shorzha

Russian MP: Azerbaijani leadership interested in Armenia acting PM's victory in snap elections

Armenia MOD reports shooting from Azerbaijani side in Verin Shorzha border section

Armenia opposition MP: Authorities promised to separate business from politics, but they're failing to fulfill promise

There will be post-election processes if authorities try to rig voting, says Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan

CNN: Putin and Biden will meet on June 15-16 in Geneva

Latin America has the highest poverty rate in 20 years

Ex-President Kocharyan on Armenia applying to CSTO: No one will help you if you do nothing to solve your problems

Armenia ruling Civil Contract Party presents list of first 10 candidates ahead of snap parliamentary elections

Armenia acting justice minister discusses broad range of cooperation issues with top CoE official

Armenia former President Kocharyan: This guilt, this criminal article is on these authorities

Man survives after spending 17 days in desert

Azerbaijan continues course towards systematic extermination of Armenian heritage in Shushi

Armenia Syunik Province ex-governor: Azerbaijani soldiers advanced along length of border two days ago

Newly appointed Ambassador of Montenegro presents Letters of Credence to Armenia President

Its about bringing Karabakh issue back to right to self-determination, says Armenia ex-President Kocharyan

Iran FM to arrive in Armenia

Ara Aivazian and Austrian counterpart hold phone talks, focus on Azeri army's infiltration into Armenia's territory

Kocharyan: Elect todays political team if you are ready to live squatting

Jean-Michel Basquiat's painting sold at auction in Hong Kong for $ 30 million

2nd President Kocharyan on Armenia Security Council chief: Do you take that person seriously?

"Key" to settlement of Karabakh conflict cant be in one place, says Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan

Texas may permit carrying of pistols without special permission

Ex-President Kocharyan on Armenia acting PM Pashinyan's high popularity rating: We will wear it down to the root

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Election bloc format must be workable in some logical sense

Attorney: Political persecution against Robert Kocharyan is becoming more noticeable during election campaign

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: We must do everything so that our domestic politics is not dictated by Azerbaijan

Armenian acting defense minister meets Russian peacekeeping mission chief

Congress predicts US nuclear spending to reach $ 634 billion by 2030

Russian MP: The effectiveness of military cooperation with Armenia depends on Yerevan as well

Delimitation now may create some problems in Karabakh negotiation process, says Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan on relations with 3rd President Sargsyan: We go our own way they go their own

Judge adjourns hearing over case of Armenia 2nd President and ex-Deputy PM for 3 weeks

Court hearing over case of Armenia 2nd President and ex-Deputy PM

2nd President Kocharyan: Armenia must show that it will not be subjected to such pressures

Kocharyan: You may find yourself in stupid situations if you come to negotiations without any baggage

Armenia Investigative Committee: Criminal case opened into soldiers death

157 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

EU helps UN World Food Programme provide humanitarian assistance for conflict-affected people in Armenia

Yerevan municipal council convenes regular session

Armenia legislature speaker on situation at Syunik Province: CSTO still has procedures

Blinken arrives on his first official visit to Israel

World oil prices going up

Provincial hall issues statement on Tavush section of Armenia border with Azerbaijan

MFA statement: Azerbaijan continues to use Armenian POWs as political hostages

Newspaper: There are last-minute changes on Armenia ruling party electoral list

Armenia parliament starts regular sessions

Newspaper: Armenia 3rd President Sargsyan intensively engaged in election campaign

EU leaders call for ban on Belarus airlines flights to their countries

Quake hits Georgia, also felt in Armenia

2nd President Kocharyan: Process of obtaining Armenia citizenship shall be simplified, shall take only few months

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Appointments in army were not based on knowledge but on loyalty

Robert Kocharyan: Armenia must not go back to the past and stay there, just like the incumbent authorities did

Armenia 2nd President on recent Karabakh war, consequences and the signed document

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Armenia 2nd President on black PR and management system in the country
It was an extremely busy few weeks for schools ahead in August and September as they worked hard towards reopening their doors with new, strict measurements in place to avoid the spread of Covid-19.

Melview National School reopened on August 27 after what principal, Mary OBoyle, described as a very busy month for all the staff.

Painting, cleaning, re- organisation of classrooms and classroom furniture and putting in place a Covid-19 Response Plan for the safe and sustainable reopening of Melview school have been our main areas of focus. All staff completed the HSA Return to work Safely online course, she said.

The biggest challenge for the school was the large pupil to teacher ratio and, in order to manage the large class sizes, pupils have been split into groups to use all available space.

We are lucky that our classrooms are modern and very spacious, so it has been possible to maintain a one metre distance between each of the pods (groups) in every bubble (class), said Ms OBoyle.

To cater for social distancing during break times we have staggered our two break times. This does require a lot more staff supervision but our teachers are very willing to do whatever it takes to make our re-opening a success.

Appropriate social distancing markings have been put in place in our senior yard and necessary PPE is available to staff.

Children are independently entering and exiting the school via designated routes and must follow these routes at all times, Ms OBoyle added.

We have put signage in place to help with these new practices. Sanitisers have been installed throughout the school, inside classrooms at all entry and exit points. The children are regularly asked to wash/sanitise their hands, she explained.

Pharmacist saves life

A Longford pharmacist was hailed a hero in September for helping to save a womans life after she raced into a pharmacy while suffering a potentially fatal allergic reaction.

Clodagh Victory, daughter of veterinary surgeon James Victory, came to the womans aid by administering epipen, or adrenaline, in a Dublin based pharmacy.

The Trinity College graduate provided the life-saving dose on the customer who entered the IFSCs Remedi Pharmacy complaining of swollen lips, a sore throat and breathing difficulties.

Relief as pubs reopen

Its great to be back up and running, said a clearly relieved and happy Andy Byrne in September as the green light was given to Irelands so-called wet pubs to reopen their doors after more than six months.

Mr Byrne, who runs a pub in Longford town, said there was an onus on both himself and fellow publicans to ensure licensed premises remained open despite the lingering threat posed by a recent spike in Covid-19 cases.

We just have to try and run it as best we can, he said.

Killoe win DRA appeal

The chairperson of Killoe Emmet Og spoke of his "huge relief" in September at a GAA Dispute Resolutions Authority (DRA) ruling to overturn the club's 48 week suspension and questioned the merits behind the ban's original implementation.



Gerry Hagan said he and all those associated with the defending Longford senior football champions were looking forward to getting back on the field of play following the judgement.
(Natural News) It is becoming more apparent by the day that the deep state and allied media and political interests hated President Donald Trump so badly they spent months, and maybe even years, figuring out a way to steal the 2020 election so they could be rid of him.

And the most recent evidence of this emanates from Nevada, where, for once, a Republican presidential contender was actually ahead and on pace to win the reliably blue state.

Retired U.S. Army Col. Phil Waldron, who has been leading a team of forensic information technology analysts in examining voting irregularities in several key battleground states this election cycle, revealed bombshell information this week regarding alleged actions taken by the chief election official in Nevada. (Related: BREAKING  GAME OVER: Dominion voting machines LIVE HACKED during Georgia Senate hearing.)

Specifically, Waldron told One America News that Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican no less, forwarded personally identifiable voter information in the form of actual voter rolls to Pakistan-based firm Kavtech, a business intelligence company that has close ties to the ISI, or Pakistans crack intelligence agency.

https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1343602647270486016

The Nevada secretary of state exported basically the whole personally-identifiable information, the voter rolls, to a company called Kavtech in Pakistan that has close ties to the Pakistani ISI, or the inner services intelligence agency of Pakistan, he said.

NEVADA? Kavtechs co-founder, Waqas Butt, is ccd on emails containing personally identifiable voter information from the Nevada Secretary of State. Kavtechs lead data scientist named Bilal Khan Nawabzada tweets directly to ISI.? pic.twitter.com/yQwhnBHaQw  Kanekoa (@KanekoaTheGreat) December 28, 2020

He went on to explain that the company specializes in creating messaging  information warfare ops, which Waldron is intimately familiar with  perhaps, in this case, to influence election outcomes in Nevada.

You are trying to create either an action or an inaction in a specific target audience, he said, noting that Kavtechs software packages can be used to push messages back out to voters in the hopes of manipulating electoral outcomes.

Big League Politics noted:

Waldron has been one of the most credible whistleblowers to emerge detailing the grotesque fraud that took place on election night. He testified at a hearing last month about fraud in the state of Arizona. Waldron said that the U.S. is the victim of information warfare because of lack of oversight with regards to voting machines that can be hacked to manipulate votes.

The entire political establishment is intent upon sweeping the most heinous crime in U.S. history under the rug, but heroic whistleblowers like Waldron will not make it easy for Big Brother to memory hole the truth of what occurred on election day.

At the Arizona hearing, Trump campaign lead attorney Rudy Giuliani told state Republican lawmakers that the election fraud fix was in this year.

We have been warned for twenty years that going to major mail-in ballots  will be fraught with tremendous fraud. We were warned by former President Jimmy Carter, he said, citing a report by Carter, a Democrat, and George H. W. Bushs secretary of state James Baker III that widespread use of mail-in ballots invited massive vote fraud (which is what happened).

You, the legislature of Arizona, have the plenary power to regulate the selection of electors in a presidential election, he continued.

He went on to argue that the Supreme Court has ruled that state Houses and Senates can reclaim the power to name electorsYour political career is worth losing to save the right to vote in America. At times in our history, men and women stepped forward to defend Americans rights and liberties.

Waldron told the Arizona state GOP lawmakers that the U.S. was victimized by a massive information warfare campaign during this election cycle mostly due to a lack of security surrounding voting machines, including those used in their state.

He also said the machines can be hacked to manipulate votes, and that appears to have happened as well.

Unless or until elected leaders forget about what criticisms they might receive or what names they might be called and do the right thing, vote fraud will continue to run rampant in America, meaning our electoral process  the last functional institution  is now broken as well.

See more reporting like this at VoteFraud.news.

Sources include:

BigLeaguePolitics.com

NaturalNews.com

DailySignal.com
Everything I do, in some uncanny way, finds an inextricable link to my roots, says art curator and food writer Tanya Abraham, who was born and raised in Fort Kochi, the ancient part of Kochi city in Kerala.

Indeed all her projects are related to this historical part of the city: as the curator of Kashi Art Gallery in Fort Kochi, she has worked on numerous art projects developing community art. She is also the founder of the Kashi Art Residency to promote art education, and The Art Outreach Society (TAOS), a non-profit in Kochi that works with prisoners and underprivileged children using art as a tool.

In her writing too, she comes back to her hometown in some way. Her first book Fort Cochin: History and Untold Stories (Ink on Paper, 2009) earned her an award by the Rotary Club of Cochin for her contribution to history.

Her second book Eating with History: Ancient Trade-Influenced Cuisines of Kerala (Niyogi Books, 2019) looks at the regions unique food culture. History goes back to almost 3,000 years here; to date one can witness the spice trade imprints in Kerala, she says.

Both books have references to Tanyas 200-year-old family home (tarawad) in Fort Kochi. For a hundred years, my family dedicated their energies to nationalist causes: Indian independence and the betterment of Fort Kochi. There was this unsaid dedication to the common good of all; as a Catholic family, we never distinguished between religions. And that precisely is the beauty of the town, says Tanya, who is the recipient of various awards in the field of restoration and womens rights.

Tanyas childhood was an interesting one, raised as she was in a bustling home of many people. Within the one square mile of her home lies the location of the Kochi Rajahs palace, where traders from across India, colonisers (Portuguese, Dutch and British), Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, all congregated.

It was an environment of intense spice, layered with unimaginable flavours. This confluence of cultures, the close proximity of communities to one another, the freedom movement they are all a part of my history, both from the annals of the town and the family, says the 47-year-old.

If the land she grew up influenced her, so did the all the art she was surrounded by in her youth. I cant remember a time when art was not part of my life. I grew up watching the tarawad grounds convert into a theatre space for the community where local art forms were staged. The library was extensive with books from across the world. I grew up listening to stories, the art of filmmaking, the freedom of painting it was a family whose foundation rested on art, she says, adding that she still gets her fulfilment from working with artists, conceptualising ideas and using imagination to create new things.

The only time Tanya left Kochi was to study journalism and arts management in London, UK, and later Kentucky, USA. The more universal ones education can get, the better. It changes us immensely as individuals when we observe new thinking methods, says Tanya.

Tanyas various spheres of work  her writing research and curatorial projects  came together while developing Kashi Art Gallery in Fort Kochi. When the previous owners sold the cafe and gallery, it remained closed for a while. Tanya took up the job of reviving it, and started a new residency with a new concept.

She happened to be in the right place at the right time: in 2012, when the Kochi Muziris Biennale came up, everything regarding art changed in Kochi. It called for interesting, deeper work as collateral projects with local stakeholders.

At the same time, she went through her own personal upheavals. A single mother to a son, Tanya now uses art for social advocacy. When challenges had loomed, it was the creative spirit in me that carved new paths of hope, delight and satisfaction. Creativity is at the core of everything I do. I believe that is simply how life is designed, not just for me but for everyone, says Tanya.

Her work tends to be related to women, perhaps it is because I have experienced how life can bring all kinds of challenges, which can be quite frightening.

In 2015, Tanya worked on an exhibition called Womens Project. Besides featuring the works of two female artists, a play was devised through the emotions that viewers developed from the art works. Twelve young women from a local college worked for two months with Tanya, learning about the works and the artists, and finally worked with a theatre director to express their thoughts and desires.

Tanya also recalls a 2018 art exhibition she had held called Of Memories and Might, featuring five women artists. I think that exhibition moved each of us in some profound manner as we spoke about being female, life, society, and so on. I loved the way everything juxtaposed and energies married. It was a very well-received exhibition.

She also narrates how a legal cell for womens rights had brought a group of victims of domestic violence to the exhibition: At the end of the curatorial talk and explanations of the installations, some of them burst out crying. There is always some shift that happens. That is the beauty of art.

One of the aims of TAOS, which Tanya launched in 2016, is women empowerment through mental health. It includes a full-fledged programme in which a team of psychologists and therapists use art interventions to help victims of trauma heal.

Art therapy is perfect in a society where mental health is taboo, and where abuse is not always exposed; it works in silence literally. This kind of art therapy helps create new neuropathways in the brain, changing the way victims deal with the incidents. The process is powerful, says Tanya.

She believes that while patriarchy is everywhere, female toxicity is another situation that needs attention. She even made a video on the subject, as she believes, Women can be a success when we first know our worth (self-worth), be aware of our values, and value others as well.

Though the Covid pandemic has hit galleries and museums hardest  Some may not even reopen, regrets Tanya  she believes innovative thinking is required to face the challenge. Currently, she is working on the launch of a public art platform called Kula, with the idea of art that can relate to the public without having the demarcating boundaries such as those found at a gallery. If we want to embrace life, we must share it, she says.
The government on Friday invited bids to develop a chat bot or voice assistance application like Amazon's Alexa or Google Assistant to deliver e-governance services to the public.

The artificial intelligence-based conversational platform is expected to interact with the public in multiple languages, analyse sentiments and intent, collect and analyse data to give personalised experience to users.

The National E-Governance Division of Ministry of Electronics and IT has invited proposals to build the conversational platform that can be deployed on the UMANG platform, which hosts various apps that provide government services to citizens.

"The platform should be able to provide assistance with general tasks, including but not limited to availing services of government and available on the UMANG platform such as registration, login, reset password, department service relation information, event, (and) new launch...etc," the request for proposal document said.

The chatbot should be able to turn speech into a textual input and turn text into speech.

"Platforms should also have other deep learning capabilities, which can be used by platforms for discovery and recommendation of eligible schemes and services to the users of bots/applications.

"Users should be recommended best-fit schemes and services available in government domain based on his/her profile," the document said.

The term of the project will be four years from the date it goes live.

NeGD has fixed January 12 for pre-bid conference and January 25 for the last date of bid submission. Bids will open on January 27, evaluation will be done by February 5 and work order is scheduled for the second week of February, according to the document.
Did you buy a Powerball ticket in Hedgesville? You might have won $50G
Apprehensive of violent Bengal poll: Dhankar

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Kolkata, Jan 02: West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Friday claimed that the whole country is apprehensive of a bloodied and violent assembly election in the state, and asked the police and administration to maintain neutrality. It will be a massive blow to the democratic system if public servants are engaged in political work and there cannot be a bigger challenge than this to the rule of law, he said.

"There is only one discussion in the country, which is apprehension that the elections in West Bengal will be bloodied and will be tainted by violence," Dhankhar told a press conference during a visit to Purulia.

The governor urged the administration, the police and also the media to create an atmosphere for a violence-free assembly poll due in April-May this year.

TMC, BJP tussle to win over women voters in Bengal

Dhankhar said that it will be a blow to the poll process if voters are intimidated and government functionaries get involved in political work.

He urged the government machinery to be neutral and to ensure that people get to exercise their voting rights in a free and fair manner during the assembly elections.

The governor had on Wednesday alleged that free and fair elections are not held in West Bengal and people cannot exercise their franchise without fear.

Vaccines to be provided for free across India, says health min | Oneindia News

The ruling Trinamool Congress, which has been at loggerheads with Dhankhar since he became governor in July last year, has urged President Ram Nath Kovind to remove him, claiming that he has been working in an unconstitutional manner.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Saturday, January 2, 2021, 9:25 [IST]
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Have you noticed theres an interior design motif in big and small screen dramas these days, where costumes and decor match?

Just a year ago, lush interiors in Autumn de Wildes adaptation of Jane Austens Emma had Dolly Mixture-hued frocks and bonnets worn by leading lady Anya Taylor-Joy matching the drapery and upholstery at the heroines 18th-century mansion.

Had it been a retelling of Pride & Prejudice, Mrs Bennet and Aunt Phillips would have been scandalised by the lack of lace.

Late 1950s/early 1960s Grand-millennial interior design dominates the early episodes of Netflixs The Queens Gambit.

Time-travel forward to the early 1960s for the same idea in the Netflix series The Queens Gambit, which has had the country prone on the sofa since November.

Coincidentally, Anya Taylor-Joy also stars in this as the heroine child-prodigy chess player Beth Harmon, with Grandmillennial decor co-starring; where checks abound in pinafores, wallpaper and upholstery.

Who knows, maybe the checks are meant to be a background reference to the chessboard which is Beths focus, or a hint that at a time when were all at home more and partial to a board game that chess boards could become the must-have interior accessory to grace our coffee tables.

Its definitely a distraction, all this in-your-face interior design, or at least for the design buff whose gaze moves to the wallpaper and away from the action, something which became habitual when Danish noir dramas first came onto our screens and names of famous Scandinavian designers seemed to pop off lamps, chairs and accessories. Every character had chic design even if they lived in a squat.

1960s geometric patterns and streamlined furniture replace the over-the-top looks of the previous decade.

The Queens Gambit is not exactly awash with examples of work from famed designers, though. Rather its about colour and pattern saturation, starting with an intensity of teal in the living room and hall of the house Beth calls home after her adoption.

At first sight, it serves as a vivid backdrop to her orphanage-supplied outfit in brown and teal, a colour combo which gathered speed in interiors through 2020, while her new mother, Mrs Wheatley, is attired to match the wan blue carpet to perfection.

Definitely, the set design and costume departments were working from the same office.

Upstairs, Beths over-the-top bedroom is a homage to pink in floral, gingham and checks.

Call it saccharine femininity gone mad, but its surprisingly familiar as pink is now perfectly acceptable, even coveted, as an interior colour, no longer confined exclusively to the toddlers room.

But pairing it with blue is another matter altogether as the two have never been happy bedfellows, something overlooked by colour authority Pantone when they inexplicably made both their colour of the year in 2016, but roundly endorsed in Mrs Wheatleys floral bedecked bedroom. It has to be said if theres an opportunity to go over the top, this show grabs it by the frilly valance.

Set in Kentucky, Cincinnati, Las Vegas, Mexico City, Paris, and Moscow but filmed in Berlin, the hotels where the now chess tournament-winning Beth and Mrs Wheatley stay are tantamount to design porn.

Star-burst mirrors and bar trolleys are like cat-nip to home interiors buffs as theyre among current must-haves.

And thats the thing about good design; the best of whats come before is often borrowed for inspiration, which is why the shriek-inducing sight of an Osborne & Little wallpaper in Beths Mexico City hotel room prompted my putting the telly on pause while I looked it up.

Turns out this lush green and pink number is called Trailing Orchid (see todays Mood Board on page ??? to get the picture).

But its after the sudden demise of Mrs Wheatley, and Beths redecorating of the family home that we see 1960s decor leaving behind the last of its 1950s influences for good.

Pastel florals are part of the 1950s over-the-top interior design, later replaced by more streamlined looks in the 1960s.

New tonally flat paint colours and geometric wallpaper continue the leitmotif of decor matching dress throughout the series, where simultaneously Beth abandons the flouncy circular skirts of Diors New Look for trim pencil pants and jockey hats.

Even her 1960s wardrobe is unexpectedly familiar, but weve been borrowing those ideas for years too. Outfits from Mad Men were often appealing, and even the 1970s garb from the recent Mrs America, like bell-bottom jeans, came back as boot-leg trouser some years ago with just a slightly different cut.

Its this familiarity and the nostalgia that comes with it which might just give the Grand-millennial look a step up in the trend polls.
Press Release

January 2, 2021 Gatchalian raises need to avert 'learning crisis' following cancellation of face-to-face classes While the dry runs on limited face-to-face classes in low-risk areas would have addressed some challenges that hound distance learning, Senator Win Gatchalian said that the government's rescinding of its green light is a precautionary measure against a new strain of COVID-19 that is now spreading across the world. The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Basic Education, Arts and Culture warned, however, that the country should brace itself for the aggravation of the current learning crisis and a likely spike of learners with poor performance. To mitigate the looming learning losses and make up for lost time on face-to-face instruction, Gatchalian said the government should exhaust all resources and implement measures to help learners catch up. In rolling out remedial programs, Gatchalian said there is a need to assess learning gaps, especially among vulnerable students. This would help in the correct targeting of learners for remedial programs. Under the 2021 national budget, P16,615,694,000 was allocated for 'flexible learning options' under the programmed appropriations of the Department of Education (DepEd). An additional P6-billion was allocated for flexible learning options under unprogrammed appropriations. The senator said that the absence of face-to-face classes entails the continuous use of alternative modalities for learning delivery such as self-learning modules, radio- and television-based lessons to support teachers and learners amid the distance learning setup. Gatchalian also cited the role of the Alternative Learning System (ALS), especially in reaching out to an estimated 2.3 million K to 12 learners who were not able to enroll because of the COVID-19 pandemic. A special provision in the 2021 national budget allocates an amount of at least P559 million for the program. "Dahil wala na muna tayong face-to-face classes ngayong Enero, nangangamba akong baka lalong umurong ang kaalaman ng ating mga kabataan. Mas malaki ang magiging problema natin. Kaya dapat sa 2021, ibuhos natin ang budget at lahat ng resources para masiguro na hindi umurong ang kaalaman ng ating mga estudyante," said Gatchalian. The lawmaker reiterated that before the pandemic hit the country, the international assessments 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) 2019, and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2019 consistently showed that the country's K to 12 learners are failing to master basic competencies and lagging behind their peers across the world. As part of long-term recovery efforts, Gatchalian emphasized the need for reforms in teacher education and training to improve learner outcomes. Senate Bill No. 1887 or the Teacher Education Council Act, which Gatchalian filed, seeks to improve the coordination between DepEd, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), and the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) to improve teacher education and training in the country. # # # Iwasan ang "learning crisis" kasunod ng pagkansela ng physical classesGatchalian Bagamat ang pagsasagawa ng limitadong face-to-face classes sa mga lugar na wala o kakaunti ang kaso ng COVID-19 ay makatutulong sa mga suliranin ng distance learning, ang pagkansela nito ay maituturing na pag-iingat laban sa bagong uri ng COVID-19 na kumakalat sa buong mundo, ayon kay Senador Win Gatchalian. Ngunit nagbabala ang senador na posibleng maantala ang kaalaman ng mga mag-aaral at lumala ang krisis ng edukasyon sa bansa. Upang mapigilan ito, hinimok ni Gatchalian ang pamahalaan na gawin ang lahat ng mga posibleng hakbang upang makabawi ang mga mag-aaral sa panahong nakalaan sana para sa face-to-face classes. Kasama sa mga hakbang na ito ang pagsasagawa ng mga remedial programs. Ayon sa senador, dapat suriin nang mabuti kung aling aspeto ng mga aralin ang kailangan tutukan at kung sinu-sinong mga mag-aaral ang dapat tutukan. Sa ilalim ng 2021 national budget, higit labing-anim na bilyong piso (P16,615,694,000) ang nakalaan sa "programmed appropriations" sa ilalim ng pondo ng Department of Education (DepEd) para sa "flexible learning options." Anim (P6 B) na bilyong piso naman ang nakalaan para sa flexible learning options sa ilalim ng unprogrammed appropriations. Ani Gatchalian, inaasahan na magtutuloy-tuloy ang paggamit sa iba't ibang paraan ng pagtuturo tulad ng self-learning modules, radyo, at telebisyon upang suportahan ang mga guro at mag-aaral. Mahalaga din aniya ang papel ng Alternative Learning System (ALS) upang maabot ang higit dalawang (2.3) milyong mag-aaral sa K to 12 na hindi nakapag-enroll dahil sa pandemya. Isang special provision sa pondo ng flexible learning options ng DepEd ang naglalaan ng mahigit limang-daang milyong (559) milyong piso para sa programa. "Dahil wala na muna tayong face-to-face classes ngayong Enero, nangangambang baka lalong umurong ang kaalaman ng ating mga kabataan. Mas malaki ang magiging problema natin. Kaya dapat sa 2021, ibuhos natin ang budget at lahat ng resources para masiguro na hindi umurong ang kaalaman ng ating mga estudyante," pahayag ng Chairman ng Senate Committee on Basic Education, Arts and Culture Muling binigyang diin ng senador na bago pa tumama ang pandemya, ipinakikita na ng mga international assessments na nahuhuli ang mga mag-aaral sa bansa kung ihahambing sa mga mag-aaral sa ibang bansa. Ang mga tinutukoy na international assessments ay ang 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), ang Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) 2019, at ang Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2019. Dagdag pa ng senador, mahalaga ang pagsasagawa ng reporma sa edukasyon at pagsasanay para sa mga guro upang umangat ang kalidad ng edukasyon sa bansa. Sa kanyang inihaing Senate Bill No. 1887, isinusulong ni Gatchalian ang mas maigting na ugnayan sa pagitan ng DepEd, Commission on Higher Education (CHED), at ng Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) upang i-angat ang kalidad ng pagsasanay at edukasyon ng mga guro sa bansa.
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Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 16:46:00|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- China has made historic achievements in eradicating absolute poverty. It was a problem that has plagued the Chinese nation for thousands of years. It is also a victory for humanity.

In 2020, all of China's nearly 100 million impoverished rural residents living below the current poverty line shook off poverty after eight years' efforts. All 832 poor counties have now been lifted out of poverty.

Eliminating poverty in a country with a population of 1.4 billion may sound too ambitious or be regarded as a mission impossible for some Western critics. But it is a mission that must be accomplished for China because achieving mutual prosperity is the goal of socialism. The Party has always come from the people and is rooted in the people. No individual or ethnic group should be left behind on the nation's way to a moderately prosperous society for all.

With the philosophy of putting people first, CPC members and government officials at all levels and the society have made concerted efforts to fight poverty. These efforts include releasing preferential tax policies, improving the use of anti-poverty funds, and establishing online platforms for selling agricultural products from poverty-stricken areas. It also includes launching workshops and recruitment campaigns to alleviate poverty, coordinating wealthy eastern regions to support impoverished western areas, and sending millions of cadres from government to these areas for the anti-poverty battle. These efforts are a manifestation of China's systematic advantage -- the ability to mobilize resources and pool strengths to tackle critical issues.

Precision is key to the success of China's battle against poverty. The country precisely identifies real problems of different localities and individuals. It enables the government to take targeted measures to ensure substantive and sustainable outcomes. Localities across China have developed various industries to support employment and increase people's income according to local conditions, relocated those living in uninhabitable areas, and participated in pairing-up aid programs, among other measures.

China's poverty-relief success did not come easily. By the end of 2019, 5.51 million people were still living in poverty. The COVID-19 epidemic has added an unprecedented challenge to the country's efforts to lift those people out of poverty. However, the promise to the people had to be kept. A symposium on securing a decisive victory in poverty alleviation was held on March 6, the 300-day countdown for China to eradicate absolute poverty as promised. It demonstrated that the country never considered finding any excuse to retreat.

Because of these efforts, China will achieve the goals set in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development ten years ahead of schedule. Its practice and exploration have proved that if a country can follow a people-first approach, draw concerted efforts, proceed from its development realities, and seek a targeted and practical solution, it will successfully find a poverty reduction path suiting its own conditions and needs.

Despite the achievement in poverty alleviation, China remains the biggest developing country globally. It still faces acute problems caused by unbalanced and inadequate development and onerous tasks of consolidating and expanding poverty alleviation achievements. For China, poverty alleviation is a success but not a full stop.

The country will improve the monitoring and assistance mechanism to prevent those who have shaken off poverty from falling back into destitution. It will work to beef up follow-up support for relocated people to ensure that they can settle down, stay employed, and steadily get rich and help families with semi-able-bodied members find jobs nearby to ensure their livelihood.

China's poverty alleviation cause has received a lot of support and assistance from the international community. The country has taken concrete actions and shared its experience and wisdom to contribute to global poverty reduction efforts.

Putting all the detailed measures aside, a glimpse of China's determination, persistence, and concerted efforts to protect every person's rights in pursuit of a happy life could give the world more reason to be confident in meeting challenges posed by poverty.

Extreme poverty is rising. The threat of famine looms. The world faces the biggest global recession in eight decades.

It is indispensable for countries to tackle this common challenge facing humanity with strong political wills, targeted policies, and close international cooperation. The international community must commit more decisively to working together and ensuring that no one across the globe is left behind along the path towards the world's final victory over poverty. Enditem
US$ 2.5bn currency swap deals with China and India By Damith Wickremasekara Move aimed at boosting foreign currency reserves, stabilising rupee View(s): View(s):

The Government will shortly opt for currency swap arrangements with China and India for US$ 2.5 billion aimed at boosting Sri Lankas foreign currency reserves and maintaining foreign exchange liquidity, Treasury and Central Bank officials said.

Cabinet approval will be sought shortly for the proposed currency swap with Chinas Central Bank  the Peoples Bank of China  and the Reserve Bank of India.

A currency swap is a transaction in which two parties exchange an equivalent amount of money with each other but in different currencies. The parties are essentially loaning each other money and will repay the amounts at a specified date and exchange rate.

Accordingly, the Central Bank hopes to enter into a currency swap of US$ 1.5 billion with the Chinese Central Bank and US$ 1 billion with the Reserve Bank India, payable in three years and one year respectively.

The move will be economically more beneficial than obtaining commercial loans, a senior Central Bank official said.

He said the currency swap would mainly help to increase the foreign currency reserves, which had gone down to US$ 5.6 billion, while stabilizing the rupee.

A former Central Bank official said the move was also likely to help to raise the countrys ratings which had been reduced by rating agencies.

He said that as Sri Lankas imports mainly came in from India and China, the measures could also be made use as a guarantee for exports.

He said, however, the country would need to payback the dues at the conclusion of the term.

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka and the Reserve Bank of India entered into a currency swap agreement in July last year. Sri Lanka received US$ 400 million under Indias swap arrangement for South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries.

The moves come in the wake of challenges faced in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Recently, Mithila artist SC Suman participated in the Our HomeThe Belt and Road Nations Art Exhibition with his artwork in China. This event was jointly organised by the China Artists Association and Shanghai Art Museum.

Suman feels it was his honour to participate in the exhibition. He also donated his artwork to the Beijing Biennale, which was later collected by the Chinese Artists Association.

An artwork by SC Suman. Photo: SC Suman website

Suman feels participating in that event has been an achievement per se for a Mithila artist because it was not imagined until a few years ago. Like him, people observing the development of the art scene in Nepal feel Mithila paintings have also received due promotion although the discipline remained ignored until just recently.

A difficult journey

After several hardships, we have paved the board roadway for the promotion of the Mithila paintings, says Suman.

Mithila art is a form of folk art traditionally practised by women in the Mithila region on mud walls. It was only after 1990, when the Panchayat regime ended, that this art form began garnering some appreciation and attention and was accepted as one of the Nepali folk arts. Suman says that he had a solo Maithili Art Exhibition in Biratnagar in 1991, claiming this is the first of its kind in Nepal.

Modern Mithila Painting from the House of the Mithila. Photo: Facebook page of the House of Mithila

Likewise, Sujeet Karn, a founder of the House of Mithila, an enterprise promoting Mithila art and culture, feels that the division of the ancient Mithila region into two political territories (Nepal and India) has impacted the Mithila art differently. He further explains, Mithila art got promoted much earlier by the Indian government during the early 1970s as Madhubani art. But, it took a while in Nepal.

Karn, who is also an anthropologist, summarises the journey of the Mithila art till date, There has been a shift in Mithila arts from paintings depicting daily life cycle and rituals or everyday life of a household (cultural heritage) to the use of western aesthetics and symbolism. Also, A shift from folk art to fine arts and to skill transfer (commercialisation of the art) can be noticed.

After the 1990s, the Mithila paintings and artists entered the art scenes in the country. Gradually, solo and group exhibitions began to happen in the capital and other parts of the country. Soon, the Mithila artworks made it to the international forums and museums.

Artists in the forefront

For all these achievements of the Mithila arts, Suman attributes the continuous hard work and passion of the artists. He views that the government has not done much for the promotion of this form of art.

Because of the struggle of the artists, Mithila paintings have evolved from mud and cow dung coated walls and patio to paper, canvas and now to mainstream art galleries and museums, explains Sangeeta Thapa of Siddhartha Art Gallery.

Mithila Painting embossed in cushion. Photo: Facebook page of the House of Mithila

On the commercial front, Mithila paintings that have now also transferred into objects like bags, cups, and many more are getting noticed and popular within the country and outside as well.

However, Mithila Devi Yadav, head of the Department of the Folk Arts at Nepal Academy of Fine Arts, says otherwise. As per Yadav, the present market of the Mithila paintings is still not satisfying.

I have been professionally engaged in this sector from the late 1980s and have also started an organisation in Janakpur after some years. I trained about 45 people in the Mithila paintings then. Earlier, I along with my team used to be too occupied with the orders of the Mithila painting from in and outside of the country, she says, But, now, the number of orders has significantly dropped and we still cant figure out the reason.

Comparison with other forms of Nepali art

Yadavs point can be valid as Thangka and Paubha paintings from Nepal have already made their recognition in the international market, but Mithila paintings have not.

But, Thapa asserts that different art forms have their own beauty and unique identity, hence cannot be compared.

Some of the colours used in Paubha paintings are mineral pigments which have the dust of semi-precious stones. On the other hand, Mithila artists use locally available colours extracted from cow-dung, flowers, grass, and vegetables, she reasons, So, we cant compare two different arts.

Mithila Painting. Photo: Facebook page of the House of Mithila

On the other hand, Suman shares that the price and popularity of the paintings depend on the career journey, expertise and traditional skills of the artists, theme and colour combination of the artwork. Art lovers readily invest a good amount on his paintings, confirms Suman.

But, Suman complains the government and the Nepali society, in general, has not been inclusive enough to accept Mithila art as Nepali art. Seconding Suman, Karn adds that there has not been proper research and documentation of the Mithila art and languages.

So, what next?

Suman views the Nepal Academy of Fine Arts should play a pivotal role in promoting folk arts like Mithila art. Besides, artists themselves should work hard with all the passion and garner the market attention into their artworks.

Likewise, Yadav adds, The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation should come forward to promote the Mithila artworks in the national as well as international arena.

Further, Karn stresses the importance of orientation for artists (who are mostly household women) to take them to the mainstream so as to take this art forward.

Also, both Karn and Suman share that there is a need for research-based documentation on Mithila arts and the government should come up with creating various resources for the researchers and writers.
She was one of a host of reality stars who spent time in Dubai over the festive season.

And Gabby Allen has explained why she and her boyfriend Brandon Myers flew to the United Arab Emirates last month.

The Love Island star, 28, took to Instagram Stories on Friday, explaining to her followers that Brandon's business is based in the city.

Explanation: Gabby Allen has explained why she and her boyfriend Brandon Myers flew to the United Arab Emirates earlier this month

She also went on to say that she will be working there 'for the foreseeable', until the couple make further plans.

The TV personality wrote: 'Hey guys, just to let you know, we made the decision to fly out to Dubai as my boyfriends business is based here & luckily allows us to travel.

'We were both fit to travel with negative PCR tests [for COVID-19]. I wanted to come on here and acknowledge this to my followers as it was a difficult decision for me. I really hope you can understand that it was an opportunity I had to take.

'It was a difficult decision for me': The Love Island star said they flew out after receiving 'negative PCR tests' and being 'both fit to travel'

'I will be working over here for the foreseeable until we decide what to do next. Sending so much love to you all. Gabby x'

Under Tier 3 and Tier 4 restrictions in certain parts of England, the Government advises people to carefully consider whether they must travel abroad, listing work as a reason you are legally permitted to do so.

For Tier 4 London, where Gabby lives, the Government says: 'If you live in a Tier 4 area, you can only travel internationally - or within the UK - where you first have a legally permitted reason to leave home.'

A legally permitted reason includes travelling abroad for work purposes.

Work, work, work: Gabby explained that she and Brandon were able to fly to the country because his business is based there

Instagram feeds have been littered with a legion of snaps of reality stars soaking up the sun around the globe, including in Dubai.

The UAE has played host to a number of stars over the past year, despite the consistent rules throughout advising against international travel, save for work or education.

Amid yacht trips and wild nights out, a host of stars have all maintained their trips have been for business purposes with many confirming their work plans on social media or to publications through their representatives.

Last month, the fitness fanatic candidly admitted that although she had a 'lovely holiday', taking a break from exercising dampened her 'confidence levels', despite not looking 'any different'.

Working hard: The TV personality said that she will be working in Dubai 'for the foreseeable' until the couple have decided what to do next

Gabby said she does not regret 'chilling' in Dubai, but plans to 'bounce back in 2021' as she prepares for a third instalment of her 'lockdown shape-up' workouts.

Alongside the stunning post, she wrote: 'bye for now sunshine, :( but hello to planning ... this pic was taken mid meltdown trying to get a photo and I felt awful in all of them.

'I didn't train all holiday and although I had a lovely holiday, it did effect my confidence levels. You may think I'm ridiculous but I'm being honest, not training made me feel less confident even if I may not look any different. Do you ever feel the same?

'U e Mental note made to not do this to myself again. Holiday work outs don't have to be same criteria as home savagery, but just something to not fall of the band wagon completely.

'I don't regret taking this time to chill and basically be horizontal 80% of the time, we need that sometimes, but I am certainly ready to smash training and bounce back in 2021 with LDSU 3.0. #shapeupwithgabbyallen #training #instafit #workout #fitnessmotivation #fitness' (sic)

Stunning: Last month, Gabby lay down in a skimpy black thong bikini as she soaked up the sun, as she admitted that her 'confidence levels' were low after taking a break from exercise
WASHINGTON, D.C.  Constituents of New Yorks 22nd congressional district can expect some changes next week, a result of the still-undecided congressional race.

There is still no winner in the contest between incumbent Anthony Brindisi (D-Utica) and challenger Claudia Tenney, a Republican from New Hartford. Tenney leads by just 29 ballots of 311,695 cast.

The candidates attorneys are meeting next week in court to review about 2,500 contested ballots that will determine who won the election. It promises to be a long and tedious process, as a judge rules on what ballots should be counted and which should be tossed.

Meanwhile, the 117th Congress will convene for the first time Sunday, Jan. 3. When that happens, there will not be a representative for the 22nd district, which is composed of eight counties in Upstate New York.

So what will happen to Brindisis office while the election hangs in the balance?

Brindisis staff members will stay, but their jobs will be apolitical. Their work will consist primarily of handling constituent calls and case management, like for a retiree who needs help getting Social Security benefits or a veteran who needs health care help, according to an aide with the Houses Committee on House Administration.

Cheryl Johnson, clerk of the House of Representatives, will direct the staff on those services, but the office wont play any role in legislation or any of Brindisis priorities as a Democrat, the aide said. If an employee at the office resigns, Johnson will hire a replacement, the aide said.

When constituents call the office, the person who answers will no longer greet them with the office of Anthony Brindisi; instead, theyll refer to it as the 22nd congressional district, the aide said. Brindisis nameplates will be removed and replaced with a seal for the district, the aide said.

A situation like this is not especially uncommon. Similar scenarios occur when a member of Congress dies or resigns, though a replacement tends to be found relatively quickly through a special election, the aide said.

In New Yorks 22nd district, however, its not clear how long it will take to determine who will take the office. The court process could take weeks, and it could be followed by an appeal or a recount. The 22nd district is the only undetermined election in the country.

Luke Perry, a political science professor at Utica College, has been researching what the vacancy will mean. Even though constituents will still get help on an individual basis, he sees the lack of representation as a tragedy at such a difficult time in the countrys history.

We have no input in the party caucus on either side, no input on legislation thats going to be considered. Thats going to be problematic when you have 434 other representatives trying to shape legislation to impact their district, Perry said. I think its particularly heightened at this moment during the pandemic, with multiple iterations of relief bills, when the main thing that House reps can do is bring relief and assistance both in terms of health and economic assistance.

Brindisi also serves on three House committees: Agriculture, Armed Services and Veterans Affairs. Perry said it is likely Brindisi would have stayed on those committees if hed been re-elected, so a vacancy in those committees hurts the districts many veterans, troops and farmers.

Perry said he hopes the many delays and problems that have arisen in the election and ensuing court battle will spur election reforms that will prevent this type of vacancy from occurring in New York again. Counties were ordered to go back to many of the ballots and review them again because of their failures to follow election law in presenting them for the judges review.

The electoral process that got us to this point is tragic and troublesome, he said. At some point, this election will be resolved and well have a representative. I just hope that the light thats being shined on problems that need to be fixed doesnt go away.

The House of Representatives this week passed a $2 trillion relief bill that made its way into law. It has also passed a bill that would give $2,000 to every American, though the legislation is stalled at the Senate.

Democrats have 222 seats in the House. Republicans have 211 or 212, if you count Iowas 2nd District race, which was certified for the Republican but could still face challenges because winner Marianette Miller-Meeks won by just 6 votes.

Brindisi holding onto his office would give the Democrats a majority of 223 seats.

Reporter Patrick Lohmann can be reached at (315)766-6670 or PLohmann@Syracuse.com.

MORE ON THE NY-22 ELECTION

Tenney keeps lead in undecided NY22nd as ballots go to judge

All eyes turned to court battle over NY 22nd election. Then it took a week off. Why?

Tenneys friends question integrity of House election, raise money for recount

Brindisi has good day, but victory in House race against Tenney remains anybodys guess

New challenges raised to 67 ballots in undecided Brindisi-Tenney House race

Judge: 9 ways election officials failed in 22nd Congressional District

Brindisi-Tenney House race exposes New Yorks election dysfunction
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Bollywood actress Kareena Kapoor Khan recently hosted actor Anil Kapoor and filmmaker Anurag Kashyap on her radio show, What Women Want. During their conversation about women rights, the actress asked Anil about pay parity in Bollywood and if the wage gap between the salaries of the leading men and women in the industry should be addressed by the actors.

Kareena said that men in Hollywood stood up for female co-stars demanding equal pay for women and asked if Hindi film actors should do the same. Responding to the actress Anil said, "You took a lot of money from me. Stumped by his response, Kareena laughed saying, We are breaking barriers, we are doing that. But like you said, there are still some people

Anil further recalled the incident when the producers called him regarding negotiations with Kareena for Veere Di Wedding. He shared that the makers told him that the actress was demanding more money than the hero but he approved it saying, 'Give Bebo whatever she demands'.

The actor also revealed that on several occasions he had been paid lesser than his female co-star and he has no reservations about it.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by - (@filmy.mirchi)

Kareena and Anil have worked together in Bewafaa and Tashan and will again come together for Karan Johars ambitious project, Takht. The film also stars Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt, Janhvi Kapoor, Vicky Kaushal and Bhumi Pednekar.

Apart from this, Kareena, who is expecting her second baby looks forward to Aamir Khan starrer Laal Singh Chaddha. The film is the Hindi remake of Robert Zemeckis' 1994 Hollywood film "Forrest Gump" starring Tom Hanks, which won multiple Oscars.

Anil, on the other hand, has Jug Jug Jeeyo along with Varun Dhawan and Kiara Advani. On January 1st, he also announced his new film, Animal. Directed by Kabir Singh maker Sandeep Reddy Vanga, the film stars Parineeti Chopra, Ranbir Kapoor and Bobby Deol.
New Delhi, Jan 2 : Amid the border standoff with China, Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat visited forward air bases in Arunachal Pradesh on Saturday and interacted with soldiers of the Army, Indo-Tibetan Border Police and Special Frontier Force deployed there.

He also visited forward most air maintained posts in Dibang Valley and Lohit sector of Arunachal Pradesh. General Rawat has completed one year as Chief of Defence Staff.

Complimenting the soldiers for the innovative measures adopted to maintain effective surveillance and enhanced operational readiness, he said that only Indian soldiers could remain vigilant under such challenging situations and they are ever willing to go well beyond the call of duty to safeguard the borders. "Nothing can deter the Indian armed forces on remaining steadfast in their call for duty," he said.

On the current standoff with China, last year General Rawat had reiterated that India has military options to deal with the Chinese on the issue of transgressions if talks between both countries at the military and diplomatic level do not yield results.

India and China are engaged in a standoff since April-May over the transgressions by the Chinese PLA in multiple areas in eastern Ladakh.

It was on January 1, 2020 when General Rawat was appointed the country's first Chief of Defence Staff. In 2019 end, the government had approved the creation of the post of CDS who also functions as the Principal Military Adviser to the Union Defence Minister and also as the Permanent Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC). It was back then decided that the CDS will head the new Department of Military Affairs in the Defence Ministry and function as a Secretary to the government.
EPFs equity investment grows View(s):

Sri Lankas largest social security scheme, the Employees Provident Funds (EPF) listed equity investments are now generating growth in market value although there was an unrealised loss in equity investment, analysts divulged.

Market values of investments made by the fund are increasing proportionate to purchased cost of shares in listed equities in the third quarter this year, they said.

The investment policy of the fund is focused on providing a long-term positive real rate of return to the members, a senior Central Bank official said.

The listed equities portfolio of the EPF had increased by Rs.10 billion in the third quarter of 2020.

As of 30 September 2020, the EPF had invested in 81 equities. During that period the market value was Rs.63.76 billion compared to Rs.53.58 billion, at the end of June quarter 2020, Central Bank data showed.

The EPF has invested a total of Rs.84.19 billion in these 81 companies.

As at 30 September 2020, the unrealised loss of listed equity investment portfolio of EPF stood at Rs.20.64 billion.

The highest sum of Rs.448.73 million has been invested in Access Engineering PLC and its market value has increased to Rs.483.28 million by September 30 2020.

The investment made in ACL Cables PLC was Rs. 155.51 million and the market value increased to Rs.302.46 million.

A sum of Rs.1.99 billion had been invested in Aitken Spence PLC and its market value increased to Rs.821.58 million during this period.

EPF makes stunning profits The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) has made stunning profits by selling Hayleys related stocks. EPF which held 7.6 million shares in Hayleys PLC subsidiary, Dipped Products PLC as at November being its second largest shareholder with 12.8 per cent stake has reduced it since then, analysts said. Dipped Products is a hot favourite amongst both the retailers and HNWI, analysts said. On December 24, Hayleys saw 1.664 million shares crossing at Rs. 195 on a total volume of 2,289,325 shares with 18 crossings executed at Rs. 395. All buyers were locals. Stockbrokers said that a fresh set of high net-worth investors such as vehicle importers who are stuck with the cash with the prevalent import restrictions on vehicles, and vegetable importers also facing import sanctions, are putting their money into the stock market. On 31 December, 107,000 Dipped Products shares crossed at Rs 350  again the seller was said to be EPF. (DEC)
Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum, pictured, said humanity faces an unknown number of new viruses

The doctor who discovered Ebola warns that new deadly viruses are set to hit mankind as medics fear new Disease X.

Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum, who helped discover the Ebola virus in 1976, said humanity faces an unknown number of new viruses.

He has said there are new and potentially fatal viruses emerging from Africa's tropical rainforests, reports CNN.

He added: 'We are now in a world where new pathogens will come out. And that's what constitutes a threat for humanity.'

The professor said that he thinks future pandemics could be worse than Covid-19 and could be more apocalyptic.

In Ingende, Democratic Republic of the Congo, a patient, who wishes to remain nameless was showing early symptoms of hemorrhagic fever.

The patient had an Ebola test, but doctors fear she is patient zero of 'Disease X', which stands for unexpected, when the results came back negative.

This new pathogen could spread as fast as Covid-19 but has Ebola's 50 to 90 per cent fatality rate.

The professor said that he thinks future pandemics could be worse than Covid-19 and could be more apocalyptic (pictured: Researchers collect samples from a bat in Gabon)

'Disease X' is hypothetical, but scientists fear it could lead to destruction around the world if and when it occurs, according to WHO.

Professor Muyembe took the first blood samples from the victims of a mysterious disease, later named Ebola, when he was a young researcher.

The disease caused hemorrhages and killed about 88% of patients and 80% of the staff who were working at the Yambuku Mission Hospital when it was first discovered.

The vials of blood were sent to Belgium and the US, where scientists found a worm-shaped virus.

The professor warned of many more zoonotic diseases - those that jump from animals to humans - to come.

Yellow fever, various forms of influenza, rabies, and Lyme disease are among those that pass from animals to humans, often via rodents or insects and have caused epidemics and pandemics before.

Experts say the rising number of emerging viruses is largely the result of the destruction of animal's habitats and wildlife trade.

As their natural habitats disappear, animals like rats, bats, and insects survive where larger animals get wiped out.

SARS, MERS and the Covid-19 virus are all coronaviruses that jumped to humans, with Covid-19 thought to have originated in China, possibly in bats.

The professor warned of many more zoonotic diseases - those that jump from animals to humans - to come (stock image)

According to research by Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, new species of viruses are being discovered at a rate of three to four a year.

The majority of them originate from animals with scientists believing zoonotic illnesses like Ebola and Covid-19 make the leap when wild animals are butchered.

The live animals in so-called 'wet' markets pose a bigger threat and 'Disease X' may be living inside any one of the animals there.

Scientists have previously linked these kinds of wet markets to zoonotic diseases, as the avian flu and SARS both emerged from them.
11 More GOP Senators to Object to Electoral College Votes

A group of 11 senators on Saturday announced theyre going to challenge electoral votes during the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress.

America is a Republic whose leaders are chosen in democratic elections. Those elections, in turn, must comply with the Constitution and with federal and state law, the group wrote in a joint statement.

When the voters fairly decide an election, pursuant to the rule of law, the losing candidate should acknowledge and respect the legitimacy of that election. And, if the voters choose to elect a new office-holder, our Nation should have a peaceful transfer of power. The election of 2020, like the election of 2016, was hard fought and, in many swing states, narrowly decided. The 2020 election, however, featured unprecedented allegations of voter fraud, violations, and lax enforcement of election law, and other voting irregularities.

The allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetime, the group added, noting courts, including the Supreme Court, have repeatedly declined to hear evidence of alleged fraud.

The senators said Congress should immediately appoint an Electoral Commission, with full investigatory and fact-finding authority, to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of election returns in disputed states. Once completed, the states would evaluate the commissions findings and convene a special legislative session to certify a change in their vote, if needed.

Accordingly, we intend to vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not regularly given and lawfully certified (the statutory requisite), unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed, the group said.

The group includes Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), John Kennedy (R-La.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), and Mike Braun (R-Ind.).

Sens.-elect Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) also plan on joining. Theyll be sworn in on Sunday, several days before the joint session.

The session is the final step in the Electoral College system to certifying a president-elect. Taking place two weeks before inauguration day, the session sees the vice president, as president of the Senate, preside over members of Congress counting electoral votes.

Objections are allowed if theyre in writing and supported by at least one representative and at least one senator. If the conditions are met, objections trigger withdrawal from the joint session and a two-hour debate. The chambers then vote on the objection. It is upheld with a majority vote in each chamber.

President Donald Trump (L) and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in file photographs. (AP Photo; Getty Images)

According to a tally by The Epoch Times, 40 representatives plan on objecting to electoral votes. Theyre now joined by 12 senators. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) this week was the first senator to announce plans to object.

I cannot vote to certify the electoral college results on Jan. 6 without raising the fact that some states, particularly Pennsylvania, failed to follow their own state election laws, Hawley wrote in a statement on Dec. 30.

Democrats have criticized the plans, alleging circumstances were different when they attempted objections in 2017 and succeeded with launching one in 2005.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said on CNN that Hawleys actions were undermining the democratic process, calling the planned objection a reckless stunt.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Bidens team downplayed the plans, calling the vote counting merely a formality.

And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said shes confident Biden will be sworn into office on Jan. 20.

The group of GOP senators on Saturday acknowledged that most if not all Democrats, and perhaps more than a few Republicans, will not vote to uphold the objections.

But support of election integrity should not be a partisan issue, they added. A fair and creditable auditconducted expeditiously and completed well before January 20would dramatically improve Americans faith in our electoral process and would significantly enhance the legitimacy of whoever becomes our next President. We owe that to the People.
City of Laredo and Webb County officials announced only 44 new positive cases of the coronavirus with no new deaths on Saturday. The area now has 27,033 positives and 509 deaths dating back to last March when the pandemic began locally.

The 44 cases comes a day after city and county officials confirmed 22 new positives, which were the fewest in a day in months dating back to the 21 announced on Oct. 23. Not only that, but its just the fourth time in weeks in which Laredo didnt experience triple-digit cases.

December was filled with 29 of 31 days featuring triple-digit cases, even ending the year on a record streak of 20 straight days above 100. December also featured the first three days of above 400 cases, including a new single-day record of 569 on Dec. 9.

However, the two-day dip in cases to start 2021 could be an abberation. While only 66 combined cases have been reported the past two days, the reported number of people that have been tested has remained at 185,661 since Thursday.

There are 638 active cases of COVID-19, the lowest total since being at 584 on Nov. 7. A total of 25,886 have recovered from a previous infection.

While new cases remain minimal to begin the new year, Laredo hospitals continue to be overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients.

Hospitalizations remained at 184 on Saturday. Not only that, but patients in the intensive care unit remained at 53 as well. The hospitalization rate climbed nearly a percent from 36.6% Friday to 37.5% Saturday. Laredo continues to lead Texas by a wide margin as Bryan/College Station is the next closest at 23.4%. That difference between first and second of 14.1% is itself higher than the rate in five of the 22 regions around the state.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has previously stated that 15% is the benchmark for reopening bars as well as businesses from 50% to 75% occupancy. Abbott has also said that a rolling seven-day test positivity rate above 10% was a red flag. Laredos seven-day rate was in single digits for the fourth straight day dropping from 8.4% to 8.1% Saturday.

City and county officials reminded people to keep following CDC guidelines and stay home if you are sick and call your doctor. And if its an emergency, call 9-1-1.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 13:24:35|Editor: huaxia

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PHNOM PENH, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- The number of people arrested in Cambodia for allegedly involving in illicit drugs slightly increased in 2020, but the amount of drugs seized rose sharply, according to the Anti-Drug Police Department report on Saturday.

The authorities had nabbed 20,913 drug-related suspects in 10,193 cases last year, up four percent and six percent, respectively compared to a year earlier, the report said.

Some 12,245 people were arrested for alleged drug trafficking and 8,668 were caught for drug use, it said, adding that 355 of them were foreigners in 14 nationalities.

"A total of 3,251 kg of illicit drugs ... as well as 29 pistols and 26 rifles had been seized from those suspects (in 2020)," the report said.

In the entirety of 2019, only 720 kg of drugs had been confiscated, according to the report.

Cambodia has no death sentence for drug traffickers. Under its law, someone found guilty of trafficking more than 80 grams of illicit drugs could be jailed for life. Enditem
NDRF (in orange uniform) personnel boarding the aircraft in the Guwahati airport as well. Image Source: IANS News

NDRF (in orange uniform) personnel boarding the aircraft in the Guwahati airport as well. Image Source: IANS News

NDRF (in orange uniform) personnel boarding the aircraft in the Guwahati airport as well. Image Source: IANS News

NDRF (in orange uniform) personnel boarding the aircraft in the Guwahati airport as well. Image Source: IANS News

NDRF (in orange uniform) personnel boarding the aircraft in the Guwahati airport as well. Image Source: IANS News

NDRF (in orange uniform) personnel boarding the aircraft in the Guwahati airport as well. Image Source: IANS News

Kohima/Imphal, Jan 2 : The Nagaland authority on Saturday expressed hope that the raging week-long wildfire in the famed Dzukou Valley on its border with Manipur will be brought under control within two days, with the Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopters, over 300 volunteers and personnel of many departments continuing their efforts to extinguish the inferno at the biodiversity hotspot.

Nagaland State Disaster Management Authority's Officer on Special Duty, Johnny Ruangmei said that the heavy gusty winds have affected the officials' effort to tame the fire but we expect that it would be fully brought under control by Monday, as the blaze has been contained partially.

"The IAF helicopters on Saturday sprayed 8 tonnes of water on the wildfire. Over 300 volunteers accompanied by the personnel of various departments and organisations were battling against the raging fire," Ruangmei told IANS over phone.

He said that the army, state police, state and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Forest Department, volunteers of Southern Angami Youth Organisation (SAYO), accompanied by the local people and NGOs, are jointly making fire lines in the Valley to break off the link between the blaze and the forest.

The disaster management officials said that as the fire continued in multiple pockets and hillocks, they are yet to assess the damage and natural destruction of the valley.

IAF spokesperson Wing Commander Ratnakar Singh said that following a requisition by Nagaland, the Eastern Air Command in Shillong had initially deployed a Mi-17V5 helicopter to check the wildfire.

"After assessment of the extent of fire, the IAF is deploying three more helicopters equipped with Bambi Bucket. C-130J Hercules aircraft of the IAF airlifted 9 tonnes load for fighting the fire including 48 NDRF personnel from Guwahati to Dimapur on Friday night," Wing Commander Singh told IANS over phone from Shillong.

Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, who had conducted an aerial survey to take stock of the wildfire that has caused huge damage since it broke out on Tuesday, on Saturday tweeted that the NDRF HQ has now deployed 60 personnel at the wildfire site at the Dzukou Valley. Also two helicopters equipped with Bambi bucket have been deployed to fight the wildfire.

"Thanks to Hon'ble HM @AmitShah ji and @DrJitendraSingh and all concerned for the swift response," he added.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday called Manipur Chief Minister and discussed the situation over phone.' "Amit Shah Ji has assured all the necessary assistance from the Home Ministry to contain the situation at the earliest," Singh said.

The Manipur government has also requested the NDRF and the army to help control the wildfire that has spread to its Senapati district.

In a series of tweets, tagged to the Prime Minister's Office, the Manipur Chief Minister said: "The wildfire that broke out at Dzukou valley has spread quite extensively and caused serious damage on this part of mountain range.

"The fire has already crossed Mount Iso, the highest peak of Manipur. If the wind direction is going to the southern side, there is a high possibility of entering in the thickest forest called Koziirii in Manipur. Need help." Nagaland Governor R. N. Ravi, accompanied by Kohima district officials including Deputy Commissioner and Superintendent of Police as well as members of the local NGOs, had visited the Dzukou Valley.

According to a statement, the Governor urged the state government to immediately frame appropriate SOPs including Satellite Based Real Time Early Warning System to prevent recurrence of such a disaster.

The Dzukou valley, 30 km from Kohima, also is a sanctuary for the endangered Blyth's tragopan - Nagaland's State Bird - and other species of birds and animals.The iconic valley, situated at an altitude of 2,452 metres above the sea level, is a popular tourist spot and also famous for its seasonal flowers and biodiversity. Often caught in a boundary dispute between Manipur and Nagaland, it also has been prone to wildfires.

Members of the SAYO, which run an adventure-based conservation programme, tackled such fires in many cases earlier. In 2006, the wildfire affected a 20-km stretch of the southern part of Dzukou valley.
THE Buccoo Reef inter-island ferry is expected to come into service by the end of this month.

Thats according to Minister of Works and Transport Rohan Sinanan, who said that the T&T Spirit is expected to go into dry dock at the end of the month. The Buccoo Reef will replace the T&T Spirit to and from Tobago.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-01 23:53:22|Editor: huaxia

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Visitors look at a new energy bus during a promotional activity for new energy vehicles (NEVs) in rural areas held in Kunming, southwest China's Yunnan Province, Dec. 4, 2020. (Xinhua/Jiang Wenyao)

The proportion of new NEVs in the sales of new vehicles is expected to rise to 20 percent by 2025, and vehicles used in public transportation will be completely electrified by 2035.

BEIJING, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- China will cut subsidies on new energy vehicles (NEVs) starting Friday to promote the healthy development of the industry, said a circular posted on the official website of the Ministry of Finance (MOF).

Subsidies for NEVs in public transportation, environmental sanitation, postal services and logistics, and civil aviation airports, among others, will be cut by 10 percent compared to that of 2020, said the circular.

Subsidies on other NEVs will be cut by 20 percent, according to the circular jointly released by the MOF, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the National Development and Reform Commission.

China will also strengthen regulations on the blind investment and manufacturing of NEVs to prevent over expansion in the sector, the circular said.

In November last year, China unveiled a development plan for its NEV industry in 2021-2035 that aims to accelerate the country's transition into an automotive powerhouse.

The proportion of new NEVs in the sales of new vehicles is expected to rise to 20 percent by 2025, and vehicles used in public transportation will be completely electrified by 2035, according to the plan.

Boasting the world's largest inventory of NEVs, China accounts for 55 percent of global NEV sales. 
Irans foreign minister accused Israel of concocting a just cause for Washington to start a war against the Islamic Republic as Iranians marked the first anniversary of the US assassination of a top general.

Mohammad Javad Zarif said Iran had new intelligence from Iraqi sources showing that Israeli agent-provocateurs were staging attacks on U.S. targets, laying a trap for outgoing President Donald Trump to start a conflict and jettison his successor Joe Bidens plans to salvage the 2015 nuclear accord. He didnt give further details about the nature of the intelligence.

His comments came after Irans military warned that it was prepared to defend itself and respond firmly to any U.S. aggression during a weekend of bellicose statements commemorating General Qassem Soleimanis killing by the U.S. in a drone strike in Iraq on Jan. 3, 2020.

U.S. forces were vulnerable and in a defensive position out of fear of an Iranian strike to retaliate for last years assault, said Major General Yahya Ramin Safavi, a top military adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. We hope that while Trumps evil government is around, nothing will happen, he said on state TV.

The U.S. military has a better understanding of its weaknesses than its politicians. We will never initiate war, but if someone attacks Iran, we will respond firmly and with full preparedness, Safavi said, adding that Iran was capable of sinking U.S. aircraft carriers.

The comments show that while Iran wants to make clear that it wont hesitate to defend itself against U.S. military action, it does not want to escalate conflict and sees Trumps allies in the region as trying to start a war and to exploit a possible divide within the defense community in Washington over whether Trump should strike Iran.

On Thursday, the U.S. sent home the USS Nimitz, the only Navy aircraft carrier operating in the Middle East a day after it also sent B-52 bombers to the Persian Gulf in a show of force, AP reported, citing three unnamed defense officials. The report said the two actions may reflect a split among Pentagon officials.

Tensions between Iran and the U.S. have resurged in recent weeks with Trump reviving threats against the Islamic Republic in his final weeks in office as he tries to derail plans by Biden to rescue the beleaguered nuclear accord and provide sanctions relief.

Trumps decision to target Soleimani pushed the countries to the brink of war, capping a security crisis in the Persian Gulf that started when Trump abandoned the 2015 nuclear deal. Iranian officials and military commanders have repeatedly vowed to seek revenge for the strike for as long as U.S. forces are scattered across the Middle East.

The multilateral accord limited Irans nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief, but since Trump walked away from it Iran has ramped-up its atomic activities and said on Saturday it had notified the United Nations nuclear agency that it may start producing 20% enriched uranium.
Implementation of human and environment-friendly agricultural practices is very low: National Audit Office By Namini Wijedasa View(s): View(s):

Cultivators of all types of food crops are not following a Government regulation dated 2017 mandating a 14-day interval between the last application of pesticides (particularly the insecticide Profenofos) and the harvest, the National Audit Office (NAO) has found.

NAO officers held discussions with farmers as part of an environmental audit on the import, use and environmental effect of pesticides in Sri Lanka. Between 2013 and 2017, the country brought in 28,640 metric tons of pesticides. More than half of it was herbicides. But the audit observed a continuous demand for Profenofos, Carbosulfan and Fenobucarb, all of which were insecticides.

By June last year, 80 importers were listed with the Office of the Registrar of Pesticides. The audit found imports were largely approved on the basis of quality certificates issued by producing countries. They were not verified in local laboratories. And, even where they were tested, limited parameters (18 out of 200 active ingredients) were used because available equipment and staff were not satisfactory.

Neither the issuing of certificates for selling pesticides nor monitoring of pesticide retailers was done properly or regularly, the NAO states. Meanwhile, sample tests showed farmers applying pesticides in a manner unsuitable to the environment or to human health when cultivating crops such as paddy, leafy vegetables, pineapple, mango, chilies, papaya and vegetables in Ampara, Kalutara, Matara, Gampaha, Kurunegala, Puttalam and Nuwara Eliya districts.

A Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) programme was introduced in 2018 to promote human and environment-friendly agricultural practices. But implementation was very low.

Pesticides are sold by private dealers who dispense advice to farmers regarding their application despite not having any training or education in the use of the products, the audit said. While chemicals were intended for the elimination of fungi, pests and weeds, they are now used as means of increasing production at low cost and preserving the harvest.

There was inadequate modern equipment or staff to carry out laboratory tests to check the maximum residue levels of pesticides in food. There were still no Government regulations outlining processes to be followed when pesticides expire. There were also not enough provisions related to pesticide disposal. Inspectors on field visits observed empty packaging, including bottles, discarded unsafely in the open.

The last recommendations on pesticide managementwhich state what quantity of pesticide is approval per cropare dated 2015. They must be updated, auditors said.

Many times, a particular active ingredient is introduced to a farmer (and, therefore, the cultivation) under various trade names. There were no restrictions on the maximum number of brand names that could be registered under one active ingredient.

A circular from the Registrar of Pesticides in January 2018 observed a great increase in residue of the highly hazardous Profenofos in food crops due to higher usage. Imports have now been reduced.

Auditors found that farmers understood the harmful effects of pesticides. However, they had been applying these chemicals without the proper technical guidance, relying mostly only instructions of sales outlets and other farmers. The input of Agriculture Instructors is not properly obtained.

But some farmers also believed they could not get expected results by applying recommended doses and, therefore, used increased quantities. Farmers were using pesticides in high volume against their advice, Agriculture Research and Production Assistants complained auditors. These officers had insufficient theoretical and practical training or up-to-date knowledge.

In June 2017, the Government approved Etofenprox (insecticide) for use in crops such as rice and corn. But it was seen during a field visit in the Matara district that it was used also for leafy vegetables.

Farmers are required by law to use full protection when applying pesticides. A questionnaire administered by audit inspectors to 51 farmers proved that only three of them comply.

Many farmers were willing to use organic fertiliser but must be given opportunities to purchase high quality products that are easy to use. The audit recommends the provision of quality seeds that give more harvest and have strong resistance to pests. It also urges that facilities be made so farmers can buy pesticides and fertiliser that cause minimum damage to the environment and human health.
"We often see that following a crisis ... the politics drives a hunger for information," she says. "And where are you going to get good information? In fact-checked media written by people with expertise." For 17-year-old high schooler Batool Al Nakeeb, having more time to spend at home without as many extracurricular activities or a busy social life led her to consume more news. "I have been paying more attention to the news this year - because of COVID, we have so much more free time," she says. She also noticed her apolitical peers became particularly invested in the US election. "I got to see a lot of people from my school posting about it [on social media], which kind of surprised me a bit because they weren't into news, especially American news. It was just never a big thing for them. But it's recently become a huge deal for everyone." Despite Gen Z's apparent renewed interest in traditional media, research by Roy Morgan in April found young people continue to cite social media as their main source of news.

That may involve clicking through to news websites such as the Herald * from Facebook or Twitter. But young news consumers are increasingly drawn to native social media news sources. One of those is The Daily Aus, an Instagram media outlet that dissects hard news events to young Australians who largely read no other form of news. It uses posts with large font size, simple language and visual aesthetics, making it easy to consume and share. The page was founded in March 2017 by political analyst Zara Seidler and corporate lawyer Sam Koslowski, who found many of their friends asking them for political information they could use to impress dates. Political analyst Zara Seidler and corporate lawyer Sam Koslowski founded an Instagram-based news page. Credit:James Brickwood "Our friends would message us and say, 'Hey, I'm about to go on a date, can you quickly tell me what's going on in the US election so I can sound smart?'" says Koslowski.

But their Instagram page didn't take off until 2020, when its followers skyrocketed ten-fold: from 7000 in December 2019 to 72,000 today. About 85 per cent are estimated to be under 35, including a growing audience aged 13 to 18. "The combination of bushfires, into COVID-19, into Black Lives Matter, into the US election  has really mobilised a social audience looking for news," says Koslowski. "We've ridden that wave." A report by Essential Media found Australians aged 18 to 34 showed more interest in news about Donald Trump disputing the US election result than any other age group, with 23 per cent of the cohort saying they paid "very close" attention to those stories. By comparison, only 12 per cent said they paid very close attention to stories about last year's federal election. Outgoing US President Donald Trump at a rally in Georgia on December 5. A report found Australians aged 18 to 34 showed more interest in news about Trump disputing the US election result than any other age group. Credit:Bloomberg This mimics a pattern of increased political engagement that was seen in young Americans in 2020, with a 10 per cent increase in turnout among 18- to 29-year-olds at the polls in the US in November.

The Daily Aus' most successful post of the year was a 13-sentence read on the BLM movement headlined: "If you're angry about racism in America, you should be angry about racism in Australia". While most of the outlet's publications are objective explainers of news events, this post provided opinion and analysis on the link between the BLM movement and the experiences of Indigenous Australians. "I think a lot of young Australians are looking for a concise way to express their point of view, and instead of voicing it themselves, are looking for somebody with a bit of authority to do it for them," Koslowski says. "It was very shareable content." Youth activist, speaker and writer Jahin Tanvir, 20, says the remarkable 2020 US election catalysed young people toward politics and media "in a way they've never been before". "Initially they came  for the idea of humour," he says. "But then they understood why this election is going on and the consequences. So I think they've learned a lot from that."

According to the University of Canberra's Digital News Report 2020, almost half of Gen Z used Facebook to gather news, while one in four used Instagram and Snapchat. A rising number of Australians are also turning to YouTube for news - 21 per cent in 2020 compared to 15 per cent in 2016. Despite concerns about young people's reliance on social media as a source of news, research has found Gen Z was the most likely demographic to fact-check their news about COVID-19. A 2020 study by the University of Canberra found 33 per cent of Gen Z respondents said they searched a variety of sources to fact-check information about COVID-19 - substantially more than Baby Boomers (20 per cent). Gen Z was also more likely than any other demographic to check Department of Health websites, state government websites, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) website for news on COVID-19. Tanvir says while he gets most of his news from Twitter and other social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and the most recent craze, TikTok, he cross-references his social media news with information from mainstream media apps.

"Having the traditional form of what I used to watch on TV, in terms of the 9News app*, it just gives a bit more reassurance about what I'm reading, he says. Tanvir says he sometimes encounters misinformation on social media, which prompts him to do more research to determine the facts. "Being able to navigate through both [social media and traditional media] and identify what's reliable, what sources this information come from, has been my approach to it." Catriona Bonfiglioli, a senior lecturer at Sydney's University of Technology and a health media expert, says young people "have recognised that right now what they want is reliable news that can be used to help themselves and their families". "Getting health information wrong can be deadly," she says. Experts and young Australians alike believe the engagement with news and politics spurred by the madness of 2020 will persevere in the decade to come.

Professor Lumby says the passion young people showed for political engagement last year was no surprise to her. "There is this constant narrative in the media that young people are stupid, and they need protecting against themselves. Absolute rubbish in my view," she says. "We're seeing potentially a return to factual material, and I think that maybe we're going to rebalance how we get our information. And young people, of course, always lead the way." Koslowski, the Daily Aus co-founder, says the massive news events of 2020 have ingrained new habits among his peers that will persist this year. "It's too easy for young people now to keep updated," he says. "They've had a period of adjustment to learn how to keep updated, without much trouble. Young people will always be engaged with news and politics. They just need to feel heard by the media."
Malachi Love-Robinson, 23, was booked into the Palm Beach County Jail on Thursday on charges of grand theft and fraud

A Florida man who was jailed for pretending to be a doctor while he was still a teenager has been re-arrested following his release from prison.

Malachi Love-Robinson, 23, was booked into Palm Beach County Jail on Thursday on charges of grand theft and fraud.

Love-Robinson served nearly three years behind bars for his doctor scam before he was set free in September 2019.

Shortly after, he began working as a carrier at United States of Freight, a shipping company based in Del Ray Beach.

Investigators now assert that Love-Robinson defrauded the company more than $10,000.

According to The Palm Beach Post, United States of Freight 'serves as a broker, connecting shippers to transport companies for a fee'.

Customers are supposed to pay the company directly, who will then pass on a cut of the sale to the carrier.

However, Love-Robinson allegedly 'created dummy accounts and directed five unwitting clients to pay directly into them'.

The owner of United States of Freight noticed the missing money before he contacted authorities who commenced an investigation.

Love-Robinson has now been released on bond pending an upcoming appearance in court.

Back in 2016, Love-Robinson made headlines after he was charged with pretending practicing medicine without a license. He was just 18 years old at the time

Back in 2016, Love-Robinson made headlines after he was charged with pretending practicing medicine without a license. He was just 18 years old at the time.

Love-Robinson was illegally operating a medical practice, complete with an office, a lab coat and stethoscope.

He was busted after an undercover police officer went to his office, The New Birth New Life Medical Center and complained of lethargy, sneezing and a sore throat.

He took the undercover officer's temperature and also used a stethoscope to check her heart and lungs.

He then told the female cop that she was suffering from allergies and recommended she take an over-the-counter medication.

It was later learned that Love-Malachi also stole $35,000 from an elderly patient.

Love-Robinson (center) was illegally operating a medical practice, complete with an office, a lab coat and stethoscope

Love-Robinson initially defended his actions in several interviews and claimed that he never told anyone he was a medical doctor.

However, he has claimed to have a PHD, but has never shown documentation or said what field it is in.

'There are many types of degrees out there that hold the title of doctor - whether they are physicists or engineers. Just because someone has the title of doctor in front of their name does not necessarily imply "MD",' he told ABC.

However, he later pleaded guilty to grand theft and practicing medicine without a license and was jailed for three-and-a-half years.

The youngster has also previously done time in a Virginia prison for trying to buy a Lexus by using a fake earnings statement.
Prison officers have shared more than 1.16m since 2018 in a special allowance for having to deal with inmates at the countrys high-security jail.

Officers in Portlaoise Prison are paid what is known as an environmental allowance due to the stressful working conditions at the jail.

According to figures from the Irish Prison Service (IPS), 317 individual officers earned 208,822  or an average of 659 each  in the first half of last year.

In 2019, 330 prison officers were paid a combined total of 480,706  or the equivalent of 1,456 each in the environmental allowance.

Altogether, 1.16m was paid throughout 2018, 2019, and the first half of last year.

The allowance was first introduced in 1982 as part of an agreement between prison bosses and the Prison Officers Association (POA) to compensate for the abnormal tension and strain of working in Portlaoise.

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At the time, conditions at the jail were particularly difficult with a large number of republican paramilitary prisoners at the height of the Troubles.

The allowance is payable to all officers at the jail, including clerical staff based at the prison.

The payment was ceased in 2009 for officers newly transferred to the max security jail. However, a civil service arbitration board later ruled it should be restored for all.

A Prison Service spokesman said the payment was slightly different depending on when a prison officer had joined the service.

For staff that joined before April 1995, the payment works out at around 1,250 annually.

For other prison officers who began service after that, the rate is slightly higher  because of higher pension contributions  and is paid at the rate of around 1,470 per annum.

The POA said the continued payment of the allowance was fully justified given the harsh pressures of working in Portlaoise.

The jail is currently home to 218 prisoners, including paramilitaries and key gangland figures. Only a handful were on temporary release as of earlier this week.

General Secretary of the POA John Clinton said: The allowance goes back to the eighties and it has been subject to arbitration. There are soldiers on the roof at Portlaoise and it is a totally different type of environment to anything else.

The type of prisoner you have there are paramilitaries or those involved in extremely serious crime, including gangland activity. We have nowhere else with these conditions  and thats recognised between ourselves and our employers.

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Irish Independent
Amidst growing pressure over sufficient supplies of Covid-19 vaccines in the UK, pharmaceutical companies have hit back at government claims that access to enough jabs was a limiting factor, insisting there was no issue at their end.

While AstraZeneca says it expects 2 million doses of the Oxford University vaccine to be ready each week in just over a fortnight, Pfizer BioNTech said the number of doses it has now sent to the UK is in the millions.

The Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZeneca jabs are the two vaccines against coronavirus that are approved for rollout in the UK.

The plan is then to build it up fairly rapidly; by the third week of January we should get to 2 million a week, an AstraZeneca source told The Times newspaper.

The deliveries to the UK are on track and progressing according to our agreed schedule, a Pfizer spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, there are growing questions on whether Britain could have had more supplies ready to go, similar to how India has created a massive vaccine stockpile in advance, according to The Daily Telegraph.

Pune-based Serum Institute of India has a licensing tie-up for the Oxford vaccine. It has emerged that India has already managed to stockpile 50 million doses of the jabs.

The rate-limiting factor at the moment, as they say, is supply not distribution, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told a Downing Street briefing earlier in the week.

The issues around supply are being raised as the UK is set to begin the rollout of the Oxford vaccine among the elderly and frontline workers from Monday after it received regulatory approval on Wednesday.

The government has ordered 100 million doses of the Oxford vaccine and scientific advisers have calculated that at least 2 million vaccinations a week could be needed, as well as a lockdown that includes school closures, to avoid the pressures on intensive care exceeding the peak of the first wave.

Ministers hope that their target of vaccinating 30 million vulnerable people and health workers by Easter in early April could be met ahead of schedule.

The UKs chief medical officers (CMOs) have defended the Covid-19 vaccination plan, even though a doctors union has voiced criticism.

The UK will give both parts of the Oxford and Pfizer vaccines 12 weeks apart, having initially planned to leave 21 days between the Pfizer jabs.

The British Medical Association said cancelling patients already booked in for their second doses was grossly unfair.

But the CMOs said getting more people vaccinated with the first jab is much more preferable as the great majority of initial protection came from the first jab.

The second vaccine dose is likely to be very important for duration of protection, and at an appropriate dose interval may further increase vaccine efficacy, the CMOs said.

In the short term, the additional increase of vaccine efficacy from the second dose is likely to be modest; the great majority of the initial protection from clinical disease is after the first dose of vaccine, they added.

However, some general practitioners (GPs) who had already booked in their patients for their second dose after a 21-day gap are planning to keep to the schedule.

The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was the first jab approved in the UK, and 944,539 people have had their first dose.

Under updated government guidance, the second booster dose can now be administered any time up to 12 weeks apart for both the Pfizer and Oxford vaccines.

Experts advising the government, including the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said the focus should be on giving at-risk people the first dose of whichever vaccine they receive.
When his lone son named Athar Mushtaq was alive, Mushtaq Ahmad Wani would always keep him under his gaze and close to his chest. Now after his son's death, the grieving father maintains the sentiments as he wants government sanction to shift his son's body into a grave he dug up himself in his village in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama on Saturday.

Athar Mushtaq (17) and two other young men, aged 22 and 24, were on Wednesday killed in an encounter with Army and Jammu and Kashmir Police in Srinagar, triggering a controversy as their families have raised questions over the genuity of the gunbattle. The charges have been rebutted by Army and Jammu and Kashmir Police, which described the slain youngsters as "terrorists" and "overground workers", respectively. The families of slain youngsters have maintained since the beginning that all three were "innocent and killed in a staged encounter". In response to it, the police have ramped up its claim citing that they have a digital proof and intelligence evidence that suggest the trio were involved in "militant activities".

"My child was minor, innocent and killed in cold blood," Wani reiterated.

On the fourth mourning day, the distraught father quietly came out of his home, picked up a spade and shovel and paced towards his native graveyard in Bellow village of Pulwama. To the shock of villagers, he began digging a grave on his own even as relatives and neighbours offered to help. "I want to do it myself," he told them to which they responded with slogans like "Athar ke laash wapis karo, wapis karo" (give us back Athar's body).

A seemingly broken Wani said that nothing will deter him from claiming the body of his son which was buried on Wednesday in Sonamarg - an area more than hundred kilometres away from his village - under a constant police vigil. As part of a new protocol started last year, the government will not hand over the bodies of militants to their families to discourage fresh militant recruitments during huge funeral rallies that used to take place earlier.

"I will visit the Police Control Room Srinagar tomorrow and urge the officials to return the body of my son. If they won't, I will kill himself," he said with teary eyes. "Athar was passed off as a militant by the security forces for their personal gains," Wani said, adding that he is willing to wait for his son's body till eternity.

Meanwhile, the families of the other two slain youngsters, who ironically have members working for the Jammu and Kashmir Police, have also demanded returning of their bodies and a fair investigation into the encounter. The police has assured that they will be initiating a probe and its officers would bring out the facts.

Former Chief Ministers Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti have demanded the bodies to be returned to the families so that they can give their sons a proper burial. Mufti even wrote a letter to Lieutenant Governor Manoj Singh.

(With inputs by Qayoom Khan)
Klobuchar was never heard from again.

Then I got creative: What would happen, I asked, if nobody won  if Sanders and Biden took their deadlocked battle all the way to the Democratic convention?

That didnt happen either.

I was right about only one part of that race: In a year with so much uncertainty, most Democrats were looking for a candidate who looked electable, and Sanders never persuaded them that he fit the bill. Once Biden won South Carolina on Feb. 29, the battle for the nomination was over.

On the other side of the ballot, I expected Trump, a uniquely talented politician despite his incompetence at governing, to wage a better campaign than he did.

At the outset, the president had a plausible argument for reelection: He had presided over a healthy economy, and he promised to lead an all-fronts battle against a deadly pandemic.

But candidate Trump defeated himself. His attempt to talk his way past the coronavirus instead of managing a coherent federal response was all too evident. I dont take any responsibility, he told a reporter who asked whether he was culpable for any of the governments failures.
NEW YORK (AP)  Claude Bolling, the French pianist, composer and arranger who attained a worldwide following through his melodic blend of jazz and classical influences and stayed on the Billboard classical charts for more than a decade with his 1975 album Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano, has died.

Bollings representatives announced on his website that he died Tuesday in Garches, France, at age 90. A cause of death was not provided.

A lifelong admirer of Duke Ellington, the Cannes native was a professional musician by his teens and over the following decades would perform with everyone from Lionel Hampton to Yo-Yo Ma. He arranged music for Brigitte Bardot and Juliette Greco among others, wrote soundtracks for hundreds of French film and television productions, and his compositions could be heard on such American releases as The Holiday and Joker.

Bollings three Grammy nominations included one for best chamber music for Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano, a collaboration with flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal which featured the playful Baroque and Blue and the more reflective Irlandaise and sold more than 1 million copies.

He would later collaborate with Angel Romero on Concerto for Classic Guitar and Jazz Piano and with Yo-Yo Ma on Suite for Cello and Jazz Piano Trio. In 1984, Bolling was joined by American flutist Hubert Laws for a performance on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

Bollings wife of 48 years, journalist Irene Dervize-Sadyker, died in 2017. They had two sons, David and Alexandre.

More:

Remembering those who died in 2020, from Ruth Bader Ginsburg and B. Smith to Chadwick Boseman and Eddie Van Halen

Former Pa. Gov. Dick Thornburgh remembered as a leader who was right for his time
Rory McNulty and Kevin Wall of the d hotel with some of the toys and bicycles being donated to children in Mosney direct provision centre

A local hotel made Christmas for children living in Direct Provision in Mosney a lot happier this year by donating sparkling new bicycles, goal posts and other toys.

General Manager of the d Hotel donned his Santa hat to purchase the gifts and deleiver them to those for whom Christmas can feel even more isolated than normal.

'Our hotel was a drop-off point for the great initiative 'Drogheda Welcomes' by some local volunteers, who ran a Christmas Gift Drive to show solidarity from the people of Drogheda to those living in the Direct provision centre in Mosney,' says Rory, 'and we at the d wanted to do our bit to make their day even more special by donating these bikes and toys.'

The children in Mosney range in age from infants to 17 years old. As of April 2020, there are around 7,400 people in Direct Provision and emergency accommodation.

It is estimated that around 2,000 of these are children, with just over 300 children being housed in Mosney Direct Provision Centre.

Organisations such as Amnesty International, Ireland says no to Direct Provision, and the Irish refugee council all highlight the challenges surrounding Direct Provision including the long processing times that lead to indefinite delays. The group thanks everyone who donated toys to the initiative this year. Happy Christmas!

Drogheda Independent
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Millions of Nigerians across various cities on Friday ushered in the New Year 2021 with prayers, fireworks and expectations for the next year.

Earlier on Thursday, Australia, New Zealand and some country became the first places to welcome a New Year.

At various worship centres in the country, Christian faithful had gathered on Thursday night, thanking God for seeing them through to a year which many have described as tumultuous. Worshippers were seen dancing and praising God for His kindness to them.

Although the Federal Government and several states had cautioned against large gatherings in view of the surge in COVID-19 cases, in many churches Channels Television visited in Abuja, worshipper adhered to strict safety protocols as they prayed into the New Year.

Many churches including the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Living Faith Church, Daystar Christian Centre, the Covenant Nation (TCN) and a host of worship centres had earlier said they will conduct their 2020 crossover service virtually.

God has been so good to us. He has kept us despite the many hurdles of this year, the General Overseer of RCCG, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, wrote in a Facebook post. It is time to crossover gallantly into 2021. Be a part of the crossover service and be empowered for the year 2021. Don't miss it! God bless you!

President Muhammadu Buhari is expected to give the traditional New Year broadcast later today (7 am), less than twenty-four hours after he signed the 2021 budget and the Finance Bill into law.

Television, radio, and other electronic media outlets are enjoined to join the network services of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) respectively, for the broadcast, a statement from his spokesman, Garba Shehu noted.(Channels TV)
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Ensysce Biosciences Inc., a San Diego, CA-based clinical phase company launching two new classes of novel opioids designed to treat severe pain, and eliminate opioid misuse, abuse and overdose, secured $60m in funding.

GEM Global Yield LLC SCS will provide Ensysce with a share subscription facility of up to $60m for a 36-month term following the public listing of the companys common stock.

Ensysce will control the timing and maximum amount of drawdown under this facility and has no minimum drawdown obligation. Concurrent with a public listing of its shares, the company will issue warrants to GEM to purchase outstanding common stock of the company.

Ensysce will use the funds to progress the clinical development of PF614, a first in class Trypsin Activated Abuse Protection (TAAPTM) extended-release opioid prodrug, and its Multi-Pill Abuse Resistance (MPARTM) overdose protected counterpart, PF614-MPARTM.

The company is led by Lynn Kirkpatrick, PhD, CEO, and Richard Wright, CBO, and Geoff Birkett, CCO.

FinSMEs

01/01/2020
China hopes Joe Biden will end Trumps Cold War, follow sensible approach to restore ties

International

oi-Deepika S

Beijing, Jan 02: As Joe Biden is set to assume power this month, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Saturday hoped that the US President-elect would end the incumbent Donald Trump's "Cold War" policy towards Beijing and return to a "sensible approach" by restoring normal ties.

The Trump administration launched a broadside against China on all fronts, including trade, Tibet and Taiwan besides, scathing criticism against the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) headed by President Xi Jinping.

The Chinese side hopes that the next US administration will return to a sensible approach, resume dialogue with China, restore normalcy to the bilateral relations and restart cooperation, Wang, who is also a State Councillor, told the state-run Xinhua news agency in an interview.

"China-US relations have come to a new crossroads, and a new window of hope is opening," he said.

As President Xis efforts in Nepal flop, China to continue covert ops in Himalayan nation

Biden, who defeated President Trump in the November 8 Presidential election, is scheduled to take over on January 20, formally ending the Trump era which saw the US-China ties touch a new low.

Wang said that in recent years, the US-China relations have run into unprecedented difficulties.

Fundamentally, it all comes down to the serious misconceptions of US policymakers about China. Some see China as the so-called biggest threat and their China policy based on this misperception is simply wrong, he said.

"What has happened proves that the US' attempt to suppress China and start a new Cold War has not just seriously harmed the interests of the two peoples, but also caused severe disruptions to the world. Such a policy will find no support and is doomed to fail.

"We are ready to develop with the United States a relationship based on coordination, cooperation and stability. We know that some in the US are uneasy about China''s rapid development. However, the best way to keep one''s lead is through constant self-improvement, not by blocking others'' development," he said.

"We believe that as long as the United States can draw lessons from the past and work with China in the same direction, the two countries are capable of resolving differences through dialogue and expanding converging interests by cooperation," Wang said.

He also stuck a positive note on China's ties with the European Union (EU).

China is racing to improve its ties with the EU ahead of Biden's plans to end Trump's unilateral approach and work out coordinated policies towards China with all US allies, especially the EU.

Seen as an attempt to thwart Biden's plans to forge a united policy towards Beijing, China concluded talks with the EU on a landmark investment treaty ending a long, drawn-out negotiations.

On Wednesday, Chinese President Xi along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron announced that they have completed investment agreement negotiations as scheduled.

"The agreement will provide greater market access, higher level of business environment, stronger institutional guarantees and brighter cooperation prospects for mutual investment," Xi said.

US Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger blasted the EU for reaching the deal with China despite Beijing's "human rights record".

The EU has "removed a fig leaf," Pottinger said, China's state-run Global Times reported.

White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro also called it "a bad deal," which will pose a geopolitical challenge to the US.

Wang, in his interview, said that "the most important conclusion is that our cooperation and common understandings far outweigh competition and differences. China and the EU are comprehensive strategic partners, not systemic rivals," he said.

Wang also hailed China's burgeoning ties with Russia, which Chinese experts say could get stronger if Biden pursues former US president Barack Obama's policy of identifying Moscow as a prime enemy of Washington than Beijing.

China and Russia will continue to be the example of good-neighbourly and friendly relations between major countries, which would underpin the global strategic stability, Wang said.

He hailed the intensive interactions between the two heads of states, noting that President Xi and President Vladimir Putin have had five phone calls and exchanged correspondence on multiple occasions, providing the most important strategic guidance for the steady growth of the bilateral relations.

"The year 2021 is a year of special importance for China-Russia relations, as both countries will enter a new development stage. In developing China-Russia strategic cooperation, we see no limit, no forbidden zone and no ceiling to how far this cooperation can go," he said.

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Story first published: Saturday, January 2, 2021, 17:31 [IST]
The U.S. Coast Guard suspended its search Friday for a boat with about 20 people on board that was three days overdue to arrive in Florida after leaving the Bahamas earlier this week.

The Coast Guard and others searched more than 17,000 square miles (44,000 square kilometers) for about 84 hours before suspending the search around noon on Friday, Coast Guard officials said in a news release.

Officials have not released information about who was on the boat.

The U.S. Coast Guard suspended its search Friday for a boat with about 20 people on board that was three days overdue to arrive in Florida after leaving the Bahamas earlier this week (stock picture)

A map shows the area between Bimini in the Bahamas and Fort Worth, Florida where the small boat went missing

'Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the missing people,' said Capt. Stephen V. Burdian, Seventh District Chief of Response. 'I encourage anyone with information about the people aboard to contact us as soon as possible.'

The boat left Bimini, Bahamas, on Monday and was supposed to arrive in Lake Worth, Florida, on Tuesday.

It was reported overdue that day and Coast Guard air and sea crews and aircraft from Patrick Air Force base in Brevard County were assisting the Royal Bahamas Defence Force and Bahamas Air Sea Rescue Association with the search.

The U.S. Coast Guard was searching for a boat with about 20 people on board Thursday that was two days overdue to arrive in Florida after leaving the Bahamas on Monday.The boat left Bimini, Bahamas, on Monday and was supposed to arrive in Lake Worth on Tuesday. It was reported overdue that day and Coast Guard and Bahamian authorities began searching for it

The Coast Guard and others searched more than 17,000 square miles (44,000 square kilometers) for about 84 hours before suspending the search around noon on Friday, Coast Guard officials said in a news release

The boat is a 29-foot (9-meter) Mako Cuddy Cabin vessel.

There was no signal received from an Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon either, said Petty Officer Jose Hernandez.

'When it touches the water or if it's activated in an emergency it would send us the location of that [vessel],' he said to The Sun Sentinel. 'It makes it a lot easier for us to deploy to that location.'

'We don't care if they're illegals or drug trafficking,' Hernandez said. 'We don't want any lives lost at sea.'

The boat had set sail from Bimini, the westernmost district of the Bahamas.

It is the closest point to the mainland of the United States and approximately 50 miles east of Miami.

Anyone with information about the missing blue and white Mako Cuddy Cabin is asked to contact the Coast Guard District Seven Command Center at 305-415-6800.

Bimini is the closest point to the mainland of the United States and approximately 50 miles east of Miami
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COVID-19 vaccination in India: Chennai hospital has conducted COVID-19 vaccination drill.

They were then moved to another room, where their identities were cross-checked and details uploaded on Co-WIN app. Thereafter, the persons were vaccinated and information uploaded."Those who were vaccinated were also kept under observation to take care of any adverse effect of the vaccine," Rajan said.The vaccination drill was held at 17 centres in five districts of Tamil Nadu.Source: IANS
Delhi Traffic Police said the Chilla and Ghazipur borders are closed for commuters travelling from Noida and Ghaziabad due to the ongoing farmers agitation against the governments three farm laws, Delhi Traffic Police said on Saturday. Singhu, Auchandi, Piau Maniyari, Saboli and Mangesh borders have also been closed and the police urged people to avoid Outer Ring Road, GTK Road and National Highway-44.

Traffic Alert

The Chilla & Ghazipur Borders are closed for traffic coming from Noida & Ghaziabad to Delhi because of farmer protests. Please take alternate route for coming to Delhi via Anand Vihar, DND, Apsara, Bhopra & Loni Borders.  Delhi Traffic Police (@dtptraffic) January 2, 2021

The Chilla & Ghazipur Borders are closed for traffic coming from Noida & Ghaziabad to Delhi because of farmer protests. Please take alternate route for coming to Delhi via Anand Vihar, DND, Apsara, Bhopra & Loni Borders, Delhi Traffic Police tweeted. Singhu, Auchandi ,Piau Maniyari, Saboli & Mangesh borders closed. Please take alternate route via Lampur Safiabad, Palla & Singhu school toll tax borders.Traffic has been diverted from Mukarba & GTK road. Please avoid Outer Ring Road, GTK Road & NH-44, they added.

Traffic Alert

Singhu, Auchandi ,Piau Maniyari, Saboli & Mangesh borders closed. Please take alternate route via Lampur Safiabad, Palla & Singhu school toll tax borders.Traffic has been diverted from Mukarba & GTK road. Please avoid Outer Ring Road, GTK Road & NH-44.  Delhi Traffic Police (@dtptraffic) January 2, 2021

All the roads have been closed as a result of the farmers agitation against the Centres farm laws that were passed in September last year. The protests have been continuing for over a month with the demonstrators refusing the accept anything apart from a complete rollback of the farm laws.

Farmers unions have warned that they will expand their protests and start shutting all malls and petrol pumps in Haryana if the government fails to resolve their main demands for the repeal of three new farm laws and a legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP) in the next round of meeting on January 4. The representatives of farmers unions said that only 5% of the issues raised by them have so far been discussed in meetings with the government. They also outlined multiple protest actions over a month if their main demands are not met, in an announcement a few days before Republic Day celebrations.

The Centre, on its part, has asked them to think over their decision. I want to urge them to leave the protest and come forward for the dialogue. I am hopeful that farmers will understand the importance of new laws and reach a solution, Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar said.
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Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has proposed to the Security Council the formation of an International Observer Committee to support and monitor implementation of the ceasefire in Libya, which has been delayed
SPRINGFIELD  The City Council will launch its new year on Monday with votes on its leadership posts along with some proposed changes to council rules aimed at enhancing meeting decorum and debate.

The annual organizational meeting is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. It will be conducted remotely for the first time due to the coronavirus pandemic and televised by Focus Springfield.

The 13 members are expected to elect Ward 5 Councilor Marcus Williams president, replacing 2020 President Justin Hurst. In addition, the council is expected to elect Councilor at Large Tracye Whitfield as vice president, replacing Adam Gomez.

Williams and Whitfield were chosen in caucus votes at the last regular meeting in December, but formal votes are needed Monday.

Williams is proposing some changes in council rules, including:

No councilor shall speak more than three times on the same question, or more than once until others have an opportunity to speak on the issue. The prior rule allowed councilors to speak twice on the same question, unless permitted by the president.

No councilor shall speak for more than two minutes each time. The prior rule limited councilors to five minutes at a time unless allowed a longer time by the president. Williams said the new time limit will result in hopefully sharper and more concise exchanges.

The president may remove any subcommittee chair from his or her post for failure to meet regularly on issues.

Williams is proposing a change in the time for regular meetings and public speak-outs. Speak-outs would begin at 6:30 p.m., followed by the regular meeting starting at 7 p.m. Both times are a half-hour later than times set last year.

Williams suggests, but is not proposing a requirement, that the majority of councilors be present for public speak-outs.

He will also suggest that councilors allow department heads and staff to present business at earlier times out of courtesy and respect. In the past some city employees have had prolonged waits before their agenda items were called.

Williams said his proposal to limit councilors speaking times is intended to allow other councilors more opportunities to speak, and more opportunities for rebuttal. Some meetings have stretched late into the evening, and the time limits are also hoped to reduce that, he said.

I think this is just an attempt to again just have more targeted and direct conversation on the specific matters that are being discussed at that moment, Williams said.

The School Committee also will have its annual organizational meeting on Monday at 12:30 p.m. by remote. The committee will elect a vice chair and vote on any rules changes, among other business needed to start the year. The chair by charter is the mayor.
With medical and dental institutes being popular choices with students despite the admission process getting tougher with every passing year, state governments as well as the Union health ministry have encouraged the setting up of new government or civic-run medical institutes.

As per information shared by the state common entrance test (CET) cell, seats in government medical colleges (GMCs) have increased from 2,960 in the 2016-17 academic year to 4,330 in the current academic year, recording an increase of over 46%. Seats in private medical institutes for Bachelor of medicine, Bachelor of surgery (MBBS) have also gone up by over 15%, from 1,970 in 2016-17 to 2,270 this year. The increase in undergraduate dental seats in government-run dental institutes stands at 25% while seats in private dental institutes increased by over 51%.

For the past few years, the doctor to patient ratio in our country has not been up to the mark of WHO [World Health Organisation] standards. At present we have around 9 lakh allopathy doctors whereas the need is for 15 lakh. Opening up new GMCs in districts means better accessibility for aspirants and we will soon see doctors graduating with better skill sets, said Dr Avinash Supe, former dean of Mumbais KEM Hospital.

WHO recommends one doctor for every 1,000 citizens. According to 2019 data from the Union health ministry, Indias doctor to patient ratio stands at 1:1,445.

Maharashtra government is currently focussing on ensuring the placement of at least one government hospital in every district, and this will also help improve the health care system in that particular district, said Supe, adding that more GMCs compared to private hospitals should eventually mean more doctors in smaller districts.

The Union health ministry has a scheme by which state governments can establish new medical colleges by upgrading existing district or referral hospitals. In 2019, as part of the scheme, 75 new GMCs were proposed across the country. While the previous Bharatiya Janata Party-led government in Maharashtra had proposed seven new GMCs, proposals for 11 new GMCs were submitted in 2020.

According to information shared by the Directorate of Medical Education & Research (DMER), Maharashtra has proposed to convert 11 district hospitals into GMCs in Nandurbar, Satara, Parbhani, Buldhana, Sindhudurg, Nashik, Amravati, Usmanabad, Palghar, Alibaug and Mumbai. Weve chosen district hospitals that are already in good shape and can ease into teaching with least problems, said said TP Lahane, director, DMER. One of these GMCs is in Mumbai and one institute in Nandurbar district has received all necessary approvals to admit students from the 2020-21 academic year.

Activist Sudha Shenoy said these are welcome initiatives from the state, which sees almost 2 lakh students appear for the medical entrance test annually. Introducing more GMCs compared to private or deemed institutes will ease the competition, especially for meritorious students. Fees in government run institutes are less compared to private or deemed institutes, said Shenoy.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 22:11:59|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- China has issued a plan to build a globally influential science and technology innovation community in the Yangtze River Delta.

Efforts will be made to enhance the regional collaborative innovation capability of the Yangtze River Delta and build the region into one for original innovation and high and advanced industries, striving for turning the region into an influential science and technology innovation community in the world.

A modern and internationalized sci-tech innovation community is expected to be completed by 2025, and it is expected to become a world-leading sci-tech innovation community by 2035, the plan says.

In building the Yangtze River Delta sci-tech innovation community, full play will be given to the leading role of Shanghai as an innovation center and efforts will be made to strengthen innovative advantages of other regions in the delta area and enhance innovation cooperation, the plan says.

The plan proposes joint efforts on building high-level innovation bases and key sci-tech infrastructure clusters, as well as collaborations on basic research, applied basic research and core technologies for key fields.

The Yangtze River Delta is one of the country's most economically active, open and innovative regions, and produces about one-fourth of the national GDP. Enditem
A more contagious form of the coronavirus has begun circulating in the United States.

In Britain, where it was first identified, the new variant became the predominant form of the coronavirus in just three months, accelerating that nations surge and filling its hospitals. It may do the same in the United States, exacerbating an unrelenting rise in deaths and overwhelming the already strained health care system, experts warned.

A variant that spreads more easily also means that people will need to religiously adhere to precautions like social distancing, mask-wearing, hand hygiene and improved ventilation  unwelcome news to many Americans already chafing against restrictions.

The bottom line is that anything we do to reduce transmission will reduce transmission of any variants, including this one, said Angela Rasmussen, a virus expert affiliated with Georgetown University. But it may mean that the more targeted measures that are not like a full lockdown wont be as effective.

What does it mean for this variant to be more transmissible? What makes this variant more contagious than previous iterations of the virus? And why should we worry about a variant that spreads more easily but does not seem to make anyone sicker?

We asked experts to weigh in on the evolving research into this new version of the coronavirus.

The new variant seems to spread more easily between people

Many variants of the coronavirus have cropped up since the pandemic began. But all evidence so far suggests that the new mutant, called B.1.1.7, is more transmissible than previous forms. It first surfaced in September in Britain but already accounts for more than 60% of new cases in London and neighboring areas.

The new variant seems to infect more people than earlier versions of the coronavirus, even when the environments are the same. Its not clear what gives the variant this advantage, although there are indications that it may infect cells more efficiently.

Its also difficult to say exactly how much more transmissible the new variant may be, because scientists have not yet done the kind of lab experiments that are required. Most of the conclusions have been drawn from epidemiological observations, and theres so many possible biases in all the available data, cautioned Muge Cevik, an infectious disease expert at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and a scientific adviser to the British government.

Scientists initially estimated that the new variant was 70% more transmissible, but a recent modeling study pegged that number at 56%. Once researchers sift through all the data, its possible that the variant will turn out to be just 10% to 20% percent more transmissible, said Trevor Bedford, an evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

Even so, Bedford said, it is likely to catch on rapidly and become the predominant form in the United States by March. Scientists like Bedford are tracking all the known variants closely to detect any further changes that might alter their behavior.

Apart from greater transmissibility, the variant behaves like earlier versions

The new mutant virus may spread more easily, but in every other way it seems little different than its predecessors.

The variant does not seem to make people any sicker or lead to more deaths. Still, there is cause for concern: A variant that is more transmissible will increase the death toll simply because it will spread faster and infect more people.

In that sense, its just a numbers game, Rasmussen said. The effect will be amplified in places like the US and the UK, where the health care system is really at its breaking point.

The routes of transmission  by large and small droplets, and tiny aerosolized particles adrift in crowded indoor spaces  have not changed. That means masks, limiting time with others and improving ventilation in indoor spaces will all help contain the variants spread, as these measures do with other variants of the virus.

By minimizing your exposure to any virus, youre going to reduce your risk of getting infected, and thats going to reduce transmission overall, Rasmussen said.

Infection with the new variant may increase the amount of virus in the body

Some preliminary evidence from Britain suggests that people infected with the new variant tend to carry greater amounts of the virus in their noses and throats than those infected with previous versions.

Were talking in the range between 10-fold greater and 10,000-fold greater, said Michael Kidd, a clinical virologist at Public Health England and a clinical adviser to the British government who has studied the phenomenon.

There are other explanations for the finding  Kidd and his colleagues did not have access to information about when in their illness people were tested, for example, which could affect their so-called viral loads.

Still, the finding does offer one possible explanation for why the new variant spreads more easily. The more virus that infected people harbor in their noses and throats, the more they expel into the air and onto surfaces when they breathe, talk, sing, cough or sneeze.

As a result, situations that expose people to the virus carry a greater chance of seeding new infections. Some new data indicate that people infected with the new variant spread the virus to more of their contacts.

With previous versions of the virus, contact tracing suggested that about 10% of people who have close contact with an infected person  within 6 feet for at least 15 minutes  inhaled enough virus to become infected.

With the variant, we might expect 15% of those, Bedford said. Currently risky activities become more risky.

Scientists are still learning how the mutations have changed the virus

The variant has 23 mutations, compared with the version that erupted in Wuhan, China, a year ago. But 17 of those mutations appeared suddenly, after the virus diverged from its most recent ancestor.

Each infected person is a crucible, offering opportunities for the virus to mutate as it multiplies. With more than 83 million people infected worldwide, the coronavirus is amassing mutations faster than scientists expected at the start of the pandemic.

The vast majority of mutations provide no advantage to the virus and die out. But mutations that improve the viruss fitness or transmissibility have a greater chance to catch on.

At least one of the 17 new mutations in the variant contributes to its greater contagiousness. The mechanism is not yet known. Some data suggest that the new variant may bind more tightly to a protein on the surface of human cells, allowing it to more readily infect them.

Its possible that the variant blooms in an infected persons nose and throat, but not in the lungs, for example  which may explain why patients spread it more easily but do not develop illnesses more severe than those caused by earlier versions of the virus. Some influenza viruses behave similarly, experts noted.

We need to look at this evidence as preliminary and accumulating, Cevik said of the growing data on the new variant.

Still, the research suggests an urgent need to cut down on transmission of the variant, she added: We need to be much more careful overall, and look at the gaps in our mitigation measures.
The human rights context in the Transnistrian region is illustrated by the amplitude and interplay of multiple forms of inequalities vulnerable groups, such as inter alia persons with disabilities, Roma, people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS, children in contact with the law, vulnerable women, prisoners and people who use drugs, are encountering. The ability of vulnerable groups from the region to effectively exercise their rights is impaired by the human rights knowledge, capacity and authority gaps they face. The embryonic civil society environment with weak capacities to influence the policy-making and to reach out to the most vulnerable ones and low human rights awareness of the CSOs, professionals and the population at large are hindering the realization of human rights in the region. Undeveloped and gender-blind specialized service provision, deriving from human and economic resources capacity gaps and the absence of a comprehensive human rights framework are representing additional major contributing factors to this debilitating juncture. The Programme will work on reducing inequalities for women, men and children in the Transnistrian region, by ensuring that vulnerable human rights holders are empowered to exercise their rights and duty bearers respect, protect and fulfil human rights to a larger extent. It also aims to contribute to the implementation of the National Human Rights Action Plan 2018-2022.

The Communication Officer will work under the direct supervision of the Programme Manager.The Communication Officer applies and promotes the principles of results-based management (RBM), as well as a client-oriented approach consistent with UNDP rules and regulations. The Communication Officer will coordinate a team of short-term experts and contractors. The incumbent is expected to exercise full compliance with UNDP programming, financial, procurement and administrative rules, regulations, policies and strategies, as well as implementation of the effective internal control systems.Under the guidance and direct supervision of the Programme Manager, the Communication Officer will ensure visibility and manage all aspects of awareness raising and communication of One UN Joint Action "Cross-river support to Human Rights", in full compliance with the Communication Strategy of the Programme. The Programme objectives, successes and impacts will be communicated to a large public via print and broadcast media and via high-profile events. The Communication Officer will, under the guidance of the Programme Manager, assume full responsibility for the effective implementation of the communication and visibility activities within One UN Joint Action "Cross-river support to Human Rights", including coordination of short-term project communication experts.
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Facebook has revealed some statistics about the amount of calls that the instant messaging application WhatsApp conducted on its platform of New Years Eve. Unsurprisingly, the platform registered the highest ever number of calls on its platform on a single day.

WhatsApp has registered over 1.4 billion voice and video calls on the New Years Eve globally. Facebook claims that the platform witnessed the most ever calls in a single day. In comparison to last year, the platform registered a whopping 50% increased WhatsApp calling.

WhatsApps parent platform's Messenger also witnessed a surge in video calls as well as group video calls. According to a statement by the company, New Years Eve 2020 was the biggest day ever for Messenger group video calls (3+ people) in the US, with nearly 2X more group video calls on NYE compared to the average day. The statement claims that users celebrated with effects in Messenger.

Furthermore, there were more than 55 million live broadcasts across Facebook and Instagram globally on New Years Eve.

View Full Image Data released by Facebook





Caitlin Banford, technical program manager at Facebook said, Before COVID-19, New Years Eve generated Facebooks biggest spikes in messaging, photo uploads and social sharing at midnight across the world. However, in March 2020, the early days of the pandemic produced traffic spikes that would dwarf New Years Eve several times over  and it lasted for months. Behind the scenes, Facebook Engineering came together to drive unprecedented efficiency improvements and make our infrastructure more resilient. This work includes load testing, disaster recovery testing and shuffling capacity. This year, New Years Eve looked a lot different, and we had engineering teams across Facebooks apps, ready to support any issue, so the world could ring in 2021."

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The vaccines  the miracle elixirs that would mark the beginning of the end  had finally arrived.

In jubilant scenes offering respite for a public desperate for hope, Annie Lynch, the 79-year-old grandmother from the Liberties in Dublin, was the first person to roll up her sleeve and r eceive the injection.

I didnt feel a thing, she told nurse Deborah Cross before a round of applause erupted from those looking on inside St Jamess Hospital in the capital.

Across the city in the Covid assessment hub at the Mater another pandemic story, one much more sobering, was playing out in front of GP Maitiu O Tuathail.

Read More

The elderly man in front of him wasnt rolling up his sleeve. Instead, he was sitting in total silence while a nurse inserted a swab in his nasal passage, reassuring him it would all be over in a few seconds.

There was no clapping or cheering when she finished, no photo-call or joyous proclamations of better days to come. For the latest probable case of Covid-19, a man who had avoided infection for almost 10 months, there was only fear.

This was someone who had cocooned most of the year, says Dr O Tuathail.

The sense of fear coming from that man was something I havent experienced since the start of the pandemic. Real fear. He didnt speak a word.

"The situation since last week really is very worrying. We are seeing people in their 70s who didnt get infected during the first wave and cocooned really well and they basically had visitors over on Christmas Day and St Stephens Day. Two people I had today got calls to say they were close contacts. These people hadnt had anyone over in months. They are all asking same thing, When can I get the vaccine? At the minute we have no answer.

In a week that started with the joyous arrival of the vaccines and ended with a full Level 5 lockdown amid an explosion of Covid-19 infections, the nation reached a strange moment in the pandemic, particularly as the New Year rang in.

As queues of cars piled up outside testing centres around the country and case numbers rocketed, the joy of the first Covid inoculations became a distant memory.

Testing of close contacts had to stop, the system too overwhelmed to cope. Hospitals, filling up by the hour, moved closer and closer to capacity. The HSE had reached into its surge capacity within the defence forces to help with contact tracing and swabbing, the German lab had been utilised to increase capacity to process swabs and extra lanes had been added at testing sites to cope with numbers.

Then, in a stark warning issued on New Years Eve, the HSE told everyone to act like they had Covid-19.

In the space of a week it seems we have just been totally overwhelmed, says Dr O Tuathail.

We are dealing with a different beast in comparison to previous waves. Although this was predictable, it has hit us so much quicker than the first time and its the speed of the explosion in cases that has taken everyone by surprise.

"I have this sinking feeling in my stomach that the darkest days of the pandemic are yet to come because in the last week it feels like we have lost control of this.

On New Years Eve, a day when Infectious disease consultant Jack Lambert was rostered to be off, he found himself on his way into work in the Mater Hospital.

The numbers are increasing and that means the hospitals are getting busier, he says.

We have been quiet in the hospitals but now there are more people being admitted on a daily basis. This is the worst time period for respiratory illness to spread and it was very predictable that things would flare up again.

Dr Lambert, who has been critical of lockdowns, says the third since the pandemic began has his full support.

Part of living with Covid is maximising Covid prevention and that is not happening, the numbers show that, he says.

When this started in February/March we were at the end of winter. This time we are in a different stage of winter and we are in for a tough couple of months. The Government didnt have any choice but to enhance restrictions. We are in for a number of months now before the [full] vaccine roll out, another six to nine months before we are home free.

In Donegal, a region that has been a long-suffering hotspot, Dr Dennis McCauley had just finished a days work at his surgery in Lifford.

In line with soundings coming from GPs cross the country, he is in the thick of a busy period that looks set to continue for the next two weeks.

This is the third time this has happened, he says. Let them mix and the infections will come.

The mixing, he says, started when the gastro-pubs and restaurants reopened. Socialising and pre-Christmas meet-ups in houses that followed has combined to create the perfect storm. Recent hospitalisations in the area have included a healthy and fit 26-year-old, one of the cases traced to a number of celebrations in a local pub. Half of Raphoe got sick as a result, adds McCauley.

The gastro pubs opened up two weeks before the surge happened and it was predictable, he says.

Epidemiology is a very logical science. You add one and one and you get two. Then the visits between houses got added to the mix and here we are.

Despite the current chaos, Dr McAuley is optimistic. With vaccines on the horizon this is a time for people to buckle down, commit to the public health measures and push through to the end of the pandemic.

We have done this before in Donegal and we have got through it, he says. Its going to be a bit scary hairy this week and next week and then its going to be fine. We have been doing it all year.

Meanwhile, as contact tracing teams across the country desperately raced to contact the growing numbers of infected people, a pattern was emerging. Complex cases, ones that have to be referred to regional public health departments, were stacking up. Often involving a workplace or a business setting, they require more detailed investigation and often associated with outbreaks.

In the public health department in the midlands, senior medical officer Dr Fiona McGuire and her colleagues had braced themselves for a busy January but were suddenly in the midst of another surge.

Things escalated quicker than we predicted, she says. We normally run an on-call service over Christmas, this year we had to make sure we had more staff than usual working to cope with the increasing numbers and to cope with the increasing complexity of stuff we are seeing. We were phoning people on Christmas Day and St Stephens Day.

Cases linked to restaurants, hairdressers and nail salons  all associated with the pre-Christmas period  were being identified, something the team had expected.

However, concern was mounting over a number of cases being linked to a setting they had commonly dealt with in wave one  nursing homes.

We started to see more cases in residential acre facilities like nursing homes and more outbreaks again in nursing homes, says Dr McGuire.

This is what nobody wants to see. We also have cases of people going to visit a loved one in a residential care setting and then being told the next day that theyre the contact of a case. Then they are suddenly worrying if they become positive will that affect the person they visited in residential care.

"Over Christmas Day, St Stephens Day through to the 28th and the 29th we [have been] calling people if they have been associated with a complex case. They had already been told so they have a day or two to digest it. By the time we call they realise they have been in contact with other people. They are upset and devastated. Not about themselves, about the people they may have infected.

Back in Dublin, Dr O Tuathail was working the graveyard shift on New Years Eve. There was little talk about the vaccine and a growing concern over how the pummelled health-care system, short-staffed and facing new surges of Covid infections, was going to cope.

The vials of vaccine rolling through supply chains embody real promise  a glimpse of a future that resembles life before masks, distancing and holidays spent apart. But it will be months before enough people have been inoculated to make a real difference. Until then a return to normal will remain tantalisingly out of reach.

The hospitals across Dublin are under serious pressure, the GPs are swamped and the numbers are rocketing, says Dr O Tuathail.

Things are worse than I expected them to be much quicker and this is only the start of it.
One of the wildest plotlines in the great 2020 electric-vehicle rally was the late-year rise of QuantumScape, a battery startup that has yet to report any revenue. If investors are even close to being right about its roughly $44 billion market value, they may need to worry more about the fortunes of Tesla.

QuantumScapes shares have soared since going public in November. The company revealed promising test results for a limited version of its solid state" battery in early December, but otherwise the stocks meteoric ascent has been hard to explain.

Based in San Jose, Calif., and backed by Volkswagen and Bill Gates, the company now has a market value greater than Ford. Investors have gotten used to dizzying valuations for electric-vehicle startups positioning themselves as the next Tesla. With QuantumScape, the mania has reached potential suppliers too.

Solid-state batteries have long been seen as a way of breaking through performance limitations associated with todays electric vehicles. Like your smartphone, a Tesla or BMW i3 is powered by a battery with a liquid electrolyte that carries lithium ions back and forth between the cathode and anode during charging and discharging. These liquid electrolytes are bulky and liable to overheat. General Motorsrecalled almost 69,000 Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles in November after five reported fires.

The promise of solid state is to get rid of the liquid, and with it the fire risk. Moreover, lithium-metal" cells being developed by QuantumScape, among others, combine the lithium component with the anode, further reducing bulk and potentially delivering more power at a lower cost. This is also critical: Electric vehicles have long been held back by the relatively high cost of batteries, which makes them more expensive than combustion-engine equivalents.

Other advantages of solid state include rapid charging and longer life expectancy. QuantumScape said in December that its cell as tested could be recharged to 80% in 15 minutes and retained more than 80% of its capacity even after 800 charges. Such numbers would make owning an electric vehicle much more similar to owning a gas-powered one today.

Many in the battery industry see solid state as the most likely technology of the future. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk is a prominent exception. Solid state wasnt among the many developments discussed in the companys September battery day." Mr. Musk told analysts on the third-quarter results call that removing the conventional anode is not as great as it may sound" in terms of delivering space savings in the cell.

Teslas skepticism may also be related to its own battery technology, which would likely make it harder than for others to adapt to solid state electrolytes. Tesla uses cylindrical batteries formed from rolled cells, whereas its competitors typically favor so-called prismatic batteries, in which cells can be stacked. Because solid-state cells are more brittle than liquid ones, they will be much easier to stack than to roll.

Adapting most of todays electric-vehicle battery factories to the new technology wont be too disruptive, says Graeme Purdy, chief executive of Ilika, a U.K.-based solid-state company that is working with Jaguar Land Rover to ensure a smooth transition. But it might be another story for Tesla. This could be the point where the companys batteries, which have been a competitive advantage to date, turn into a competitive disadvantage.

Tesla does have time on its side, if it needs to change tack. Toyota probably has the most advanced solid-state batteries today: It planned to have them powering prototype vehicles at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which were postponed a year, and is targeting a mass-produced model by 2025. But the technology probably wont be cost competitive with todays batteries until the late 2020s at the very earliest.

QuantumScapes investors are playing a very long game. The business plan doesnt envisage meaningful revenues before 2026. There is also no guarantee that the companys solution will win out over those of Toyota and others. The test results QuantumScape announced last month were for single-layer battery cells. Private U.S. startup Solid Power is already producing multi-layer solid-state batteries in a factory in Louisville, Colo. The manufacturing challenges get exponentially harder as you move to multiple layers," says Mark Newman, an analyst at brokerage Bernstein who focuses on the battery industry.

The valuations of companies like Tesla and QuantumScape require investors to look far into the future and assume mass disruption to the status quo. The wrinkle is that if QuantumScapes plan works outa big ifTesla itself could be one of the companies most disrupted. In 2020, investors bought almost anything related to electric vehicles. This year they need to become more discerning.

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

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LONDON (AP)  With daily coronavirus infections surging as a result of a new virus variant, the British government faced mounting pressure Saturday from teachers' unions to keep schools in England closed for at least another two weeks.

The government, which oversees schools in England, has already decided to keep all schools in London closed next week to try to stem new infections. Unions want the policy extended across the whole of England, expressing fears about the health of both teachers and children.

The U.K. on Saturday hit a daily record for new coronavirus infections  57,725  and looked set to soon overtake Italy once again to become the worst-hit country in Europe with nearly 75,000 COVID-19 deaths. The fear is that with rising infections, the number of deaths will also grow over the coming weeks.

The U.K. has recorded its five highest daily new infection numbers over the past five days  all above 50,000 and double the number of only a few weeks ago.

After an emergency meeting on Saturday, the National Education Union, which represents over 450,000 education workers, called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative government to move learning online for at least two weeks. It also told members they have a legal right not to have to work in an unsafe environment of accelerating coronavirus cases, hospital admissions and deaths.

We are doing our job as a union by informing our members that they have a legal right to refuse to work in unsafe conditions which are a danger to their health and to the health of their school communities," said Kevin Courtney, the union's joint general secretary.

Another union representing teachers, the NASUWT, also called for an immediate nationwide move to remote education due to virus safety concerns. Its general secretary, Patrick Roach, said there's genuine concern that schools and colleges are not able to reopen safely at this time.

The NASUWT will not hesitate to take appropriate action in order to protect members whose safety is put at risk as a result of the failure of employers or the government to ensure safe working conditions in schools and colleges, he said.

Story continues

The governments own Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies warned at a Dec. 22 meeting that schools needed to stay closed to bring down virus transmission rates.

The U.K. is struggling with a sharp spike in new cases as a result of a new virus variant that officials say could be up to 70% more infectious.

The variant has been particularly prevalent in London and in surrounding areas, prompting Education Secretary Gavin Williamson to row back on plans to allow some primary schools  those for children 11 and under  in the capital to reopen as scheduled on Jan. 4.

Most other primary schools in England are still scheduled to open on Monday. High school reopenings have already been delayed for millions of students, with exam-year pupils scheduled to return on Jan. 11 and others a week later.

With many British hospitals at or near capacity, there are growing concerns over how the already stretched National Health Service will cope with an expected rise in people seeking treatment after getting infected over the holidays. Field hospitals are getting outfitted again to take in patients.

On the inoculations front, Britain began vaccinating people over 80 and health care workers on Dec. 8 with the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine. Last week, the government approved another vaccine made by Oxford University and pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca that is cheaper and easier to use.

The U.K. plans to ramp up vaccinations on Monday using 530,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and has set a goal of vaccinating 2 million people a week as soon as possible.

The Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath in southern England was one of the first to get the newly approved vaccine on Saturday.

Dr. George Findlay, the trusts chief medical officer, said the newly approved vaccine is much easier to administer than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which needs to be stored at temperatures around minus 70 degrees Celsius (minus 94 Fahrenheit).

More than a million people in the U.K. have already received their first jab of the Pfizer vaccine.

In a shift from practices in the U.S., Britain plans to give people second doses of both vaccines within 12 weeks of their first shot rather than within 21 days, to accelerate immunizations across as many people as quickly as possible.

___

Follow AP coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

11.
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Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 20:29:15|Editor: huaxia

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DAKAR, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- The government of Senegal will face challenges of reviving its economy heavily impacted by the health crisis of COVID-19, and of resuming infrastructure projects in 2021.

In his address to the Nation on New Year's eve, the Senegalese President Macky Salldeclared that 2021 would be the year of the revival of economic activity, despite the uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic of which the first was reported in the country on March 2, 2020.

The health crisis has forced Senegalese authorities to revise down the prospects for economic growth to just over 1 percent, though it had been projected at 6.8 percent for 2020.

Key sectors of its economy, such as transport and tourism, have been strongly impacted by the country's restrictive measures containing the spread of COVID-19, such as the state of emergency, the curfew, the closure of land and air borders.

Senegalese Minister of the Economy Amadou Hott already ruled out risk of recession of Senegalese economy. President Sall also confirmed this by saluting the record productions during last year's cereal and peanut harvests.

For Senegalese politican and businessman Mamour Cisse, in order to stimulate Senegalese economy out of the pandemic, the government should focus on the youth and produce anti-COVID-19 equiments and materials.

He called on the government to support small and medium-sized industries as well as informal sector that are essential job providers. "It is necessary that there is vision and stable resources to achieve this ambition", he said during an interview on ITV.

"We need industries to substitute for imports. Today, agriculture must be put at the heart of economic activity alongside businesses," he continued, recommending a return of young people to the fileds.

For him, the state should continue to develop infrastructure projects to support industries.

President Sall also reiterated recently that the government would continue its efforts to further implement structural transformation of the economy by carrying out infrastructure projects that are essential to the country's emergence.

Sall announced earlier the launch of the 100 km Mbour-Fatick-Kaolack highway project and the 167 km Thies-Tivaouane-Saint-Louis highway project in 2021.

As for railway infrastructure, President Sall mentioned the operation of the Regional Express Train (TER) in 2021, a project planned for the transport of passengers between Dakar and the Blaise Diagne International Airport (AIBD), of which the second section, connecting Diamniadio (Dakar suburb) to the AIBD, is in final phase of preparation. Enditem
Washington, Jan 1 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Jan, 2021 ) :The United States has recorded more than 20 million cases of Covid-19, Johns Hopkins University said Friday in its real-time tally, as the New Year brought another grim milestone underlining the country's struggle to quell the virus.

The US has so far registered 20,007,149 cases and 346,408 deaths in the pandemic, the Baltimore-based university said, making it the country with by far the highest official number of cases and the highest death toll.

On Wednesday alone, more than 3,900 people died of Covid-19 in the US, a new daily record, and experts believe the worst is yet to come as health care workers brace for a surge in cases and deaths after holiday gatherings.

More than 125,000 people are currently hospitalized with coronavirus -- another record -- according to the Covid Tracking Project.

The country has begun a mass campaign of vaccinations and nearly 2.8 million people have already received their first jabs, a figure well behind the 20 million inoculations that the administration of President Donald Trump promised by the end of the year.

More than 12 million doses have been distributed nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but efforts to vaccinate health workers and vulnerable people have been hampered by logistical problems and overstretched hospitals and clinics.

President-elect Joe Biden, who takes office on January 20, has criticized the troubled vaccine rollout, and this week confirmed that he would invoke the Korean War-era Defense Production Act to force private industry to step up production for the government.

He has implored Americans to wear masks to slow the spread of Covid-19 and said he would impose a mandate on face coverings in areas where the Federal government has jurisdiction, such as airplanes.

- 'We owe them' - Paying tribute to US health care workers on New Year's Eve, Biden said "they stepped up and they are brave. They have done so much for us, and we owe them." Under Trump, US authorities have given often mixed messages on mask-wearing, social distancing and shutdowns, and the outgoing president has repeatedly downplayed the risks while cases have rocketed across the country.

In his New Year's Eve message, Trump hailed the "medical miracle" of coronavirus inoculations, adding "our most vulnerable citizens are already receiving the vaccine, and millions of doses are quickly being shipped all across our country."According to Johns Hopkins, the US took several months to reach 10 million cases on November 9, before accelerating to 20 million cases on Friday.

After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 194,949 deaths from 7,675,973 cases, and India with 148,994 deaths from 10,286,709 cases.
The kidnapped Nigerian Auxiliary Bishop of Owerri Archdiocese, Moses Chikwe and his driver Robert Ndubuisi, have been released.

By Vatican News English Africa Service

According to a statement of the Archdiocese of Owerri, made available to Vatican News, Bishop Chikwe and his driver were released on the evening of the New Year, 1 January.

"With gratitude to God, I hereby inform all Christ's Faithful and People of Goodwill everywhere that at about 10:00 pm on 1 January 2021, His Lordship, Most Rev. Moses Chikwe and Mr Ndubuisi Robert, his driver, who were abducted in the evening of Sunday the 27 December 2020 were finally released. I personally visited and saw Bishop Chikwe in his residence at about 10:45 pm, looking very weak from the traumatic experience. Nevertheless, we continue to thank Almighty God for His goodness to us. At the time of my visit, Mr Ndubuisi Robert, the driver, was unavailable because he had been speedily taken to the hospital for the treatment of a deep cut he received on his hand from the kidnappers," said the Archbishop of Owerri, Anthony Obinna.

Pope Francis' appeal for the release of the Bishop

In remarks following the Angelus prayer on New Year's Day, Pope Francis appealed for Bishop Chikwe and his driver's release. The Pope called upon the faithful, "to join the Archdiocese of Owerri's prayer in Nigeria for Bishop Moses Chikwe and his driver," kidnapped on 27 December. "We ask the Lord that they and all those who are victims of similar acts in Nigeria may return unharmed to freedom and that that dear country may regain security, concord and peace," appealed the Holy Father.

Archbishop Obinna thanked Pope Francis for the appeal

"I sincerely thank the Holy Father, Pope Francis for mentioning the captivity of Bishop Moses Chikwe and Mr Ndubuisi Robert and praying for their release at his New Year Angelus Message at the Vatican just hours before they regained their freedom," said Archbishop Obinna.



Gratitude to Nigerian authorities



Earlier in the week, there was heightened concern and alarm for the well-being of Bishop Chikwe and his driver when a fake news post spoke of the discovery of the body of Bishop Chikwe. The Archdiocese of Owerri was forced to quickly reassure the faithful that, "This information is unconfirmed, misleading and does not come from the Catholic Archdiocese of Owerri".

In the meantime, Archbishop Obinna has thanked the Imo and Anambra State Governments in Nigeria, together with their security wings for their efforts to secure the release of Bishop Chikwe and his driver.

"I gratefully acknowledge that the Imo State Government through the Directorate of Security Services and the Anti-Kidnapping Squad of the Nigeria Police Force and the Anambra State Government through the Chief Security Office of the State combined their efforts to attain the release of Bishop Chikwe and Mr Ndubuisi Robert, his driver.

Confirming their release, a spokesperson of the State Police Command, Orlando Ikeokwu, said that the Bishop and his driver were released unharmed and without any ransom paid, thanks to the police's operation in Imo State.




A Prayer for Staying Strong in 2021

By: Alisha Headley

That is why, for Christs sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. - 2 Corinthians 12:10

Its always a great thing to set goals for ourselves when a new year begins. We can have all the intentions to start the year strong like perhaps we did in 2020. But what happens if a crisis hits that throws you completely off course, like the one we all experienced this past year? What if 2021 looks similar to 2020? Are you so tied to the outcome of this pandemic or your difficult road you are walking, that you often feel weak?

What if the way to staying strong in 2021 is leaning on the only ONE who is strong? Because what if this same time next year, the pandemic is still around and what if its here to stay for another year?

Im not sure how you are feeling after a year that none of us ever imagined nor expected to walk through. But sometimes not having the answers is what finally points us to the one who IS the answer  Jesus himself.





In todays Scripture, Paul is writing to the church in Corinth about the story of having a thorn in his flesh. He is describing how He was given a thorn in the flesh and prayed that it would be removed from him. The Lord responded with saying My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in your weakness. (Verse 9) We are not sure if the thorn in Pauls flesh was ever removed. But it is then, that Paul took pleasure in lifes infirmities saying that it is in those times, that when he is weak, then he is strong. Paul knew that if he never had the distresses in his life, then he would be strong in his own power. He knew that in those weak moments, that is when we are made strong in Christ.

Lets follow the example of Paul and learn to boast in our infirmitiesand take pleasure in them (Verse 9-10) even if we dont know how long they will be around for. They could be a thorn in our flesh for the rest of our lives so that we will depend on Gods grace alone. Lets stay strong in 2021, knowing that no matter what happens, in our weakest moments in an undependable world pandemic, that we are actually made strong because we depend on a dependable God.

Dear God,

As hard as this year was, we thank you for our distress and our infirmities just as Paul teaches us to do. We thank you that it made us come to the truth that you are the only One in control. That when our whole world was turned upside down in 2020, you were right side up, holding it all together. Thank you for being a faithful God. One that knows the beginning and the end.

Father, we ask for your strength to go into a new year. We ask that we would stay strong by trusting in you and you alone. For our strength is made perfect in weakness. (Verse 9) We have no idea how 2021 will look. In fact, it might look exactly like it did this past year, but Lord we trust that your strength will guide and lead us. That your grace will sufficiently uphold us.

Remind us in moments of doubt to soak ourselves in your Word, for your Word is the lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our path. (Psalm 119:105) It is lit dimly enough to take us from one step to the next. We trust you this day and trust you with 2021.

We commit to leaning not on our understanding (Proverbs 3:5) and strength, but rather trusting in yours.

In Jesus Name,

Amen

Alisha Headley is a writer and speaker who has a desire to meet the everyday woman in her everyday life with biblical truth. Healing from a chapter of life consumed with lies she once believed about herself, she is inspired to point women to Christ to experience the freedom and power to overcome those lies with the truth written in Gods word. Alisha is a proud wifey and dog mama living in Charlotte, North Carolina. You can follow her blog by visiting her website or connect with her on facebook + instagram.





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A month ago, I would wake up in the middle of the night seized by a recurring nightmare: my little boys, Max, 22 months, and Gabriel, who is three, had been orphaned. I was still here but their father was not.

Their father is Julian Assange, the publisher of WikiLeaks. Today, that terrible nightmare is all too close to becoming a reality.

Julian has been on remand in Belmarsh prison in South-East London for almost two years.

He is fighting a political extradition to the United States, where he risks being buried in the deepest, darkest corner of the US prison system for the rest of his life. Julian embarrassed Washington and this is their revenge.

The nightmares came to a sudden stop the week before Christmas, when a groundswell of support from all sides of the political spectrum called for President Trump to pardon him.

A month ago, I would wake up in the middle of the night seized by a recurring nightmare: my little boys, Max, 22 months, and Gabriel, who is three, had been orphaned. I was still here but their father was not. Their father is Julian Assange, the publisher of WikiLeaks. Today, that terrible nightmare is all too close to becoming a reality, writes Stella Moris (above with her sons)

A leaked audio recording of Julian talking to the US State Department unmasked the trumped-up nature of the charges against him.

Leading figures, from former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin to Nobel Prize winners, such as human-rights campaigner Adolfo Perez Esquivel, have been calling for Julian's freedom.

So far, there has been no pardon. But tomorrow, a British magistrate will decide whether to order Julian's extradition or throw out the US government's request.

If Julian loses, I believe that it would not only be an unthinkable travesty but that the ruling would also be politically and legally disastrous for the UK.

Julian has been on remand in Belmarsh prison in South-East London for almost two years. He is fighting a political extradition to the United States, where he risks being buried in the deepest, darkest corner of the US prison system for the rest of his life. Julian embarrassed Washington and this is their revenge. (Above, Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2017)

That is because Julian's case is not about what some people would have you think it is about.

His role in founding the WikiLeaks website is well known and it is fair to say Julian has angered many government and establishment figures around the world. WikiLeaks has published thousands of sensitive classified documents, many from the US military.

Yet Julian has been acting in the same way as any other journalist would in attempting to hold the powerful to account.

President Obama's administration realised this, and understood that charging Julian would require them to prosecute international media outlets.

After all, newspapers, websites and TV stations had published substantially the same revelations as WikiLeaks. That is why, at the end of his term in office, Obama freed WikiLeaks's US Army Intelligence source, whistleblower Chelsea Manning, from jail.

With Trump, however, the mood has changed dramatically and under his administration, journalistic practices have been pursued as crimes.

WikiLeaks and Julian have been accused of 'endangering national security', but US prosecutors admit they have no evidence to support claims that WikiLeaks publications caused physical harm to anyone. Perhaps that explains why their tactics have become increasingly desperate.

During Julian's extradition hearing at the Old Bailey in September, the court heard evidence that CIA contractors were plotting to kill him with poison while he was in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

Agents-turned-whistleblowers, who were granted anonymity by the court due to their fear of reprisals, also admitted targeting our then six-month-old baby to steal his DNA.

They told the court that they had installed hidden microphones to spy on Julian's solicitors' meetings. The offices of his lawyers were also broken into.

It might seem unthinkable that a British court would give its stamp of approval to such rampant, illegal actions by the US.

His role in founding the WikiLeaks website is well known and it is fair to say Julian has angered many government and establishment figures around the world. WikiLeaks has published thousands of sensitive classified documents, many from the US military. Yet Julian has been acting in the same way as any other journalist would in attempting to hold the powerful to account. (Above, Assange arriving at Westminster Magistrates' Court in 2019)

It might seem equally unthinkable that a man who was practising journalism in this country, perfectly legally according to UK law, could be tried in a foreign land and potentially jailed for life.

But that is what would happen if the UK decides to extradite Julian. It would rewrite the rules of what it is permissible to publish here. Overnight, it would chill free and open debate about abuses by our own government and by many foreign ones, too.

In effect, foreign countries could simply issue an extradition request saying that UK journalists, or Facebook users for that matter, have violated their censorship laws.

Reporters Without Borders and the National Union of Journalists have said that as long as Julian remains in prison facing extradition, the UK is not a safe place for journalists and publishers to work.

The press freedoms we cherish in Britain are meaningless if they can be criminalised and suppressed by regimes in Russia or Ankara or by prosecutors in Alexandria, Virginia.

If Westminster Magistrates' Court accepts the US arguments tomorrow, every other country can use them, too. It would place an impossible burden on you, me, everyone, not to violate foreign censorship laws.

Countries such as Azerbaijan are already lecturing the UK about press freedom because of Julian's incarceration. It has become an easy way to score cheap political points against Britain. 'What about Assange?' is the perfect comeback to criticism of human-rights abuses.

The US-UK Extradition Treaty, a relic of the Blair era, is partly to blame. It grants the US privileges the UK does not have: the US can reject an extradition request, as it has done to prevent Anne Sacoolas from facing justice after being charged with causing the death by dangerous driving of 19-year-old motorcyclist Harry Dunn following a road crash outside a US military base in Northamptonshire.

There is no prima facie evidence requirement and US claims cannot even be cross-examined in court.

Still, you might say, once extradited, Julian would face a fair trial. You might assume that he would, for example, be allowed to exclude hostile jurors. You might assume that he could defend himself by arguing that it was his duty to expose war crimes, torture and state illegality, and that the public had a right to know. You might assume he would be treated equally according to the law.

But you would be wrong. I believe the verdict is a foregone conclusion.

In Alexandria, there is a special rule that jury members cannot be excluded because they work for the government. Julian's case could have been tried elsewhere in the US but prosecutors chose to try it there, a state that houses US intelligence headquarters.

The court complex is just 15 miles from CIA headquarters. The state is populated by employees of the very sector that Julian exposed, people who have sworn oaths of allegiance to defend America against all enemies.

The legislation under which Julian is charged does not allow a public interest defence. The US does not dispute that what WikiLeaks published was of the highest public interest  it simply says it is irrelevant and Julian should go to prison regardless.

The Trump administration has argued that because Julian is not a US citizen, he would not enjoy constitutional free-speech rights.

This alone should mean that a UK judge throws out the extradition request. To allow it would expose everyone to the risk of discrimination in a foreign court on the basis of nationality.

In the US, I believe Julian would face a certain and monstrously unjust conviction.

You might think that his case is somehow special. It is not. As far as the precedent is concerned, I believe Julian might as well be a British journalist working for The Mail on Sunday.

The extradition concerns the US and Julian today, but next time it could be Turkey, Saudi Arabia or Russia demanding that we send journalists to stand trial in their courts.

The precedent would make political extraditions permissible. The accepted scope of the Official Secrets Act would radically expand to match the Trump administration's interpretation of the 1917 Espionage Act, under which Julian has been charged on 17 counts.

Even re-reporting information that someone else has already published would be an offence.

Extraditing Julian would be so manifestly unjust that it seems impossible. But it is not. It is precisely at times like these when our rights are most easily taken away from us, while we are distracted with major global issues such as Brexit and Covid.

Tomorrow's ruling comes just four days into Brexit. It could be regarded as a metaphor for Brexit itself: will Britain's values assert themselves against outside interference, or will Britain and its people be pushed around by others?

No matter what happens, we will continue to fight for what we know is right.

It is a fight for our family, to give our sons the right to grow up with their father. But it is also a fight for justice and a fight for everyone's right to live in a free society.
Barcelona"Can the sun be patented?" This is what New York virologist Jonas Salk, considered the father of the polio vaccine, said in an interview when asked why he didn't want to patent it. Now humanity is on the verge of eradicating this disease, as it did with smallpox and rinderpest. However, Salk did not become rich, because he put health first as a public good. Seventy years later, this is not the criterion that prevails with the covid-19 remedies. A few weeks ago WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that "Having safe and effective vaccines against a virus that was totally unknown just a year ago is an exceptional scientific milestone. But it would be even more so to ensure that all countries enjoy the benefits of science equally".
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1. Yes. The public must have assurances that ethical standards are met by everyone.

2. Yes. As long as an independent board hears the grievances, its a worthwhile idea.

3. No. The concept is too broad. It should be limited to the citys elected officials.

4. No. There are plenty of stipulations in place already. An ordinance is a waste of time.

5. Unsure. Its hard to say without seeing how it would be structured and applied.

Vote

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BEREA, Ohio -- A longstanding situation involving the lack of streetlights in one section of the Sandstone Ridge housing development in Berea will be resolved in 2021.

Mayor Cyril Kleem told City Council at its Dec. 21 meeting that the problem originated in 2009 when electric supplier CEI opted to no longer install streetlights in developments, which left it up to the developers.

This has been an ongoing issue, Kleem said. All of the (Sandstone Ridge) development prior to this phase has lights, and all the development after this phase has lights. This phase was skipped.

He explained that a 2001 Berea ordinance prohibits the city from installing streetlights in developments, because doing so would be considered new infrastructure. Kleem said he drafted changes to that legislation last year, and the amended piece will appear before council in the coming weeks.

If passed, the ordinance will enable the city to move forward with the streetlights installation.

Estimated cost will be $15,000 to $20,000, which will come from the citys street lighting fund. The affected area primarily appears to be along Slippery Rock Lane, Kleem said.

He indicated that the president of the homeowners association told him more than a year ago that the HOA would install the lights.

Its now been 14 to 15 months since that promise was made, and that (installation) never happened, Kleem said, noting that a letter was sent to the HOA nearly two months ago as well. Its been a long, ridiculous process.

Ward 2 Councilman Chris McManis said he had spoken with the HOA president about the citys installing the lights, and theyre open to it, while Ward 3 Councilman Jim Maxwell asked if the city has legal right-of-way to do the work.

To my knowledge, this is something we can move forward with and do, Kleem responded. Back in 2009, there was general consensus (from residents) in support of it. (The issue) faded away until about two years ago. I think the residents are kind of expecting this at some point.

Electric cabling will need to be run along the street because no infrastructure exists from when the homes were built. Berea Director of Public Service Paul Anzalone said CEI will need to do some kind of excavation or direct bore to install it, but he believes the work will be done in the most least-invasive way.

Read more stories from the News Sun.
(CNN)  You'd struggle to find anyone in Europe who will be unhappy to see the back of 2020.

COVID-19, Brexit and the international political carnage of this year have hammered the continent and exacerbated tensions that have blighted the European Union for years.

But those problems are not going anywhere in 2021.

With no pandemic, fraught talks with the UK or an American president as anti-European Union as Donald Trump, Brussels might finally find space to address issues that have long undermined the bloc  though it won't be easy.

To some extent, the crises of 2020 have masked a debilitating lack of unity across the EU. For all Brussels' lofty ambitions of greater integration and becoming a global force in its own right, it faces pushback on issues ranging from internal adherence to the rule of law to a coordinated strategy for dealing with China.

Rule of law is probably the most immediate problem to solve.

After months of painful negotiation, the bloc's member states agreed on both a long-term budget and a Covid recovery package that totaled nearly $2 trillion. The nations that have been worst affected by the pandemic desperately need those funds.

However, two member states spent a good chunk of 2020 objecting to the release of those funds: Hungary and Poland.

The governments of Viktor Orban and Mateusz Morawiecki objected to the funds being tied to adherence to the rule of law, which is unsurprising as both are being investigated for breaches at an EU level. The charges levelled at both countries range from suppression of government critics to undermining the independence of the judiciary.

During the coronavirus crisis, concerns have also been raised about the use of emergency measures in numerous EU nations  including Hungary and Poland  that curb the fundamental rights of citizens.

It had long been speculated that Brussels would attempt to tie the EU's budget to the rule of law as a way of bringing delinquent states to heel.

Unfortunately, trying to do so during a pandemic and the subsequent recession has strengthened the impact of the veto to which every member state is entitled.

In this particular instance, intransigence in Budapest and Warsaw ultimately led to a compromise in Brussels in which both sides gave ground, which in the grand scheme of things could be interpreted as the EU fudging on one of its key principles.

"Hungary and Poland might be the most extreme cases. But lots of other nations have backslid on civil liberties in the past few years," says Jakub Jaraczewski, legal officer at Democracy Reporting International.

"Tying rule of law directly to EU money is not in itself a bad idea," he explains. "But if more than one nation is pushing the boundaries by curtailing freedoms and undermining judges, you will inevitably find these states backing each other at an EU level, undermining the whole thing."

Several influential voices in Brussels had previously suggested approving the Covid recovery funds without Hungary and Poland, moving forward as 25, rather than 27. That approach, though, would have carried the risk of opening another fraught debate within the EU: Precisely how united the Union should be.

Before Brexit, it wasn't just the UK which had populist movements agitating to leave the EU. Four years on, Europe's Euroskeptic parties are no longer looking to leave the bloc  now they want to take it over instead.

"It's clear that our electorate does not currently seek an exit from the EU, so instead our focus is to build enough Euroskeptic support to steer it away from the looming disaster of ever closer unity," says Gunnar Beck, a member of the European Parliament for Germany's far-right Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) party.

Beck believes that the European Euroskeptic movement has the potential to grow, even as normality is restored post-Brexit and Joe Biden, a supporter of the EU, replaces Trump.

"The EU has been in perpetual crisis since 2010 and hasn't solved any of the problems these crises have caused, be it the eurozone crisis, the migration crisis or now the Covid crisis," he says.

2021 will see several opportunities to prove him right or wrong.

Elections are to take place in several member states, including in Germany and the Netherlands  two influential nations in Brussels. Both countries have strong Euroskeptic populist movements. AfD is the official opposition in Germany, while in the Netherlands Geert Wilders  a man often described as the Dutch Trump  will be defending his position as leader of the largest opposition party.

The fear for Europhiles isn't that these extreme parties get into power, but that they spook mainstream politicians to the degree that they end up borrowing the populists' rhetoric. This, as they are well aware, is exactly what happened in the UK, as Nigel Farage cranked up the pressure on Conservatives to the point they had no choice but to call the Brexit referendum.

This sensation is nothing new in the Netherlands. Incumbent Prime Minister Mark Rutte caused controversy during the 2017 election when he wrote an open letter critical of Islam and immigration. In 2020, Rutte was critical too of the EU's spending plans, demanding that money not be wasted  an unusual move for a European liberal.

"Rutte's shift to the right can only be understood when you look at how dangerous the prospect of Wilders eating into his vote might be," says Sarah De Lange, a professor at the department of political science at the University of Amsterdam. "Wilders is still a big force. Many have predicted his demise, but he is still here with a huge following."

It's a pattern that has been repeated in many other EU countries including France, Germany, Czech Republic and Austria.

Even in electoral defeat, the populists can claim political victories.

"When populists go down, mainstream parties see an opportunity to pick up those votes and control the right-wing of their own parties. When they adopt far-right ideas, eventually, that filters through to EU level and changes the dynamic in Brussels," says Catherine De Vries, professor of political science at Milan's Bocconi University.

While populists may not be expecting to win power in Germany or the Netherlands any time soon, they do see opportunities to work with colleagues elsewhere in Europe. "France, the Netherlands, Germany  none of us will be the catalyst for change, we are just too brainwashed," says Beck.

"But if you look to our colleagues in central Europe who are free from the pro-Brussels neurosis, you find countries who are willing to stand up to the EU in a way Germany isn't," adding that there's "no nation that has ever been as effectively castrated when it comes to asserting itself."

The degree to which member states are willing to assert themselves plays a crucial role in the other key issue that will trouble Brussels in 2021: Where should the EU sit on the international stage?

The Trump presidency forced Europe to think seriously about its relationship with the US. The fact that someone so willing to be a disruptive force in Europe occupied the office of Europe's most important ally was obviously troubling.

The loosely-defined term "strategic autonomy" has been thrown around in Brussels for the past couple of years. In short, it is the EU's drive to be more self-reliant in areas such as security, economics, supply chains and climate change, to name a few.

In reality, it is a naked attempt to emerge as one of the three major powers, alongside the US and China.

"Europeans are under no illusion that the US is going to take a radically different approach to China  Trump has permanently changed the narrative on that," says Erik Brattberg, director of the Europe Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

"While they are relieved that the White House is going to be more predictable on China and keen to coordinate with partners, they are still going to resist becoming a chip in the Beijing-DC tug of war," he says.

This will become complicated for European nations when Biden demands that Chinese companies be banned, or that Europeans speak out against human rights abuses.

Indeed, the EU's intent to behave independently of the US was hammered home this week, as the leadership of the bloc signed an investment agreement with China that would be unthinkable to any US president.

"Lots of European countries, especially Germany, export huge amounts to China and will not want to cut off that revenue stream," adds Brattberg.

If a common policy on diplomacy wasn't tough enough, the drive from Brussels for a common security and defense policy is likely to cause even greater division.

It's no secret that French President Emmanuel Macron would like to see Europe take greater control of its own security. It's also no secret that the leadership in Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and many others are deeply uncomfortable at the prospect of building up huge military capabilities across the continent.

In short, lots of EU nations are quite happy with their security being subsidized by NATO and the US, while also having deep economic relations with China and Russia.

And, as Brussels has found thus far in these discussions, it's very difficult to negotiate with those who have become accustomed to having their cake and eating it.

2020 was a very difficult year for the EU, there's no other way of putting it. Through fudges and arm-twisting, it navigated around the cracks of division, and it will likely do so throughout 2021.

Whether it has the political will or talent to do so without widening those cracks is another matter entirely.

This story was first published on CNN.com "2020 was a terrible year for Europe. 2021 is unlikely to be much better"
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A Maine man has been arrested and charged with attempted arson of the Martin Luther King Jr. Presbyterian Church in Springfield, officials said Saturday.

Dushko Vulchev of Houlton, Maine, was arrested Friday and is charged with several counts of malicious damage and three counts of attempted arson, according to the office of the state fire marshal.

The first attempt to burn the church at 14 Concord Terrace was on Dec. 13, followed by two attempts on Dec. 15, officials said.

Vulchev was arrested by Pittsfield Police and is being held on bail pending an arraignment scheduled for Monday morning in Pittsfield District Court.

An investigation into the fire that damaged the church on Dec. 28 is ongoing, officials said. That fire has been called suspicious by local leaders. It caused heavy damage to the church.

Vulchev has previously faced federal charges out of Maine. Federal court records indicate he was charged in 2015 with threat to a foreign official and threats in foreign commerce.

A Facebook page that law enforcement sources confirm belongs to Vulchev has two videos recorded outside the Springfield Wahlburgers restaurant that appear to be taken around the dates of the fires.

In one video, uploaded at 11:57 p.m. on Dec. 26, a voice is heard saying, Marky Mark, maybe youre right.

11:55 . Posted by    on Saturday, December 26, 2020

Another video is dated Dec. 13 at 2:14 a.m.

2:13 . Posted by    on Saturday, December 12, 2020

The Facebook page lists Vulchev as the owner of Ruvenis Research. Maine corporation records list Vulchev, with an address of 343 Court in Houlton, Maine, as the owner of Ruvenis Research, an LLC that has been administratively dissolved.

Houlton is more than a six-hour drive from Springfield.

Rep. Bud L. Williams, D-Springfield, and Bishop Talbert Swan II, president of the Springfield chapter of the NAACP and the head of Spring of Hope Church of God in Christ, held a press conference at the church on New Years Eve, calling on Mayor Domenic J. Sarno and Fire Commissioner Bernard J. Calvi to work more closely with local churches.

In the history of America, one terrorist act that has always been enacted against the Black community has been striking against the heart of their faith and the burning down of their churches, Swan previously said. While we understand that the authorities are investigating this and it has not been deemed to be a hate crime, the concern in our community should be understandable.

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A NSW RFS MBB-Kawasaki BK117B-2 Helicopter is seen at RAAF Base Richmond in Sydney, Australia on Oct. 23, 2020. (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

New Australian Warning System Will Help Save Lives

The new Australian Warning System uses nationally consistent icons to show hazards on websites and apps, working on a three-tier scale from Advice to Emergency.

Its hoped a new Australian Warning System will deliver more consistent safety messages and help save lives across the country.

The system uses a set of icons to show incidents on websites and apps that are supported by calls to action.

Emergency Management Minister David Littleproud says it delivers on the recommendations of the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements.

The commission was established in response to the extreme bushfire season of 2019/20 in which the firefighting effort stretched across the country.

In the past Australians had been relying on different warning systems for different hazard types that varied across jurisdictions, Littleproud said. The new warnings have come into effect for bushfires in all jurisdictions except for Western Australia, which will adopt it in the near future.

Warnings for other hazards such as floods, cyclones and heatwaves will be phased in over time, he said.

The three warning levels are Advice (incident underway, no immediate danger), Watch and Act (conditions changing and heightened level of threat) and Emergency Warning (you may be in danger and need to take action immediately).

Littleproud commended the Australasian Fire and Emergency Services Authorities Council for the systems development.

By Nick Gibbs
Louth County Council is doing its bit to bring about a change in legislation so that money confiscated from criminal gangs can help fund local addiction services and other initiatives.

The disclosure at a Joint Policing Committee meeting that 1 million had been seized by gardai in Louth prompted Independent representatives Paddy McQuillan and Maeve Yore to propose a motion at the December meeting.

They requested the local authority write to the Ministers for Justice, Finance and Public Expenditure to make provisions where monies confiscated under the Proceeds of Crime Legislation be redirected from central coffers to combat the effect of drug addiction in Louth communities, and that the necessary legislation is changed to allow this vital funding support to happen.

Cllr McQuillan said the motion had been submitted to 12 councils. It was not just a local issue.

He added organisations in Drogheda were starved of funds. The legislation needed to be changed but it could be if there was enough political will.

Cllr Yore asked that the motion, in fact, be forwarded to every local authority in Ireland.

'We should be helping the people addicted to drugs.'

As chair of the Louth Alcohol Drugs Task Force, Cllr Kevin Meenan lent his support to the motion.

He wanted to see wider debate in terms of where the money could be directed.

Cllr James Byrne said more investment was needed, particularly in the south side of Drogheda.

This was a very important issue, Cllr Pio Smith added, as drugs were a threat to all of society.

The Argus
Taliban have abducted a passenger bus with dozens on board in Afghanistans western province of Herat on Saturday, Sputnik reported citing Afghan broadcaster Shamshad News.

According to the report, 45 passengers have been kidnapped by the terrorist group.

The attack unfolded around 7 am local time.

A group of armed insurgents intercepted a passenger bus with dozens on board in Childokhtaran area along the Herat city-Turghundi highway at about 07:00 am (local time) and took it to an unknown location, Lal Mohammad Omarzai who serves as the district chief for Rubat-e-Sangi district told Xinhua.

The Taliban have not yet commented on the matter.

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A Linden man faces a first-degree murder charge in the strangulation of a woman who was found in his apartment on New Years Eve, acting Union County Prosecutor Lyndsay V. Ruotolo announced Saturday.

Edward T. Sokowski, 62, was arrested after police found Kim E. Lewandowski, also 62, dead in the apartment on the 200 block of South Wood Avenue in Linden, authorities said. The relationship between the two was not specified by the authorities.

Linden police arrived at Sokowskis apartment at 8:08 p.m. on Dec. 31 and found Lewandowski there, authorities said. She was pronounced dead shortly after 8:30 p.m., the prosecutors office said.

Sokowski was arrested Friday and being held in the Union County Jail pending a detention hearing. The investigation was led by the Union County Homicide Task Force with help from the Linden Police Department and Union County Sheriffs Office Crime Scene Unit.

Id like to commend the professionalism and swiftness with which this investigation was conducted, Ruotolo said in a statement. Barely 24 hours elapsed from the time of the initial callout through the autopsy and investigation and on to the arrest, bringing swift justice to a defendant who committed a horrific crime.

Anyone with information about the matter is asked to contact Task Force Sgt. Johnny Ho at 908-403-8271 or Detective Sonia Rodriguez at 908-341-3380.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Rebecca Panico may be reached at rpanico@njadvancemedia.com.
The Queen personally stepped into to ban Prince Harry from taking part in the Remembrance Day service last November, it has been reported.

Her Majesty was joined by the Prince of Wales, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and the Princess Royal at the Cenotaph on 8 November, in honour of armed forces members who died in the line of duty.

The Duke of Sussex - who relocated to California in April - was absent from the ceremony, and reports at the time suggested that his request to have a wreath laid in his name was rejected.

Instead the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were photographed leaving flowers at the graves of two Commonwealth soldiers in the Los Angeles National Cemetery.

Officials said the Queen had no knowledge of the decision to reject Prince Harrys involvement in the service, but it has now been alleged that Her Majesty personally turned down the Princes request.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex laying flowers in Los Angeles (archewell.global/instagram)

A source told The Daily Mail: Remembrance Sunday is sacrosanct when it comes to Her Majestys diary. Its one of the most important dates in her calendar and nothing is done without her knowledge.

People were suggesting the Palaces reaction to what Harry asked was petty. But it was the Queens decision. And whats more, she actually had very strong views on the subject.

According to the source, it took the Queen all of two seconds to make up her mind, while another added: The Queen is very firmly of the opinion that you can't pick and choose what you do when it comes to the institution, either you are in  or you are out.

Last March Prince Harry stepped down from his royal duties and now lives in California with the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, and their son, Archie.

The Duchess of Sussex with her son, Archie, on his birthday (archewell.global/instagram)

Recently the couple shared black-and-white photographs of themselves as children on the newly relaunched website for their non-profit organisation, Archewell.

One of the images shows the duchess hugging her mother, Doria Ragland, and the other shows Prince Harry sitting on the shoulders of his late mother, Princess Diana.

The couple also published a letter to 2021 on the website, which reads: I am my mothers son. I am our sons mother. Together we bring you Archewell.

We believe in the best of humanity. Because we have seen the best of humanity. We have experienced compassion and kindness from our mothers and strangers alike."
City, volunteers to line Highway 81 with flowers

The City of Watertown Parks and Recreation Department and volunteers will be planting flowers along Highway 81 starting at 8 a.m. Wednesday, May 26.
A new year and a new start awaited Tyler Hollingsworth as he returned home the first time in eight days.

Since Dec. 24, Hollingsworth has been at the Hurley Medical Center in Flint, recovering from critical injuries he received when he and fellow Midland Police officer Chuck Brown responded to a fire that ultimately claimed the life of a Midland man.
The Supreme Court on Saturday stayed for two weeks the demolition of an alleged illegal construction done by the BJP legislator from Roorkee, Pradeep Batra.

In a special sitting over the weekend, the SC bench, headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar, asked the MLA to approach the high court with his request to carry out demolition of all identified unauthorised constructions by himself.

The bench heard senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi on behalf of Batra, as the lawyer submitted that the MLA will himself pull down all illegal constructions after an inspection and identification by the Roorkee- Haridwar municipal authorities.

Rohatgi, assisted by advocate Gagan Gupta, also conceded that in case Batra fails to raze the unauthorised construction within a week of such identification by the municipal authorities, the officers would be free to forthwith demolish the same by taking help of local police force, if necessary.

Taking on record these submissions, the bench, which also included Justice BR Gavai, agreed to give two weeks time to the MLA for approaching the Uttarakhand High Court with a formal application in this regard.

The court ordered a status quo for two weeks but also clarified that it has not expressed any merit on Batras contentions. It will be open to the High Court to accept the suggestion/proposal as made by the petitioners or to reject the same. We are not expressing any opinion either way on the merits of the said statement, added the bench.

On December 24, the high court had paved way for demolishing a large part of Batras property in Roorkee, rejecting his plea that a request for settling the dispute after paying for the illegal construction, identified by the municipal authorities, is pending since 2017.

The high court noted that the authorities have on December 18 issued a demolition order and hence, there was no requirement to wait for disposal of Batras application to compound the irregularities.

The order had come on a public interest litigation (PIL) by one Gaurav Pundir in 2017. Pundir alleged that the MLA and his family had illegally constructed a building on a Nazul land (land in governments control) in Roorkee. The PIL had also stated that various notices and orders on illegal constructions were issued to Batra by the municipal authorities since 2015 but the MLA went ahead with further constructions.

Subsequently, the high court heard Batras contentions and also the municipal authorities before giving a go ahead for the demolition.
By Lisa Mascaro and Mary Clare Jalonick, AP

WASHINGTON  A growing number of Republican lawmakers are joining President Donald Trumps extraordinary effort to overturn the election, pledging to reject the results when Congress meets next week to count the Electoral College votes and certify President-elect Joe Bidens win.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas on Saturday announced a coalition of 11 senators who have been enlisted for Trumps effort to subvert the will of American voters.

...And after they see the facts, plenty more to come...Our Country will love them for it! #StopTheSteal https://t.co/0IdbiACLIb  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2021

This follows the declaration from Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who was the first to buck Senate leadership by saying he would join with House Republicans in objecting to the state tallies during Wednesdays joint session of Congress.

Trumps refusal to accept his defeat is tearing the party apart as Republicans are forced to make consequential choices that will set the contours of the post-Trump era. Hawley and Cruz are both among potential 2024 presidential contenders.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had urged his party not to try to overturn what nonpartisan election officials have concluded was a free and fair vote.

The 11 senators largely acknowledged Saturday they will not succeed in preventing Biden from being inaugurated on Jan. 20 after he won the Electoral College 306-232. But their challenges, and those from House Republicans, represent the most sweeping effort to undo a presidential election outcome since the Civil War.

We do not take this action lightly, Cruz and the other senators said in a joint statement.

They vowed to vote against certain state electors on Wednesday unless Congress appoints an electoral commission to immediately conduct an audit of the election results. They are zeroing in on the states where Trump has raised unfounded claims of voter fraud. Congress is unlikely to agree to their demand.

The group, which presented no new evidence of election problems, includes Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Steve Daines of Montana, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Mike Braun of Indiana, and Sens.-elect Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.

Trump, the first president to lose a reelection bid in almost 30 years, has attributed his defeat to widespread voter fraud, despite the consensus of nonpartisan election officials and even Trumps attorney general that there was none. Of the roughly 50 lawsuits the president and his allies have filed challenging election results, nearly all have been dismissed or dropped. Hes also lost twice at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The days ahead are expected to do little to change the outcome.

Joe Biden will be inaugurated on January 20th, and no publicity stunt will change that, said Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the top Democrat on the panel overseeing the Electoral College count.

Klobuchar said the Republican effort to create a federal commission to supersede state certifications is wrong.

It is undemocratic. It is un-American. And fortunately it will be unsuccessful. In the end, democracy will prevail, she said in a statement.

The convening of the joint session to count the Electoral College votes is usually routine. While objections have surfaced before  in 2017, several House Democrats challenged Trumps win  few have approached this level of intensity.

On the other side of the Republican divide, several senators spoke out Saturday against Cruz and Hawleys effort.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said in a statement that she will vote to affirm the election and urged colleagues in both parties to join her in maintaining confidence in elections so that we ensure we have the continued trust of the American people.

Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said a fundamental, defining feature of a democratic republic is the right of the people to elect their own leaders. He said the effort by Hawley, Cruz and others to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in swing states like Pennsylvania directly undermines this right.

Earlier this week, Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, another possible 2024 contender, urged his colleagues to reject this dangerous ploy, which he said threatens the nations civic norms.

Caught in the middle is Vice President Mike Pence, who faces growing pressure from Trumps allies over his ceremonial role in presiding over the session Wednesday.

Several Republicans have indicated they are under pressure from constituents back home to show they are fighting for Trump in his baseless campaign to stay in office.

Sen. John Thune, the second-ranking Republican, told reporters at the Capitol that leadership was allowing senators to vote their conscience.

Thunes remarks as the GOP whip in charge of rounding up votes show that Republican leadership is not putting its muscle behind Trumps demands, but allowing senators to choose their course. He noted the gravity of questioning the election outcome.

This is an issue thats incredibly consequential, incredibly rare historically and very precedent-setting, he said. This is a big vote.

Pence will be carefully watched as he presides over what is typically a routine vote count in Congress but is now heading toward a prolonged showdown that could extend into Wednesday night, depending on how many challenges are mounted.

A judge in Texas dismissed a lawsuit from Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and a group of Arizona electors trying to force Pence to step outside mere ceremony and shape the outcome of the vote. U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, dismissed the suit late Friday.

To ward off a dramatic unraveling, McConnell convened a conference call with Republican senators Thursday specifically to address the coming joint session and logistics of tallying the vote, according to several Republicans granted anonymity to discuss the private call.

The Republican leader pointedly called on Hawley to answer questions about his challenge to Bidens victory, according to two of the Republicans.

But there was no response because Hawley was a no-show, the Republicans said.

Hawleys office said he sent an email afterward to his colleagues explaining his views. In the email, Hawley said constituents back home are angry and disillusioned with the outcome of the election.

McConnell had previously warned GOP senators not to participate in raising objections, saying it would be a terrible vote for colleagues. In essence, lawmakers would be forced to choose between the will of the outgoing president and that of the voters.
Narratives of the new Cold War and the liberal West versus authoritarian China are neither adequate to grasp the political economy of contemporary China, nor do they explain global contradictions. More importantly, such narratives serve to obfuscate the reality of political and economic challenges faced by the vast masses of the developing countries as well as advanced capitalist countries.

As the Covid-19 pandemic ravaged the United States (US), the administration of Donald Trump launched an all-out campaign against China in its efforts to cover up its own failures in saving lives and containing damages to the economy. It was thought to be easy to sell it to the public because the Covid-19 virus was first found and identified at Wuhan in China. A narrative was set in motion that China failed to intimate the world on time and control this infectious disease effectively. It was told that the world was paying heavy price for Chinese failures. Some leaders of the Republican Party in the US went even further and blamed the Chinese food habits as well as their lifestyle for the emergence of the new version of the coronavirus. In President Trumps scheme of things, China bashing had been a tried and tested formula for political success. In 201516, when he launched his presidential campaign, Trump had targeted China with the rhetoric that it has stolen American industries, jobs and technology to become a powerful nation. And he blamed establishment politicians in the US for having let it happen. In his simple narrative there was no place for nuances of post-Soviet era globalisation, driven and led by the US itself that had resulted in the migration of industries and investments from the West to China (and to many other developing countries).

Inconsistencies in policies and actions remained a hallmark of Trumps term in the White House. China was no exception for it. His promised hard line against China was intermittently interrupted at certain occasions, like his wholesome praise of president of Peoples Republic of China (PRC) Xi Jinping (while meeting him), his administrations trade deals with China (when Trump reportedly pleaded before Xi to buy agricultural products from the US and help him in his re-election bid) (Bolton 2020), and while Trump was trying to befriend Kim Jong-un of Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. In earlier moves, the Trump administration had imposed levies on Chinese goods, sanctioned 5G technology of Chinese company Huawei, and had forced the US allies in Europe and North America to follow his anti-China line. In the era of the Covid-19 crisis, all these moves turned more aggressive and the term new Cold War became part of the everyday world discourse. It heartened many people in the West and in developing nations, including India, as well.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca and Bharat biotech vaccines against coronavirus disease (Covid-19) are all set to get the Drug Controller General of India nod for restricted emergency use, with the priority vaccination of health workers, frontline workers and older populations scheduled to begin in January. India aims to vaccinate around 300 million people over the next six months.

The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine costs US$5-6 per dose, but it will be given free to those who need it under the Central governments vaccination drive. Bharat Biotech has not disclosed the price of its Covid-19 vaccine. The vaccines are free not just in Delhi but the entire country, said Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Saturday.

The UK became the first country to approve the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine on December 30 and will begin vaccination before India on January 4. Only India has cleared the Bharat Biotech vaccine for approval.

Vaccines work. Mass vaccination led to the global eradication of smallpox in 1979, with the last case reported in Somalia in 1977. Before its eradication, variola virus that causes smallpox infected at least 50 million people annually in the 1950s and killed around 300 million in 20th century, compared to the 100 million people who died in wars and armed conflict in the same period.

Read more| Day 1 of nationwide dry run concludes as two Covid-19 vaccines await final nod

Not getting vaccinated not just leaves people unprotected but fuels the unfettered spread of disease. Politics and fake science are fuelling safety concerns about the AstraZeneca vaccine on social media even before its approved for use in India. Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday said, I am not going to get vaccinated for now. How can I trust BJPs vaccine?, while former Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy tweeted if Indians were going to be guinea pigs.

Politically-motivated leaders, discredited researchers, and uninformed influencers can mislead people with little or no understanding of science, which has led World Health Organisation (WHO) to list vaccine hesitancy as one of the top 10 threats to global health in 2019, along with air pollution and climate change. Vaccine hesitancy is a reluctance or refusal to get vaccinated despite availability and affordability of a vaccine.

With fake science spreading within minutes on social media, the Central and state governments and public health professionals have the additional task of debunking emotionally-charged rumours.

Dr Harsh Vardhan, a trained clinician who led Indias polio eradication efforts both in Delhi and the country as the state and then the national health minister, fired an opening salvo on Saturday and said people should reject misinformation rumours against the new Covid-19 vaccines. I appeal to people to not believe in any rumours. Different kinds of rumours were spread during polio immunisation, but people got their children vaccinated, which led to India being declared polio free. The safety and efficacy of the vaccine is the governments priority, and these will not be compromised, said Dr Harsh Vardhan.

Read more| Covid-19 vaccination dry run underway; health minister urges people not to pay heed to rumours

Conducting nationwide innoculation campaigns is not new to India. Mass vaccination ended smallpox in the country within a year of the disease devastating Bihar, Odisha and West Bengal in 1974, when India recorded at least 61,000 cases and 15,000 deaths. The last indigenous case was reported in the Katihar district of Bihar on July 5, 1975, following which India was declared small-pox free in 1977.

Following extensive nationwide vaccination drives, India was officially declared polio-free in 2014, three years after the last case was reported in West Bengal on January 13. Massive outreach programmes to dispel conspiracy theories about the polio vaccine being a birth-control tool targeting Muslims in parts of western Uttar Pradesh and Bihar finally led to reduction in cases. Polio cases declined from a global high of 741 in 2009 to one in 2011. Interrupted vaccination coverage has led to polio persisting in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which together reported 451 cases in 2020, according to data reported to WHO till Dec 30.

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic interrupted vaccination services, unfounded rumours about the safety of measles-rubella vaccine had slowed coverage in some states despite the vaccine saving at least 21 million lives globally since 2000.

The biggest challenge is ensuring vaccines reach those who need it as soon as possible. Priority populations will not account for more than 10% hence need a plan for general population or else we too will encounter suboptimal vaccination rollout like US. Government should consider 50:50 deployment for three months and then lift restrictions to augment access Why not have 50:50 split in vaccine deployment between priority and general population? tweeted Kiran Majumdar Shaw, executive chairperson, Biocon Limited.
Political - external relations between Vietnam and Middle East - African countries continued to be strengthened and deepened via many flexible forms, in the context of the disruption of delegation exchanges. Many Vietnamese ministries, sectors, localities and businesses have conducted consultations, joint committee meetings and online exchanges with regional partners to promote specific areas of cooperation and to seek out new opportunities. Bilateral cooperation mechanisms were maintained, such as political consultation at the level of Deputy Foreign Minister of Vietnam - Mozambique, meeting of the Joint Vietnam - Egypt Committee and the first session of the Joint Vietnam - Morocco Sub-Committee on Trade and Industry.

In 2020, medical diplomacy has become a bright spot in Vietnam's relations with the Middle East-Africa region. Vietnam actively provided medical supplies and face masks for traditional African friends such as Algeria, Mozambique and Angola, while proactively sharing experiences in disease prevention and control and promoting medical cooperation and exchange across all levels. This has been highly appreciated by Middle East - African countries, while contributing to enhancing the image of Vietnam as a trusted friend and reliable and responsible partner in the region. Vietnam's deployment of a level-2 field hospital and dispatch officers to join the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in South Sudan and Central Africa has contributed practically to efforts towards a common peace in the area. Furthermore, the promotion of the appointment of the Honorary Consulates of Mozambique and Morocco in Vietnam and the Honorary Consulate of Vietnam in Israel also contributes to improving the efficiency of cooperation between Vietnam and several regional countries.

Economy, trade and investment between Vietnam and the region continued to achieve many substantial results. Despite the negative influence of the COVID-19 epidemic, Vietnam's trade turnover with the region in 2020 is expected to have reached US$17.5 billion. Many export products of Vietnam such as rice, coffee, seafood and home electronics have penetrated and gained a strong foothold in the regional market. Vietnamese related ministries and agencies have proactively supported domestic enterprises to access new and potential markets and partners as well as participating in production and supply chains in the Middle East and Africa and across the globe through many initiatives and activities such as the forum on potential global Halal food market and the international forum Franconomics 2020.

Vietnam is also actively promoting, developing, finalising and signing legal frameworks to facilitate bilateral cooperation with the region, notably the signing of a Protocol amending the Air Transport Agreement between Vietnam and Israel, completing negotiation and approval procedures for the content of the Cooperation Framework Agreement with Ukraine, establishing a ministerial-level cooperation mechanism on environment and climate change between Vietnam and the UAE, and promoting the development and signing of Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements and Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements.

In the energy sector, mainly in relation to oil and gas, Vietnam's cooperation projects with partners in the region, especially with Algeria, Saudi Arabia and UAE, are being actively implemented. In terms of culture, the Vietnamese embassies in some regional countries have organised cultural events that attracted local people to attend, at the same time enhancing propaganda and advertising about Vietnam. The continued deployment of Vietnam's telecommunications investment projects in a number of African countries in 2020 has helped people in the region increase their access to telecommunications services and expand opportunities for digital connectivity in the region as well as between the region and the globe. In addition, Vietnam has actively mobilised the region's potential partners to provide it with ODA. In 2020, a local fund signed a loan agreement worth US$20.3 million for a project building inter-regional transport infrastructure to support socio-economic development for disadvantaged districts in Yen Bai province.

Vietnam and Middle East-African countries have worked closely at multilateral fora, including at the UN. Vietnam always accompanies Middle East - African countries in defending the core values of peace and development, upholding international law and participating in solving related issues in the region. As ASEAN Chair in 2020, Vietnam played an active role as a bridge between ASEAN and a number of countries and regional organisations such as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the African Union (AU), while pushing South Africa to sign a document to join the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC). Many countries in the region have highly appreciated and congratulated Vietnam on successfully taking on a dual role in 2020, expressing their belief that Vietnam would fulfil its role as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 2021, while affirming their close coordination at multilateral forums and the UN, in order to protect the common interests of developing countries. In addition, Vietnam has also strengthened the establishment of official relations with the AU and promoted the establishment of a dialogue mechanism with GCC countries, in order to expand cooperation between Vietnam and important regional organisations.

In the context of complex developments in the world and the region, with a tradition of friendship, mutual trust and aspirations for independence, sustainable development and prosperity, combined results in cooperation between the two sides over the years together with great opportunities for the two sides will help Vietnam and the Middle East  Africa region continue to promote comprehensive cooperation, thereby bringing the relationship between the two sides to new heights, contributing to peace, cooperation and the development both of the region and the world.
WASHINGTON - The Senate wrapped up a rare New Year's Day session with Republicans rejecting President Donald Trump's demand for $2,000 COVID-19 aid checks and overriding his veto of a sweeping defence bill, an unusual one-two rebuke at the end of a chaotic Congress.

WASHINGTON - The Senate wrapped up a rare New Year's Day session with Republicans rejecting President Donald Trump's demand for $2,000 COVID-19 aid checks and overriding his veto of a sweeping defence bill, an unusual one-two rebuke at the end of a chaotic Congress.

Democrats tried a final time to push forward a House-passed bill that would boost the $600 direct aid payments just approved by Congress to $2,000 as Trump demanded for millions of Americans. Republicans blocked a vote, arguing in favour of a more targeted approach.

The rejection of Trump's top priorities, along with the first veto override of his presidency, offered an unusual willingness by the president's party to confront Trump, now in his final days in the White House after losing the November election to President-elect Joe Biden.

Trump lashed out at GOP leadership on Twitter. Pathetic!!!" he wrote.

But Trump appeared more focused on his next battle to overturn the results of the election during next week's session tallying the Electoral College votes.

Congress is ending a dizzying session, a two-year political firestorm that started with the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history, was riven by impeachment and a pandemic, and now closes with the GOP's rare rebuke of the president.

Democrats vowed to swiftly revive the plan for $2,000 checks after the new Congress is sworn in Sunday.

President-elect Joe Biden has made clear that the pandemic relief bill that Congress passed is simply a down payment on the work that needs to continue, said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., the chair of the House Democratic caucus. Were going to continue to fight for a $2,000 direct payment check.

Tensions ran high as senators sniped over slogging through the holiday season at the Capitol.

Trump's demands for additional aid upended the year-end COVID-19 relief and federal funding package, forcing his Republican allies to stand alone as Democrats embraced his push for more direct payments to struggling American households.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer tried, as he has all week, to push the proposal for a vote.

This is it  the last chance, Schumer said.

The New York senator said the only thing standing in the way" is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republican senators.

The second-ranking Republican, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, rose to object, saying the proposal was not an effective way to meet the needs of Americans.

That drew an angry tweet from Trump.

Trump said the states Republican Gov. Kristi Noem, an ally, should pose a primary challenge to Thune, who faces reelection. Noem has previously said she intends to run again for governor.

But presidential tweets that once sparked fear in Republicans may be losing their punch.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told reporters at the Capitol that she found it very dispiriting at this time, New Years Day, that the president would be working to pit Republicans against Republicans.

Trump's last-minute demands threw Congress into a tumultuous year-end session that deepened the divide within the party between the GOP's new wing of Trump-styled populists wary of defying the president and what had been mainstay conservative views.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who has pledged to lead Trump's challenge to overturn the election during next week's session, was among those senators who also supported Trump's push for COVID-19 aid.

Hawley found himself in common cause with Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, who argued Friday for a vote.

Bring the bill to the floor, Sanders said.

Hawley agreed. He said with the president and the House supporting more aid, only the GOP-led Senate stood alone.

This seems to be the Senate versus the United States of America, Hawley said.

McConnell has shown little interest in Trump's push to bolster the $600 relief checks just approved in a sweeping year-end package, declaring Congress has provided enough pandemic aid, for now.

He dismissed the proposal, as passed by the House, as socialism for rich people who dont need the federal help.

McConnell proposed his own bill, loaded up with Trumps other priorities to rein in big tech companies and investigate the 2020 presidential election. But it was not a serious effort, and he did not push it forward for a vote.

The refusal to act on the checks, along with the veto of the defence bill, could very well be among McConnell's final acts as majority leader as two GOP senators in Georgia are in the fights of their political lives in runoff elections next week that will determine which party controls the Senate.

At one point Friday, the Senate's presiding officer mistakenly called Schumer the majority leader.

Someday soon, Schumer quipped.

Trump and Biden are poised to campaign in Georgia ahead of Tuesday's election as GOP Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler face Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.

It's a chaotic end to a session of Congress that resembles few others for the sheer number of crises and political standoffs as Trump's presidency defined and changed the legislative branch.

Congress opened in 2019 with the federal government shutdown over Trump's demands for money to build the border wall with Mexico. Nancy Pelosi regained the speaker's gavel after Democrats swept to the House majority in the midterm election.

The Democratic-led House went on to impeach the president over his request to the Ukrainian president to do us a favour against Biden ahead of the presidential election. The Republican-led Senate acquitted Trump in 2020 of the charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

When the pandemic struck, Congress rallied with unusual speed and agreement to pass a $2 trillion relief package, the largest federal intervention of its kind in U.S. history.

The usually bustling halls of Congress became eerily silent most days. Many members tested positive for the virus.

The Congress had few other notable legislative accomplishes and could not agree on how to respond to the racial injustice reckoning that erupted after the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black Americans at the hands of law enforcement.

Instead, the Senate was primarily focused on filling the courts with Trump's conservative judicial nominees, including confirming his third Supreme Court justice, Amy Coney Barrett.

For now, the smaller $600 checks are being sent to households. Americans earning up to $75,000 qualify for the full payments, which are phased out at higher income levels, and theres an additional $600 payment per dependent child.
Trump: States Slow to Administer COVID-19 Vaccine

The slow administration of COVID-19 vaccines is due to states, President Donald Trump said late Jan. 1.

Some States are very slow to inoculate recipients despite successful and very large scale distribution of vaccines by the Federal Government. They will get it done! he wrote in a tweet.

Out of 12.4 million doses distributed as of Dec. 30, just 2.8 million have been injected, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some states have administered fewer than a quarter of the doses theyve received. In California, for instance, just 294,281 doses have been given, out of more than 1.4 million received.

Trump earlier this week told states to get moving with injections.

Trump administration officials said they expected to pass out about 20 million doses by the end of 2020.

Officials previously said they expected to circulate double that, with 20 million people being injected by the time the new year came.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is among those criticizing the delayed distribution and injections.

The Trump administrations plan to distribute vaccines is falling behind, far behind, Biden told a press conference in Delaware this week. As I long feared and warned, the effort to distribute and administer the vaccine is not progressing as it should.

With funding and backing from the federal government, Pfizer and Moderna developed COVID-19 vaccines in record time, starting in January 2020 and receiving emergency use authorization from drug regulators in December.

Even Biden acknowledged that Operation Warp Speed, Trumps all-of-government effort to speed the development of vaccines and therapeutics, deserves some credit for getting the vaccines produced so quickly.

But some experts are trying to figure out how to speed up the administration of the vaccines, especially the doses that have already been given to states, even as administration officials say theyre hopeful the pace catches up to the projections this year.

Florida Department of Health medical workers prepare to administer a COVID-19 vaccine to seniors in the parking lot of the Gulf View Square Mall in New Port Richey near Tampa, Fla., on Dec. 31, 2020. (Octavio Jones/Reuters)

We need to do essentially the kind of things were doing in our hospital. In our hospital, weve vaccinated 12 people every 30 minutes, Dr. Paul Offit, a member of a federal vaccine advisory panel, said Dec. 31.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the same day that states and counties were behind on giving the shots because they lacked resources.

Asked if the federal government should take over vaccine administration efforts, Fauci told NBCs Today show, Rather than stepping in and taking over, it would maybe be better to give more resources and work with them, in tandem with them.

Some governors have pointed to early miscommunication from Operation Warp Speed officials in terms of receiving fewer doses than they were told theyd get.

I had to lower the allocations to meet the releasable doses that were presented to me, the operations leader, Gen. Gus Perna, said last month.

In Missouri, Health Director Randall Williams said at a briefing that theres a gap when comparing the number of doses the state has received to the number its administered. Half the doses went to long-term care facilities, he said, and the states partnership with Walgreens and CVS just started on Dec. 28, so theres going to be a little bit of a lag there.

I just got off the phone with the executive director for the long-term care facility association. We think well have middle January, all those vaccines, the initial vaccines, should be administered, or shortly thereafter, Williams said.

One issue stems from the complex process of preparing the vaccines and training people how to administer them, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, told reporters this week.

Joneigh Khaldun, Michigans chief medical executive, said in a separate briefing: There is no question this is the most massive vaccination effort that we have ever undertaken in this country.

I think it is the operational challenges of it, that means that it is moving slower than any of us actually wanted to.
Only hours before the clock ticked over into 2021, the Prime Minister of Australia announced a single word would be changed in the national anthem; from we are young and free, to we are one and free. A gesture, he says, that takes nothing away, but adds so much" to our nation's story, for all Australians.

At sunrise on January 1, 2021, my first Facetime chat was to my 9-year-old niece who was fortunate to be bringing in the new year in the embrace of her kinship circle, as the unpredictable COVID-19 situation unfolds in Sydney. She is a proud little Wiradjuri and Wailwan warrior, the 2020 winner of the Larissa Behrendt Literacy Award at her school, and a young Koori kid who has the blood of a fierce black matriarchal lineage pumping through her veins.

Young Indigenous Australians need more than a one-word change to the national anthem. Credit:Cole Bennetts

I told her of the Prime Minister's announcement overnight, the change of one word in the national anthem as an attempt to recognise our ancient First Nations' storylines, her instinctive response was, It doesnt matter, I dont sing it and I still wont stand!

This is a kid who, like many others adapting to every COVID-19 challenge, shows up on the frontline of protests to resist every Australia Day proudly hitting the pavement wearing her red, black and yellow and yelling at the top of her lungs #AlwaysWasAlwaysWillBe and #BlackLivesMatter. On January 26, 2020, her little brother asked, sissy, what are we marching for? Her words: We are marching for our land back!
Ukraine plans to begin implementation of new roadmap for bilateral relations with U.S. this year

Kyiv is drafting a new roadmap for bilateral relations with the United States, which will be applied after the change of the U.S. administration, deputy chief of the Office of the Ukrainian President and presidential foreign policy advisor Ihor Zhovkva has said.

"We are already working on a new substantive roadmap for bilateral relations, which is due to be discussed and implemented starting in 2021," Zhovkva said in an article entitled "Foreign Policy Priorities of Ukraine in 2021" and published by ZN.UA.

Ukraine aims at building an efficient dialogue with the new U.S. administration on every level, including the summit one, he said.

"An official visit of the Ukrainian president to the United States remains on the agenda," Zhovkva said.

Other important tasks include the establishment of a systemic dialogue with members of the new Congress for the sake of bolstering the bipartisan support for Ukraine, he said.

"We will be working so that the updated U.S. policy contributes to the strengthening of trans-Atlantic unity and NATO, as well as to the broadening and strengthening of security support for Ukraine," Zhovkva said.

He also singled out new economic projects between Ukraine and the United States in the field of agriculture, energy, and information technologies.




Haiti - Venezuela : President Nicolas Maduro, commemorates the independence of Haiti





On January 1, 2021, the President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, in an official note greeted the Haitian people on the occasion of the 217th anniversary of Haitis independence.



Message from President Nicolas Maduro :



"We commemorate 217 years of independence from our sister Haiti. My greetings to these rebellious people who carry in their blood the legacy of the heroes who have succeeded in awakening the sacred flame of freedom in Caribbean America. Long live the anti-colonial spirit of the Haitian people!," wrote President Maduro on the social network Twitter.



"Haiti celebrates this January 1 the anniversary of its independence from France, the revolt began 12 years earlier in 1791 with a slave insurrection in the north of the island, led by Jamaican Boukman, who tried to implement the declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen established by the French Revolution, and proclaiming equal to all men.



The uprising, recognized as the first great revolutionary movement in colonial America, would take place in a deeply uneven territory with around 570,000 inhabitants.



The independence of Haiti was a milestone in the history of the region, being the second free Nation on the continent after the United States, and becoming a symbol for being the only Nation of black slaves.



The event shook the modern world, some worrying about the effect of the Haitian revolution would have on their societies, others saw hope in it."



HL/ HaitiLibre


















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The Ras Al Khaimah New Years Eve Celebrations dazzled the world with a 10-minute fireworks show that underlined the UAEs message of hope, peace and achievements, as the world welcomed 2021 with optimism and renewed confidence.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201231005253/en/

Ras Al Khaimah ushers in 2021 with one of the world's largest fireworks displays (Photo: AETOSWire)

Lighting up the sky over the Arabian Sea, the fireworks spectacle was organised by following all safety protocols. While guests, including UAE residents and tourists, at hotels in Al Marjan Island and Al Hamra Village watched the show on-ground, the event was also broadcast live on television channels globally and via social media channels, reaching millions of viewers around the world. People can catch up on the exciting show on raknye.com.

Abdulla Al Abdouli, member of the event Organising Committee, said: The Ras Al Khaimah New Years Eve Celebration is indeed a tribute to the resilience and strength of humanity. We are sending a message of positivity to the world from here in Ras Al Khaimah, urging people to move forward with confidence after what was an unprecedented year. As we move into 2021 with Ras Al Khaimah chosen as the GCC Capital of Tourism, we aim to inspire people to visit the emirate and explore its wonders in full confidence.

The Ras Al Khaimah New Years Eve fireworks show was indeed like no other with its location in the picturesque setting of the Arabian Sea, framed against the landmarks of Ras Al Khaimahs natural landscape, the architectural edifices of Al Marjan Island and Al Hamra Village.

With 8,500 kg of fireworks used, the display spanned a length of 4 km and width of 3.9 km, creating one of the brightest spots on earth. The festive panorama of colours was achieved from 81 launch pontoons that shot up 15,281 firework shells. The show took 20 days of offshore and onshore preparation with 30 technicians. More than 3 km of optical fibre was laid in addition to 6 km of control cables.

The 10-minute show was made all the more captivating with musical themes. With the countdown setting in, a great thunder and breathtaking display of colours followed to usher in the New Year.

*Source: AETOSWire

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201231005253/en/
To the Editor:

Re On Families: Feminism Has Failed Women, by Kim Brooks (Sunday Review, Dec. 27):

While I certainly agree that the pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on women, and that women continue to bear the brunt of our societys failure to support families, I take issue with the idea that feminism has failed women. In addition to historically espousing some of the very solutions mentioned in the article, including womens communes, feminism has in fact led to enormous progress for women and girls.

While feminism unfortunately has not yet achieved true inclusivity or a reckoning with its history of racism, younger women often dont credit feminism for the opportunities they can take for granted. Some dont realize, for example, that the wage gap, while persistent, has shrunk considerably, that there wasnt always such a thing as professional womens sports, or even that girls werent always allowed to wear pants to school.

Feminism has not failed women. Society has failed feminism. Blaming feminism is one more way to blame women for societys failures, and to divide women from one another. The exact opposite of what, as the article correctly points out, is most needed now.

Leslie H. Weber

Brooklyn

To the Editor:

The lack of adequate child care and paid family leave, improved health care benefits, better social supports and income equity are all issues at the forefront of the feminist movement. Feminism isnt the problem; its the only answer.
Indian fishermens illegal bottom trawling should stop, Lanka insists again during virtual talks By S. Rubatheesan View(s): View(s):

Sri Lanka reiterated its position that the issue of illegal bottom trawling by Indian fishermen in Lankan territorial waters should be resolved urgently, when the two sides came together this week for a virtual meeting of the fourth Sri Lanka-India Joint Working Group (JWG) on Fisheries.

The Sri Lanka delegation underlined the need to address the matter of environmentally harmful, unsustainable and illegal fishing in the Sri Lankan waters by Indian fishermen, which resulted in loss of livelihood and damage to fishing equipment of local fishermen, said a joint communique released after Wednesdays virtual talks.

The Indian side explained legal action taken against such practices and the initiatives to encourage South Indian fishermen to engage in deep sea fishing and alternative livelihood, according to the statement.

The Sri Lankan delegation, led by Fisheries Ministry Secretary R. M. I. Rathnayake consisted of senior officials from the Fisheries Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, the Attorney Generals Department, the Sri Lanka High Commission in New Delhi, the Sri Lanka Navy and Coast Guard.

The Indian delegation was led by the Indian Fisheries Ministry Secretary Rajeev Ranjan. Also in the delegation were officials from the Ministries of Fisheries, External Affairs, Home Affairs, the Tamil Nadu State Government, the Puducherry State Government, the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard.

The Sri Lankan delegation conveyed the need to enhance the joint patrolling and operationalisation of the hotline between the law enforcement authorities of the two countries to ensure effective results.

The Indian delegation called on Sri Lanka to ensure the early release of recently arrested Indian fishermen. The Sri Lanka authorities assured to facilitate the release of arrested fishermen early, once the legal procedures were completed. They told the Indian delegation that the arrested fishermen were being provided with necessary facilities, including consular access.

The discussion also saw focus being shed on Sri Lankas request for a safe passage for Sri Lankan fishermen to enter the Arabian Sea. Both sides expressed the desirability to convene an early ministerial meeting to continue the bilateral dialogue.

The first JWG meeting was held on December 31, 2016 in New Delhi, the Second in Colombo on April 7, 2017 and the third in New Delhi on October 13, 2017.

This weeks JWG meeting took place while Sri Lankan fisher associations accused Indian fishermen of carrying out the illegal bottom trawling in the Northern sea, even coming closer to the coastal area.

In Mullaitivu, fishermen alleged that Indian fishermen were seen close to the coast where the traditional fishermen engaged in fishing. They charged that Indian fishermen were making use of the security lax due to COVID fears from India to carry out illegal bottom trawling in the Northern sea and their boats could be seen from the coast during the daytime.

Mullaitivu Fisheries Federation Deputy Chairman K. Arulnathan said they would never agree to share Sri Lankas fishing resources with the Indian fishermen, as proposed by Tamil Nadu fishermen.
Nearly two dozen Youth Congress workers and Sikh activists supporting the farmers agitation were detained on Saturday, when they were holding a counter protest against Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, who were holding a dharna near Shingar cinema.

The BJP workers, led by national general secretary Tarun Chugh, were staging their protest against the alleged inflammatory statements made by Ludhiana Member of Parliament Ravneet Singh Bittu, and the deteriorating law and order condition in the state.

High drama was witnessed when a large number of Youth Congress workers accompanied by some Sikh activists tried to breach the police barricades and interrupt the saffron partys protest. The police had to use mild force to restrain them.

Earlier, the Sikh activists led by Harpreet Singh Makhu and Congress leaders had reached the Samrala Chowk and Transport Nagar road, respectively, to raise slogans against the BJP government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Makhu said, BJP is trying to disturb peace in the state and torpedo the farmers agitation. Police detained us even when we were protesting peacefully.

Youth Congress district president Yogesh Handa said, Farmers are struggling for their rights on Delhi borders while the BJP is doing politics here. We will continue to support the farmers till the farm laws are repealed.

Additional deputy commissioner of police (ADCP) Deepak Pareek said, To avert any untoward situation, around two dozen Congress workers and Sikh activists were detained by the police but they were released in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, the BJP leadership said that the Congress was protesting only to gain political mileage and was concerned about farmers.

SAD district president Ranjit Singh Dhillon, meanwhile, issued a statement saying that both Congress and BJP were trying to create trouble in the state. Farmers have already announced that they wont allow BJP leaders to enter their villagers; so why are the partys leaders protesting here, he said. On the Congress, he said, Bittus inflammatory statements will only bring back the old dark days of terrorism in the state.

The Mahila Congress, meanwhile, sent messages of protest to the BJP national leadership, over the FIR against Bittu. District president Leena Taparia said BJP leaders are acting like dictators and trying to suppress the voice being raised against them.

Protests lead to traffic chaos

Meanwhile, commuters were on the receiving end as huge traffic jams were witnessed near Samrala Chowk, Transport Nagar road and adjoining areas due to the protests. Police had been diverting vehicles from these roads, but it failed to help. Traffic movement was also disrupted on the internal roads of Shivaji Nagar area connecting Shingar cinema road with Transport Nagar Road.

Suresh, a commuter, said, The public should not be harassed due to the protests which are staged by political parties. Every time the matter is raised, police claims that strict action will be taken against those who will block roads during protest, but nothing is done.
Saturday, January 2, 2021

Ive previously written about Shari Redstone and the controversies surrounding Viacom and CBS; this week, VC Slights kindly gave me something new to blog about when he denied defendants motion to dismiss shareholder claims associated with the Viacom/CBS merger.

The CliffsNotes version is that due to a dual-class voting structure, Shari Redstone was the controlling shareholder of CBS and Viacom, and for several years fought to combine the two companies. Her dreams were finally realized in 2019 when the two merged in a stock-for-stock deal. Former Viacom shareholders sued, alleging that this was a transaction in which a controlling stockholder  Redstone  stood on both sides, and that the deal sold out the Viacom shareholders to benefit CBS and Redstone.

Normally, of course, deals in which a controlling stockholder has an interest are subject to entire fairness scrutiny unless they are cleansed in the manner prescribed by Kahn v. M&F Worldwide Corp., 88 A.3d 635 (Del. 2014). Notwithstanding the failure to employ those protections here, the defendants creatively claimed that business judgment review was appropriate  and moved to dismiss on that basis  arguing that mere presence on both sides does not trigger heightened scrutiny; instead, plaintiffs must additionally show that the controller received a nonratable benefit, which did not happen in the CBS/Viacom merger.

To me, thats kind of redundant; by definition, standing on both sides of a transaction means that the controller received something not available to the minority stockholders. In this case, Redstone was able to trade her CBS stock for shares in the combined entity  a benefit that Viacom stockholders did not share. (Well, okay, probably some Viacom stockholders did, but thats a whole nother issue Ive talked about pretty endlessly).

VC Slights, however, was unsatisfied with leaving things there, perhaps because it begs the question why Redstone would have favored CBS over Viacom in the exchange ratio. And the answer to that, according to the plaintiffs, was because Redstone wanted Robert Bakish at Viacom to head the combined entity, and a favorable-to-CBS exchange ratio was the price that the CBS board demanded for installing him. Normally, it might be reasonable to trade merger consideration for a particular governance arrangement, so plaintiffs further argued that this arrangement was unfair to the Viacom stockholders because Bakish wasnt worth the price. Redstone wanted him in place for personal reasons (to cement her control by installing an ally).

In any event, all of this left Slights with the question whether (1) standing on both sides is enough to trigger fairness scrutiny absent a nonratable benefit to the controller, and (2) if not, did plaintiffs allege enough of one?

His answers, respectively, were (1) to reserve judgment and (2) yes.

Whats interesting here?

First, though Slights chose not to decide whether entire fairness must always apply when a controller stands on both sides, in discussing the question, he had something of an intriguing footnote. He wrote:

I note that Viacom and CBSs dual-class structures, whereby NAI possessed more than 80% of the voting power but faced only 10% of the economic risk in both companies, commends Plaintiffs mere presence argument for careful consideration in this case. See David T. White, Delawares Role in Handling the Rise of Dual-, Multi-, and Zero-Class Voting Structures, 45 Del. J. Corp. L. 141, 15354 (2020) (positing that in dual-class structures, the owners of the majority voting rights in these companies are less concerned when riskier moves fail as compared to their counterparts at one share-one vote corporations); Lucian A. Bebchuk & Kobi Kastiel, The Perils of Small-Minority Controllers, 107 Geo. L.J. 1453, 1466 (2019) (observing that small-minority controllers are insulated from market disciplinary forces [in dual-class companies] and thus lack incentives generated by the threat of replacement, which would mitigate the risk that they will act in ways that are contrary to the interests of other public investors); id. ([D]ualclass structures with small-minority controllers generate significant governance risks because they feature a unique absence of incentive alignment.).

As we all know, dual class share structures are increasingly popular, and concerns have been raised that they present a challenge to Delaware corporate doctrine, which assumes that stockholders have economic incentives proportional to their interests and that a functioning market for corporate control justifies a deferential judicial stance. I could of course be overreading the footnote, but to me it suggests a hint of a step toward Delaware developing differential scrutiny for disputes involving dual-class shares, especially since the Note he cites by David White argues precisely that the business judgment rule is inapposite in dual-class cases.

Second, after concluding that Redstones personal interest in consolidating her control was a sufficient nonratable benefit justifying entire fairness scrutiny, he further held that plaintiffs had stated a claim against the controller for breach of fiduciary duty. But that left the question whether plaintiffs had also stated a claim against the directors on Viacoms special committee for breaching their duties by, essentially, bowing to Redstones demands.

Now the interesting thing here is that plaintiffs did not allege that the Viacom directors were interested in the transaction themselves; the entire basis for the allegations of disloyalty arose from their obedience to Redstone.

Thus the question: Assuming plaintiffs have alleged facts to suggest a transaction was unfair due to a conflict, can they state a non-exculpated claim for breach of fiduciary duty against disinterested directors who were involved with that transaction, solely due to their dependence on the person with the conflict?

To answer that question, Slights quoted In re Cornerstone Therapeutics, Inc. Stockholder Litigation, 115 A.3d 1173 (Del. 2015):

To state a non-exculpated claim for breach of fiduciary duty against an independent director protected by an exculpatory charter provision, Plaintiffs must allege facts supporting a rational inference that the director harbored self-interest adverse to the stockholders interests, acted to advance the self-interest of an interested party from whom they could not be presumed to act independently, or acted in bad faith.

Cornerstone did say that, tis true, but it still begs the question whether mere lack of independence is enough, or whether something more is required. (VC Glasscock asked that question in connection with a dispute over Oracles acquisition of NetSuite, and sought additional briefing on the matter. Which was never filed; the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their claims against the relevant defendants.)

Because heres the thing. Theres dependence, and theres dependence. Theres director dependence that comes from essentially agreeing to work for the controller rather than to work for the corporation, and theres director dependence that comes from, you know, being unconsciously biased to favor a friend. Thats particularly true today, since Leo Strine worked so hard to expand the concept of director dependence to include mutual affiliations that would make it difficult to assess [a persons] conduct without pondering his own association with [that person], In re Oracle Corp Deriv. Litig., 824 A.2d 917 (Del. Ch. 2003), and relationships [that] give rise to human motivations compromising the participants ability to act impartially toward each other, Sandys v. Pincus, 152 A.3d 124 (Del. 2016). Acquiescing to a controllers demands comes very close to a conscious disregard for the directors duties, or an intent to act[] with a purpose other than that of advancing the best interests of the corporation. Stone v. Ritter, 911 A.2d 362 (Del. 2006). Simple lack of objectivity, though, is much more like a good faith failure to recognize the flaws in ones own judgment.

Which is why it is not obvious that theres a blanket rule that dependence, alone, states a claim for disloyalty.

That said, Slights elided this issue, which he could do successfully because, although he framed his analysis in terms of director dependence, he actually found that plaintiffs had alleged a more serious kind of dependence  a controlled mindset, whereby they simply worked to advance Redstones goals. And that, coupled with other allegations about their relationship to Redstone, was enough to plead reasonably conceivable breaches of the duty of loyalty.

Third, the final interesting data point in Slightss examination of director independence had to do with the legal significance of the directors fear that Redstone would fire them if they failed to do her bidding. Now, the doctrine is sort of confused when it comes to directors fear of being removed by a controller  in the context of derivative lawsuits, its not grounds for a finding of dependence unless the directors have a personal need to remain on the job; in the context of cleansing a controller conflict, we assume generally that directors fear removal.

Here, though, the question was whether fear of removal was enough to create dependence such that it suggested disloyalty on the directors part  which is a whole nother question (one which, I would think, might actually raise the bar for a finding of dependence). And to answer that, Slights said that while he would not generally assume directors are dependent simply because they serve at the pleasure of the controller, it was not necessary for the plaintiffs to allege that these directors had an especial need for their positions in light of Redstones specific history of threatening to remove board members at Viacom and CBS who bucked her authority. The fact that they labored under that realized threat created an inference of dependence.

So takeaway here? The definition of dependence and its legal significance shifts across contexts  and depending on how the dual-class case law shapes up, the same may turn out to be true of control.

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/business_law/2021/01/dependence-control-and-viacomcbs.html
Florida became the United State's third state to report the more contagious COVID-19 variant that was first found in the United Kingdom.

NBC Miami reported that the first suspected case of a more contagious variant of COVID-19 in Florida was a man in his 20s who lives in Martin County.

The Florida Department of Health on Thursday said he has no recent history of travel.

The state's reporting of the new COVID-19 variant came as the U.S. surpassed 20 million cases on Friday. Reuters data showed that it only took 25 days to go from 15 million to 20 million.

The first U.S. case of the new COVID-19 strain was reported in Colorado on a man in his 20s with no recent travel history.

The variant was found next in California. It was detected in a 30-year-old man, also with no history of travel. Experts say other states will soon follow, reported The Washington Post.

Florida Health Officials Working with CDC

Florida health officials said they are working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in its investigation.

Florida has evidence of the first identified case of the UK COVID-19 variant in Martin County. The individual is a male in his 20s with no history of travel. The Department is working with the CDC on this investigation. We encourage all to continue practicing COVID-19 mitigation.  Florida Dept. Health (@HealthyFla) January 1, 2021

Martin County Commissioner Ed Ciampi said the lab that ran the test "noticed a difference in the strain," so they ran more tests, confirming the new strain data.

Related Story: Two States Confirm First Cases of More Contagious COVID-19 Variant

"We encourage all to continue practicing Covid-19 mitigation. At this time, experts anticipate little to no impact on the effectiveness of the Covid vaccine," the health department of Florida tweeted.

New York Times noted that the variant, also known as B.1.1.7., has not been known to cause more severe COVID-19 but was more contagious than other virus mutations.

Dr. Aileen Marty, a Florida International University epidemiologist, told NBC Miami that the new strain was 70 percent more contagious than the original strain.

But even though it has been seen as less severe, it could still lead to more hospitalizations and deaths from the virus because of bringing up the case count, continue affecting the already frail health care system in the country.

COVID-19 cases are expected to rise from holiday gatherings. Experts continue to encourage mitigation efforts such as mask-wearing and physical distancing as the virus still has the same means of transmission even though it is a strain.

Some 175,000 Get COVID-19 Vaccine in Florida

Over the past week, Florida has recorded an average of over 10,200 cases of COVID-19 per day, data from the New York Times showed.

On Wednesday, Governor Ron DeSantis said over 175,000 people in the state had been given a shot against the virus. While the numbers are promising, it's way below the government's promise at the start of the Operation Warp Speed vaccination effort.

More than three million people across the U.S. have been vaccinated as of Thursday, only about a seventh of what was promised by the government for the end of 2020.

Covid Vaccine Roll Facing Logistical Delays

Authorities said there had been a lag in reporting that could have affected the official tally and resulted in an undercount. However, the vaccine campaign is still facing various logistical delays.

Related Story: Operation Warp Speed Behind Schedule: Vaccinating Americans Could Take 10 Years at Current Pace

Gustave Perna, chief operating officer of the government's Operation Warp Speed, assured that officials would continue to "make adjustments" to bump up vaccinations as the months roll forward.

Former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb called for an increase in vaccinations, saying there was a need for a sense of urgency on the matter.
A section of Bexar County Jails South Tower could become a mental health facility with room to house and treat several hundred people who Sheriff Javier Salazar says should be patients, not inmates.

The facility would be staffed by health care professionals, in proximity to the jail but separate and independent from the Sheriffs Office.

Salazars innovative proposal has the initial support of County Manager David Smith, who called it an important initiative.

Its one of several ideas the sheriff is trying out in the new year, as he starts his second term, to fix persistent problems at the jail related to working conditions and costly overtime for detention officers.

Others include quiet areas where deputies can take a 20-minute power nap; a schedule of four days on, three days off with 12-hour shifts and two lunch breaks; and a designated retention sergeant to keep good officers from leaving.

A major concern is the large population at the jail  typically about 4,000 inmates  requiring a larger number of officers. The lockup is often at 80 percent of its capacity, and state law requires there be at least one jailer for every 48 inmates. Spacing and isolation of inmates during the pandemic has further strained staffing.

The two methods of doing this are more bodies in blue or fewer bodies in orange, Salazar said, referring to officers blue uniforms and inmates orange jumpsuits. Weve done it both ways.

County officials estimate about 25 percent of inmates at any given time have mental health issues, hence the focus on a way to divert those prisoners to a place better suited to help them and the community.

If converting space in the 2-year-old South Tower to a dedicated mental health facility works, it not only would help those inmates, it also would reduce the number of people in the main jail population and help ease some of the staffing pressure.

Its an idea other county officials are liking.

We as a society have become over-reliant on criminal detention systems to respond to mental health issues in this country, Smith wrote in a Dec. 18 letter to Salazar.

Smith said he will work with the sheriff and University Health to hire a consultant to study the feasibility of the project, including construction and operational cost projections.

Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff touched on the issue in his 2018 book, The Changing Face of San Antonio, noting the problem of incarcerating mentally ill people dates back to the 1960s, when thousands of patients were released from state psychiatric hospitals  including the one in San Antonio.

The development of antipsychotic drugs had offered a false hope that these people could be treated as outpatients. But instead, many mentally ill people go untreated, living on the streets or ending up in jail, Wolff wrote.

Staffing vacancies

There are more than 200 staff vacancies at the jail, but Salazar noted he hired 263 new employees in 2020 and has more than 130 in the pipeline  cadets or temporary jailers going through preliminary training to become cadets, to help chip away at our employment deficit.

Still, overtime is likely to be needed for some time to come, which doesnt sit well with the Deputy Sheriffs Association of Bexar County.

On ExpressNews.com: Bexar County leaders seek to address longtime jail woes in 2021

The deputies union is in the middle of negotiations with the county on a new collective bargaining agreement and has decried use of mandatory overtime, pleading with county commissioners to help find a solution.

Union officials recently released a 60-page report from a survey of nearly 350 deputies, including 230 detention officers, that determined nearly 60 percent dont feel valued by the agency. And 80 percent felt discipline policies were unfair, the report said.

In virtual bargaining sessions that are open but sparsely watched by the public, the county has offered to accelerate pay increases and give signing and retention bonuses to detention officers in their first two years, bringing them well above annual pay of $40,000.

But union negotiators, citing the survey, argue job satisfaction also needs to be addressed.

Salazar said he supports better pay, and has tried to resolve the unions complaints that detention officers are not getting adequate downtime. But he said the association bargained away a 30-minute lunch break deputies had several years ago.

Salazar is working to institute a 20-minute break for detention deputies.

Twenty minutes isnt a long time, granted. But its enough to go grab your cellphone from your car and check on the wife and kids, the sheriff said. Or if nothing else, 20 minutes allows you to go get away from this work console, surrounded by inmates, and go grab a candy bar or a power bar. Or just get your mind off the task at hand.

Jail supervisors said they didnt have enough staff to guarantee a 20-minute break.

But Salazar has warned supervisors they will be disciplined if they dont give officers needed relief.

Im continuing to hear complaints that unit officers are not being relieved to grab a quick bite to eat or even to go to the bathroom. This is unacceptable, and if we find out about it, I expect supervisors to be written up, he wrote in a Nov. 29 email to his jail command staff.

On ExpressNews.com: Sheriffs race offers stark choice for voters

He hopes to close the gap on staffing to the point where deputies can work the four days on, three days off schedule he envisions, with two 30-minute lunch breaks each day.

Im going to put it in that it is not up to an individual supervisor to make the decision to deprive somebody of that 30-minute lunch break, he said. Youve got to have some down time to go get your mind off what youre doing here.

For Salazar, soothing troubles that have plagued the department for decades seems to have been a high-stakes game of Whac-A-Mole, with a new problem surfacing as soon as an old one disappears.

In 2018, in a rash of terminations and arrests the sheriff recalls as distasteful, the agency dismissed 14 deputies charged with DWI.

The county then hired Brandi Burque as the staff psychologist to work with deputies, and Salazar added a block of in-service instruction by Alcoholics Anonymous, requiring deputies to look within for their own propensities for alcoholism.

He stood firm on zero tolerance, promising to use handcuffs and termination if need be to weed out DWI offenders.

It seems to be working; in 2020, there was only one deputy charged with drunken driving, Salazar said.

In 2019, the jail was declared out of compliance with state standards while experiencing a series of embarrassing, inadvertent inmate releases or transfers. But the facility worked its way back into compliance with the Texas Commission on Jail Standards later that year and has implemented new procedures to avoid mistakes handling inmates.

New management?

At least one official has raised the possibility of returning jail management to the county commissioners.

By that, I mean its time to let the badge do what the badge does best and enforce the law and take the bad guys off the street, new County Commissioner Trish DeBerry has said. Maybe administration of the jail needs to come back to the court, where it once was.

But Salazar is worried any effort to revert to that system would lead to privatization  an abhorrent practice.

I think we stay the course, and we continue to try to make this place a more appealing place to work, the sheriff said.

On ExpressNews.com: Commissioners vow to reduce jail overtime

He refuses to lower hiring standards to fill vacancies and wants to target retired military officers and young people with four-year college degrees.

Im going to continue to be strict on who gets in, he said.

As for his idea of a retention sergeant, Salazar said he will reassign one of his top detention academy sergeants to that role.

Whether theres a deputy needing a shift change or day care referral to deal with a child at home, or one requiring remedial training to build confidence to work around inmates, that sergeant will address those concerns and more, he said, to help keep jailers from leaving.

Her No. 1 job is to keep people here, Salazar said. Its going to be my retention sergeants job to help me hang onto people in some innovative ways. Im going ask her, Take what youve learned at the academy about the psyche of the millennial deputies that are walking around here, and find ways to help me hang onto them.

shuddleston@express-news.net
L. Lin Woods, a pro-Trump attorney, tweeted that Mike Pence could be arrested and executed for treason.

The attorney dismissed claims of "insanity," telling his followers that he is "fine."

Some Republicans are angry with Pence for asking a court to throw out a lawsuit against him that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Wood has previously filed several failed lawsuits attempting to overturn the election's result in Trump's favor.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Related: Trump angry at Pence for not supporting his election overturn attempt

L. Lin Wood, a conservative attorney and Trump ally, has rejected questions about his sanity after he tweeted that Vice President Mike Pence should face a firing squad.

The lawyer, who has litigated numerous failed attempts to overturn the result of the 2020 US election, posted a Twitter thread on Friday afternoon.

He wrote about how those who believe the election was stolen have focused on Democrats, the CIA, and "globalists."

Read more: Secret Service experts are speculating in group chats about how Trump might be hauled out of the White House if he won't budge on Inauguration Day

Wood then said that "one of the main participants" had been overlooked - the Republicans.

Attorney Lin Wood, member of President Donald Trump's legal team, gestures while speaking during a rally on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2020, in Alpharetta, Ga. Ben Margot/Associated Press

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He then proceeded to call for senior Republicans and a conservative-leaning judge to be arrested.

Wood wrote: "When arrests for treason begin, put Chief Justice John Roberts, VP Mike Pence, and Mitch McConnell at top of the list."

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Then, in reply to a tweet, Wood suggested that Pence should be executed by firing squad.

He wrote: "If Pence is arrested, Pompeo will save the election. Pence will be in jail awaiting trial for treason. He will face execution by firing squad. He is a coward and will sing like a bird and confess ALL."

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On social media, many voiced their disbelief at the comments.

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Wood, however, dismissed accusations of "insanity."

He wrote: "The tweets about my insanity are at an all-time high this morning. Wonder why?"

Story continues

The lawyer continued: "No worries. I am fine. The attacks do not concern me."

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In recent weeks, Pence has been criticized by some Republicans for refusing to declare President Donald Trump the winner of the election when he oversees the ratification of the Electoral College votes on January 6.

A lawsuit was filed by Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas and other Republicans against Pence, claiming that he has the authority to choose which states' electoral votes to count.

The legal bid, however, was dismissed. Pence's lawyers had asked for it to be thrown out.

It was a last-ditch attempt to overturn the results of the election in Trump's favor.

Wood had made several attempts prior to this to undermine Joe Biden's victory.

In November, he filed a federal lawsuit in Georgia which sought to prevent the state from certifying its results.

A month later, Wood joined Sidney Powell in a legal bid to try and overturn Biden's win in Michigan.

In addition to spreading disinformation about the election, Wood has propagated the QAnon conspiracy theory.

Earlier this week, he bizarrely claimed that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is a murderous pedophile.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Farage: Stopping China Is the Next Big Battle to Fight

Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has said that his next campaign, now that Brexit is done, is to make sure that the United Kingdom doesnt depend on China anymore.

Farage sent his new year greetings in a video posted on his YouTube channel on Jan. 1, the first day after the Brexit transition period ended, with a UK-EU deal signed just two days before.

Farage said that for him personally, it was a moment of very great joy, since his lifes work is done.

Now a lot of people are asking me: what next? Farage said. Well, Ill tell you where the next big challenge is  it is China.

Farage said that the communist-controlled country is a big threat to the UKs independence, way of life, and liberty.

China are doing their absolute best to take over the world, Farage said in his video titled Stopping China is the next big battle to fight.

Theyre throttling democracy in Hong Kong, and theyll do their best to do it elsewhere. Theyve taken over many of the resources in Africa, he added.

This Chinese Communist Party pose a massive threat to the world, a threat to our freedoms, a threat to our way of life.

Farages next campaign, which he said would begin in the new year, is to make sure people understand who China are, what the Chinese Communist Party is, what its doing to its own people, [and] what it wants to do to the rest of the world.

We need to wake up to the threat that is posed by China, he said. And 2021 begins my next campaign, and that is to make sure we are no longer dependent on China.

Having focused on Brexit during most of his career, Farage, an anti-globalist campaigner, has been increasingly critical of the ruling regime in China.

On July 19, he said that over the past six months, he had come to see that the UKs relationship with China should be more than about economics or security.

Farage said he had had no idea about the extent of the Chinese regimes human rights abuses, and was shocked by the lack of exposure in the media on the Chinese Communist Partys persecution of the Uyghurs, as well as on the forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners, a long-standing allegation confirmed by the independent China Tribunal in 2019.

Writing in Newsweek the next day, Farage described how he used to ignore the appeals of members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement when they appealed outside the European Parliament building where he worked.

I confess that I did not really take them seriously, and viewed their lobbying as an irritation, he wrote.

Farage said he felt a bit guilty about having done nothing.

Weve not been making the argument properly, and fully, about the plight of the Falun Gong, the plight of the Uyghurs, about the brutal, truthful fact that it is utterly right to compare the way the Chinese government treats minorities, treats different points of view within its country, it is utterly right to compare that with what the National Socialists did between 1939 and 1945, Farage said in a video.

There is a form of state-sponsored genocide that is going on in China, and myself included, we have done too little to expose this, he said.

Simon Veazey contributed to this report.
Why did the United States go to war in Vietnam?

Historians debate multiple motives, such as maintaining Western colonialism after Frances military and economic withdrawal from Indochina. Political scientists discuss the entanglement of Cold War ideologies in a Southeast Asian civil war. And millions of protesters took to the streets to denounce a war they attributed to U.S. imperialism.

But for the hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants taking the Trump administrations new, longer and more demanding civics exam for U.S. citizenship applicants, there is only one correct answer: To stop the spread of communism.

Why did the United States enter the Persian Gulf War in 1990? To force the Iraqi military from Kuwait, would-be citizens must reply, without mentioning such unstated motives as oil.

Why is the Electoral College important? The correct answers omit any reference to the 18th-century agreement that arguably induced Southern states to ratify the Constitution by granting them electoral votes for three-fifths of their slave populations. Instead, the answers are either, it decides who is elected president or it was a compromise between the popular election of the president and congressional selection.

And whom do U.S. senators represent? The answer in former versions of the exam, reflecting the words of the Constitution, was the people of their state. The prescribed answer in the new exam is citizens of their state. For good measure, a new question asks whom House members represent, with the answer, citizens of their district. The answers coincide with President Trumps argument that undocumented immigrants should be excluded from census counts that determine congressional representation.

The shift parallels the effort from the Trump administration to shrink the boundaries of the political community, said Ming Hsu Chen, a University of Colorado law professor and director of her schools Immigration and Citizenship Law Program.

Pratheepan Gulasekaram, a professor of constitutional and immigration law at Santa Clara University, said federal law specifies that immigrants seeking citizenship must be attached to the principles of the Constitution. He said those principles include freedom of speech and thought, with no obligation to agree with government leaders.

The contents of the revised citizenship exam indicate that the Trump administration is willing to outrightly suggest that it is un-American (and therefore not worthy of permanent membership in the American polity) to believe anything but what Trumpists believe about a host of social issues, Gulasekaram said.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which administers the exam, made no reference to ideology in its explanation of the changes, the first since 2008.

The agency said it simply wanted to make sure the annual exam remains an instrument that comprehensively assesses applicants knowledge of American history, government and civic values. USCIS relied on experts in adult education, said Joseph Edlow, deputy director for policy, noting that naturalized citizenship allows immigrants to become fully vested members of American society.

The exam is available to about 9 million green-card holders, legal residents who entered the United States by obtaining visas from family members or employers, winning a lottery or being refugees from persecution, and have lived in the country for at least five years.

Those who pass the test and an oral screening on their ability to speak English are eligible to become U.S. citizens. The 843,000 new citizens who passed the exam in 2019 are no longer subject to deportation and have the right to vote, seek federal employment and sponsor relatives living abroad, among other benefits.

Trump has decimated the population of prospective citizens, lowering U.S. refugee admissions to 15,000 for the coming year  compared to 110,000 in President Barack Obamas final year  while reducing employment visas. He has virtually closed the Mexican border, barring migrants from seeking legal status if they need food stamps or Medicaid, and banning U.S. entry from a group of predominantly Muslim countries. Incoming President Joe Biden has promised to reverse most of those actions, but some could require months or years of new regulations.

The former written citizenship exam contained 100 possible questions, and the examiner would choose 10 to ask the test-taker, who needed six correct answers to pass. The new exam, which took effect for new applicants Dec. 1, has 128 potential questions, including about 40 from the previous version. Test-takers will be asked 20 questions and need to answer 12 correctly.

New citizenship test See the entire new test here: bit.ly/CitizenQuestions Some sample questions: 1. The president of the United States can serve only two terms. Why? 2. How many Supreme Court justices are usually needed to decide a case? 3. What was the Great Depression? Answers: 1. The 22nd Amendment. Or, to keep the president from becoming too powerful. 2. Five. 3. The longest economic recession in U.S. history. See More Collapse

The passing rate in recent years has been about 90%. That may decline with the new exam, even though the questions and answers are available in advance on the agencys website, as they have been in the past.

The question isnt how many prospective citizens will flunk the test  people tend not to apply unless they are confident they will pass  its how many will be discouraged from even taking it due to the increased complexity, said Steven Lubet, a law professor at Northwestern University.

Some simple questions now have more demanding answers  for example, test-takers were previously asked to name three of the original 13 states but now must name five. Asked about rights held by all U.S. residents  the listed answers are freedom of speech, expression, assembly, religion, petitioning the government and the right to bear arms  they now must name three instead of two. (Neither the old exam nor the new one mentioned freedom of the press or the right to equality under the law.)

Some new questions involve lesser-known topics of particular appeal to conservatives, like stating the purpose of the Constitutions Tenth Amendment (the powers not given to the federal government belong to the states or to the people). Test-takers are also asked to identify one of the authors of the Federalist Papers in 1787-88 (James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and their collective pseudonym Publius) and say why the papers were important (to help people understand the Constitution and support its passage).

And there is a new set of questions asking test-takers not to identify or define a law, public policy or historical event, but to explain it.

Besides the Electoral College and Federalist Papers, aspiring citizens are asked why Supreme Court justices serve for life (to keep them independent of politics); why its important to pay federal taxes (to fund the government); why there are three branches of government (so that one does not become too powerful), and why the United States entered a slew of wars (for the assorted reasons stated by the government).

Some of these may be prime topics for discussion in civics classes, but they havent previously been considered qualifications for citizenship.

I dont feel this kind of knowledge is essential for people to be engaged as active participants in our civic life, said Rosalind Gold, public policy officer for NALEO, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. She said some of the stated answers seem vague, some are inaccurate  particularly those about Senate and House representation  and the changes will stretch out a naturalization process that already takes more than a year.

The Biden administration could rewrite or discard the new exam, but that may take awhile, as the current revisions have been in the works for two years. Gulasekaram, of Santa Clara, said some such action is essential for prospective citizens and the nation to which they will swear allegiance.

Applicants for naturalization, he said, should be presented an aspirational idea of citizenship that is broadly acceptable to the American public, and not simply a worldview to benefit a particular political party, and a specific segment of that party.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko
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A Blue Mountain Elementary East student is among the winners of the Office of Attorney Generals 24th Annual Drug-Free Calendar Contest.

Mary Solga created the October artwork for this years calendar contest and received a certificate and a $529 contribution to her Pennsylvania 529 College Savings Program, which is supervised by the state Treasury Department.

Fifth-graders throughout the state were invited to create original artwork with a drug-free message during National Substance Abuse Prevention Month in October.

From the entrants, 13 students works of art were selected to appear in the 2021 calendar, which is circulated throughout the state to educate the public about the dangers of drug use and the benefits of being drug free.

Our annual calendar contest is about students empowering other young people to make smart choices, Attorney General Josh Shapiro was quoted in a news release. Even as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, my office has never let our focus drop from the struggles and lives the opioid epidemic steals from our Commonwealth each year.

Combatting the opioid epidemic means educating children about the real dangers of substance abuse, and the benefits of being drug free.

The calendar contest helps spread these messages across our commonwealth.

Each month is represented with artwork of a Pennsylvania student, with one additional student illustration on the front of the calendar.

The winners were chosen based on the artists creativity and ability to illustrate and convey a drug-free message.

The contest is funded through the Community Drug Abuse Prevention Fund.

Fines and penalties collected from certain offenses contribute to the fund.

The winners are:

Cover: Filippa Zwirschitz, home school, Cumberland County.

January: Keira Assalone, South Saint Marys Street Elementary, Elk County.

February: Braden Venuto, Visitation BVM School, Montgomery County.

March: Jeffery Ickes, Chestnut Ridge Middle School, Bedford County.

April: Reagan Stallman, Forbes Road School, Fulton County.

May: Isabella Glover, Commonwealth Charter Academy, Fayette County.

June: Amelie Staron, Saints Simon and Jude School, Chester County.

July: Aubrey Wadsworth, Ramsay Elementary School, Westmoreland County.

August: Nathaniel Mohney, Paxtonia Elementary School, Dauphin County.

September: John Cunnane, St. James Regional Catholic School, Delaware County.

October: Mary Solga, Blue Mountain Elementary East, Schuylkill County.

November: Sage Mahan, Mars Centennial School, Butler County.

December: Cheyan Bashjian, Reamstown Elementary, Lancaster County.
The commander of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said his country is ready to match any aggression by the US with decisive and firm blows as Iranians mark the first anniversary of the assassination of a top general.

Any action by the enemy against us will be answered with reciprocal blows, decisively and firmly, Major General Hossein Salami said, according to the semi-official Tasnim News Agency.

Its been shown many times that weve never eschewed any of the enemys threats or aggressions and we wont ignore them, he added.

The comments come on the first anniversary of the US killing of General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Iraq on Jan. 3, 2020. Iranians are marking the death on Saturday, Jan. 2, this year, the corresponding date in the Persian calendar.

Iranian officials and military commanders have repeatedly vowed to seek revenge for the strike for as long as US forces are scattered across the Middle East.

US President Donald Trumps decision to target Soleimani pushed the countries to the brink of war, capping a security crisis in the Persian Gulf that started when Trump abandoned the 2015 nuclear deal.

President-elect Joe Biden has said he wants to save that accord and end the standoff with Iran, but Trump has continued to level threats at Tehran. Earlier this week, Washington deployed two B-52 bomber planes to the Persian Gulf in a show of force.
Around 11.30 AM, BCCI President Sourav Ganguly blacked out for a short while after working out in the gym at his residence in Behala in South Kolkata. He was soon rushed to the Woodlands Multi-speciality Hospital. Later, renowned Cardiologist Dr Aftab Khan addressed the media and said: He had a mild heart attack but he is stable now after Angioplasty. He is completely conscious. He is stable and better.

Also read: Sourav Ganguly Health News Live Updates: Docs Find Significant Blockage in 3 Arteries, But BCCI Prez Now Stable

As news of his mild heart attack started pouring in  his fans and well wishers from across the world started wishing for his speedy recovery.Well known personalities started making a beeline at the hospital to stand besides his family. A medical bulletin later said that he had a 'family history of Ischemic Heart Disease.'

So, in simple terms  what is Ischemic Heart Disease?

The term Ischemic came from the word Ischemia, which means inadequate blood supply. It can happen in anybody organ but in this case inadequate blood supply was reported in his heart and hence doctors termed his condition as Ischemic Heart Disease. The main cause behind this condition: Significant blockages in his three arteries. Right Coronary Artery, Left Circumflex Artery and Left Anterior Descending Artery. Doctors claimed that he had 90 percent blockages in all his three arteries.

The doctors who were attending him said that he was admitted to the hospital withing the first six hours of the first symptoms, also known as the golden period. This helped complete his Angioplasty and put the Stent to open one of the blocked arteries on time.

What is Angioplasty? In which artery it was done and why it was required in Sourav Gangulys case?

Angioplasty is a procedure to restore blood flow through the artery, in which doctor inserts a thin tube through a blood vessel in the arm/groin up to the artery, which needs to be opened through a tiny balloon attached to a tiny metal spring on the end of the tube. Once inserted, the doctors inflate the tube which helps the tiny metal spring to expand and opens the blocked artery. The entire process is known as Stenting. Doctors performed an Angioplasty in Right Coronary Artery and decisions to remove blockage from the other two arteries will be taken on Monday. As per a health survey, nearly 85 percent of heart patients in South East Asia suffer from Right Coronary Artery Ischemia.

So, the next question is why doctors decided to go for Angioplasty in Right Artery first and not the other two (Left Circumflex Artery and Left Anterior Descending Artery) blocked arteries. Arent the Left circumflex Artery and Left Anterior Descending Artery not that important?

Not at all, all the arteries are important but since the Electrocardiogram pointed to Right Coronary Artery Blockage as the primary reason behind Sauravs mild heart attack  the doctors decided to cure it first by following the first stage of medical guidelines. Since his Right Coronary Artery was cured through Stenting  his heart can work normally till doctors cure the rest of his blocked arteries. As of now, there is nothing to worry about.

In medical terms, after a heart attack, there is a risk of thrombosis (blood clots in blood vessels) then it becomes difficult for the doctors to go for Stenting. But in Sauravs case, since the Stenting was done successfully through loading doses of dual antiplatelets (doses/medicines which prevent blood from clotting), it is assumed that there is no damage to his heart walls and muscles.

Then comes his Electrocardiogram (ECG) report which showed HyperAcute ST-Segment Elevation in Inferior Leads and Lateral Leads. In simple terms it means - during ECG, the electrical vectors/waves do not reflect sequentially on the machine. It helps the doctors to reach the root of the heart problem and to identify the cause of heart attack of any patients. His ECG also showed mild inferior wall Hypokinesia with preserved overall left ventricular function.

The mild inferior wall Hypokinesia and preserved overall left ventricular function mean abnormal functioning of Sauravs heart when he was admitted to the hospital (before treatment).

In such cases, the lower left chamber of the heart is unable to get adequate blood flow due to blocked arteries. And, due to restricted blood supply, the heart starts functioning abnormally and it causes a heart attack. In this case, there is nothing worry about as Saurav was already undergoing Angioplasty to maintain the health of their heart. The medical bulletin also mentioned Saurav's normal Hemodynamics parameters. In simple terms, it means his pulse rate (resting heart rate) and blood pressure is normal.

Known for his fitness, one may question how can his heart arteries had blockages?

Experts say this can happen for many reasons, one could be genetic. The medical bulletin categorically mentioned that 'he had a family history of Ischemic heart disease.'

Also read:Sourav Ganguly Suffers Mild Cardiac Arrest, Mamata Banerjee Wishes for Speedy Recovery

Stress could also be another reason as Ganguly is holding a very responsible position as BCCI president. These medical terms may sound very complicated but in simple terms, we can say that his condition is completely stable and there is nothing to worry about for his fans and his family members.

It is just a matter of a few days and Dada will be back in the field again.
Iran has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it intends to produce uranium enriched to up to 20 percent purity, well beyond the threshold set by the 2015 Vienna accord, the UN nuclear watchdog said Friday.

"Iran informed the agency of its intention to enrich uranium at a rate of up to 20 percent in its Fordow underground plant, to comply with a law recently passed by the Iranian parliament," an IAEA spokesperson told AFP.

The letter dated December 31 "did not state exactly when this enrichment activity would begin", the spokesperson added.

Russian ambassador to the IAEA Mikhail Ulyanov reported the earlier on Twitter, citing a report submitted by IAEA chief Rafael Grossi to the board of governors.

"It is an additional blow," a diplomat based in Vienna told AFP, as Tehran continues to retaliate to US sanctions by progressively abandoning limits on its nuclear activity laid down in the deal.

According to the latest report available from the UN agency, published in November, Tehran was enriching uranium to levels greater than the limit provided for in the Vienna agreement (3.67 percent) but not exceeding the 4.5 percent threshold, and still complied with the Agency's very strict inspection regime.

But there has been turmoil since the assassination in late November of Iranian nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

In the aftermath of the attack, blamed on Israel, hardliners in Tehran pledged a response and parliament passed a controversial law calling for the production and storage of "at least 120 kilogrammes per year of 20 percent enriched uranium" and to "put an end" to the IAEA inspections intended to check that the country is not developing an atomic bomb.

The Iranian government opposed the initiative which was also condemned by the other signatories to the accord who called on Tehran not to "compromise the future".

The other signatories to the deal -- China, France, Germany, Russia and Britain -- have been playing for time, in advance of Joe Biden's inauguration as US president.

The Democrat has shown himself to be determined to save the pact.

Biden, who takes office on January 20, has signalled Washington would rejoin the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) aimed at limiting Iran's nuclear programme.

The deal has been unravelling ever since President Donald Trump dramatically withdrew from it in May 2018 and imposed crippling economic sanctions on Tehran.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has said the change of administration in the US means that there is "a last window" for progress that "shouldn't be wasted.

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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Haiti - 217th independence : Message from Nicaragua to the President of Haiti





In a correspondence addressed to President Jovenel Moise, The Government of Reconciliation and National Unity of the Republic of Nicaragua sends its congratulations on this historic moment recalled by the 217th anniversary of the independence of Haiti.



Correspondence from Nicaragua :

"His Excellency

Jovenel Moise

President of the Republic of Haiti

Port au Prince



Dear Mr. President,



In commemorating another anniversary of the Independence Day of the Republic of Haiti, we wish to express on behalf of the people and the Government of Reconciliation and National Unity of the Republic of Nicaragua, and on our own behalf, our congratulations to you, the people and the Government of the Republic of Haiti.



On this momentous and historic date when Haiti became the first country in the hemisphere to break the chains of colonialism and slavery, we join you and your people in commemorating this national holiday which fills us with pride and dignity.



Dear Mr. President,



The Government of Reconciliation and National Unity of the Republic of Nicaragua takes the opportunity to reaffirm its willingness to continue strengthening the bonds of friendship and solidarity between our two peoples, as well as its commitment to continue working together to overcome the great challenges of our time.



From our Nicaragua, ever blessed and ever free, receive our brotherly embrace and the affection of all Nicaraguans for the brotherly people of Haiti."



HL/ HaitiLibre


















San Francisco, Jan 2 : California reported its highest increase in single-day coronavirus fatalities on New Year's Day since the onset of the pandemic.

A total of 585 new coronavirus deaths were reported on Friday, shattering Thursday's record of 428 deaths by a significant amount, Xinhua news agency quoted the latest data released by the state government on Friday as saying.

The new figure increased California's overall death toll to 25,971.

Los Angeles County, the most populous in the US, has witnessed a majority of the deaths in the state.

On Friday, the county's Department of Public Health reported 207 new fatalities.

The state also reported 47,189 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Friday, of which the Los Angeles County accounted for 20,414.

California's total caseload currently stood at 2,292,568.

The CBSLA news channel reported that hospitals across the Los Angeles and other counties in Southern California had been stretched to their limits, as the county's seven-day daily positivity rate increased from 18.2 per cent on Christmas Day to 21.5 per cent on New Year's Day.

Cathy Chidester, director of the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency, told CBSLA that there were reports of hospitals being so overwhelmed that ambulances were being forced to wait up to eight hours in emergency bays to unload passengers.

"We're running out of ambulances, and our response to 911 calls is getting longer and longer," she said.

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Following are the latest Corporate Social Responsibility news releases and story ideas available from Business Wire. These recaps, curated by Business Wire, provide reporters and bloggers around the globe instant access to the latest news releases, providing relevant and trending content to share with their audiences. Discover more news via Business Wires Hot Topic recaps or create a custom news feed specific to your needs here. This service is provided at no charge to members of the media and financial communities.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201231005013/en/

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Greenspan Co./Adjusters International Initiates Holiday Giving Campaign Source: The Greenspan Co./Adjusters International

TORONTO -- Facedrives TraceSCAN COVID-19 Contact Tracing Solution to Be Implemented by Manitoba First Nation Source: Facedrive Inc.

MILFORD, Mass. -- Waters 2020 Sustainability Report Highlights Continued Progress of its Environmental, Social and Governance Initiatives Source: Waters Corporation

HERNDON, Va. -- Northwest Federal Credit Union Foundation Provides Unprecedented Community Support During Tumultuous Year Source: Northwest Federal Credit Union Foundation

NEW YORK -- Moodys Corporation Elects Lloyd W. Howell, Jr. to Board of Directors Source: Moody's Corporation Investor Relations

CHICAGO -- Ventas Earns Fourth Consecutive Nareit Health Care Leader in the Light Award; Included on Newsweeks Most Responsible Companies for 2021; and Maintains Leadership Position in Key ESG Reporting Indices Source: Ventas, Inc.

TORONTO -- Facedrive Welcomes Phil Fontaine, Former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, as Strategic Advisor to Facedrive Source: Facedrive Inc.

DALLAS -- Atmos Energy Releases 2020 Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Report Source: Atmos Energy Corporation

LONDON -- P&G Commits to 2,021 Acts of Good in 2021 and Inspires Millions through Lead with Love Campaign Source: P&G

BENTONVILLE, Ark. -- Walmart business and philanthropy come together to help fight hunger this holiday season Source: Walmart Inc.

TORONTO -- Facedrive Foods Continues on Growth Trajectory, Expanding Into Ethnic Foods Segment and Enhancing Health & Safety Measures Source: Facedrive Inc.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Sealed Air Announces Support of the World Food Programmes Innovation Accelerator Source: Sealed Air Corporation

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Schnitzer Steel Releases Fiscal Year 2020 Sustainability Report Source: Schnitzer Steel Industries, Inc.

MCLEAN, Va. -- In a Year Like No Other, Hilton Grows to Milestone 1 Million Rooms and Responds to Pandemic with Innovations for Guests, Positive Impact for Communities Source: Hilton

LAKELAND, Fla. -- Publix Responds to Urgent Need at Florida Food Banks Source: Publix Super Markets

VANCOUVER, Wash. -- ZoomInfo Platform Empowers Digital Wish to Aid Students Without Home Internet Access During Pandemic Source: ZoomInfo

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- State Auto Releases 2020 Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Report Source: State Automobile Mutual Insurance Company

TORONTO -- Facedrive Health Partners with Safe-Tech Training to Implement TraceSCAN Contact Tracing Solutions Across Canada Source: Facedrive Inc.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Agilent Releases 2019 Corporate Social Responsibility Report Source: Agilent Technologies Inc.

GENEVA -- STALICLA Translates its Novel Precision Medicine Approach for Autism Spectrum Disorder into Clinical Development with First Patient in Phase 1b Trial of STP1 Source: STALICLA

PARIS -- Teleperformance Wins Third Consecutive Great Place to Work award in China Source: Teleperformance

TORONTO -- Facedrive Healths Contact-Tracing Technology TraceSCAN Secures Federal Certification from Innovation, Science and Economic Development of Canada (ISED) Source: Facedrive Inc.

BOSTON -- Vanguard Renewables Launches Farm Powered Strategic Alliance with a Call to Action for Food Manufacturers and Retailers Source: Vanguard Renewables

PITTSBURGH -- Alcoa Earns New Certifications From the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) at Three Additional Locations in Europe Source: Alcoa

PRINCETON, N.J. -- NRG Energy Becomes First North American Company to Issue Sustainability-Linked Bond Source: NRG Energy Inc.

KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan -- ASE Technology Holding Achieves Double CDP A Listing for Global Climate and Water Stewardship Source: ASE Technology Holding Co., Ltd.

PARIS -- Teleperformance Named Great Place to Work in the USA Source: Teleperformance

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. -- Watts Water Technologies Named One of Americas Most Responsible Companies 2021 By Newsweek Source: Watts Water Technologies, Inc

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Gap Inc. Joins Both U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol and Textile Exchanges 2025 Sustainable Cotton Challenge as Part of Its Strengthened Commitment Toward Its Goal of 100% Sustainable Cotton By 2025 Source: U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol and Gap Inc.

CRYSTAL LAKE, Ill. -- Aptar Recognized with Prestigious A Score on the CDP Climate Change Assessment Source: AptarGroup, Inc.

TOKYO -- Kao Becomes First Japanese Company Rated Triple A by CDP Source: Kao Corporation

NEW YORK -- Moodys Recognized with CDPs Prestigious A Score for Climate Action Source: Moodys Corporation Investor Relations

CINCINNATI -- Fifth Third Bank Announces $2.8 Billion Investment to Accelerate Racial Equity, Equality and Inclusion Source: Fifth Third Bank

WALL, N.J. -- New Jersey Resources Recognized as One of Americas Most Responsible Companies by Newsweek Source: New Jersey Resources

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Amazon Donates $2.25 Million to The Housing Fund to Help Preserve Homeownership for Hundreds of Nashville Residents Amid Ongoing Challenges of 2020 Source: Amazon

TORONTO -- Air Canada and Facedrive Inc. to Expand Scope of TraceSCAN Contact Tracing Technology Pilot into 2021 Source: Facedrive Inc.

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Al Qaedas North Africa wing has said it was responsible for the killing of three French soldiers in Mali, jihadist monitoring organisation SITE Intel reported on Saturday.

The soldiers, who were taking part in Frances Barkhane military operations in Mali against Islamic fighters, were killed on Monday when an improvised explosive device hit their armoured vehicle, the French Presidency said in a statement.

SITE Intel said on Twitter that Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), which has repeatedly attacked soldiers and civilians in Mali and neighbouring Burkina Faso, had said it was responsible for the attack.

Frances military command was not immediately available for comment.

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Employees work in a restaurant open for to-go or delivery orders only in Burbank, Calif., on Nov. 23, 2020. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

Californias Minimum Wage Raised to $14 per Hour

Minimum wage in California has been increased to $14 per hour, as new business and labor laws come into effect Friday.

The change applies to businesses that have 26 or more employees. Businesses with 25 or fewer employees are required to increase the minimum wage to $13 an hour.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement announcing the change that he wanted to ensure all Californians to benefit from the economic recovery.

Not allowing this increase to go forward will only make life harder for those Californians who have already borne a disproportionate share of the economic hardship caused by this pandemic, Newsom said. Many of them are on the front lines of the pandemic, providing child care, working in our hospitals and nursing facilities and making sure theres food on grocery store shelves.

California has been incrementally raising the states minimum wage annually since 2017, with a goal of reaching $15 by 2023. Though some legislators and business organizations have urged Newsom to halt this years scheduled minimum wage hike in order not to add burden on already struggling small businesses, he has refused to do so.

While Newsom expects an economic recovery, business organizations such as National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) warn that increasing minimum wage would discourage businesses from bringing back workers they have furloughed during the pandemic, making it harder for the economy to recover.

It has to be asked if the governor even cares about small business, said John Kabateck, NFIBs state director for California. Small businesses in California are dying, so what is the Golden State doing to stanch the flow of the carnage? It hits them with increased costs in paid family leave programs, increased workers compensation premiums via rebuttable presumption, zero fixes to a deeply flawed independent contractor law, and now a scheduled increase in minimum wages.

We have an official economic policy in California, and its to completely annihilate small businesses, Kabateck said. Its as if they are expecting the COVID-19 crisis to vanish tomorrow.

According to the Labor Department, no state has so far established a $15 minimum wage, although the District of Columbia pays its workers a minimum wage of $15. The states of Washington and Massachusetts had the highest state minimum wages in 2020 at $13.50 an hour and $12.75 an hour, respectively.

A number of states, including California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York, have pledged to raise the minimum wage to $15 in the coming years.
Drishyam 2, the highly anticipated Mohanlal starrer is getting an OTT release. The team revealed the big announcement along with the release of the Drishyam 2 teaser on January 1, 2021, New Year's Day. However, Mohanlal and his team's decision to premiere the film on Amazon Prime Video has deeply upset the Theatre Owners Association.

The spokesperson of the Theatre Owners Association, Liberty Basheer slammed the superstar for his decision to go for an OTT release, while addressing the media. According to Basheer, the theater owners were hopeful that the release of Drishyam 2 will bring back the audiences to the theatres. He also stated that Mohanlal's decision has hit hard the theatres owners.

The Kerala Film Chamber too is unhappy with the team's decision to premiere Drishyam 2 on Amazon Prime Video. The film chamber members slammed Mohanlal for not thinking about the current situation and called it a selfish act. They pointed out how Vijay, who is the biggest star of Tamil cinema patiently waited for the theatres to re-open, to release his biggest project Master.

However, Jeethu Joseph the director of Drishyam 2 defended Mohanlal and producer Antony Perumbavoor in a recent interview given to a leading Malayalam media. According to the hitmaker, the team acted according to the need of the hour. He pointed out that the future of the film will be totally unpredictable if they had waited for the theatres to re-open.

However, Pinarayi Vijayan, the Chief Minister of Kerala confirmed that the theatres of Kerala will re-open on January 5, Tuesday with 50 percent occupancy. This news has deeply disappointed a group of Mohanlal fans and cine-goers, who missed the chance to watch the highly anticipated film on big screens. The makers of Drishyam 2, on the other hand, is planning to reveal the premiere date very soon.

Also Read:

Dadasaheb Phalke Awards South 2020: Ajith Kumar, Mohanlal, Dhanush, Nagarjuna, Win The Top Honours!

Mohanlal Reveals Drishyam 2 Teaser; The Film To Premiere On Amazon Prime Video In 2021!
New Delhi: After announcing the partial resumption of flights from the United Kingdom from January 8, Centre on Saturday (January 2, 2021) issued a Standard Operating Procedure (SOPs) for UK returnees amid concerns over the spread of the new COVID-19 strain.

India has made negative COVID-19 test reports mandatory for all the passengers flying in from the UK. The airlines will have to ensure that they receive a coronavirus negative test report before allowing the passengers to board the flight.

All passengers will be mandatorily subjected to a self-paid RT-PCR test upon their arrival at the Indian airports, the government stated in the SOPs. Those who test negative for coronavirus would be advised 14 day home quarantine.

The guidelines read: "All the passengers arriving from the UK in all international flights would be mandatorily subjected to self-paid RT-PCR tests on arrival at the Indian airports concerned."

While if a passenger tests COVID-19 positive, they shall be isolated in an institutional isolation facility in a separate (isolation) unit coordinated by the state health authorities. The positive samples will be sent to Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) Labs.

The guidelines shall be valid till January 30 (23:59 hrs) or until further orders. All international travellers will be required to declare as per existing procedure, their travel history (of past 14 days) and fill up the "Self Declaration Form" to be screened for coronavirus.

The Centre has also directed the states and UTs to set up help desks at airports to facilitate the implementation of the procedure.
New Delhi, Jan 2 : As India gears up to launch the world's largest immunisation drive, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Saturday said that one crore healthcare workers and two crore frontline workers would be given free vaccine in the first phase of the inoculation drive.

"In the first phase of vaccination, free vaccine will be provided across the nation to most prioritised beneficiaries that include one crore healthcare and 2 crore frontline workers," Vardhan said in a tweet.

He, however, added, that the details of how the remaining 27 crore priority beneficiaries will be vaccinated till July is getting finalised.

The central government plans to vaccinate nearly 30 crore persons in the first phase of the immunisation drive. The vaccine will be administered to one crore healthcare workers, along with 2 crore frontline and essential workers, and 27 crore elderly, mostly above the age of 50 with comorbidities.

The comment is significant, given the fact that India has recorded the second highest numbers of corona infections after the United States.

Earlier in the day, the Health Minister had said that the vaccine will be free across the country. "Not just in Delhi, it will be free across the country," Vardhan said when asked for the government's position on the issue.

Notably, the coronavirus vaccine is slated to be rolled out soon as the one developed by Oxford-AstraZeneca has been recommended by an expert panel, tasked with vetting Covid-19 vaccine proposals, and forwarded to the Drug Controller General of India for approval.

On Saturday, authorities were conducting a mega drill at 259 sites in all states and union territories to help officials practise how to manage vaccine supply, storage and logistics, including cold chain management.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed
A group representing innocent victims of terrorism has invited a prominent Irish-American politician to meet people who have suffered at the hands of the IRA.

The invitation from Innocent Victims United (IVU) came after Pennsylvania Democrat representative Kevin J Boyle posted a message on social media praising late IRA man Bobby Storey.

Mr Boyle, who sits in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, tweeted: "In 2020 we saw the passing of an Irish patriot for the ages.

"Born in 1956 into a state of systematic British and Unionist oppression, Bobby Storey dedicated his life to fighting that injustice.

"While Bobby left before his time, his cause of a free and united Ireland is coming."

IVU spokesman Kenny Donaldson said on Friday night: "Innocent victims and survivors of the Provisional IRA are horrified by the contents of this tweet."

He said the US politician's remarks displayed "gross ignorance of the realities of how Bobby Storey lived his life".

"We challenge and invite Mr Boyle to meet with victims of the Provisional IRA," he added.

"We also demand that new President Joe Biden would state his Government's position on these matters.

"Is the new Democrat-led government going to stand by and allow one of its representatives to voice such dangerous and insensitive views, or are they going to stand by the principles of democracy for which their party claims its name?"

Unionists also hit out at Mr Boyle's praise for the IRA veteran, whose funeral in June sparked a police investigation over alleged breaches of coronavirus restrictions.

It is understood a file on its probe has been passed by the PSNI to the Public Prosecution Service.

DUP Policing Board member Mervyn Storey described Mr Boyle's remarks as "grotesquely insensitive and tone deaf to the needs of victims".

"Kevin Boyle should be conscious of the atrocities the IRA carried out," the MLA said.

"While he is very quick to eulogise Bobby Storey, there is not much consideration for the victims the IRA left in their wake.

"There is a job of work for victims, and indeed elected representatives, to engage with people on Capitol Hill and educate them."

North Down Ulster Unionist MLA Alan Chambers said Mr Boyle should reach out to others on Northern Ireland's history.

"Kevin Boyle clearly does not have much understanding of Northern Ireland," he said.

"He would do well to contact his fellow American, Senator George Mitchell, who would be ideally placed to explain to him the Belfast Agreement and concepts like mutual respect and the principle of consent.

"The thousands of victims of IRA violence would also be able to assist in providing Kevin Boyle with some knowledge he is clearly lacking in his understanding of the reality of terrorism."

Mr Boyle could not be reached for comment on Friday night.

Online Editors
There are four steps with which you deal with opposition: saama, daana, bheda, and danda

When the gangsters moved in some months ago, I had no idea what to expect. They slept through daylight, and, after dark, mined sand illegally from the beach and transported it out in dump trucks. After a few weeks, I noticed changes in the little township where I live. Within days of their arrival, the gangsters made their living standards clear: instead of bagging their garbage for it to be collected by the corporation, they dumped it into the vacant lot next door, where it festered until it dried out, leaving piles of discoloured plastic bags. They spent nights drinking on the beach, leaving behind broken bottles and empty packets of junk food.

Someone complained about it to the corporation. Word must have got back to the gangsters, because instead of simply tossing their garbage over the wall into the vacant lot, they organised it into little heaps, where it festered for weeks before they collected it all and set fire to it, leaving the neighbourhood choking in acrid smoke.

The day after the garbage fire, one of them went around to a few of the neighbours, apologising for the trouble, and explaining why they couldnt get the garbage collected by the corporation. I gathered that they werent officially living where they were, so the corporation couldnt collect their garbage. Since the smoke went on, a group of residents complained again to the corporation.

Nothing happened for a few days. And then, one morning, we saw changes. The roads in the township have never been relaid since they were first laid out decades ago, so theyve degenerated into large, shallow potholes connected by strips of tar lined with sharp-edged stones. Some anonymous benefactor had arranged for a layer of earth and small stones to be laid at the bottom of the deeper potholes, making our three-hundred-metre trip to the main road just a little less of an adventure. The filling didnt last, and the regular passage of trucks laden with illegal sand deepened the potholes, but still there was a feeling among residents that someone was doing their bit.

We kept quiet until we saw that the dump trucks were doing a lot of damage. The corporation commissioner, meanwhile, barricaded himself behind excuses of meetings and field visits. He doesnt like to talk to people who complain, regardless of whether the complaints have substance. When we got through his defences and told him that the roads hadnt been relaid for decades, he shrugged: No budget, he said.

But word of the meeting with the commissioner filtered back to the gangsters. One of the residents, a stalwart of the group that complains regularly to the commissioner, owns a couple of small trucks, which he hires out for people to transport small cargoes. Hes had difficulties time lately because business has dropped after the coronavirus hit. One of the gangsters offered him a regular long-term contract to transport timber from a timber shop to a nearby group of furniture factories.

The loss of one of the pillars of our little group left us numb for a while, but we do have a leader, lets call him Krishna, who persuaded everyone else to do their best. Its not that were busy, he said, pandemic and all, so lets make the best of our idle time. The group became active again, but smaller, slower, and creakier. Back we all went to the commissioner, with a list of complaints, the fires and the roads and the nightly noise and drunkenness.

The commissioner looked at his watch when we go to his office after waiting outside for two hours. We trotted out our list of complaints. He rose. Field visit, he said, and bolted. He must have bolted straight back to the gangsters, because next morning Krishna had a visitation from some 20 of them. Only the leader, an ex-convict, looked like a hoodlum: the rest were all ordinary youths, red-eyed from drinking too much the night before, but otherwise unremarkable. Ive come about your complaint to the commissioner, the leader told Krishna. You see all these people He waved a hand at the group behind him. They and their families depend on me for their livelihood. Without it, theyll go hungry. And you can never tell what hungry people will do.

Is that a threat? asked Krishna.

The gangster bowed and touched Krishnas feet and then his own forehead in the traditional sign of great respect. Please, he said, how can I threaten you?

That was the end of the matter. Later that week, when my friend the professor dropped in, I told him the story. But thats perfectly Indian! he said.

How so? I asked.

Its straight out of the Arthashastra, he said. The bible of the Indian way of managing the country, the economy, and relationships. There are four steps with which you deal with opposition: saama, daana, bheda, and danda. Conciliation, gifts, sowing dissent, and force Thats what these people have done!

Its not just the goons, he continued, but also the man behind them. Must be someone with influence, maybe an MLA... Theres money in it, and its widespread, and involves keeping many government departments at bay. His eyes lit up with a Eureka-style insight. Maybe you learn the same things in the Assembly that you learn in prison. Or the same kind of person who goes to prison also gets elected The Eureka-look was replaced by one of horror when he realised what hed said. No, he said, Cancel that. I never said it.

But try as I might, I cant. Every time I hear a truck going by, all I can think is that maybe I should have picked a gangster for a guru!
New Delhi:

BJP president Amit Shah said on Friday that the Narendra Modi government had tackled the problem of unemployment by promoting self-employment. However, Shah admitted that it is not possible to provide jobs to all in a country of 125 crore people.

Taking a swipe at opposition parties over their charge of a "jobless" growth, Shah said that had they paid attention to such figures during the UPA government, they would not have suffered defeat in successive elections.

At present, there was no accurate mechanism to estimate unemployment figures, Shah said.

"We have tried to give new perspective to employment as it is not possible to provide employment to everyone in a country of 125 crore people. We are promoting self-employment and the government has made eight crore people self-employed," he told reporters.

Read | 3 years of Modi Govt: PM lays foundation of Guwahati AIIMS, says demonetisation was a very tough decision

Shah was addressing the media on the third anniversary of the Modi government.

The BJP chief said the Modi government had laid the foundation of a "new India" as he described it as a decisive and transparent dispensation which had achieved what past governments could not since Independence.

"In 2014, the BJP replaced a government suffering from policy paralysis and gave people a decisive and transparent government," Shah said.

The BJP-led government has finished politics of casteism, dynasty and appeasement and has raised the self-confidence and pride of the country on global level, he said.

Attacking the opposition, Shah said they were working to corner the government while it was working to develop the country.

Read | Congress on 3 years of Modi Government: 'BJP wants a Dalit-free, tribal-free country'

On Kashmir, Shah said the government was monitoring the situation very closely. "We will control and find a solution soon," he added.

Highlighting the Modi government's flagship schemes, Shah said in last three years scores of villages were provided electricity which had been in dark since Independence. Toilets have been constructed in more than 4.5 crore houses, 'jan dhan' accounts opened with zero balance, gas connections provided in two crore households, he said.

Speaking at length about the government's schemes, Shah gave the slogan of "sath hai, vishwas hai, ho raha vikas hai" (with us, with trust, working for development).

Sharing the social initiatives of the government, the BJP president said the government had given constitutional status to the OBC commission for empowerment of backward classes and distributed various assistive devices for disabled persons across the country.

Speaking on the country's economy, Shah said India was today the fastest growing economy in the world. On the demand of ex-servicemen for 'one rank, one pension' (OROP), he said, "The demand for 'one rank, one pension' fell on deaf ears (for years), but we fulfilled that promise."

Referring to the surgical strike on terror launchpads across the border with Pakistan, the BJP president said it showed the "political will" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On demonetisation, Shah said it was a "courageous step" aimed at curbing black money.

Read | Modi Governments reforms create greater optimism for Indian economy

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
At one minute past midnight on New Years Day, Ireland became a member of the United Nations Security Council for the fourth time in our history.

Two thirds of the countries of the world voted last June to seat Ireland at the top table of global peace and security for the next two years. That is a vote of confidence, which we must now live up to.

As Irelands Ambassador at the UN, I have no illusions about the scale of this challenge. However, I can say with confidence that Ireland goes to that table to make a difference, not to make up the numbers.

We may be a small country but we act as a respected global voice. Since we joined the UN in 1955, Irelands deep commitment to the organisation stands out.

A rules-based international order provides the stability that small nations like Ireland depend upon. We join the Security Council determined to defend a multilateralism which has solidarity at its core. We will help shape the Councils urgent work on some of the worlds most intractable crises. We do so anchored by our trademark foreign policy commitments to disarmament, human rights and international law.

The United Nations was born 75 years ago in the shadow of World War Two. The ambition of the UN Charter was to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.

In our turbulent world, it is the Security Council that has nothing less than primary responsibility for international peace and security. That responsibility  to live up to the lofty ideals of the Charter  is in the hands of just fifteen countries: ten elected and the permanent five (China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA).

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This is a profound responsibility for Ireland. John Hume said that when people are divided, the only solution is agreement. For global conflicts, and for the people ravaged by their consequences, it is often to the famous horseshoe table of the Security Council that they turn. Political agreements thrashed out there can save lives.

As a Council member, we will deal with complex crises. These include the decade-long brutal war in Syria that has inflicted immeasurable human suffering. Yemen is another urgent responsibility where a still faltering political process now sees millions on the brink of famine. Those are tasks we now take on.

Over half the Councils work is focused on Africa. That includes the Sahel region, where climate change exacerbates an already fragile situation. The majority of the UNs peacekeeping missions are in Africa; in Somalia, South Sudan, DRC, Mali and elsewhere across the continent.

In the Central African Republic, three UN peacekeepers from Burundi paid the ultimate price on Christmas Day as they sought to keep the peace in the run-up to national elections.

On the Council, the Government is determined to work every day to ensure Ireland plays an active role in trying to alleviate, and hopefully, to resolve such conflicts. We know that prevention is better than cure. Ireland will push for the Council to step up its role in conflict prevention, including early warning, improved mediation and strengthened peace-building.

Mary Robinson said that todays human rights violations are the causes of tomorrows conflicts. We will work at the Council table to support inclusive political solutions. If we can succeed in this, we know we will pay a smaller price than dealing with the consequences of brutal conflicts.

For more than 60 years, the women and men of Irelands Defence Forces and gardai have served with distinction as UN peacekeepers. The mandates under which they serve are decided by the Security Council. We now have the chance to help shape these mandates.

As we embark on this journey, we do so with some humility. We are not naive. Ireland alone cannot solve complex and deep-rooted global problems. But I am convinced that we can make a difference while remaining true to ourselves.

Our independent voice, our capacity for partnership and our empathy will mark our tenure at that table. We will not be found wanting as we step up to help build a safer and more peaceful world.

Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason, Permanent Representative of Ireland to the United Nations
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I understand why people were upset about it and bothered by it, but I knew Dan had grown up in the district, was very familiar with all of the people and all of their concerns as I was, and I knew he was a man of principle as he demonstrated on refusing to give up his pro-life position, William Lipinski said. My choice was a choice that the people supported as time went on, and I ask you, how many people in that position with a son who was interested in running would not have supported him?
A government vaccine adviser has defended plans to delay the second dose of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine from three weeks to 12 weeks after the first jab, as the United States top doctor said he disagreed with the approach.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the American infectious disease expert, said the optimal time for patients to receive the second vaccine dosage 21 days after the first, telling CNN he would not be in favour of the UK governments strategy.

Following the approval of a second vaccine developed by Oxford/AstraZeneca last week, the Department of Health and Social Care said it would prioritise giving the first jab to as many people in at-risk groups.

Everyone will still receive their second dose and this will be within 12 weeks of their first, it added in a statement. The second dose completes this course and is important for longer term protection.

The change in strategy was welcomed by some experts, but Dr Fauci told CNN: You can make an argument and some people are regarding stretching out the doses, giving a single dose across the board and the hoping you are going to get the second dose in time to give to individuals. I would not be in favour of that.

The British Medical Association also claimed it was grossly unfair that patients who have already received their fist dose of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine were having appointments cancelled due to the change in guidance.

But speaking to BBC Radio 4s Today programme, professor Anthony Harnden, the deputy chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), stressed that delaying the second dose was the correct approach.

He said that patients he had dealt with accepted the move, adding: When it was explained to them that the vaccine offers 90 per cent protection for one dose, and the priority was to get as many people vaccinated in the elderly and vulnerable community as possible, they understood.

I think the country is all in this together. And I think we really, really want to pull together to try ad do the best strategy possible.

He insisted: Its clear from looking at the data the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine after one dose after 14 days is 90 per cent.

Recommended India tests vaccine delivery system with nationwide trial

Pressed on Dr Faucis comments, he replied: Thats up to the Americans what they do were not saying that you shouldnt have a second dose, you do need a second dose, but that it can be temporarily delayed so that we can get many, many more people vaccinated in this vulnerable and elderly group as well as the clinically extremely vulnerable groups so that we get on top of this virus much quicker.

We are in a dire situation in this country at the moment. The virus is rapidly spreading and the more vaccine we can get into these priority groups that weve identified the more deaths and hospitalisations that we will prevent.

More than a million people have received their first coronavirus vaccination but in a joint statement England's chief medical officer professor Chris Whitty and his counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland said the public will "understand" and "thank" them for the plan to give first jabs as a priority, delaying the follow-up vaccination for others.

The UK is preparing to send out the new Oxford University and AstraZeneca vaccine, with 530,000 doses available for rollout from Monday and The Times reported that two million doses are due to be supplied each week by the middle of January  enabling a significant scaling of up the vaccine rollout.
She first came onto the scene as a fashionista/ model but has since gone on to carve a career in film.

And Suki Waterhouse has revealed she has high hopes to release an album after her previous musical efforts failed to make the top 200.

The actress and model, 28, is no stranger in the world of music, having released a string of singles since 2016.

Musical dreams: Suki Waterhouse has revealed she has high hopes to release an album after her previous musical efforts failed to make the top 200

Suki is hoping it will be second time lucky, after her debut single Brutally, which was released in 2016, failed to reach the top 200 of the UK Singles Chart.

However, Suki has clearly brushed these failures off as she aims to have her debut record out in the near future.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, she said: 'I'm making an album, which is cool, and there's little things happening with it. I like collaborating with a feast of friends.'

Suki also described the style of music she was recording, adding: 'I like lo-fi dream pop, but also simple folk.'

Singing her heart out: The actress and model, 28, is no stranger in the world of music, having released a string of singles since 2016 (pictured performing at an event in 2013)

The star is currently in a relationship with actor Robert Pattinson, who also dipped his toes into the music industry, having performed vocals for the Tindersticks track Willow which featured on the High Life soundtrack in 2019.

It comes amid rumours that the couple have 'discussed' getting engaged, although they are said to not be planning on walking down the aisle just yet.

A source told E! News: 'Rob and Suki have definitely discussed getting engaged but are in no rush. Suki is not pressuring him and they are both very committed to each other.'

Musical boyfriend: The star is currently in a relationship with actor Robert Pattinson, who also has a strong voice having performed for the Tindersticks track Willow (pictured in 2019)

Later talking about their relationship together, the insider added: 'They are a really good match. They have both been spending time in the UK together during this last year and their relationship is stronger than ever.

The pair were first linked in July 2018 when they were spotted leaving a showing of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again at the Electric Cinema in Notting Hill, London.

They also sparked engagement rumours in 2019 after it was claimed they would be spending the festive season at Suki's family home in West London.

The Mail On Sunday reported Robert had lined up a trip to Iceland as a gift for his beau.

They said: 'Suki and Robert are a great influence on each other, which is why he is spending Christmas with the Waterhouses.

'Suki encourages him to be more relaxed and Robert keeps her grounded when she is feeling anxious.

'As they're spending Christmas together, it's the perfect opportunity for him to ask for Suki's hand. Lots of people, including Norman, are hoping that he pops the question.'

MailOnline contacted Suki and Robert's representatives for comment at the time.
YS graphic/Getty Images

NORWALK  Police busted several retail shops for selling vape or nicotine products to minors, according to a news release.

Officials said the department received numerous reports from parents regarding the sales of vape and nicotine products to their children. Officers collaborated with cooperating minors to conduct compliance checks at several locations on Wednesday, police said.
The West Virginia National Guard, who is overseeing the vaccination campaign in the state, on Thursday said that at least 42 people were mistakenly injected antibodies instead of the COVID-19 vaccine. According to ABC News, the West Virginia National Guard informed 42 individuals were administered the Regeneron monoclonal antibody treatment instead of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine, adding that it was an "isolated incident" and an investigation has been launched to determine how the mix-up happened.

Read: Serum Institute's Vaccine Candidate 'Covishield' Gets SEC's Green Signal, Awaits DCGI Nod

'Acted right away'

According to the report, the individuals who were given the antibodies have been contacted and informed about the incident. The 42 people have been rescheduled to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in the coming days. The incident took place at a COVID-19 vaccination centre set up by the Boone County Health Department.

"The moment that we were notified of what happened, we acted right away to correct it, and we immediately reviewed and strengthened our protocols to enhance our distribution process to prevent this from happening again," Maj. Gen. James Hoyer, adjutant general of the West Virginia National Guard, said in a press release.

Read: Brazil Scrambles To Approve Virus Vaccine As Pressure Mounts

The United States approved its first COVID-19 vaccine on December 11 and on December 14 vaccination campaigns were rolled out across the country, prioritising health care professionals. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorisation to Moderna's COVID-129 vaccine on December 18. As of December 31, more than 2 million people have been inoculated in the country.

Read: US Pharmacist Arrested For 'intentionally' Destroying COVID-19 Vaccine Doses

Meanwhile, several COVID-19 vaccine-related cases have popped up in the country. Last week a pharmacist from Wisconsin destroyed nearly 500 doses of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine, following which he was fired and arrested by the local police. New York police launched an investigation into reports earlier this week that a health care provider may have illegally acquired the COVID-19 vaccine and possibly distributing them among the members of the public.

Read: COVID-19: Health Secretary Chairs High-level Meet To Review Vaccine Preparedness


The Chair of Nphets Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group said the expected figure will contain some of the 9,000 delayed cases flagged by Nphet yesterday. Photo by: Brian Lawless/ PA

Professor Philip Nolan has warned the country to prepare for worrying numbers as in excess of 3,000 new cases are expected to be confirmed today.

The Chair of Nphets Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group said the expected figure will contain some of the 9,000 delayed cases flagged by Nphet yesterday.

He said that Ireland is in a very significant surge and in order for case numbers to drop the country needs to fully enter into the spirit of the measures introduced by government.

Speaking on RTE Radios Saturday with Katie Hannon, Prof Nolan said that up to 6,000 cases a day could be seen at the peak of this third wave, but, if reproduction numbers are substantially below one, figures of under 1,000 cases a day could be seen in late January.

Nphets modelling did not project the number of cases the country is seeing this early on in the month. When asked if the modelling system should therefore be reviewed, Prof Nolan said exponential growth is notoriously hard to predict accurately.

He added that it only requires a marginal change in levels of social contact for the difference between 2,000 cases a day and 4,000.

The bottom line here is that whether we are facing 2,000 cases a day or 4,000 cases a day its far too many, he said.

"Its more than our health systems or monitoring systems can cope with and it requires the sorts of decisions that government have made in recent days for complete suppression of the virus.

When asked about the new UK strain of Covid-19, which is not believed by Dr Cillian De Gascun to be responsible for the recent surge in figures, Prof Nolan said its too early to be definitive.

Read More

"Its too early to be fully definitive about the role of the new variant as we only have limited data. The important thing to note is that it is a threat, we know its here in Ireland, he said.

However, he said: We saw an even more intense level of socialising over Christmas than we might have expected and that's what's leading us to the very precarious position that we are in now.

Dr Cillian De Gascun, UCD National Virus Reference Laboratory Director, said yesterday that a small number of samples were tested for the new variant between December 23 and 29.

Nine new cases of the new strain were detected. Out of the 169 samples detected for this new strain to date, 16 have been confirmed, and thus Dr De Gascun said he does not believe this new strain is responsible for the recent significant and concerning increase in Covid-19 cases.





Online Editors
Photo: The Canadian Press President Donald Trump

President Donald Trump's extraordinary challenge of his election defeat by President-elect Joe Biden is becoming a defining moment for the Republican Party before next week's joint session of Congress to confirm the Electoral College results.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is urging Republicans not to try to overturn the election, but not everyone is heeding him. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri vows to join House Republicans in objecting to the state tallies. On the other side of the party's split, GOP Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska warns such challenges are a dangerous ploy threatening the nation's civic norms.

Caught in the middle is Vice-President Mike Pence, who faces growing pressure and a lawsuit from Trump's allies over his ceremonial role in presiding over the session Wednesday.

The days ahead are expected to do little to change the outcome. Biden is set to be inaugurated Jan. 20 after winning the Electoral College vote 306-232. But the effort to subvert the will of voters is forcing Republicans to make choices that will set the contours of the post-Trump era and an evolving GOP.

I will not be participating in a project to overturn the election, Sasse wrote in a lengthy social media post.

Sasse, a potential 2024 presidential contender, said he was "urging my colleagues also to reject this dangerous ploy.

Trump, the first president to lose a reelection bid in almost 30 years, has attributed his defeat to widespread voter fraud, despite the consensus of nonpartisan election officials that there wasn't any. Of the roughly 50 lawsuits the president and his allies have filed challenging election results, nearly all have been dismissed or dropped. Hes also lost twice at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Still, the president has pushed Republican senators to pursue his unfounded charges even though the Electoral College has already cemented Bidens victory and all that's left is Congress' formal recognition of the count before the new president is sworn in.

We are letting people vote their conscience, Sen. John Thune, the second-ranking Republican, told reporters at the Capitol.

Thune's remarks as the GOP whip in charge of rounding up votes show that Republican leadership is not putting its muscle behind Trump's demands, but allowing senators to choose their course. He noted the gravity of questioning the election outcome.

This is an issue thats incredibly consequential, incredibly rare historically and very precedent-setting, he said. This is a big vote. They are thinking about it.

Pence will be carefully watched as he presides over what is typically a routine vote count in Congress but is now heading toward a prolonged showdown that could extend into Wednesday night, depending on how many challenges Hawley and others mount.

The vice-president is being sued by a group of Republicans who want Pence to have the power to overturn the election results by doing away with an 1887 law that spells out how Congress handles the vote count.

Trump's own Justice Department may have complicated what is already a highly improbable effort to upend the ritualistic count Jan. 6. It asked a federal judge to dismiss the last-gasp lawsuit from Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and a group of Republican electors from Arizona who are seeking to force Pence to step outside mere ceremony and shape the outcome of the vote.

In a court filing in Texas, the department said they have have sued the wrong defendant and Pence should not be the target of the legal action.

A suit to establish that the Vice-President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice-President, is a walking legal contradiction, the department argues.

A judge in Texas dismissed the Gohmert lawsuit Friday night. U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, wrote that the plaintiffs allege an injury that is not fairly traceable to Pence, and is unlikely to be redressed by the requested relief.

To ward off a dramatic unraveling, McConnell convened a conference call with Republican senators Thursday specifically to address the coming joint session and logistics of tallying the vote, according to several Republicans granted anonymity to discuss the private call.

The Republican leader pointedly called on Hawley to answer questions about his challenge to Biden's victory, according to two of the Republicans.

But there was no response because Hawley was a no-show, the Republicans said.

His office did not respond to a request for comment.

Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., who has acknowledged Biden's victory and defended his state's elections systems as valid and accurate, spoke up on the call, objecting to those challenging Pennsylvanias results and making clear he disagrees with Hawley's plan to contest the result, his office said in a statement.

McConnell had previously warned GOP senators not to participate in raising objections, saying it would be a terrible vote for colleagues. In essence, lawmakers would be forced to choose between the will of the outgoing president and that of the voters.

Several Republicans have indicated they are under pressure from constituents back home to show they are fighting for Trump in his baseless campaign to stay in office.

Hawley became the first GOP senator this week to announce he will raise objections when Congress meets to affirm Bidens victory in the election, forcing House and Senate votes that are likely to delay  but in no way alter  the final certification of Biden's win.

Other Republican senators are expected to join Hawley, wary of ceding the spotlight to him as they, too, try to emerge as leaders in a post-Trump era.

A number of Republicans in the Democratic-majority House have already said they will object on Trumps behalf. They only needed a single senator to go along with them to force votes in both chambers.

When Biden was vice-president, he, too, presided over the session as the Electoral College presented the 2016 vote tally to Congress to confirm Trump the winner. The session was brief, despite objections from some Democrats.

Jen Psaki, speaking for the Biden transition team, dismissed Hawleys move as antics that will have no bearing on Biden being sworn in on Jan. 20.
Nushrratt Bharuccha Wants To Work Again With Chhalang Director Hansal Mehta

Nushrratt Bharuccha's performance in her latest release 'Chhalaang' created a lot of buzz, and even garnered some rave reviews from the audience and the critics alike. The movie saw Nushrratt in a new light, and made us all wonder what's next in store for the Bollywood Diva!

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Nushrratt Bharuccha (@nushrrattbharuccha)

The movie was helmed by the ace director Hansal Mehta, speaking about whom Nushrratt revealed, "I've always been a huge fan of Hansal sir's work. Be it 'Shahid' or 'Citylights', his way of storytelling and direction left me awestruck, and I was on cloud 9, once I got to know he would be directing Chhalaang. He guided me throughout the process of the shoot, and nurtured me as an actor. If given a chance I would work with Hansal sir once again in a blink of an eye."

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Nushrratt Bharuccha (@nushrrattbharuccha)

Reciveing massive waves of love and appreciation for Chhalaang, 2020, has been a spectacular year for Nushrratt professionally. Nushrratt essayed the role of a computer teacher from Haryana, where she spoke the regional dialect of Haryanvi with utmost grace and confidence. The movie spoke volumes about the versatility of the actress, and we can't wait to watch her grace the silver screen again!

With a strong trajectory of roles in her kitty, Nushrratt recently wrapped up the shoot of her horror film 'Chhorii'. She will be next seen in 'Hurdang' opposite Sunny Kaushal and Vijay Varma, and recently announced Omung Kumar's 'Janhit Mein Jaari'.
First I cried, obviously, said City Blue employee Paul Kieffer, on scene the morning after the fire. There are no words for it. We expected burned up building, maybe a small fire, but its just gone.

Were just baffled we cant find one piece of equipment that was in there, the employee added. There should be stuff there, and theres not.

The massive fire, into which an investigation is ongoing, sparked rumors online about alleged ties to bad New York State ballots in the 2020 presidential election, which appear to be linked to Rochester-based Phoenix Graphics, not City Blue.

The official page for Ohios Carroll County Republican Party suggested in a since-deleted Facebook post that City Blue printed fake ballots shipped by USPS (United States Postal Service).

In other news, the printing facility in Rochester, New York that is suspected of printing the fake ballots shipped by USPS also burnt to [the] ground Christmas morning, the post read. Fake news is not reporting on [this] either. This is a coverup of the assault of [domestic] and foreign enemies working in unison to overthrow the will of the people.

The post was published on Sunday and removed Tuesday; Carroll County Republican Party Chairman Jeff Mangun issued the following message in response: It has come to my attention that posts have been made to this page that do not reflect the views of the Carroll County Republican Central and Executive Committee. The posts in question were made by an individual without input from the rest of the Committee. Those posts have since been removed, and the issue has been addressed with that individual. I apologize for the inconvenience this has caused for the rest of the Committee, our elected officials and our community.

The Associated Press reported in October that about 100,000 absentee ballots were printed with the wrong names and addresses on the return envelopes and sent to voters in Brooklyn, N.Y., noting that [b]allots returned in envelopes bearing different names would risk being voided.

The citys election board blamed the ballot-printer, Phoenix Graphics of Rochester, N.Y., which said without elaborating that it experienced mechanical-inserting issues in what was its first ballot-printing run for the affected counties, the report noted.

City Blue has denied any connections to ballot printing, posting via Twitter: NO, we do not do ballot printing. We dont have the equipment and its not a specialty we would be involved with. We are mainly doing blue printing and marketing. On Facebook, the company similarly posted: To the misinformed people on @Twitter and @instagram, #cityblueimaging does not print ballots, does not work for #Pheonix[G]raphics. You may want to read a book someday to learn my reference to rising like a #pheonix. City Blue Imaging president Mark Cleary said the night of the fire that he was happy no one was hurt. No one got hurt, he said, according to Spectrum News. Im here with my son and some friends and other family members that came to see me. Its very sad to see this, but I just feel kind of somewhat blessed that no one got hurt and Im still here on Christmas Eve.

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New Delhi:

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, who skipped a luncheon meet of opposition parties on Friday, met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday at the lunch hosted for visiting Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth.



There has been speculation about a tie-up between JD(U) and the BJP, something Kumar has repeatedly refuted.



JD(U) had broken its 17-year alliance with BJP in 2013 after Narendra Modi was declared the saffron party's prime ministerial candidate.

#WATCH: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar meets Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi pic.twitter.com/KS5MJBIJBI  ANI (@ANI_news) May 27, 2017

Such conjecture has grown following the Supreme Court's decision to try RJD chief Lalu Prasad in four fodder scam cases and fresh allegations of corruption against him and his family members.

Read | Will consult opposition before picking presidential candidate: Amit Shah



Kumar heads the JD(U)-RJD-Congress coalition government in Bihar. The chief minister has maintained a silence on the allegations against the RJD supremo and his kin, merely saying it was for the central government to look into them.

Bihar CM Nitish Kumar addresses the media after meeting PM Modi https://t.co/Vm8bzdXSYb  ANI (@ANI_news) May 27, 2017

Nitish, however downplayed speculation about his skipping the luncheon meeting hosted by Sonia Gandhi and accepting an invite of the Prime Minister to join a lunch, terming it as 'misinterpretation'.



The Prime Minister's lunch is in honour of Mauritius Prime Minister. "It's all nothing but misinterpretation," Kumar told reporters asking them not to read too much into it.



Kumar said, "There is nothing about going or not going. I had told Ahmed Patel about this 4-5 days back itself when he had called me to invite JD(U) for the meeting over lunch". "The invitation was given to JD(U) and Sharad Yadav attended it as party representative," he said emerging from a meeting of the state cabinet.

(With inputs from PTI)

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Gray whales have begun their winter migration down the California coastline, giving cooped-up Bay Area residents ample opportunities to spot the majestic marine mammals for the next several months.

Theres just one catch: Perhaps the single best onshore location to see the migrating whales is closed for construction.

The historic lighthouse and observation deck on the westernmost tip of Point Reyes National Seashore  known among whale aficionados and amateurs as the best vantage point from which to view whales rounding into Bay Area waters  is off-limits as Sir Francis Drake Boulevard undergoes a major overhaul.

Despite the closure, there are plenty of other places to spot the whales on their southern sojourn from arctic Alaskan waters to the shallow lagoons of Baja California, said Carlo Arreglo, a Point Reyes park ranger.

This is the time of year to see these charismatic, superstar mammals, he said.

From Bodega Head to Muir Beach Overlook and Point Bonita in the Marin Headlands, the northern coastline abounds with elevated view points. Within the city limits, Fort Funston and the Lands End Lookout offer good seascape views for spout spotting.

To the south, the parking lots on either side of the Devils Slide Trail offer accessible whale watching. The beaches at Point Reyes offer less visibility, but visitors may catch a glimpse of some spouts  and see giant elephant seals in their winter mating season.

Hundreds of gray whales will pass the Bay Area each day at the peak of the southbound migration in January. Pregnant whales set to give birth in the warm Baja waters are the first to migrate, followed by thousands more in pods of two to five individuals. Come spring, the whales will begin the journey back to Alaska with their newly birthed calves.

Elevated lookout areas offer the best chance of spotting whales in the water. Bodega Head and Point Reyes are good bets, because the whales use the jutting geography to navigate the coastline, but the whales are visible from other coastal areas, too.

First, Arreglo said, scan the ocean for puffs of steam  thats the whales exhaling as they surface to take a breath. The blowhole is the first body part to rise out of the water, followed by the back and tail as the whale dives below the surface in one graceful motion.

Bring binoculars, it helps, said Bill Keener, a cetacean researcher at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito.

While whale spouts can be sighted at all hours of the day, Keener prefers to head out in the morning hours, when the sun is angled away from the water. Direct sunlight can make the whales hard to spot.

That gray whales can still be seen at all along the California coast  let alone by the thousands  is a small miracle, experts say. The 40-ton marine mammals were nearly hunted to extinction by the 1930s, but their numbers began to rebound with the decline of commercial whaling. Gray whales are now protected by international conservation measures.

California is one of few places in world you can see multiple species of whales, Keener said. Its an amazing wildlife opportunity right off our coast.

With indoor activities shuttered, some local families have turned to whale watching, said Nancy Black, a marine biologist who runs Monterey Bay Whale Watch. The company has been operating tours at half capacity, wiping down surfaces and practicing social distancing.

Its great  people are bored at home otherwise, Black said.

Black noticed that whale migration began a few weeks late this year, a trend that she believes may be due to climate change. Scientists who study gray whales say warming Arctic waters could change the whales feeding and migration habits. Climate change has also been named as one possible culprit for the mass die-off that caused an unusually high number of whale fatalities last year, when more than a dozen carcasses washed up on Bay Area shores.

Paul Chinn / The Chronicle

Changing marine ecosystems are worrying Keener and his colleagues at the Marine Mammal Center. The harmful algae that flourish in warmer waters could spell trouble for all marine life, he said, not just gray whales. Thats why he feels compelled to raise awareness for the whales in order to protect them from future harm.

These are some of the biggest animals that have ever lived on the planet, he said. They live a different life than terrestrial mammals. They give birth under water. They have big brains. They have these amazing migrations, Keener said.

Arreglo, too, is awed by the mysterious mammals that live mostly unseen below the oceans surface, passing behemoths that have endured even though humans almost hunted them to extinction.

There is a sense of mystery about these massive creatures, he said. There is something to be said for having some mystery in our lives.

Nora Mishanec is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nora.mishanec@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NMishanec

INDEPENDENCE, Ohio -- With a new year beginning, the City of Independence is in the early stages of creating a new City Sewers Department, with hopes of having a vetted idea during the first quarter of 2021. This department would maintain sewers and creeks and solve stormwater drainage issues.

Councilman Jim Trakas, chair of the Utilities and Sewers Committee, explained that the city currently spends between $1 million and $2 million on contracts with outside vendors who perform creek and storm sewer maintenance in public and some private waterways.

Projects relating to sewers and creeks fall under the citys Engineering or Service departments as points of contact for the vendors. The initiative for a separate department came from Mayor Greg Kurtz, with Trakas explaining that the mayor wants to make changes to address the needs of residents.

The city has been using outside contractors for sewer work for more than the last 20 years, and while variations of a city sewer department have existed in the past, Trakas said none were as extensive in scope as what is being proposed.

At the Dec. 8 regular City Council meeting, Trakas said: The initial concept calls for hiring four professional engineers and a geographic information system specialist (GIS), which is a framework for gathering, managing and analyzing data.  (GIS) analyzes spatial location and organizes layers of information into visualizations using maps and 3D scenes.

He went on to say that there could be up to six additional workers to maintain the creeks and sewers and solve stormwater problems.

The citys budget for fiscal year 2021 includes the hiring of three new engineers for the Engineering Department. Trakas said it is still being discussed whether those new engineers would be part of the Sewer Department as in-house members, along with employees from the Service Department.

The idea of a hybrid model with some in-house employees and outside contractors is also being considered.

During a special council meeting Dec. 15, Councilman Dale Veverka said he had concerns about an in-house department.

I am apprehensive related to the upfront costs of salaries, benefits, equipment, etc., when we are at a time when we really probably should consider stepping back and taking a serious evaluation, Veverka said.

The nicest thing about working specifically with a consultant or subcontractor is job done, people gone. You dont have that constant responsibility for those salaries, for those benefits, continued purchase of equipment, he said.

Trakas cited an example of Service Department employees responding to flooding on Labor Day of last year. He said the employees were deployed within hours, and the timeliness factor could be a point in favor of an in-house department vs. contractors who may have other clients.

2020 was a year with record rainfall, and Trakas said, I dont believe this year will be different. Problems persist for residents and businesses.

Originally, $900,000 was built into the citys budget for 2021 for the Sewer Department, but City Council asked that the money be removed from the budget until the concept for the department has been vetted more thoroughly.

Trakas said that a new department has not been created in the city since the Technical Services Department nearly 25 years ago.

He believes that moving forward, private sector companies and residents should have a say in the creation of the department.

There are multiple approaches, but the important thing is solving the problem, Trakas said.

Read more from the Parma Sun Post.
Anupam Kher and the unit of the upcoming film The Kashmir Files celebrated on New Year's Eve with a midnight party on the set of the film in the hills of Uttarakhand. It was the last day of Kher's schedule, so the party also marked his shooting wrap.

"We have been working in very difficult terrain and very difficult situations in very extreme cold weather for the last month. A lot of people were getting hurt, Mithun (Chakraborty) da fell sick and I also fractured my ligament," said the film's director Vivek Agnihotri.

"People were extremely tired but on New Year's Eve we decided to celebrate while we were shooting. We had a social bubble party that was also the wrap of Mr. Anupam Kher, so it became like a double bonanza. Like disciplined soldiers we just met and had good dinner on the terrace with a bonfire, and at 12 o'clock after wishing everyone we just left. We had to report for the shoot the next day at 5am," Agnihotri added.

On returning to Mumbai, Kher tweeted: "As I travelled back to Mumbai after the shoot of #KashmirFiles, it is time to say #JaiHo to the #KashmiriPandit community of #Uttarakhand. They were a force to reckon with. Their personal stories of #Exodus were heartbreaking but their emotional support was heartwarming! "

The Kashmir Files featuring Mithun Chakraborty, Anupam Kher, Pallavi Joshi, Puneet Issar and Arpan Tiwari is expected to release by the end of the year._

_SHOW_MID_AD__
Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Saturday urged people not to pay heed to rumours as the dry run for Covid-19 vaccination got underway across the country. I appeal to people not to pay heed to rumours. Ensuring the safety and efficacy of the vaccine is our priority. Different kinds of rumours were spread during polio immunisation but people took the vaccine and India is now polio-free, Harsh Vardhan was quoted as saying by news agency ANI. The health minister was speaking to reporters after visiting the government-run Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) Hospital, one of the three sites selected in Delhi for the vaccination dry run.

I appeal to people not to pay heed to rumours. Ensuring safety & efficacy of vaccine is our priority. Different kinds of rumours were spread during polio immunisation but people took the vaccine & India is now polio-free: Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on COVID-19 vaccine pic.twitter.com/Ig1fThd0Gc  ANI (@ANI) January 2, 2021

Feedback received after the dry run in four states were included in guidelines for vaccination and todays dry run in all states and Union territories is being conducted as per new guidelines. Except for giving the actual vaccine, every procedure is being followed during the drill, he added.

Feedbacks received after the dry run in 4 states were included in guidelines for vaccination & today's dry run in all states/UTs is being conducted as per new guidelines. Except for giving actual vaccine, every procedure is being followed during the drill: Union Health Minister https://t.co/5XgB3K03o1 pic.twitter.com/KKLUJyKWG6  ANI (@ANI) January 2, 2021

Saturdays pan-India dry run is being conducted after the exercise was carried out on December 28 and 29 across four states of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat and Punjab. The day-long activity will cover the capitals of all states and Union territories as the country gears up for the launch of what will be the worlds largest immunisation drive. In Delhi, besides the GTB Hospital, the other two sites selected are the Daryaganj primary health centre and the private Venkateshwara Hospital.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

On Friday, the first day of the New Year, the country went one step closer to getting a Covid-19 vaccine as the independent subject experts committee (SEC) gave its approval for the use in emergency cases to Oxford University-AstraZenecas Covishield. The vaccine, which will be manufactured in India by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII), needs final approval, from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), where it will be reviewed next.
New Delhi :

As many as 17 political parties on Friday attended the meeting called by Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday.

After the meeting, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee informed the mediapersons that no name has been discussed and the opposition parties will come out soon with a joint statement on candidate for presidential poll.

All opposition parties including BSP Supremo Mayawati and NCP president Sharad Pawar were present in the meeting.

Top opposition leaders like HD Devegowda, Kanimozhi, Sharad Yadav and Lalu Prasad Yadav attended the lunch meet hosted by Gandhi in the Parliament House library on a day that also marks the third anniversary of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre.

No name has been discussed, we will come out with a joint statement soon: West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee pic.twitter.com/KYI65ZuJ4G  ANI (@ANI_news) May 26, 2017

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, however, did not attend the meeting due to a prior engagement, sources said.

Leaders of 17 parties are attending the meeting called by Sonia Gandhi in Parliament pic.twitter.com/92FZ76FWew  ANI (@ANI_news) May 26, 2017

Source also added that Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal was not invited by the grand old party.

Also Read | Presidential polls: Bihar CM Nitish Kumar bats for Pranab Mukherjees re-election, asks BJP to build consensus

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Customers of the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) can now book a Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) refill cylinder by just giving a missed call to the company. According to an IOC statement, Indane Gas customers across India can use the number 8454955555 for making a booking of a refill cylinder.

Booking refills through missed calls is a faster way to book with customers not having to hold calls for a long time, the IOC statement said, adding that no call charges will be levied as compared to Interactive voice response (IVR) where normal call rates are applicable. This service will be extremely helpful to those who are not well-versed with IVR calls, senior citizens and those living in rural areas, it said.

Union oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan had launched the missed call service for LPG customers at an event in Odishas Bhubaneswar on Friday. Pradhan also launched the missed call facility for getting a new LPG connection in Bhubaneshwar which will soon be extended to all other parts of the country. He urged that gas agencies and distributors should ensure that the LPG delivery period should be reduced from one day to a few hours.

The country has travelled a long way in LPG. The LPG connections given out in six decades prior to 2014 were about 13 crore and in the last six years, the same has been expanded to 30 crore, the minister had said during the launch of the missed call service.

Meanwhile, an IOC official, who was also present at the launch event, said that sales of motor spirit and diesel have increased during 2020 despite the hindrances in commercial activities due to the prevailing coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis adding that the increased sales indicate a revival of the economy. During 2020, sales of motor spirit have increased by 108 per cent and diesel by 96 per cent over the previous year, IOC director (marketing) Gurmeet Singh said.

(With agency inputs)
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan

Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan said on January 2 that the COVID-19 vaccine will be provided free of cost to most prioritised beneficiaries as part of the first phase of vaccination.

In the first phase of COVID-19 vaccination, free vaccine shall be provided across the nation to most prioritised beneficiaries that include one crore healthcare and two crore frontline workers. Details of how further 27 crore priority beneficiaries are to be vaccinated until July are being finalised, the union minister said in a tweet.

In another tweet posted by news agency ANI, Vardhan was heard telling reporters that the vaccine will be free across the country, not just in Delhi. This was after he was asked by a reporter if the COVID-19 vaccine would be free elsewhere just as it is in the national capital.

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

On January 2, Vardhan reviewed the COVID-19 vaccination dry run being held at the GTB Hospital in Delhi. This was part of the second dry run round being held across 116 districts of the country to assess the vaccination procedures, preparedness of personnel and implementation of the Co-WIN platform.

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

Vardhan also told reporters that COVID-19 vaccines that get approval will be safe and urged people to not believe in rumours.

"I appeal to people not to pay heed to rumours. Ensuring safety and efficacy of vaccine is our priority. Different kinds of rumours were spread during polio immunisation but people took the vaccine and India is now polio-free," the union minister said.

The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) is believed to be in the final stages of evaluating clinical trial data of some COVID-19 vaccine candidates, before granting them an emergency use authorisation.

COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker: What you need to know about manufacturing and pricing

As of January 2, India had reported more than 1.03 crore confirmed COVID-19 cases. The death toll from the outbreak in the country stood at 1.49 lakh. While more than 99.06 lakh patients had recovered, 2.50 lakh cases remained active. Globally, more than 8.3 crore individuals have been infected by the virus and over 18.2 lakh people have died so far.

A speedy rollout of vaccines is being seen as the best way to curb the spread of COVID-19 and restore normalcy in the pandemic-hit global economy.
The woman dubbed 'Soho Karen' - 22-year-old Miya Ponsetto - has been seen for the first time

She was named as the woman who assaulted a 14-year-old black boy at a New York City hotel in a row over a phone

Seen in exclusive DailyMail.com photos, she was seen making a quick trip to McDonald's in Fillmore, California

The 22-year-old has been laying low at her family's $389,000 home in the small town of Piru, a small farming town approximately 30 miles north of LA

Despite facing potential assault and attempted robbery charges in New York, she appeared relaxed and was smiling broadly as she grabbed her orde

On Thursday, DailyMail.com obtained police reports and court records bearing her name

The records show Ponsetto was arrested on February 28, 2020, for public intoxication in Beverly Hills

Ponsetto was arrested again near Calabasas for drunk driving on May 28

New York City police have been searching for 'SoHo Karen' after she was filmed attacking Keyon Harrold Jr at the Arlo Hotel on Saturday

The woman falsely accused Harrold Jr of stealing her iPhone, which was returned to her by an Uber driver moments after the scuffle

The boy's family and civil rights attorney Ben Crump are calling for charges

Police have not officially named her but sources confirmed it is Ponsetto

The woman dubbed 'Soho Karen' - Miya Ponsetto - has been seen for the first time since being named as the person who assaulted a 14-year-old black boy at a New York City hotel in a row over a phone.

Seen in exclusive DailyMail.com photos, the 22-year-old made a quick trip to a McDonald's in Fillmore, California  her first outing since being unmasked as the woman who accosted Keyon Harrold Jr at the Arlo Hotel last weekend.

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The 22-year-old has been laying low at her family's $389,000 home in the small town of Piru, a small farming town approximately 30 miles north of LA.

Yesterday, her mother Nicole, 42, became angry when asked about her daughter and ordered a DailyMail.com reporter off the property while insisting she was not there.

But earlier today, a black-clad Ponsetto was seen leaving the home and heading to McDonald's in a black Range Rover SUV.

And despite facing potential assault and attempted robbery charges in New York, the 22-year-old appeared relaxed and was smiling broadly as she grabbed her order.

Ponsetto's reappearance comes a day after DailyMail.com revealed that she is also facing court proceedings in LA after being arrested for being intoxicated in public by Beverly Hills PD in February.

Ponsetto shot to infamy after Keyon Jr's father, Grammy-winning jazz artist Keyon Harrold, posted a video of the 22-year-old grabbing at the child while repeatedly accusing him of snatching her phone

She was spotted back at home in California a week after the incident at a Manhattan hotel

Ponsetto has denied assaulting Keyon and on Thursday, provided a rambling 20-minute phone interview to CNN

She was spotted grabbing McDonald's in Fillmore, California

Her mother Nicole was also collared along with her on the same charge and hit with an additional count of assaulting a police officer.

Both women are due in court for a hearing on the case on January 28.

Ponsetto was arrested for a second time in May and charged with four counts of DUI. Court records show she pled guilty in September and faces a sentencing hearing on January 14.

The 22-year-old's legal problems now look set to increase, with the NYPD considering bringing charges against her over the December 26 incident.

Cops confirmed on Tuesday that they are looking at a variety of options, including assault, grand larceny and attempted robbery.

Ponsetto shot to infamy after Keyon Jr's father, Grammy-winning jazz artist Keyon Harrold, posted a video of the 22-year-old grabbing at the child while repeatedly accusing him of snatching her phone.

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He captioned it: 'On Saturday, December 26, the woman in this video falsely accused an innocent 14-year-old teenager of stealing her cellphone,' Harrison tweeted.

'She then proceeded to physically attack him and fled the location before police officers arrived on scene.'

A second video released by the NYPD shows Ponsetto, who was swiftly dubbed Soho Karen, running at the child and grabbing at his waist.

Moments after the video ended, an Uber driver arrived with Ponsetto's phone, which she had left in the vehicle.

Harrold, along with Keyon's mother Kat Rodriguez and civil rights attorney Ben Crump are now urging officials to bring charges against her over the incident.

Ponsetto has denied assaulting Keyon and on Thursday, provided a rambling 20-minute phone interview to CNN.

In it, she claimed she was assaulted during the altercation with Keyon Sr. and his son, though failed to provide further details, including who allegedly assaulted her.

Her allegation has not been corroborated by investigators or any witnesses to the December 26 incident.

On Tuesday, NYPD confirmed they had identified the woman and may charge her with assault, grand larceny or attempted robbery.

The boy's famous father, mother Kat Rodriguez and civil rights attorney Ben Crump are urging officials to bring charges against her over the incident.

The NYPD has released new surveillance footage of the woman dubbed 'SoHo Karen' tackling the 14-year-old son of a black musician to the ground in a New York City hotel while accusing him of stealing her phone

The video, shared on social media Wednesday night by NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison, shows the woman suddenly run at Keyon Harrold Jr. and grab him by the waist in the Arlo Hotel on Saturday

The new footagereleased by NYPD casts new light on Saturday's events in the lobby of the Arlo Hotel in Manhattan.

It shows four people - the woman identified as Ponsetto, Keyon, Keyon Jr. and another individual standing at the bottom of the stairs in the lobby.

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Keyon Jr. starts to walk away in the direction of the hotel doors.

At this point, the woman runs and grabs the 14-year-old around the waist, latching onto him as the boy's father runs after them.

They pass through the automatic doors in the lobby as the boy tries to shake her off, turning around as she appears to tackle him to the ground.

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A close-up of the woman's face is shown with 'wanted' emblazoned across it as the police urge anyone with information about the woman's whereabouts to contact the NYPD.

'On Saturday, December 26, the woman in this video falsely accused an innocent 14-year-old teenager of stealing her cellphone,' Harrison tweeted.

'She then proceeded to physically attack him and fled the location before police officers arrived on scene.'

The new footage casts new light on Saturday's events in the lobby of the Arlo Hotel in Manhattan. It shows four people - identified as the woman, Keyon, Keyon Jr. and another individual standing at the bottom of the stairs in the lobby

She latches on to him as the boy's father runs after them. They pass through the automatic doors in the lobby as the boy tries to shake her off

Keyon Jr. starts to walk away in the direction of the hotel doors. At this point, the woman runs and grabs the 14-year-old around the waist

The woman appears to tackle the boy to the ground in the altercation. Its release comes just hours after the 22-year-old woman gave a rambling interview to CNN where she denied racially profiling the boy and claimed it was her who was assaulted in the dispute

After she eventually agreed to provide evidence to the network to support the claim, the woman, who lives out of state, reportedly stopped replying to CNN's messages and calls.

According to the woman - whose name was withheld by the network - the incident was spurred when she first demanded to see the hotel's surveillance footage to try to pinpoint who may have taken her phone.

After the request was denied, she reportedly then cornered someone else in the lobby to 'empty their pockets', before turning her attention to Keyon Jr.

'That's when everything got a little more serious,' she said.

It's currently unclear when the alleged assault was purported to take place. The woman also provided additional information of events preceding and unrelated to the incident, which CNN said it has so far been unable to verify.

Speaking out about her concerns over the possibility of facing charges, she said: 'Of course I worry. That's not who I am. I actually ... try very hard to make sure that I am always doing the right thing.'

The woman added she is willing to cooperate with any police investigation, but says she has not yet been contacted by investigators, nor has she reached out herself.

The woman's claims she was assaulted are so far unfounded

She reportedly stopped replying to CNN's messages after agreeing to provide evidence

Harrold Sr. and Keyon Jr.'s mother, Kat Rodriguez, held a rally in Manhattan for their son on Wednesday, alongside civil rights attorney Ben Crump (right) and Rev. Al Sharpton (left)

Harrold and Keyon Jr.'s mother, Kat Rodriguez, staged a rally in Manhattan on Wednesday alongside their attorney Ben Crump and Reverend Al Sharpton.

'When I saw this story, I thought about how I was one of those kids whose father never took him anywhere for Christmas, never had brunch with my father,' Sharpton said.

'And for this black man to take his black son, put him in a hotel during a pandemic, and spend Christmas with him, raising him, and to be assaulted because of the color of their skin, I wanted to stand with this man and this woman who provided for their son, and they're being criminalized for it. The arrogance and audacity of this woman.'

Harrold added that had he not come down into the lobby with his son when he did, something 'could have gone very wrong.'

'The idea of trauma goes above any charge that we may have...I bring my son places where he shouldn't have to deal with injustices and shouldn't have to be profiled,' he said.

An emotional Rodriguez also spoke during the rally, taking her opportunity to let it be known she is unhappy with the way the hotel handled the situation, and also called on 'SoHo Karen' to be charged with assault.

'All that we are asking is for the police to do the right thing, for the DA to do the right thing, to charge this woman with assault of a minor,' she said.

'To the hotel, which I'm equally angry at, you are trained to use those tools. I called the hotel right after it happened, and I gave them a chance to make it right, and they didn't. You know when they made it right? When my tribe, my community spoke up.

'It breaks my heart that this is happening to our son. This incident could have been avoided in so many ways,' she said.

Crump, meanwhile, called the incident an example of 'racial injustice' - an all-too common narrative that 'needs to change'.

'Can you imagine what the narrative would have been if Keyon Harrold had not videoed the incident on his cellphone?' Crump asked the crowd.

Keyon Harrold Sr. then played a trumpet rendition of 'America the Beautiful' and 'We Shall Overcome,' drawing applause and a few tears, according to ABC7.

At one point in the video the woman is shown on the floor. It's unclear where this has anything to do with her claims of assault

Kat Rodriguez, center, mother of Keyon Harrold Jr. speaks as attorney Ben Crump, right, Rev. Al Sharpton, left, and Keyon Harrold Sr. listen during a news conference on Wednesday

No decision has yet been made by either the Manhattan District Attorney's Office or the NYPD as to whether the woman will be charged.

Keyon Sr first shared footage of the incident on Instagram, writing that he and his son had left their room to get breakfast when they came into contact with the woman in the lobby. He said the woman had been staying at the hotel but had checked out three days earlier.

It's unclear what happened in the moments before he started filming, but in the video, the woman can be heard screaming at Keyon Jr., telling him to show her his phone.

The one-minute-long video shows the woman and the hotel manager in the lobby with Harrold recording on his cell phone.

'This is my phone,' Harrold's son, who is not seen in the footage, is heard telling the woman and the manager.

'You don't have to explain nothing to her,' Harrold tells his son.

The woman then points to the phone and tells the manager that the case is the same one that she has.

'That's mine,' she tells the manager. She then tells the manager: 'Get it back.'

Harrold responds to the woman, saying: 'Are you kidding me? You feel like there's only one iPhone made in the world?'

When the woman asks Harrold to see the phone, he replies: 'No, get a life.'

Harrold then tells the woman that she should use the Find My app, which helps locate missing Apple devices.

The woman then tells Harrold that the Find My app can only be accessed through the phone.

The video then shows the manager approach Harrold's son asking him to see the phone.

'No, you can't,' Harrold tells the manager.

'I'm the manager of the hotel,' the manager tells Harrold, who replies: 'I don't care!'

The incident happened in the lobby of the boutique Arlo Hotel last Saturday

Arlo Hotels apologized for the 'recent incident of baseless accusation, prejudice, assault against an innocent guest of Arlo hotel' on Instagram saying: 'No Arlo guest  or any person  should be subject to this kind of behavior. We want to apologize to Mr. Harrold and his son for this inexcuseable experience, and have reached out to them directly to express our sincere regret and to offer help in dealing with the traumatic event'

During the exchange, the woman continues to encourage the manager to retrieve what she believes is her iPhone.

Harrold tries to plead his case, saying it wasn't plausible that his son would have someone else's phone since he just got to the lobby from the elevator.

'Didn't you see me just come downstairs out of the f***ing elevator?' Harrold tells the manager.

The manager protests, saying: 'I'm trying to help.'

Harrold replies: 'My son has nothing to do with her.'

The woman once again repeats her demand to see the phone, saying: 'No, he's not leaving. Show me the proof.'

Harrold refuses and begins to walk away from the lobby toward what appear to be the elevators.

'You better get on,' Harrold tells the woman.

The woman, who appears to be highly distressed, walks toward Harrold and his son, saying: 'No, I'm not letting him walk away with my phone.'

While the video is not clear, the woman appears to lunge toward Harrold and his son.

In the next frame, she is seen on the ground as the manager helps her back to her feet.

'No, please get my phone back,' the woman begs the manager.

The video clip ends with the woman once again approaching Harrold in an attempt to get the phone.

In one frame, she is seen on the ground as the manager helps her back to her feet

Keyon Harrold Sr. played the trumpet during the news conference, which was held as officials weigh charging the woman

The Trumpeter said he suffered slight injuries in the incident though his son was not harmed.

Keyon Jr. spoke alongside his father to ABC on Tuesday, telling the network he's still 'shell shocked' over what happened.

'I don't know what would have happened if my dad wasn't there. These past few days, still kind of shell-shocked, but I'm hanging in there.

'For me I was confused because I had never seen that lady ever and I didn't know what to do in the moment. That's why I was happy to have my dad here to help me,' he said.

Earlier this week, New York City Mayor De Blasio on Twitter called the incident 'racism. Plain and simple.'

'It would be horrific at any age, but it's especially offensive that it happened to a child,' he wrote. 'To Keyon Harrold Jr. and his family: I am so sorry this happened to you.'

Amid the fallout, Arlo Hotels has also apologized for its role in the incident, saying its workers could have done better to 'de-escalate the dispute.'

'We're deeply disheartened about the recent incident of baseless accusation, prejudice and assault against an innocent guest of Arlo hotel,' a company statement said.

'In investigating the incident further, we've learned that the manager on duty promptly called the police regarding the woman's conduct and that hotel security intervened to prevent further violence .... No Arlo guest - or any person - should be subject to this kind of behavior.'

Famed civil rights attorney Ben Crump is leading the charge of outrage against the woman's actions, and also called out the hotel for 'empowering' her accusations by asking Harrold's son to prove his innocence.

'As this year of racial awareness is drawing to a close, it's deeply troubling that incidents like this one, in which a Black child is viewed as and treated like a criminal, continue to happen,' Crump said in a statement.

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'We strongly urge Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. to bring assault and battery charges against this woman to send the message that hateful, racially motivated behavior is unacceptable,' Crump added. 'This is what it will take to drive change. We also call for a civil rights investigation into the Arlo Hotel for its implicit bias in its treatment of Keyon.'
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A judge on Friday rejected a lawsuit filed by a U.S. lawmaker from Texas and other Republicans against Vice President Mike Pence who is set to preside Wednesday over a joint session of Congress to formalize the results of the 2020 presidential election.

U.S. District Judge Jeremy D. Kernodle said Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas and the slate of Republican presidential electors for the state of Arizona who filed suit Sunday lack standing to bring the legal action seeking to overturn the election of President-elect Joe Biden.

A spokesman for President Donald Trump referred questions to Pence's office. A spokesman for Pence declined to comment.

Trump has refused to concede defeat and has repeatedly falsely claimed the election was tainted by widespread fraud. He and his allies have lost dozens of court efforts seeking to reverse the election results.

Biden beat President Donald Trump by a 306-232 margin in the Electoral College and is set to be sworn in on Jan. 20.

Under the Electoral College system, "electoral votes" are allotted to states and the District of Columbia based on their congressional representation.

Some Republicans have said they plan to object to the count of presidential electors next week in Congress. Reuters reported this week the effort could trigger a lengthy debate in the Senate but has virtually no chance of overturning the results.

A Justice Department lawyer representing Pence on Thursday had urged Kernodle to dismiss the lawsuit saying they had sued the wrong person as they raised "a host of weighty legal issues about the manner in which the electoral votes for president are to be counted."

"The Senate and the House, not the Vice President, have legal interests that are sufficiently adverse to plaintiffs to ground a case or controversy," Pence's filing said.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Chris Reese)
Dr. Allan Ronald: It should not be a provincial mandate; this has to be a national mandate. That is what we need to care for elderly people. (GREG PENDER/STAR PHOENIX FILES).

A new year has begun, but Manitobas COVID-19 fight continues.

As such, the province will need to confront a legacy of lives lost in personal care home outbreaks, invest in critical care, and remember how far it has come to avoid repeating past mistakes, experts say.

Allan Ronald, a retired physician renowned for his international work on infectious diseases, had just returned home to Manitoba when the pandemic was declared in March.

At the time, his gut told him a serious lockdown should start as soon as possible. Ronald started wearing a face mask early on, aware at 82, he had a higher risk of dying if he contracted this virus. However, like many Manitobans, he took summer trips to the cottage and revelled in a nearly COVID-free July.

"Thirteen days we went with no new cases, and we very foolishly believed, I did at least, and I think most people did, that somehow this virus was contained and wed won the battle," Ronald said.

"Its so easy to be smart in retrospect, but theres no question governments, both federally and provincially, assumed this was just another influenza-like illness that would breeze through and be a problem (for a short time)."

Reflecting on Manitobas pandemic response, which the former head of internal medicine at Health Sciences Centre watched from the outside, Ronald pointed to key priorities he said should be considered for the province in the future.

Making sure the health-care system is well-staffed, investing in intensive care units, and working to protect Indigenous and vulnerable groups is crucial, he said. The most important priority for all of Canada: building a better long-term care system; one that is nationally regulated, and out of the under-resourced hands of the provinces.

"It should not be a provincial mandate; this has to be a national mandate. That is what we need to care for elderly people," Ronald said. "In Canada, where we have lots of resources, weve stuffed them away in these facilities which we havent funded well, and theyre just breeding grounds for (a virus) like this."

Even in non-COVID times, the real risk of dementia means Canada needs to do more to protect its elderly population. The pandemics impact on personal care home residents, and on families who were separated from dying loved ones, must not be forgotten, he said.

"I dont know if Im going to (develop dementia) or not, but I hope that I can be seeing my wife and my kids as I go into my last stages of my life. So I think its terribly important that we think of what this has done to us, but we also have to recover from it and not think, Weve got a vaccine now, we can walk away from it," Ronald said.

"We have to invest in this area as a society. We can learn from other countries."

Meanwhile, aggressive vaccination is likely to be the focus in the months ahead but Manitobans need to keep following public health orders, stressed ICU attending physician Dr. Anand Kumar.

Kumar, who works at Health Sciences Centre and teaches medicine and medical microbiology at the University of Manitoba, said he was distressed early in the pandemic after hearing some wrongly dismiss the virus as an old peoples illness.

"It just devalues their lives. So I think we really need to continue these restrictions particularly in terms of protecting the elderly," he said.

The publics "wonderfully responsive" willingness to follow the rules, in general, is one of the things Kumar counts among Manitobas early pandemic successes. The province also did relatively well managing supply chains, and hospital internal logistics plans were well-prepared, he said.

Not everything was properly planned: Kumar was among roughly 200 doctors to publicly decry the provincial governments failure to implement timely restrictions after COVID-19 cases surged in a post-Thanksgiving spike.

It was a burden intensive-care staff couldnt sustain, and Kumar said hes grateful doctors spoke out when they did, fearing a complete collapse of the provinces health system capacity.

"The one problem thats never been particularly solvable is the issue of manpower," he said. Or, in the case of many health-care jobs, including public health nurses and contact tracers, "usually womanpower."

Both he and Ronald pointed to lack of staff as a major limitation for pandemic response  a universal problem that was also much-discussed after the H1N1 pandemic in 2009.

"You work with what you have," Kumar said.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)  Iran said Saturday it plans to enrich uranium up to 20% at its underground Fordo nuclear facility as soon as possible, pushing its program a technical step away from weapons-grade levels as it increases pressure on the West over the tattered atomic deal.

The move comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S. in the waning days of the administration of President Donald Trump, who unilaterally withdrew America from Tehrans nuclear deal in 2018.

That set in motion an escalating series of incidents capped by a U.S. drone strike that killed a top Iranian general in Baghdad a year ago, an anniversary coming Sunday that has American officials now worried about possible retaliation by Iran.

Iran's decision to begin enriching to 20% a decade ago nearly brought an Israeli strike targeting its nuclear facilities, tensions that only abated with the 2015 atomic deal. A resumption of 20% enrichment could see that brinksmanship return.

Even Ali Akbar Salehi, the U.S.-educated head of the civilian Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, offered a military analogy to describe his agency's readiness to take the next step.

We are like soldiers and our fingers are on the triggers, Salehi told Iranian state television. "The commander should command and we shoot. We are ready for this and will produce (20% enriched uranium) as soon as possible.

The White House had no immediate comment and referred to a statement issued in December by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after Iran's parliament passed a bill on increasing uranium enrichment. Pompeo condemned the law as nothing more than the regime's latest ploy to use its nuclear program to try to intimidate the international community.

A spokesman for President-elect Joe Bidens transition team declined to comment.

Iran's decision comes after its parliament passed a bill, later approved by a constitutional watchdog, aimed at hiking enrichment to pressure Europe into providing sanctions relief. It also serves as pressure ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Biden, who has said he is willing to re-enter the nuclear deal.

Story continues

The International Atomic Energy Agency acknowledged Iran had informed its inspectors of the decision by a letter after news leaked overnight Friday.

Iran has informed the agency that in order to comply with a legal act recently passed by the countrys parliament, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran intends to produce low-enriched uranium ... up to 20 percent at the Fordo Fuel Enrichment Plant, the IAEA said in a statement.

The IAEA added Iran did not say when it planned to boost enrichment, though the agency has inspectors present in Iran on a 24/7 basis and they have regular access to Fordo. The parliamentary bill also called on Iran to expel those inspectors, though it appears Tehran still hasn't decided to take that step.

Salehi said Iran would need to switch out natural uranium in centrifuges at Fordo for material already enriched to 4% to begin the process of going to 20%.

It should be done under IAEA supervision, Salehi added.

Since the deals collapse, Iran has resumed enrichment at Fordo, near the Shiite holy city of Qom, some 90 kilometers (55 miles) southwest of Tehran.

Shielded by the mountains, Fordo is ringed by anti-aircraft guns and other fortifications. It is about the size of a football field, large enough to house 3,000 centrifuges, but small and hardened enough to lead U.S. officials to suspect it had a military purpose when they exposed the site publicly in 2009.

The 2015 deal saw Iran agree to limit its enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief. The accord also called for Fordo to be turned into a research-and-development facility.

Under Iran's former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Tehran began 20% enrichment. Israel, which has its own undeclared nuclear weapons program, feared Tehran was building a bomb.

After the discovery of Fordo, the U.S. worked on so-called bunker buster bombs designed to strike such facilities. As Israel threatened at one point to bomb Iranian nuclear sites like Fordo, U.S. officials reportedly showed them a video of a bunker-buster bomb destroying a mock-up of Fordo in Americas southwestern desert.

Israel, which under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has continued to criticize Iran's nuclear program, offered no immediate comment Saturday.

As of now, Iran is enriching uranium up to 4.5%, in violation of the accords limit of 3.67%. Experts say Iran now has enough low-enriched uranium stockpiled for at least two nuclear weapons, if it chose to pursue them. Iran long has maintained its nuclear program is peaceful.

Iran separately has begun construction on a new site at Fordo, according to satellite photos obtained by The Associated Press in December.

Iran's announcement coincides with the anniversary of the U.S. drone striking Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad last year. That attack later saw Iran retaliate by launching a ballistic missile strike injuring dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq. Tehran also accidentally shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet that night, killing all 176 people on board.

As the anniversary approached, the U.S. has sent B-52 bombers flying over the region and sent a nuclear-powered submarine into the Persian Gulf.

On Thursday, sailors discovered a limpet mine on a tanker in the Persian Gulf off Iraq near the Iranian border as it prepared to transfer fuel to another tanker owned by a company traded on the New York Stock Exchange. No one has claimed responsibility for the mining, though it comes after a series of similar attacks in 2019 that the U.S. Navy blamed on Iran. Tehran denied being involved.

In November, an Iranian scientist who founded the country's military nuclear program two decades earlier was killed in an attack Tehran blames on Israel.

___

Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.
I have been out to the islands on whale watching, kayaking, and hiking trips, but what did I really know about the Santa Barbara Channel itself and the history of the islands? How were they formed? What unique plants and animals live in the Channel and on the islands?
City approves first reading of temporary medical marijuana ordinance

With state officials still putting together the oversight rules for medical marijuana establishments, local governments need temporary ordinances.
The streets of Jemulpo decorated for a holiday in the early 20th century. Courtesy of Diane Nars Collection



By Robert Neff



At the end of December 1890, 25-year-old Arnold Henry Savage Landor  an English painter and writer  arrived in Jemulpo (modern Incheon) to get a feel for the Land of the Morning Calm.



He would soon discover the kingdom  especially at this time  was anything but calm and quiet.



There were three "European hotels" in Jemulpo that catered to foreigners  one was owned by an Austrian and was quite popular with sailors, another was owned by a Chinese man and the third, which had recently been rebuilt, had a Japanese proprietor.



Landor chose the latter (Daibutsu Hotel), partially because it seemed to be the cleanest but he would soon rue the decision, for the rooms were all damp and icy cold. This soon became very apparent when he woke up the following morning.





Harakin Inn, a Japanese establishment in Jemulpo, in the early 1900s. Courtesy of Diane Nars Collection Arnold Henry Savage Landor and his cats. Wikipedia image

He was a firm believer of bathing in cold water and attributed his "freedom from contagious diseases in all countries and climates" to this practice. But the morning temperature in his room even caused him to balk at the prospect of taking a bath. According to him:



"I had ordered a cold bath, and water and tray had been brought into my room before I had gone to bed, but to my horror, when I got up, ready to plunge in and sponge myself to my heart's content, I found nothing but a huge block of solid ice, into which the water had thought proper to metamorphose itself."



He quickly summoned the maid to remove the block of ice and bring him fresh water  which she complied with, but within minutes of her departure his bathwater was once again covered with a thin layer of ice.



On December 31, Landor walked about the Japanese foreign settlement in Jemulpo observing the preparations being made to celebrate the New Year. He noted that the geishas were hard at work as they were constantly being summoned to entertain at the various Japanese residences.



Landor was apparently not a fan of their music  which he described as "excruciating"  nor the amount of alcohol being openly indulged in.



"I walked up the main street. Great Scott! What a din! It was enough to drive anybody crazy. Each house, with its paper walls, hardly suitable for the climate, seemed to contain a regular pandemonium. Men and women were to be seen squatting on the ground round a huge brass hibachi, where a charcoal fire was blazing, singing and yelling and playing and clapping their hands to their hearts' content.



"They had lost somehow or other that look of gracefulness which is so characteristic of them in their own country, and on a closer examination I found the cause to be their being clad in at least a dozen kimonos, put on one over the other to keep the cold out. Just picture to yourself anyone wearing even half that number of coats and you will doubtless agree with me that one's form would not be much improved thereby in appearance."



Landor quickly returned to his hotel and, despite the noise, promptly fell asleep.



Landor woke early in the morning and spent some time snuggled in the warmth of his blankets while "thinking of the foolishness of humanity." He was apparently not a morning person and did not like to be disturbed by others  even when the disruption was done as a mark of respect and friendliness.



At 7:20 there was a knock at his door, and thinking it was the maid with his bathwater, he bade the knocker to enter. It wasn't the maid.



"In came a procession of [Japanese], ludicrously attired in foreign clothes with antediluvian frock-coats and pre-historic European hats, bowing and sipping their breath in sign of great respect. At their head was the fat proprietor of the hotel, and each of them carried with him in his hand a packet of visiting cards, which they severally deposited on my bed, as I, more than ten times astounded, stood resting on my elbows gazing at them."





Honmachi-dori in the Japanese settlement of Jemulpo in the early 1900s. Robert Neff collection
Geovanni Valle, 15, told the NY Post he was at a mall shopping for his mother

A receipt from the same time of the bike attacks verifies Valle's account

NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison personally apologized for the arrest of the 15-year-old as the police continue to seek suspects in the case

The bikers terrorized two vehicles on Manhattan's East Side on Tuesday

A teenager who was accused of being involved in a bike mob that attacked a BMW in Manhattan has had charges against him dropped after he produced a receipt showing he was out shopping for his mom's birthday present at the time.

Geovanni Valle, 15, was accused of being involved in the wild attack that took place in New York City, when cyclists surrounded and attacked both a BMW and a taxi in the middle of the day on Tuesday afternoon.

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NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison went to Valle's home in Corona, Queens to personally apologize for arresting the 15-year-old, the New York Post reports.

Shocking video footage shows the cyclists smashing one of the vehicles with their bikes, and jumping on the windshield leaving the 36-year-old driver and his mom fearing for their lives.

Valle was accused of being involved and arrested on Wednesday.

But the NYPD have now dropped all charges against him, after he produced a receipt showing he was at the Queens Center Mall buying a birthday gift for his mother at the same time of the attacks, the Post reports.

Valle also claimed he does not own a bike.

After verifying his alibi, the NYPD dropped the charges against Valle and released him from a juvenile detention center.

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Oscar Valle, Geovanni Valle's father, shows off the receipt that proves Geovanni's alibi

After releasing Vanni, NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison apologized to the family

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Valle's parents did not show the receipt to investigators on Wednesday after the arrest, though it's unclear why.

Valle then proceeded to show the media a shopping receipt on Thursday, which is the first time the NYPD claims they became aware of an alibi for the teen.

Valle says he showed the receipt to officers previously, which placed him at Footaction store at 3:49pm, but that it was disregarded, as others had already implicated the teen.

Video grabs show the moment teens attacked a BMW on Manhattan's East Side

The teenagers terrified the BMW driver and its occupants before fleeing on their bikes

'I think its bullst,' Valle said to The Post on Thursday about his charges. 'I wasnt even there!'

'Its crazy! I know people dont have no life, they just do stuff like that,' Valle said about the bike attacks. 'I was watching it on Instagram. I didnt think it was going to come back on me!'

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Valle's father, Oscar, said: 'I feel depressed seeing my kid put in handcuffs, treated like a criminal.'

It's not clear if Valle and his family will pursue legal action against the NYPD for the false arrest.

'The NYPD is falsely accusing my brother of a crime he did not commit. They are basically just saying he is guilty without providing any proof. What happened to [being]innocent until proven guilty?,' Christian Valle, Geovanni's brother, told DailyMail.com on Thursday.

At one point in the attack, a biker even started jumping on the BMW's windshield

Prior to the BMW attack, the teenagers also attacked a taxi cab a few blocks north

'After that, he went to Empanadas Cafe on 108th St from 4.38 to 5.17pm,' Christian explained about the aftermath of the shopping trip.

The shocking bike attacks at the end of 2020 have gripped New York City this week.

A BMW driver and taxi cab driver were both attacked on Fifth Avenue, with the cab being on 29th Street and the BMW at 21st Street on Manhattan's East Side.

Max Torgovnick, 36, was driving the BMW with his mom in the car when they were surrounded by the biking teens.

They had just dropped off a holiday donation to a local charity when the bikers came around.

The shocking video shows several of the teenagers punching the BMW's windows with others stomping on the hood of the car.

One person even smashed in the front window as the fellow teenagers cheered the damage to the car.

Pictured: One of the teens who are wanted by the NYPD for criminal mischief

Pictured: More teenagers wanted in connection for the bike attacks on Tuesday

The teenagers reportedly laughed and cheered as the BMW was getting smashed in

One witness said teenagers tried to get into the car and broke a handle, with another spitting on the vehicle.

Torgovnick dialed 911 after the police didn't come on to the scene during the attack, but the teens were gone by the time the cops arrived.

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Torgovnick's mother was reportedly badly shaken by the attack.

'We were trapped, there was so much violence, I thought I was going to die,' she reportedly said.

'That's something like you would see on the streets of a war zone. I never thought New York would get this bad,' Torgovnick, a long-time NYC resident, told The Post. 'I was afraid that they were going to break the window, get in the car, reach in, and pull us out.

'My only thoughts at that moment were self-defense, [that] I wanted to protect my mother and I also didn't want to hurt anyone.'

Pictured: Christian Valle (L) and Oscar Valle (R), the brother and father of Geovanni Valle

The kids on the bikes surrounded the BMW, which had medical license plates, before attacking

The teenagers also managed to block traffic with their bikes during the attack

Violent crime remains an issue in New York City.

In the 28 days prior to December 27, there were 21 murders, an increase of 61.5 percent when compared with the same dates in 2019.

There was also a 4.2 percent increase in rapes and a 122.4 percent surge in shootings, as the NYPD faces a $1 billion cut to their budget.

Mayor Bill de Blasio told CBS on Thursday that the attack was 'absolutely unacceptable,' but didn't provide concrete plans on how to attack another similar attack down the road.

While they released Valle on Friday, the NYPD did arrest a 17-year-old male in connection with the bike rampage. He was charged with criminal mischief and rioting.

More arrests are expected to be made, but identifying those involved in the attack has been challenging.

The NYPD is said to be looking for at least five more teens in connection with the attack.

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There were around 25 cyclists involved in each attack on Tuesday.
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President Donald Trump has blamed the slow rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines on the states as he praised his administration's 'successful' distribution of the doses amid growing backlash over the disastrous program.

Trump appeared to respond to mounting criticism of the vaccine rollout on Friday after new data revealed only a quarter of the shots distributed to states have been administered since early December.

As of New Year's Day, 3.17million doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been administered. That is just 25 per cent of the 12.4million doses that have been delivered to states, according to an analysis from Bloomberg.

Trump however has defended his administration's efforts, saying it's the states that are moving at a slow pace when it comes to vaccinating the population.

'Some States are very slow to inoculate recipients despite successful and very large scale distribution of vaccines by the Federal Government. They will get it done!' Trump said on Twitter.

President Trump on Friday defended his administration's 'successful' distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and blamed the states for the slow rollout after Senator Mitt Romney urged the federal government to develop a comprehensive plan for

The tweet appeared to be in response to Senator Mitt Romney and President-elect Joe Biden, who both spoke out in harsh terms about the clumsy effort to distribute vaccines hours earlier.

In an emotional statement released on Friday, Romney, a Republican but frequent Trump critic, warned the delays would be 'deadly' if the government does not urgently undertake new strategies to boost vaccination efforts.

'That comprehensive vaccination plans have not been developed at the federal level and sent to the states as models is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable,' Romney said in a statement that was perhaps aimed as much at the incoming Biden administration as the outgoing Trump one.

'It was unrealistic to assume that the health care workers already overburdened with Covid care could take on a massive vaccination program,' Romney said.

The senator also highlighted the fact that the program is 'woefully behind' despite it only targeting frontline workers and long-term care residents - the 'two easiest populations to vaccinate'.

He called on the government to 'enlist every medical professional, retired or active, who is not currently engaged in the delivery of care' to be drafted into a crash program of government-run vaccination sites across the country.

'This could include veterinarians, combat medics and corpsmen, medical students, EMS professionals, first responders, and many others who could be easily trained to administer vaccines,' he proposed.

Romney also proposed a scheme to 'Schedule vaccinations according to a person's priority category and birthdate: e.g., people in group A with a January first birthday would be assigned a specific day to receive their vaccination.'

Referring to his experience overseeing the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, Romney also included what could be seen as a pitch to the Biden administration to offer his own assistance, saying: 'I have experience organizing a major logistical event,' though adding humbly that it was 'nothing on the scale of what is called for today.'

As of Friday, West Virginia has still vaccinated the highest percentage of its population, followed by South Dakota and Maine. Kansas continues to lag the farthest behind in population vaccinated, with just 0.42% of all residents having received the jab

A table shows for each state, vaccine doses received and administered, and the percentage of shots used. Maine has now distributed the highest percentage of its available vaccine, with more than 50% of doses administered

Earlier, a senior Trump administration official told CNN correspondent Kristen Holmes that while Dr. Anthony Fauci recently said that officials were considering releasing 20 million doses that are being held in reserve for required booster shots, federal officials now do not currently view this as viable option,

The move came as a repudiation of the strategy in the UK, where doses are being shipped as soon as they are produced, relying on future production to fill the need for booster shots.

Critics of the UK strategy have argued that it runs the risk of wasting millions of first doses if the vital boosters aren't available on time, and point out that at least for now, U.S. states already have far more doses than they are able to quickly get into arms. But proponents of the UK strategy argue that it will double the speed of vaccinations.

It came as the total number of Americans infected in the pandemic topped 20 million since March, and coronavirus hospitalizations hit an all-time high for the fourth day in a row on New Years Eve, with nearly 125,400 people receiving inpatient treatment.

Daily deaths remained harrowing at 3,419 on Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins, after two consecutive record-setting days with over 3,700 daily deaths on both Tuesday and Wednesday.

Biden took a swipe at the Trump administration's oversight in a tweet on Friday, writing: 'Let me be clear: The Biden-Harris Administration will spare no effort to make sure people are getting vaccinated.'

Biden has vowed to invoke the Defense Production Act and ensure that 100 million vaccines are administered in his first 100 days in office, though he has offered few concrete details on how this would be achieved.

Even as the slow rollout leaves most people without any opportunity to get the vaccine for now, Dr. Anthony Fauci says it's 'quite possible' that COVID-19 vaccines will become mandatory to attend school or travel outside the country.

'I'm not sure it's going to be mandatory from a central government standpoint, like federal government mandates. But there are going to be individual institutions that I'm sure are going to mandate it,' Fauci, who will be chief medical adviser to Biden, told Newsweek.

'A citywide school system might require it in some cities but not other cities. And that's what I mean by things not being done centrally but locally,' he said.

Asked if the U.S. government could issue a 'vaccine passport' to authorize travel abroad, as Israel has done, Fauci responded: 'Anything is on the table. Anything is possible, of course.'

Meanwhile, Florida's agriculture commissioner this week called on Governor Ron DeSantis to deploy the National Guard to assist the vaccination campaign, saying in a letter to the Republican governor that the effort had been 'very chaotic' so far.

President-elect Joe Biden took a swipe at the Trump administration's oversight in a tweet on Friday, writing: 'Let me be clear: The Biden-Harris Administration will spare no effort to make sure people are getting vaccinated'

Senator Mitt Romney, a Republican but frequent critic of President Donald Trump, issued statement on Friday urging the U.S. government to immediately enlist veterinarians, combat medics and others in a dramatic proposal to boost vaccinations

Even as the slow rollout leaves most people without any opportunity to get the vaccine for now, Dr. Anthony Fauci says it's 'quite possible' that COVID-19 vaccines will become mandatory to attend school or travel outside the country

Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, Florida's only statewide elected Democrat, said in the letter on Wednesday that there is a lack of 'clear direction' on vaccination procedures for healthcare workers.

'Instead of efficient, centralized distribution management by the state of Florida, distribution has been left to hospitals and county health departments,' Fried wrote. 'While you characterize this as 'cutting out the middle man,' vulnerable residents are left without answers or clear direction from overwhelmed local agencies on when, where and how to receive the vaccine.'

The state's Republican party hit back in a statement, saying: 'It's nice to see that Commissioner Nikki Fried is taking time out of her vacation to send out an ill-informed, irresponsible letter on social media that prioritizes politics over helping Floridians who are interested in the vaccine.'

'Commissioner Fried's insinuation that the Governor is not properly utilizing the Florida National Guard is ridiculous,' the statement added.

'In fact, the Governor mobilized the Florida National Guard weeks ago to form strike teams with the Florida Department of Health to begin vaccinating residents of long-term care facilities, making Florida the first state in the nation to begin vaccinating long-term care residents.'

Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, Florida's only statewide elected Democrat, said in the letter on Wednesday that there is a lack of 'clear direction' on vaccination procedures for healthcare workers, and called for National Guard assistance

In Fort Myers, Florida, seniors camped out overnight on Wednesday to wait in line for vaccines after Governor Ron DeSantis opened vaccination to anyone over 65 on a first-come, first-served basis

Cape Coral, Florida residents wait in line to receive a COVID-19 vaccine Wednesday morning during first day of vaccinations in the city. Florida is offering vaccines to high-risk frontline health care workers and those 65 and older

Florida has administered just 176,729 out of the 783,600 doses it has received so far, or 22.6 percent, according to CDC data as of December 30.

The state, which opened up vaccination to anyone over the age of 65 on a first-come, first-served basis, has witnessed chaotic scenes, with elderly residents brawling outside of pharmacies over line cutting, and bundling up to wait overnight for the shots.

The National Guard is currently being used by governors in at least 26 states to assist in COVID-19 vaccine distribution in some capacity, according to a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau.

It's unclear whether any state is using medically trained guardsmen to administer the jabs. Most are relying on the Guard for shipping and logistics help.

According to the new data, Maine is now leading the way in efficiency in administering the vaccine. The Pine Tree state has administered 51.1 percent of the doses that the state has received, a higher ratio than any other state, according to Bloomberg.

Washington DC, South Dakota, Connecticut and Montana follow Maine as the next most efficient states.

West Virginia, which is among the states utilizing the National Guard in vaccine rollout, has vaccinated the highest percentage of its total population, with 2.5 percent of all residents having received a shot.

The Mountain State is also number five in efficiency, having administered 43.4 percent of the doses that have been shipped to the state so far.

Music producer Emilio Estefan, 67, receives a Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine from Nadia Johnson, RN from Jackson Health System, at Jackson Memorial Hospital-Christine E. Lynn Rehabilitation Center on Wednesday in Miami, Florida

On the other hand, the worst performing states include Kansas, where just 10.6 percent of the doses delivered to the state have been administered, as well as Georgia (16.4 percent) and Oregon (18.8 percent).

New York City has administered only 88,410 doses so far, or 25.4 percent of those delivered to the city already.

California, the new pandemic epicenter, has administered just 335,983 doses, or 22.8 percent of the 1,476,425 doses that the state has received.

The failures in vaccine rollout have been blamed on various factors, including lack of federal oversight, chaos in distribution, 'woke' governors setting convoluted priorities for initial distribution, and the simple lack of staff to administer jabs in overstretched healthcare systems.

Why the vaccine rollout has proceeded so slowly:

Shipping delays created chaos in the first weeks, a mistake General Gustave Perna apologized for

Overstretched hospitals have struggled to find enough staffers to administer the shots

Some governors have issued increasingly convoluted restrictions on who gets the jabs

Local and state officials complain that their public health offices are underfunded

Some healthcare workers have refused the vaccine, with a shocking 50% declining in some areas

Cold storage requirements create logistical hurdles and tight windows for administering the vaccine

Federal public heath officials, including Fauci and Surgeon General Jerome Adams, have blamed poorly funded state and local health offices for the sluggish vaccine rollout.

'We would have liked to see it run smoothly and have 20 million doses into people today,' Fauci told the Today Show on Thursday. 'Obviously it didn't happen and that's disappointing. Hopefully, as you get into January the gaining of momentum will get us to the point where we want to be.'

Asked if the federal government should take over the process of administering vaccines, which is now being managed at the state level, Fauci responded: 'rather than stepping in and taking over, I think it would be better to work with them and give them more resources.'

The federal government has said that for every dose shipped, it is holding back a second dose in reserve as well as a safety stock, which would bring the total number of vaccine doses closer to 40 million.

That plan has raised criticism, with some calling on the government to release all available doses, and rely on new production to fill the need for the required second doses.

The Pfizer vaccine requires a booster dose after 21 days to be effective, and the Moderna shoot after 28 days. Failing to deliver the required boosters could result in millions of doses effectively being wasted.

On Thursday, Fauci said that spreading out the initial doses of vaccine to more people is 'under consideration.'

'I still think, if done properly, you can do a single dose, reserve doses for the second dose, and still get the job done,' he said on the Today Show, 'but there's a lot of discussion about whether or not you want to spread out the initial vaccination by getting more people vaccinated on the first round.'

Others point out that if states are unable to quickly administer the doses they already have available, flooding distribution channels with another 20 million doses, rather than holding them in reserve for booster shots, would make little difference.

Up to 60% of US health workers refuse to get COVID vaccines over fears of side effects Thousands of health care and frontline workers across the US are refusing to get COVID-19 vaccines as the rollout of the shots in America continues to sputter. Up to half of health care workers in one California county and a Texas hospital say they will not get the shot, 60 percent of nursing home staff in Ohio are turning down the jab and 40 percent of frontline workers in Los Angeles won't get it either, polls reveal. Respondents to a number of surveys cite fears of dangerous side effects, health care worker forum posters say they feel they are being used as guinea pigs and experts blame misinformation. Although life-threatening side effects are rare, examples of them cropped up in the first days of the vaccine rollout with two health care workers in Alaska - one of whom had no history of allergies - suffering anaphylactic shock minutes after getting the first dose of Pfizer 's vaccine. Advertisement

As well, it has become increasingly clear that large numbers of healthcare workers are actually declining to take the vaccination.

In Southern California's Riverside County, a shocking 50 percent of frontline healthcare workers have refused the vaccine, leaving public health officials scrambling to figure out how to distribute the unused doses, according to the Los Angeles Times.

A recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 29 percent of healthcare workers were 'vaccine hesitant,' a figure slightly higher than the percentage of the general population, 27 percent.

The poll found the top reasons for not wanting to get vaccinated included fears about side effects, a lack of trust in the government to ensure the vaccines were safe, concerns about the role of politics in the development of the vaccines, and belief that the dangers of COVID-19 had been exaggerated.

Although clinical trials showed the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to be safe and effective, many healthcare workers apparently feel skeptical about the speed at which they were brought to market, which was unprecedented.

Meanwhile, some governors have been criticized for setting convoluted requirements on who receives the initial rounds of vaccines.

States ultimately control distribution, but the CDC recommended that frontline healthcare workers and nursing home resident be prioritized for the initial round.

Following that, the CDC recommended frontline essential workers and those over the age of 75 take priority.

This week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo faced criticism for prioritizing drug addicts in rehab over the elderly in the general population.

During Cuomo's press briefing on Monday, the governor said that shots would be given to 'priority populations' and that when more vaccines become available the populations will be expanded and that residents of 'OASAS'  the state Office of Addiction Services and Supports would be next in line to receive the jab.

'These are congregate facilities. Congregate facilities are problematic. That's where you have a lot of people in concentration,' Cuomo said.

Adding to the concerns, millions of the doses that have already been shipped are due to expire next month. Phizer's vaccine lasts only 30 days in the shipping freezer it is distributed in, which can also be used for on-site storage.

While it is possible to extend the vaccine's shelf life up to six months with ultra-low-temperature freezers, supplies of the specialized freezers have been severely constrained as hospitals and pharmacies rush to snap up the limited supplies.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said Thursday that 60% of nursing home workers are refusing vaccine. Up to 40% of health care workers in Los Angeles and 50% in Riverside County are refusing shots, according to the Los Angeles Times

A health-care worker reacts as she receives the COVID-19 vaccine at Lake-Sumter State College in Leesburg, Florida on New Years Day. Long lines of cars were at the site as the Lake County vaccines are currently being given to people who are 65 years and older and front line workers

Once the vaccine is thawed from deep freeze, it must be used within five days or be thrown out -- a requirement that has also created issues.

In Kentucky, a Walgreens in Lexington was blasted by Governor Andy Beshear for handing out vaccines to the general public, after a batch of doses that the pharmacy had thawed for nursing homes could not be distributed before they expired.

Ultimately, the key bottleneck appears to be the number staffers available to administer the jabs.

Under optimal conditions, a single nurse working a 12-hour shift could administer just 72 doses a day, assuming the nurse took no breaks and gave one shot every 10 minutes, including the time it takes to check for a history of allergies and enter the patient's information into record systems.

To administer a million doses a day nationwide, as Biden has vowed, that would require nearly 14,000 staffers working full time on vaccines -- even as many health systems are stretched to the limit handling COVID patients.
With each passing day relatives of the sailors stuck in their ships on Chinese waters are growing more anxious. Most of the stranded seafarers were supposed to be back with their families early last year. But a whole year has passed, during which the pandemic broke out and first vaccines to fight it were also administered, and these sailors have yet to return home.

Jimmy Tandel's father was supposed to be with his family in April last year. Gajanand Tandel started work on the ship 'Anastasia' in July 2019 as an able seaman. "But it has been 18 months now on the ship and we still don't know when he will be back," says Jimmy. She says that with the few conversations that she has with her father when the sailors on the ship get access to the internet, she can tell that the crew is physically and mentally exhausted.

"Sometimes my father calls me at 2 in the night. He can't sleep. They are emotionally, mentally quite disturbed. A few days ago he said his hand was hurting. The crew members have been told that unless someone is in critical state, they will not get access to doctors or clinics," Tandel says. She adds that the government has only been paying lip-service so far and that no concrete steps to bring back the stranded Indian sailors have been taken so far.

On Friday the spokesperson of Ministry of External Affairs, Anurag Srivastava said the government was exploring "various options" to bring back the stranded sailors. "The matter has been taken up with the Chinese foreign ministry and local provincial authorities, who have been requested to allow the ships to dock or for their crews to be allowed to be changed," external affairs ministry spokesperson said. He added that the cases were being "pursued vigorously".

Bindu Wilton's says her husband Joseph who is an electrical officer on board the 'Anastasia', has never stayed away from his family for more than five months at a stretch. At the end of his five month contract, Joseph was supposed to have reached his home by February or March.

"They are all in extreme distress. My husband is emotionally troubled. The uncertainty for us [the families of the stranded crew members] is galling. They have not seen 2020 actually," Bindu says.

She says all unions and human rights organisations advise against extending the stay of seamen for more than 11 months at a stretch. "He has been onboard that ship for 16 months and there is still no concrete sign of his return," Bindu adds.

On Friday, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued notices to an MEA secretary and the director general of Shipping in the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways over the issue of stranded Indian sailors.

The NHRC in a statement said it has taken suo motu cognisance of media reports on stranded Indian sailors onboard MV Anastasia and MV Jag Anand in Chinese waters for over 146 days and their difficulties "without any rescue mission in sight". It expected a response from the government within two weeks.

Capt Sanjay Prashar, member, National Shipping Board and chairman, International Maritime Federation, said that it was good to see some positive development "where Chinese at least acknowledge that there is an issue of crew change on their coast with Indian seafarers."

However, he adds that the fundamental problem still remains the same. "The crew change is not happening for at least one month. Indian Embassy talks about two ships and 39 Indian seafarers whereas we know for sure there's 68 seafarers and four ships. The Maritime Labour Convention 2006 to which India and China are signatories seems to have zero value today. It appears that China is ready to redraw the boundaries of fundamental human rights," Capt Prashar said.
Also striking is that most patients have been in their 30s, 40s and 50s. Its very rare for you to develop this type of psychosis in this age range, Goueli said, since such symptoms more typically accompany schizophrenia in young people or dementia in older patients. And some patients  like the physical therapist who took herself to the hospital  understood something was wrong, while usually people with psychosis dont have an insight that theyve lost touch with reality.
Help India!

By Musheera Ashraf, TwoCircles.net

Dorana, a village located in Daloda Tehsil of Mandsaur district in Madhya Pradesh, is a predominantly Hindu village  comprising of nearly four hundred Hindu households with a small minority of eighty Muslim households. Previously, as per Muslim residents of the village, they lived in communal harmony with Hindus of the area. This changed on December 29.

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Before this day we were living in brotherhood with our Hindu brothers, but 29 December brought a huge change in lives of people of Dorana, Shahid, a local resident told TwoCircles.net. Us din hum sirf Musalman they aur wo sirf Hindu (On that day we were Muslims and Hindus only), he adds.

Shahid, an eye witness told TwoCircles.net that, messages were floating few days before the incident about a huge rally going to be organised in Dorana Village to collect the funds for Ram Mandir in Ayodhya

Revealing the details, Shahid says, On 27 December, we felt something is being planned against us. We sensed some unusual things. We got an idea that their intention is not good. Few messages leaked and reached us.

The Muslims of the area had information that the Hindu Yuva Vahini, RSS and Bajrang Dal was planning to hoist saffron flags on a mosque and frighten and harm Muslims.

When Muslims of Dorana went to police station Nai Abadi and apprised the police station incharge about the news that was circulating, as per them they were told by the police incharge that, they dont need any permission for rally as they get the permission directly from Delhi.

The delegation urged him to do something keeping the pandemic in view. As per Shahid, the police incharge told him, How can you stop the rally? Your village is not Pakistan.

Instead of providing them with safety he advised them to go out of the village at the time of rally in order to avoid any chaos, says Shahid.

The Muslim villagers decided to give a written application in SP office to which SP replied, that there is nothing to worry about and they (police) will ensure that nothing happens.

According to the locals, a night before the rally, a group of police came for a round and told the residents to be calm. They advised the locals to leave the village for some time and not worry about their houses.

Narrating the incident, Shahid says, The next day came as a tragedy for the Muslims of Dorana. A group of people parked their vehicles outside the village and moved inside the village with DJ. They stopped outside the masjid, chanted religious slurs pointing out muslims and danced.

They recited Hanuman Chalisa infront of the masjid, broke into groups and started getting into the houses and looted them,  he alleged and adds, they hoisted saffron flags on our houses.

Seeing this, Shahid put on a mask and somehow managed to hide in the crowd. They were looting our houses and destroying our properties but I was helpless, he says.

I was just watching them do that, he adds.

What worries Shahid is that the culprits are roaming freely in their village.

Another resident of Dorona, Ahmed told TwoCircles.net the crowd knew which houses belonged to Muslims. The people who lived with us for years were the ones who were leading them in pointing to our houses, says Ahmed.

Ahmed alleges that they (the crowd) had a team that was working in a planned manner.

They distributed the number of houses each group had to loot among themselves, he said.

Shahid said that they had already sent their families to farther places. Thankfully they are safe, he said, adding, I sent my family into the fields. Otherwise they would have killed them.

Describing the incident Shahid says, They first damaged all the toilets and bathrooms of all the houses, then they cut off the electricity power of the area.

Shahid alleges that the the police were standing and they saw them doing the damage and did nothing.

Shahid says that Muslims of the area didnt do anything, as they believed the police would have framed us and blamed us for damage.

Shahid wants the administration to look into the matter. We want the government to take strict steps against them, he says.

They should punish these terrorists who have damaged our property and our peace, he says.

Ahmed Noor is a resident of Dorana and owns a poultry business. Talking to TwoCircles.net, he says, They were around 6000 to 7000 in number. They intentionally came to loot and create fear among muslims.

They would have killed us if our children would have been at home, Ahmed Noor adds.

Ahmed Noor says he was watching the scenes from a distance. I was seeing everything but I couldnt do anything. People ran because of fear. We trusted the police. We are helpless now, he said.

Ahmed Noor alleges that, the mob broke all the water tanks. When they saw any Muslim, they threw stones and fired.

While some residents have registered an FIR, some are still struggling to register one with the police.

Ahmed asserts that, they were rioters. Who wont be afraid of them?.

They had swords, sticks and guns. This was the worst day of our lives, he adds.

When TwoCircles.net reached out to Nai Abadi police station incharge Man Singh, he confirmed that, Five people have been arrested. Police went there for patrolling before the rally.

We are looking into the matter, Singh added.
Samsung is expected to unveil the Galaxy S21 smartphones and Galaxy Buds Pro TWS earphones on January 14, but alongside those, we may also see the Galaxy SmartTag Bluetooth object tracker go official, which has appeared in live images as it got certified by Taiwan's NCC.

The Galaxy SmartTag is pictured in Black color, but we know it will also have an Oatmeal color option. The SmartTag looks similar to the popular Tile trackers and has Samsung etched on one side and Galaxy SmartTag on the other. However, a few images show a different design and the tracker also has the Samsung branding in white color.



Samsung Galaxy SmartTag

The NCC listing doesn't divulge any features of the Galaxy SmartTag, but different certifying authorities have previously revealed the tracker will pack a single, replaceable 3V button cell and come with Bluetooth 5.1 connectivity.

The Galaxy SmartTag is rumored to cost 15-20 in Europe and will likely be compatible with Samsung's SmartThings Find feature. More details about it should surface in the coming days.

Source (in Taiwanese) | Via
The coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, which was approved Wednesday in Britain, is unlikely to get a green light in the European Union in the next month, according to the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

The regulator, charged with overseeing vaccines' authorisation in the EU before they can be marketed, approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on December 21. It is expected to rule on Moderna's vaccine on January 6.

But an EU ruling on the AstraZeneca-Oxford jab will take some time.

"Additional scientific information on issues related to quality, safety and efficacy of the vaccine is deemed necessary to support the rigour required for a conditional marketing authorisation (CMA) and this has been requested from the company," the EMA said in a statement.

"Further information from the ongoing clinical trials is also expected from January."

Coronavirus vaccine news live updates on DH

The Amsterdam-based agency earlier told AFP that it had not yet received any formal marketing authorisation and that it had set no timetable for approving the vaccine.

The regulator's deputy executive director Noel Walthion told Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad on Tuesday that a possible approval in January is "unlikely".

The AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine is currently undergoing a "rolling review" which allows the EMA to examine safety and efficacy data as they are released, even before a formal application for authorisation is filed by the manufacturer.

This procedure speeds up the evaluation of a marketing authorisation application once it is made, the EMA said.

The agency said Wednesday it is "aware that the UK MHRA has granted a temporary authorisation of supply of the vaccine in the emergency use setting, which is distinct from a marketing authorisation."

Also read: Explainer | How does AstraZeneca's vaccine compare with Pfizer-BioNTech?

An AstraZeneca spokesperson told AFP it "has submitted a full data package to support an application for conditional marketing authorisation for the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine to the European Medicines Agency."

The spokesperson added: "AstraZeneca has been submitting data on a rolling basis and will continue to work closely with the EMA to support the start of a formal CMA application process."

Britain is the first country in the world to approve the vaccine, which is cheaper to produce and easier to store and transport than the Pfizer-BioNTech jab.

For EU countries, it is up to the European Commission in Brussels to issue the final green light after EMA approval.

Inoculations with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine began in the 27-member bloc over the weekend.
Geneva, Jan 1 (UNI) The World Health Organization has issued an emergency use validation for the vaccine against the coronavirus developed by the Pfizer and BioNTech companies, the first one since the start of the pandemic.

"The World Health Organization (WHO) today listed the Comirnaty COVID-19 mRNA vaccine for emergency use, making the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine the first to receive emergency validation from WHO since the outbreak began a year ago," the WHO said in a statement on Thursday.

The Emergency Use Listing (EUL) opens the door for countries to expedite their own approval processes to distribute and administer the vaccine. It also enables UNICEF and the Pan-American Health Organization to obtain the vaccine for distribution in countries in need.

'This is a very positive step towards ensuring global access to COVID-19 vaccines. But I want to emphasize the need for an even greater global effort to achieve enough vaccine supply to meet the needs of priority populations everywhere,' said Dr Mariangela Simao, WHO Assistant-Director General for Access to Medicines and Health Products.

'We encourage even more developers to come forward for review and assessment. Its vitally important that we secure the critical supply needed to serve all countries around the world and stem the pandemic,' she added.

According to WHO, the emergency use listing assesses the suitability of the vaccine as well as the safety, efficacy and quality of the vaccine.

The Pfizer vaccine was authorized for emergency use in the United States on December 11 while the Moderna vaccine was also authorized for emergency use later in December. The United Kingdom was one of the first countries to authorize the Pfizer vaccine emergency use on December 2.

The WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11. To date, more than 83.1 million people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, with over 1.81 million fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University.

UNI XC AVK 0725
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Former Miss Great Britain Zara Holland and her partner Elliott Love were detained at the airport as they tried to flee the Caribbean island rather than quarantine at a monitoring unit after he tested positive for Covid

A Love Island star arrested in Barbados for flouting quarantine laws has so outraged islanders they want her thrown in jail.

Former Miss Great Britain Zara Holland and her partner Elliott Love were detained at the airport as they tried to flee the Caribbean island rather than quarantine at a monitoring unit after he tested positive for Covid.

They were held as the Barbados government brought in tough measures to suppress coronavirus transmission on the popular winter holiday destination.

Those breaking Covid laws on the island face an 18,000 fine or jail.

On Friday, Briton James MacLean, a frequent visitor to Barbados, launched a petition, called Send Zara Holland and Elliott Love to jail, which will be passed to the islands Prime Minister Mia Mottley.

Mr MacLean wrote: They undermined the huge amount of work that had been done to suppress community transmission and they didnt just risk the livelihoods of Bajans, they risked their lives.

If one single person dies as a result of their selfish and cowardly actions, then they should be charged with murder. Either way, we strongly believe they should receive a custodial sentence, either in Barbados or the UK, for wantonly endangering the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

Barbados activist Ronelle King told The Mail on Sunday that the couples actions amounted to a conscious act of bio-terrorism, adding: I want them fined, imprisoned, deported and banned. In that order.

Miss Holland, 25, issued a grovelling apology to the islands government and its furious residents, claiming the couples actions were the result of a massive mix-up and misunderstanding.

When Mr Love tested positive for Covid on arrival last Sunday, the couple were given red wristbands and told to remain in their room at the 300-a-night Sugar Bay Hotel until they were taken to a quarantine centre on the north of the island.

Instead, they booked a British Airways flight, cut off their wristbands and took a taxi to the airport where, according to a local source, their names raised some red flags with airport officials because of their short turnaround time in the country. Police were then alerted.

Miss Holland, 25, issued a grovelling apology to the islands government and its furious residents, claiming the couples actions were the result of a massive mix-up and misunderstanding

Miss Holland, from North Ferriby, East Yorkshire, told island newspaper Barbados Today: I want to apologise to the entire country of Barbados for what has been a massive mix-up and misunderstanding. I would never do anything to jeopardise an entire nation that I have nothing but love and respect for.

It is understood Miss Holland is staying at a secret location after leaving St Lucys District Hospital, a basic unit where tourists quarantine until they can provide two negative tests. Mr Love, 30, remains at the hospital.

Sources on the island are questioning why Miss Holland, who was stripped of her Miss Great Britain title in 2016 after having sex on screen on that years Love Island, has not been charged.

When Mr Love tested positive for Covid on arrival last Sunday, the couple were given red wristbands and told to remain in their room at the 300-a-night Sugar Bay Hotel until they were taken to a quarantine centre on the north of the island
In just the first two months of 2021, undocumented immigrants will have access to drivers licenses, nursing homes will have to maintain minimum staffing levels and county freeholders will be no more.

Thats because the new year brings new laws. Theyll bring changes to training for law enforcement and corrections officers and release for inmates. No word on legal weed yet, as the year ended without new legislation allowing the sale of marijuana for those 21 and over and decriminalizing the drug.

Here are some of the state laws that will take effect this year:

NO MORE FREEHOLDERS

As of Jan. 1, a countys elected leaders will no longer be called freeholders. Instead, theyll be titled county commissioners, under a law signed by Gov. Phil Murphy in August. Boards of chosen freeholders will be likewise be renamed boards of county commissioners.

New Jersey is the only state where top elected county officials are called freeholders, a centuries-old title that Democratic state leaders said was born from racism.

Its past time for New Jersey to phase out the term freeholder from our public discourse  a term coined when only white male landowners could hold public office, Murphy, Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin said jointly.

The name stems from a 15th century English legal term referring to a person who owned land free of debts, mortgage, or lien.

That carried over to pre-Revolutionary America. New Jerseys first constitution, written in 1776, declared a county representative must be worth fifty pounds proclamation money, clear estate in the same and have resided in the county in which they claim a vote for twelve months immediately preceding the election.

Proponents of dropping the name noted that only landowners could hold office at the time, and because Black people and most women could not own property, it ensured white men were in power. Owning property during that period also could have included owning slaves.

TAX ON INSURANCE COMPANIES

Insurance companies will pay a 2.5% tax on premiums beginning in the new year.

Proceeds of the new tax, estimated to be about $200 million, will be deposited into the Health Insurance Affordability Fund to subsidize the cost of insurance for people earning less than four times the federal poverty level. That means an individual earning no more than $50,040 and a family of three with income at or below $86,880.

An estimated $77 million of the tax revenue will bolster the states existing reinsurance program to cover high cost claims and lower premium costs in the individual market.

Insurers have been paying a federal premiums tax since 2014 to help pay for the landmark health care law, also known as Obamacare. But that tax is expiring. Public health and family advocates urged the Murphy administration to impose this tax to expand coverage to a wider swath of uninsured and underinsured residents.

Business leaders and some health care providers lobbied against it, saying the tax would be passed on to consumers who could hardly afford it.

DRIVERS LICENSES FOR UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS

This law effectively extends licenses to residents without legal status, as well as other residents who may not have documentation, was scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. The Motor Vehicle Commission announced this week, however, that it wont meet that deadline.

Motor Vehicle officials blamed the pandemic for delayed implementation of this new law. They did not offer a new date.

The demands on MVC due to COVID-19 have made it impossible for us to complete the training and software changes required to implement it, MVC Chief Administrator Sue Fulton said in a statement.

This law creates two categories of licenses and identification cards: a REAL ID and a standard ID. Someone must demonstrate citizenship or lawful presence in the U.S. to obtain a REAL ID.

More than 440,000 residents are expected to be able to benefit when the MVC launches the process.

Murphy signed the bill into law in December 2019 and the state has had 13 months to implement the new licenses.

Immigrant advocacy groups previously criticized the administrations plans to implement the law, namely requirements that people seeking licenses or IDs who dont have a Social Security number would have to provide their Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, which is a tax processing numbers issued by the IRS, or a letter from the Social Security Administration stating ineligibility.

Advocates said this is a burdensome requirement that could expose applicants citizenship status to the federal government.

NURSING HOME STAFFING

This new law sets minimum ratios for nurses and aides at New Jersey nursing homes.

The legislation had been blocked by industry lobbyists and some lawmakers for five years, but there was renewed urgency to pass the bill after the coronavirus pandemic claimed the lives of thousands of long-term care residents in New Jersey.

Compliance will cost the industry $30 million or $5 a day per resident, according to the Health Care Association of New Jersey, a lobbying group for long-term care facilities.

Sadly, too many nursing homes are run by companies more interested in making money than protecting patients, Murphy said in a statement after signing the bill. These long-sought reforms will help bring accountability to the industry and protect residents, staff, and family members with a loved one living in a long-term care facility.

The law requires:

One Certified Nursing Assistant per 8 patients during the day shift

One direct care staff member  defined as a certified nurse assistant, a licensed practical nurse or a registered nurse  for every 10 residents during the evening shift, provided that no fewer than half of all staff members are to be certified nurse aides, and each staff member will sign in to work as a certified nurse aide and will perform certified nurse aide duties, according to bill

One direct care staffer for every 14 residents during the overnight shift, with the same rules that applied during the evening shift.

The law takes effect Feb. 1.

CORRECTIONS OFFICER TRAINING

Corrections officers must receive 20 hours of training annually, with four of those hours focused on prevention of sexual assault, sexual abuse, and sexual harassment, non-fraternization, conditioning and manipulation awareness, under this law taking effect Feb. 1.

The law was part of a package aimed at cracking down on the sexual abuse of inmates at New Jerseys womens prison by corrections officers.

LAW ENFORCEMENT RECRUITMENT

This new law requires state, county and municipal law enforcement agencies establish minority recruitment and selection programs.

It says agencies must make a good faith effort to hire more women and people of color, but it doesnt set specific goals beyond saying agencies should reflect the diversity of the population around them.

The law takes effect Feb. 1.

RENEWING PROFESSIONAL LICENSES

People will be able to obtain or renew their professional licenses online beginning Jan. 1. Gov. Chris Christie signed the bill into law shortly before leaving office in 2018.

Professional or occupational boards will be required to provide a secure process for applicants to complete documents, submit documentation and make payments on their websites.

EARN YOUR WAY OUT

The law creates an administrative parole, which will allow certain inmates convicted of nonviolent offenses to forgo a full parole hearing and instead be released on parole after a review by a hearing officer and certification by a member of the State Parole Board.

Dubbed earn your way out, it also requires the Department of Corrections and the parole board to develop individualized reentry plans to help each inmate transition back into society. Those plans can incorporate medical, psychiatric, psychological, educational, vocational, substance abuse, and social rehabilitative services, according to the law.

The law takes effect Feb. 1.

COMPASSIONATE RELEASE

Beginning in February, New Jerseys existing medical statute will be replaced with compassionate release, allowing inmates to be released from prison if they are suffering from a terminal medical condition or permanent physical incapacity.

The law requires the inmates attorney or the public defender be notified when a client is diagnosed with a grave medical condition, and allows them to petition for compassionate release.

LAW ENFORCEMENT IMPLICIT BIAS TRAINING

This law mandates cultural diversity and implicit bias training for law enforcement officers. Law enforcement agencies must provide the training every five years.

Implicit bias is the automatic association people make between groups of people and stereotypes about those groups. It has been shown to have significant influence on the outcomes of interactions between police and residents, the legislative sponsors said. If there is any profession that cannot afford to have or show bias or discrimination in the act of doing their jobs, its law enforcement. The rise in police incidences resulting in death of men and women of color has sounded an alarm in communities throughout the nation.

We must now focus on providing law enforcement agencies with the tools needed to train the officers to acknowledge implicit bias reactions and instead, keep and impart compassion in their work in the diverse communities they serve.

The law takes effect March 1.

ANALYZING ARRESTS DATA

This new law, taking effect Dec. 1, requires the attorney general collect and analyze race, ethnicity, gender, and age data on arrests and outcomes, which advocates say could help point out disparities in arrests in African-American communities. Those reports and analyses will be public.

This will help elected officials and the public better evaluate how the law is being applied and enforced in New Jersey, Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr., R-Union, the bills sponsor, said in a statement. It is imperative that we identify underlying issues within the system and find solutions as part of a concerted effort to assure that justice in New Jersey is blind and fair.

WHAT ABOUT LEGAL WEED?

When Murphy was elected, the talk was New Jersey could get a law to legalize marijuana within 100 days of when he took office. Its now been more than 1,080 days, and no law has been signed.

Voters approved a referendum to legalize the sale of marijuana to those 21 and over in November, and lawmakers passed bills on setting rules for legalization and decriminalization on Dec. 17 after weeks of haggling. But the governor now wants changes that would set fines for marijuana possession for people under 21, so the negotiations continue.

NJ Advance Media reporters Brent Johnson, Susan K. Livio, Sophie Nieto-Munoz, Larry Higgs and Blake Nelson contributed to this report.

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Samantha Marcus may be reached at smarcus@njadvancemedia.com.
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The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recently said it is issuing long-awaited rules that permit small drones to fly at night and over people. Drones, a kind of small aircraft, fly without a pilot.

The FAAs move is an important step toward the use of drones for large numbers of business deliveries in the United States.

The FAA is also requiring identification of most drones for security and safety reasons.

Deliveries

FAA Administrator Steve Dickson said in a statement that the new rules get us closer to the day when we will more routinely see drone operations such as the delivery of packages.

Packages are boxes or large envelopes that are sent or delivered.

Since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, companies have raced to create drone fleets to speed deliveries.

Delivery companies like UPS and Amazon have been investing in the technology for years. Both companies have seen growing profits during the coronavirus pandemic as more Americans turn to home delivery for many products, including groceries.

The rules also come at a time when drones represent the fastest-growing area in the transportation sector, an FAA Press Release Statement said.

The statement added that there are over 1.7 million drone registrations and 203,000 FAA-approved remote pilots in the United States.

Safety and Security Concerns

For night operations, the FAA said drones must have special lights that help the aircraft avoid accidents. Remote ID, a form of identification, is required for all drones weighing around 250 grams or more. But, it is required for smaller drones in some situations. The Remote ID rule requires drones to broadcast ID messages via radio.

Companies Seek Approval for Drone Deliveries

The FAAs new rules are the latest in a series of policies about drone use for deliveries. In October 2019, United Parcel Service Inc. said that it won the U.S. governments first full approval to operate a drone airline.

Last year, Alphabets Wing, a sister company of search engine Google, was the first to get U.S. air carrier approval for a single-pilot drone operation. In August, Amazons drone service received federal approval. The approval lets the company begin testing business deliveries through its drone fleet.

The new FAA rules will become official 60 days after publication next month. Drone manufacturers will have 18 months to begin producing drones with Remote ID, while drone operators have an additional year to begin using drones with Remote ID.

Im John Russell.

David Shepardson reported on this story for Reuters. John Russell adapted it for Learning English. Mario Ritter, Jr. was the editor. _____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

delivery  n. the act of taking something to a person or place

routinely  adv. done very often

sector  n. an area of an economy : a part of an economy that includes certain kinds of jobs

remote  adj. capable of being controlled from a distance: connected to a computer system from another place:
BEIJING, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- Approved by Xi Jinping, chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), the CMC has released a set of interim regulations on the management of military officers on active service as well as multiple supporting regulations.

The regulations, effective from Friday, uphold the Party's absolute leadership over the armed forces and focus on combat capabilities.

Improving various policies such as those on the management of officers' career development and their service, welfare and support, the regulations aim to establish a career officers system with Chinese characteristics.

The release of the regulations will help achieve more professional, sophisticated and scientific officer management, and will provide strong organizational guarantee and personnel support for achieving the Party's goal of strengthening the military in the new era and building world class armed forces.
For the second time in less than a decade, Northeast Pennsylvania experienced heat in 2020 like never before.

The National Weather Service reported Friday that the average temperature last year at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport was 53.6 degrees, making it the warmest year locally since official record-keeping began in 1901.

That easily shattered the previous record of 53 degrees set in 2012.

In a year mostly devoid of major storms or other dramatic weather, the above-average temperatures that persisted practically without pause throughout the year stand out as 2020s defining meteorological feature.

It was definitely a remarkably warm year, AccuWeather meteorologist Brett Rossio said.

Just how warm? With an average temperature of 78 degrees, July established itself as the hottest month ever recorded in Northeast Pennsylvania. The old record was 77.4 degrees in July 1955.

But other months turned in average temperatures that also warranted superlatives.

The year produced the 11th warmest January, sixth warmest February, and fifth warmest March, August and November.

The only month that was cooler than usual was April, with an average temperature just 1.6 degrees below normal.

There were 25 days when the temperature hit at least 90 degrees, including 16 days in July, the most ever in a single month locally. The readings included a high of 93 degrees on May 26, which tied the record for the warmest temperature ever in May.

With 2020 taking over the top spot, four of Northeast Pennsylvanias seven warmest years have now come since 2012. With an average temperature of 52.5 degrees, 2016 is tied for third on the list, and 2017 is seventh at 52.2 degrees.

Adam Gill, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Binghamton, New York, said it is a worrying trend.

More likely than not, its climate change, Gill said, adding more research would be needed to state that conclusively.

Here are a few other weather tidbits from 2020 you may have missed:

 The temperature did not dip to zero or below for the first time since 2017. In fact, only twice did the overnight low slip into the single digits  Feb. 15 and Dec. 19  when it dropped to 5 degree both times. Its the first time there were fewer than three nights in the single digits since 2006. The area typically experiences 15 to 18 single-digit nights in a typical winter, Gill said.

 The annual precipitation finished just a tad under normal. A total of 36.71 inches fell at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton airport, slightly off the yearly average of 38.26 inches. In 2019, the area received more than 49 inches of precipitation.

 The years biggest snowfall came Dec. 16-17, when a storm officially dropped a quick 11 inches at the airport. That far surpassed any snowfall last winter  or in all of 2019, for that matter. The last comparable storm happened in November 2018, and it also dropped 11 inches on the area.
In a New Years Eve drug bust gone dramatically awry, a New Jersey detectives clothes were caught on a car mirror, dragging him down the road as his suspects tried to make a speedy getaway, police said.

The made-for-Hollywood sequence began around noon on Thursday when the Brick Township police officer spotted a drug deal in a WaWa parking lot. Police said the two subjects, Berkeley Township resident Edwardo Lopez, 57, and Howell resident Ryan Chapman, 39, returned to their vehicles, while the detective followed behind to Chapmans blue Honda Civic.

As the detective appeared at the window, he saw Chapman readying a syringe, according to Brick police. They said the detective identified himself, scaring the driver, identified as Howell resident Jill Farrelly, 38.

Farrelly slammed on the gas, catching the sideview mirror on the detectives clothes and dragging him down the road for 10 feet before flinging him off, police said.

Nonetheless, the detective managed to call in the vehicles description over the radio, where Patrol Officer Rob Scelfo located Farrelly and Chapman, police reported. They were taken into custody and the Honda Civic was impounded.

While the detective had gone after Chapman, other detectives had followed Lopez out of the parking lot, police said. They stopped his black Honda Accord, finding drugs and paraphernalia as well as a 47-year-old Whiting resident and a 28-year-old Toms River resident.

The subjects were all brought to the Ocean County Jail and charged on various drug possession counts for heroin and paraphernalia. Authorities said Chapman and Farrelly earned additional charges for trying to evade the police and conspiracy to commit aggravated assault to an officer.

The detective received deep contusions to his back and some bumps and scrapes. He was treated at Ocean Medical Center, and though police said his injuries were minor, he has not yet returned to work.

Police have not released the name of the injured detective.

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Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Saturday said those who survived 2020 and the coronavirus pandemic should be grateful to God.

He added that all souls who witnessed the new year should as well thank God for His mercies.

Mr Obasanjo stated this at the second annual Thanksgiving service of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Ogun State Chapter held at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta.

The former President, who was full of praises to God for sparing his life in view of the coronavirus pandemic, noted that the virus posed a serious threat to humanity in 2020, stressing that he would continue to serve God.

Mr Obasanjo, who is the Asiwaju Onigbagbo of Ogun State, pointed out that for him to have also survived the immediate past year was the grace of God, and not that because he was more righteous or clever than any of those that who have passed.

He said he was convinced that God purposely kept him alive to serve Him and humanity more, adding that the year 2020 was worth celebrating.

It is our duty to give thanks to God. You will be (ingrate) if you do not perform the duty of giving thanks to God. In all circumstances, give thanks. Therefore, if you fail to give thanks, you are failing a very significant duty of yours as a Christian, he said.

Last year 2020, (was) a very challenging year, not only for us in Nigeria, not only for us in Africa but for the whole world. The fact that you are alive calls for giving thanks to God.  Its just by the grace of God.

And if God gives you that grace, to still remain on earth, maybe for a purpose and I believe part of the purpose is for you to continue to serve humanity and to serve God. You cannot be a servant of God if you cannot give thanks to him. The purpose of being here is to perform our duty as Christians, by giving thanks to God.

The Chairman of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Akin Akinsanya, earlier in his welcome speech, explained that the annual thanksgiving service was designed to honour Obasanjo as the Asiwaju Onigbagbo of Ogun State.

The Christians leader called on citizens to always show gratitude to God for keeping them alive despite the pandemic, which has claimed many lives.

The National Vice President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), Reuben Olu  Oke in his sermon, admonished Nigerians to emulate the former president, who he said is addicted to praising and worshipping God.
The legal ramifications of the recently promulgated Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020 are examined by juxtaposing popular perceptions of inter-religious marriages as dishonourable to the concerned families and communities, with a feminist perspective of womens agency and exercise of choice in marriage. The key to preventing the phenomenon of conversion for marriage lies not in enacting draconian legislations that arm the state machinery with arbitrary powers, but in streamlining and simplifying procedures under the Special Marriage Act, 1954 that allow for inter-religious marriages without religious conversion of either person.

In December 2020, the Lucknow Police prevented a consensual inter-religious marriage between a Hindu woman and a Muslim man after objections by a non-state, vigilante group (Rehman 2020). Following this, a Hindu woman in Moradabad who had converted to Islam of her own accord and married a Muslim man was reportedly brought to the police station by activists of a right-wing group. Her husband and his brother were arrested (Wire 2020a). In both cases, the women were consenting adults whose agency to choose a marriage partner was ignored by the police all in the name of protecting gullible Hindu women from devious Muslim men.

These incidents emerge in the context of the Uttar Pradesh (UP) Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020 (Uttar Pradesh Vidhi Virudh Dharma Samparivartan Pratishedh Adhyadesh, 2020), promulgated on 28 November 2020 in the midst of the pandemic, suggesting urgency on the part of the government for a law to curb unlawful conversions. However, despite this urgency, the government has released no official statistics in the public domain to indicate the scale of forced religious conversions in the context of marriage. In fact, a special investigation team of the UP police that investigated 14 cases of suspicious instances of HinduMuslim romance in Kanpur city concluded that in eight out of 14 cases, the Hindu women had either married Muslim men or lived with them of their own free will, while the other six cases continue to be under investigation (Rashid 2020).
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Donald Trump has confirmed he will travel to Georgia on Monday to support GOP candidates ahead of Tuesday's crucial senate runoff election - just hours after he insisted the vote would be 'illegal and invalid'.

The president took to Twitter Saturday morning to weigh in on the contest, and also slammed Obama-appointed US District Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner - sister of Stacey Abrams - who had ruled that 4,000 people whose eligibility was being challenged would be allowed to vote.

GOP candidates David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are up against Democrats Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in the January 5 vote - with the president set to hold a last-ditch rally in Dalton, Georgia Monday night.

Joe Biden will hold a rival campaign event in Atlanta, Georgia, Monday to try to give a final campaign boost to Ossoff and Warnock.

If the Democrats win both senate seats, it will create a 50/50 split in the Senate, and give incoming Vice President Kamala Harris the deciding vote - leaving Democrats in control of the White House, House and Senate, and Trump's MAGA legacy in tatters.

His latest tweets came as it was reported that Democrats hold an edge in early, in-person voting in the run-off races. Fox news reports that 2.8 million Georgians have already cast ballots and participation has so far been higher in Democratic Congressional districts.

Trump's Twitter rant marked the latest yo-yoing from the president over the Georgia Senate runoffs as he tweeted just an hour earlier urging his followers to 'get ready to vote' on January 5.

Yesterday, he told fans the race was 'illegal and invalid' because of what he described as an 'unconstitutional' voting process.

The suggestion that the vote is 'illegal' is likely to rattle GOP chiefs, who fear he could turn off his followers from heading to the polls. A faction of Republicans reportedly fear the president is deliberately sabotaging the race to send a message that the party needs him despite his loss in the presidential race.

The president laid into Judge Gardner, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, on Twitter Saturday.

'The only judge seems to be Staceys sister!' he wrote, days after Gardner's Monday ruling dealt another blow to his election legal battle.

Gardner is the sister of Abrams, the former Democrat governor candidate for Georgia who is credited with playing a critical role in turning the red state blue in favor of Joe Biden in November's presidential election.

Donald Trump has slammed Stacey Abrams' judge sister over her ruling stopping thousands of Georgia votes being tossed and has insisted the state's Senate runoffs are 'illegal and invalid' despite vowing to attend a rally there Monday

She is the sister of Stecey Abrams (center) who is credited with playing a critical role in turning the red state blue. Gardner is visible behind her sister (circled in the red dress) on May 22 2018 in Atlanta when Abrams was running for Georgia governor

Trump also repeated his calls for another signature verification of mail-in ballots and continued to push his unsubstantiated claims that the presidential election was stolen from him.

'Why havent they done signature verification in Fulton County, Georgia. Why havent they deducted all of the dead people who voted, illegals who voted, non Georgia residents who voted, and tens of thousands of others who voted illegally, from the final vote tally?' Trump tweeted Saturday.

'Just a small portion of these votes give US a big and conclusive win in Georgia. Have they illegally destroyed ballots in Fulton County?

'After many weeks, we dont yet even have a judge to hear this large scale voter fraud case. The only judge seems to be Staceys sister!'

Donald Trump boards Airforce One while departing from Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida on December 31

US District Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner ordered local election officials in Georgia to allow voting by more than 4,000 people whose eligibility was being challenged

On Monday, Gardner ruled that two Georgia counties must undo their purging of voters from the election rolls, coming as a blow to Trump's legal fight over the election.

The federal judge ordered local election officials in Ben Hill County and Muscogee County, which includes Columbus, to allow voting by more than 4,000 people whose eligibility was being challenged.

The judge ruled that denying so many voters access to the ballot so close to an election would likely violate the National Voter Registration Act.

Gardner is the sister of black Democratic activist Abrams, and so the judge's involvement has sparked outrage among some Trump supporters and Republicans.

Abrams, together with her organization Fair Fight, has been credited with boosting Democrat votes in the state and ultimately swinging the state to Biden. She raised millions of dollars and pushed hundreds of thousands of voters to register and turn out for the presidential election.

Meanwhile Trump's push for signature verification comes as he seeks to have mail-in ballots thrown out across the state as he continues to push unfounded claims of widespread election fraud and refuses to concede to the President-elect.

Trump's Twitter rant marked the latest yo-yoing from the president in the last day as he tweeted just an hour earlier urging his followers to 'get ready to vote' in the Georgia Senate runoffs on January 5

A signature audit would involve comparing the signatures on a sample of absentee ballot envelopes with the signatures on the voter's registration application.

But the process of verifying voter signatures was already carried out by election workers when the ballots arrived and it would now be impossible to trace an individual ballot back to the envelope it came in.

Trump's repeated swipes at Georgia is fueling fears among the GOP that it will dissuade his supporters from voting in the crucial runoffs on Tuesday that ultimately decides which party will control the Senate.

He has on the one hand been urging his supporters to back Loeffler and Perdue in the runoff race but has also continued to undermine the entire election process.

Georgia Republicans including Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan are warning him he is damaging Loeffler and Perdue's chances.

Trump tweeted earlier Saturday morning urging his followers to get behind the two GOP Senate candidates.

'Will be in Georgia on Monday night, 9:00 P.M. to RALLY for two GREAT people, @sendavidperdue & @kloeffler. GET READY TO VOTE ON TUESDAY!!!' he tweeted Saturday morning.

This came just hours after he claimed the whole of Georgia's election is 'not legal or constitutional' due to 'massive' changes to the voting process .He specifically took aim at the Georgia 'consent decree' - a bipartisan agreement around validating signatures on ballots

This appeared to be a major backtrack from his Twitter rant just hours earlier on New Year's Day where he claimed the whole of Georgia's election is 'not legal or constitutional' due to 'massive' changes to the voting process he says were made 'hastily' in the run up to the presidential election.

Trump specifically took aim at the Georgia 'consent decree' - a bipartisan agreement reached in March by state Democratic and Republican officials that determined standards for validating signatures on absentee ballots.

He also continued to push unfounded claims of widespread election fraud saying without evidence that there was 'massive corruption' in the 2020 election in the Twitter thread that was marked with a 'disputed' warning by the platform.

'Before even discussing the massive corruption which took place in the 2020 Election, which gives us far more votes than is necessary to win all of the Swing States (only need three), it must be noted that the State Legislatures were not in any way responsible for the massive changes made to the voting process, rules and regulations, many made hastily before the election, and therefore the whole State Election is not legal or Constitutional,' Trump tweeted Friday.

'Additionally, the Georgia Consent Decree is Unconstitutional & the State 2020 Presidential Election is therefore both illegal and invalid, and that would include the two current Senatorial Elections.

'In Wisconsin, Voters not asking for applications invalidates the Election. All of this without even discussing the millions of fraudulent votes that were cast or altered!'

Senator Kelly Loeffler is joined by Texas Senator Ted Cruz at a campaign rally on Saturday in Cumming, Georgia

Loeffler waves to the crowd at Saturday's rally. Fears are mounting that Trump is turning off his followers from heading to the polls for the crucial vote that ultimately decides which party will control the Senate.

David Perdue (pictured December 11) announced Thursday he was in quarantine after being exposed to COVID-19 by a staff member

The thread was slapped with validity warnings from Twitter that the election fraud claim is disputed and that election officials have certified the presidential election for Joe Biden.

Election officials have declared Joe Biden won Georgia with 49.5 percent of the vote in comparison to Trump's 49.3 percent.

In the rant, Trump said the consent decree rendered both his own loss in Georgia and the two Senate runoffs 'invalid'.

The decree gives voters an opportunity to fix absentee ballots where there is some alleged mismatch between their signature on their ballot and their signature that election officials have on file.

The signature verification process has been the crux of many of Trump's failed lawsuits to overturn the election, with his legal team arguing the agreement was illegal because it did not involve state legislatures.

The argument has failed however because Supreme Court rulings do allow legislatures to delegate their authority to other state officials, according to the National Constitution Center.

Neither Loeffler nor Perdue's offices returned DailyMail.com's requests for comment on Trump's claims about Tuesday's runoff race.

Ossoff was also on the campaign trail Saturday at a Get Out The Vote rally in Stone Mountain

Ossoff speaks to a crowd of supporters Saturday in the days before the Senate runoffs where he takes on Perdue

The outcome of the January runoffs will ultimately decide who takes control of the Senate. Pictured Democrat Raphael Warnock

Loeffler held a campaign rally Saturday joined by Texas Senator Ted Cruz in Cumming, Georgia.

Perdue meanwhile announced Thursday he was in quarantine after being exposed to COVID-19 by a staff member.

Ossoff was also on the campaign trail Saturday holding a speech to a crowd of supporters at a Get Out The Vote rally in Stone Mountain.

Trump's repeated undermining of the validity of the Senate race could be doing his party more harm than good by deterring his supporters from turning out to vote.

Trump-supporting conspiracy theorists have already threatened to stage a boycott to derail the GOP candidates' chances to claim the seats.

And Trump has been railing against one of his own calling for Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp to resign.

Trump is outraged with the governor because Kemp won't overturn the state's presidential election results in his favor and two recounts have confirmed Biden's win in the state.

He tweeted Wednesday that Kemp 'should resign from office. He is an obstructionist who refuses to admit that we won Georgia, BIG! Also won the other Swing States.'

Mike Allen, co-founder of Axios, told CNBC Thursday that many Republicans think Trump is sabotaging Loeffler and Perdue's campaigns to send a message that the party needs him.

'There's a big strain of thought among Republicans that President Trump is sabotaging this race. He's done so much to be unhelpful to those candidates,' Allen said.

'I talk to Republicans and they look at what's happening, and they say, "You know, he must be thinking, 'I want to send a message, If I'm not on the ballot, Republicans are in trouble."'

Allen added that confidence is now waning in the party about the results of the race.

'Georgia, despite the president-elect winning there, is still pretty red, so Republicans said, In the end, this could be fine,'' he said.

'Theyre no longer sure its fine, and a lot of that has to do with the president.'

Prominent Republicans are also warning that Trump is damaging the party's chances of taking the Senate.

Prominent Republicans are also warning that Trump is damaging the party's chances of taking the Senate with Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan telling CNN Thursday he believes Trumps continued denial that he lost the presidential election is damaging Loeffler and Perdues chances in the runoffs

Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan says President Trumps continued denial that he lost the presidential election is hurting GOP candidates in the state runoffs.



Challenges to the results are side-shows, he says. https://t.co/YlssiuFRLx pic.twitter.com/FZt9vUtDeG  New Day (@NewDay) December 31, 2020

Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan told CNN Thursday he believes Trumps continued denial that he lost the presidential election is damaging Loeffler and Perdues chances in the runoffs.

I think so, he said, when the question was put to him.

Unfortunately the president has committed to the way he is going to act and react to losing the election and at this point it is not helping us here in Georgia.

Weve got a very important event on January 5 and not just big for us here in Georgia but big for Republicans all over the country. My hope is that enough Republicans hang on with us here through January 5.

When asked if Trumps rally Monday will help or hurt the GOP race, Duncan said he was just going to stay positive and focus on the campaign.

Republican leadership is working here in Georgia and my encouragement to the president is to stay focused on that, he said.

Some political experts in the state believe Trump has already damaged the candidates' chances with GOP turnout in the early voting period that ended Thursday said to be low.

A total of 2.8 million Georgians had already cast a ballot by Thursday with a higher turnout in Democratic Congressional districts than Republican ones, Fox News reported.

'A big strain' of Trump's own party now fear the president is trying to sabotage the race because of his own failure to take the state, according to Mike Allen, co-founder of Axios

The amount counts for more than a third of the 4.9 million Georgians who voted in the November 3 general election.

Black voters make up a larger percentage of voters than in the November general election, which could be good news for Democratic Senate hopefuls Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock.

Georgia-based GOP consultant Chip Lake told Fox News that 'the early-voting numbers are certainly a little more favorable to Democrats than the early-voting data that we had in November.'

'Republicans need to have a strong Election Day turnout on Tuesday. Election Day votes count the exact same as early votes. We had just under a million people vote on Election Day on Nov. 3,' Lake continued.

'For Republicans to win these runoff races, I think its crucial that we need to have Election Day turnout at 800,000 votes or higher on Tuesday.'

Trump is set to hold a rally in Dalton, Georgia on Monday in support of the two GOP candidates while Biden will be in Atlanta to campaign for the two Democratic candidates.

Both the president-elect and the president will try to rally their respective bases and give their candidates one final boost before the January 5 special election.

Both sides are bringing in big names and political fire power. Singer Jon Legend and former President Barack Obama cut a final campaign ad for Ossoff. And Vice President Mike Pence, who has already made four campaign trips for the Republican senators, could make one final stop before Tuesday's election.

The two Georgia Senate seats are still up for grabs after candidates on neither side of the political line managed to secure the 50 percent threshold to secure a seat on November 3.

This means that on January 5, Perdue will go head-to-head with Democrat opponent Jon Ossoff and Loeffler with Democrat Raphael Warnock.

The outcome will ultimately decide which party takes control of the Senate. If the two Democrats win, the party will hold a 50-50 split meaning Vice President-elect Kamala Harris then has the deciding vote on matters.

If one or both of the Republicans win they will take control, likely making it difficult for the Biden administration to pass policies through the Senate.
Communion in prayer, kindness of the heart and cooperation in good deeds can work wonders, turning fear into courage and hope, Patriarch Daniel of the Romanian Orthodox Church said as he delivered the New Year's blessing service, the Akathist of our Lord Jesus Christ, at the Patriarchal Cathedral.

The leader of Romanian Orthodox Church called on people "to turn this time of trial into a time of blessing."

"In the Orthodox Church, the holy services are moments of sanctification of time, as well as a source of joy and peace, of light and hope in our struggle with the hardships of life. This year, due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, the Holy Feasts of the Nativity of our Lord, New Year and the Baptism of the Lord are celebrated in a more difficult atmosphere. (...) We are going through a period of greater sadness when many are afflicted by the fear caused by the current pandemic: fear of illness, fear of death, fear of change in social life. But communion in prayer, peace of mind, kindness of the heart, and cooperation in good deeds can work wonders, turning fear into courage and hope," the Patriarch said, and went on to remark that "the New Year we enter is a new gift of life we receive from God for our salvation, that is, for the cultivation of communion with Him through prayer and good deeds."

"Therefore, now, at the turn of the year, we must think even more about how to spend the time of our life as a time blessed by God. As such, the Church urges us to look with confidence and hope, but also with responsibility, at every moment of life. In this sense, the teaching of St. John Chrysostom is 'Let not one day of our life pass without laying down a spiritual gain with either prayer, confession, good deeds or with some other spiritual deed'."

The Orthodox Church - Patriarch Daniel underscored - "attaches particular importance to the acts we do during our lifetime, teaching that every word spoken or deed done will echo into eternity", and "any good deed during earthly life is a step for the spiritual growth of the faithful man in his relationship with God and his fellow men".

"At the same time, the good deed done out of merciful and humble love carries in it the heavenly light of the divine grace that works in man and becomes a treasure of the human soul for eternity. We pray to the Most Merciful God to bless all the people and the Romanians in the country and from abroad in particular, giving them health and salvation, peace and joy, but also plenty of help to free ourselves from the current pandemic that affects the people's life and health! We wish you all long and blessed years!," concluded Patriarch Daniel.

In order to comply with the movement restrictions in force during the state of alert, the service for the blessing of the New Year 2021 was held on Thursday, immediately after Vespers.

"The 2011 ruling of the Holy Synod provides for the Akathist of our Lord Jesus Christ to be read at the turn of the year in remembrance of the moment when the Son of God, incarnate, received the name of Jesus. The meaning of the Hebrew name Yeshua is 'Saviour' and in the akathist it is pronounced about 200 times," the Patriarchate specified.

The service celebrated on the night of the passing of the year also includes the prayer of Saint Ephraim the Syrian to the Savior, a prayer of thanksgiving, two prayers for entering the New Year - one from the Romanian and Slavonic liturgical tradition, and another from the Greek tradition.

The Feast of the Circumcision of the Lord and the Feast of Saint Basil the Great are celebrated on January 1. The Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great is celebrated 10 times a year: on January 1 and 5, March 20 and 27, April 3, 10, 17, 28 and 30, and on December 25.
India is one of the many countries preparing for a coronavirus vaccine rollout in the coming months. To ensure smooth distribution of the vaccine in a country like India, the government last month announced a Co-WIN app that will help agencies track the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines as well as enable citizens of the country to register for the vaccination process. Here is how the Co-WIN app will work and how the people of India can register to get vaccinated as soon as a vaccine is rolled out in the country:

Co-WIN (COVID-19 Vaccine Intelligence Network) is an upgraded version of the eVIN (Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network), and will be made available to download for free on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. To ensure smooth tracking and registration for COVID-19 vaccine, the Co-WIN app is divided into five modules namely Administrator Module, Registration Module, Vaccination Module, Beneficiary Acknowledgement Module, and Report Module. Citizens who are not frontline health workers will be able to register for the vaccine via the 'Registration Module.' "It will upload bulk data on co-morbidity provided by local authorities or by surveyors," the government had explained last month.

Then through the 'Administrator Module', administrators who'd be conducting these vaccination sessions, will further create sessions and the respective vaccinators and managers will be notified. Whereas, the vaccination module will verify beneficiary details and update vaccination status. The 'Beneficiary Acknowledgement Module' will send SMS to beneficiaries and also generate QR-based certificates after one gets vaccinated. The Report Module will prepare reports of how many vaccine sessions have been conducted, how many people have attended those, how many people have dropped out etc.

Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan during the press briefing had stated that the Co-WIN mobile app would also send real-time data of temperature of the cold-storage facilities to the main server. This is mainly an expansion of the Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN) system that was launched in September this year.

The vaccination drive for COVID-19 pandemic in India will likely begin with three vaccine-makers - Pfizer, Serum Institute of India, and Bharat Biotech - having applied for emergency use authorisation of their vaccine candidates. Union Health Secretary Bhushan during the press briefing had added that roughly one crore frontline healthcare workers would get the anti-coronavirus vaccine on a priority basis. However, citizens will still be able to register themselves for the programme, though they might receive it some months later. With the Co-WIN app, the government wants to make the distribution of COVID-19 vaccine smooth in the country. At the moment, the Co-WIN is still under development, and the government is yet to share its availability details on Google Play Store, and Apple App Store. The app may also launch on Jio phones that run on KaiOS.
The taxpayer has backed a staggering 68.2billion in emergency loans to keep businesses afloat through the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Treasury's lifeline loan schemes, which carry a Government guarantee, encouraged banks to quadruple their business lending in 2020 as desperate firms rushed to borrow cash.

Bailout: The Treasury's lifeline loan schemes encouraged banks to quadruple their business lending in 2020 as desperate firms rushed to borrow cash

Banks have lent out a combined 24.6billion under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) and the larger CLBILS to 83,293 firms.

These loans carry an 80 per cent Government guarantee.

On top of that, lenders have handed out an enormous 43.5billion in Bounce Back loans to more than 1.4m of the country's smallest businesses.
Hyderabad, Jan 2 : Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) Chancellor Firoz Bakht Ahmed has sought a probe into allegations of a sex racket, prostitution and drugs on the campus but varsity authorities have dismissed the allegations, saying the complaint was found to be fake.

The chancellor wrote a letter to Cyberabad Police Commissioner V.C. Sajjanar earlier this week, requesting him to conduct an inquiry and take necessary action.

The chancellor told IANS that he wrote to the police commissioner after the National Commission for Women (NCW) sent him a letter about the complaint it received about illegal activities such as prostitution, running of a sex racket and drugs at the health centre on the campus.

A resident of Telangana had sent the complaint to Prime Minister's Office (PMO) which had forwarded the same to NCW.

"I don't know the person who sent this (complaint) but since PMO forwarded it to NCW and NCW wrote to me, I took it seriously," he said.

Alleging that such activities were going on in the university for a long time and complaints were also lodged in the past, he said the university authorities through their contacts in the Union Ministry of Education and University Grants Commission (UGC) ensured that no action was taken.

Ahmed alleged that a fact-finding committee constituted by the UGC in 2018 to look into similar complaints gave a clean-chit to the then vice chancellor as the head of the panel was 'managed' by those involved in the illegal activities.

He now plans to write letters to the President, Prime Minister and Education Minister, demanding a thorough probe into allegations of sexual harassment, sex racket, illegal appointments and embezzlement of funds for the last several years.

However, MANUU in-charge Vice-Chancellor Prof S.M. Rahmatullah told IANS that he is pained over the "baseless" allegations being made against the institute to malign it. He said the letter making serious allegations was found to be fake during the inquiry conducted by the university officials.

He said the Chancellor had forwarded a copy of the letter received from NCW to MANUU Registrar. "We discussed the issue and decided to conduct an inquiry. Though the address mentioned in the letter is of Mahabubnagar, the pin code is of Suryapet. Further inquiry by our staff revealed that the name and address mentioned are fake," the in-charge VC said.

Since Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) guidelines say that no action is required on a fake complaint, the university authorities accordingly informed the NCW.

"However, as the allegations levelled were of serious nature, we wanted to know who is behind the attempts to tarnish the image of the university. Hence, the Registrar wrote another letter to NCW, seeking permission to lodge a complaint with the police for an inquiry into the fake letter. We have not yet received the response," he said.

A senior faculty member, who did not wish to be named, said the Chancellor should not have made the issue public as the false allegations may bring disrepute to the national institute.

Some staff members suspect that this could be linked to the tussle between the Chancellor and Vice Chancellors. Ever since his appointment as Chancellor in May 2018, Ahmed was said to be at loggerheads with the Vice Chancellor.

"Despite being the ceremonial head of the university with no executive powers, he wanted to interfere in the day-to-day affairs of the university. As then V-C had taken action against some individuals on the campus for acts of indiscipline, they joined hands with him to target the V-C and other officials," a member of non-teaching staff said.

However, Ahmed denied that he is maligning the university. "Some people say that I am maligning the university. I will be the last person to do this. How can I do this to a university named after Maulana Abul Kalam Azad," said Ahmed, grandnephew of Maulana Azad.

Named after India's first education minister and freedom fighter, MANUU was established in 1998 as a central university by an Act of Parliament to promote and develop the Urdu language and to impart vocational and technical education in Urdu medium through conventional and distance modes.
By MARION CALLAHAN, Bucks County Courier Times

NEW HOPE, Pa. (AP)  A picture of a French bulldog won her heart.

The puppy, adorned with a pink polka dot ribbon, wasnt the breed Tara Hughes was initially searching for. Still, she was instantly attached to its furry face. Plus, she said, the owner, who inquired about a fenced-in backyard and ability to care for the puppy, gave her the impression that the dog came from a loving home.

This picture pulled me in, said Hughes, who was prepared to meet the owner for a cash exchange. The questions made me feel it was legit and that they cared about where their puppy goes.

Then came the signs that something just wasnt right.

The owner first insisted upon a deposit, then wouldnt communicate on the phone and was hesitant to meet in person.

Hughes later learned the puppy, which she had hoped to make part of her family, wasnt real.

That was Hughes first introduction to the world of puppy scams, a crime that is claiming more victims as a growing number of families seek animals amid the pandemic. In fact, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro recently issued a warning about scams increasing in frequency, including pet sale scammers who are posing as online retailers, charging hundreds or thousands of dollars for a puppy or kitten, plus airline and transport fees.

A common twist is the scammer notifies you the animal is at the airport, but additional fees are needed from you before the animal will be delivered, said the advisory, which warned consumers to only deal with a seller in person where they can visit and meet the owners of the puppy or kitten, and inspect the premises.

A 2020 Better Business Bureau Scam Tracker report found that 25.2% of all reported online purchase scams were related to pets and pet supplies, with a median dollar loss of $660. The BBB Scam Tracker shows these scams have spiked since COVID-19 shutdowns, with more reports about fraudulent pet websites in April than the total from the first three months of 2020.

The scams are hitting home.

In August, police said a Quakertown-area woman was scammed out of nearly $5,500 in an illicit online pet scheme.

A state police news release reported that the Milford resident paid $5,490 for a dog that was never delivered. The unknown actor made the victim believe they were sending two puppies and worked for AmericanExShipper.com, the news release said. The unknown actor then had the victim purchase multiple gift cards and send the information via email and through a Zelle application.

While Bucks County Consumer Protection hasnt lately received reports of puppy scams, officials there are not surprised by the crime trend.

Unfortunately, its no longer surprising that these dubious scam artists are taking advantage of peoples vulnerability related to COVID-19, said consumer protection Director Michael Bannon. Americans love their animals and fraud artist know how to play on this emotion. The same tips to protect yourself apply to many scams not just this puppy scam.

Bannon said consumers should make sure they know who they are dealing with at the other end of the phone or internet, and never send money or give credit card information or personal financial details to a stranger.

If a scammer asks you to use an unusual payment method, including virtual currency like Bitcoin, preloaded gift cards, iTunes cards, its a big red flag. Dont fall for it, said Bannon, who encourages residents to call Bucks County Consumer Protection with any question before they send money in this situation.

Online puppy scams spiked during the pandemic, according to the Better Business Bureau.

Scam tugs at heartstrings

In an October scam alert, the Better Business Bureau warned that puppy scammers now are targeting people who want to rescue a dog, not just purchase them.

The agency warned that victims are being told they needed to send money for special insurance and a COVID-19 vaccine. And when a consumer asks to see the dog or pick it up in person, they are told by the scammer that it wasnt possible due to COVID-19 restrictions.

The scam typically has a heart-tugging story or photos.

The scammer doesnt charge an adoption fee, but requests payment to ship the pet  even if a consumer asks to pay in person. Most scammers request a consumer wire the money or send it in a pre-paid debit card or gift card, the BBB reported.

After shipping the pet, problems arise. Common scenarios include emergency vet visits or additional shipping fees. The scammers ask for more money to resolve the problem, often promising to refund it after the pet is delivered.

Sometimes, scammers even claim that the pet will be euthanized if the money is provided. As with other schemes, once the money is provided, scammers disappear.

Consumers later learn that the dog or cat never existed.

Increasing demand

Many victims who contacted BBBs Scam Tracker during the last year reported they wanted to adopt a pet in order to ease their isolation their lives during the pandemic.

Cindy Kelly, director of communications at the Bucks County SPCA, said the organizations two shelters in Solebury and Richland are seeing an unprecedented demand for puppies and dogs.

The demand is huge, said Kelly, who added the trend is influenced by two factors. Lots of people are home and its a good time to acclimate a pet, and they are a good source of comfort.

Available dogs are on the organizations website, which is updated in real time, she said. Right now, they are going fast. One recent litter of six pointer puppies were adopted within 24 hours.

Aware of the growing number of scams, Kelly warned people against sites like Craigslist, where people often dont know who they are communicating with  or their intentions.

With the SPCA and other area reputable shelters, consumers have certain assurances in place.

When you adopt an animal from the Bucks County SPCA, you have confidence knowing it had health exams, vaccinations, a behavioral assessment to help match that animal to the right kind of home, said Kelly, adding that they offer 60-day guarantee. There are a lot of reputable groups in the area, and the consumer needs to know to beware of shady deals online. You want to know where you are getting the animal from or if there really is one.

Russ Harper, executive director of Justice Rescue, which rescues animals in the Philadelphia region from abuse and neglect and finds homes for them, said his agency does a full background check on owners looking to adopt to make sure their lifestyle fits with the animal they are seeking.

They also make sure the owner  post pandemic  will have the same ability to care for an animal. Once an application is approved and a match is made, consumers put down a deposit.

Because of scams, some people are hesitant to do that, said Harper, who said such scams have been happening for several years.

He said one way consumers can protect themselves is to research the rescue agency or breeder, who must register with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture if they have more than 25 dogs.

You can look up every one of the licensed rescue agencies to make sure you are dealing with a reputable agency; you can also look at each one of their inspections, he said. If you are working with an agency that is not registered, that is a big red flag.

Hughes, of Lancaster, never expected that the online market would be so dangerous. Like many pet seekers, she felt this time was ideal for getting a puppy since shes working from home and has time to train a pet.

The amount of scammers out there is completely insane, Hughes said. They ask you questions, like a reputable place would, but then they are asking too many personal questions. Then, they skip right to the deposit.

Turns out the French dog  the type of puppy that lured her in  is one of the most popular dogs used to scam consumers, according to petscams.com.

The most popular breed for such scams is the Yorkshire Terrier (8.9% of scam websites) followed closely by French bulldogs (8.3%). This is not because scammers have an abundance of Yorkies or French Bulldogs, the site says. They have neither, instead they will use the breed that brings them the most return and drop any that they find do not bring them a good return.

Yorkshire terrier puppies are frequently featured in puppy scams.

Through Craigslist, Hughes went on to inquire about many other puppies, and similar stories would unfold as if they were following a script.

You got so excited each time, she said. Once I told the kids and family. Then someone takes it from you and you have to start over again. Its emotional, and it takes a toll on your heart.

If they didnt demand a deposit, they required a delivery fee, she said. Do people really send puppies?

Wise to the trend, Hughes began to research people and addresses. One location, where she had hoped to connect with an owner of a pit bull puppy, was in an abandoned area. That individual would only text.

Hughes finally found a puppy through Facebook and had plenty of phone and video communications with the owner.

The woman sent me video and pictures so I could pick out the puppy I wanted, said Hughes, who was so grateful she offered to help the woman find homes for her other puppies. I told her You are what everyone is looking for.

She named her tan and white boxer mix Jade, because of the puppys bright green eyes.

I want people to know that even though it feels like there is nothing but scams, there are people out there who really want to find a good home for their puppy, she said.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said innovation, integrity and inclusion have emerged as the key mantras in the field of management which can help the country achieve the goal of Atmanirbhar Bharat.

Laying the foundation stone for the permanent campus of IIM-Sambalpur through video conference, the prime minister said the goal of a self-reliant India will be achieved with the help of collaborative, innovative and transformative concepts in management.

Noting that technology is reducing distances between regions, Modi said India has brought speedy reforms in the digital connectivity sector in order to cope with changes taking places all over the world.

Technologly management is as important as human management, he said, adding the country has been able to build substantial capacity over the last decade which was evident during the COVID-19 crisis.

Emphasising that the young generation should take along those lagging behind to ensure inclusive growth, Modi said local products will have global reach with the help of new management concepts and technology.

Todays start-ups in India are tomorrows Multi- national Corporations, he said, and asked young managers to align their career goals to the aspirations of the country.

The prime minister said IIM Sambalpur will go a long way in giving Odisha a new identity in the field of management education apart from creating tremendous opportunities for the handloom and other sectors in the region.
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As Joe Biden is set to assume power this month, Chinas Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Saturday hoped that the US President-elect would end the incumbent Donald Trumps Cold War policy towards Beijing and return to a sensible approach by restoring normal ties.

The Trump administration launched a broadside against China on all fronts, including trade, Tibet and Taiwan besides, scathing criticism against the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) headed by President Xi Jinping.

The Chinese side hopes that the next US administration will return to a sensible approach, resume dialogue with China, restore normalcy to the bilateral relations and restart cooperation, Wang, who is also a State Councillor, told the state-run Xinhua news agency in an interview.

China-US relations have come to a new crossroads, and a new window of hope is opening, he said.

Biden, who defeated President Trump in the November 8 Presidential election, is scheduled to take over on January 20, formally ending the Trump era which saw the US-China ties touch a new low.

Wang said that in recent years, the US-China relations have run into unprecedented difficulties.

Fundamentally, it all comes down to the serious misconceptions of US policymakers about China. Some see China as the so-called biggest threat and their China policy based on this misperception is simply wrong, he said.

What has happened proves that the US attempt to suppress China and start a new Cold War has not just seriously harmed the interests of the two peoples, but also caused severe disruptions to the world. Such a policy will find no support and is doomed to fail.

We are ready to develop with the United States a relationship based on coordination, cooperation and stability. We know that some in the US are uneasy about Chinas rapid development. However, the best way to keep ones lead is through constant self-improvement, not by blocking others development, he said.

We believe that as long as the United States can draw lessons from the past and work with China in the same direction, the two countries are capable of resolving differences through dialogue and expanding converging interests by cooperation, Wang said.

He also stuck a positive note on Chinas ties with the European Union (EU).

China is racing to improve its ties with the EU ahead of Bidens plans to end Trumps unilateral approach and work out coordinated policies towards China with all US allies, especially the EU.

Seen as an attempt to thwart Bidens plans to forge a united policy towards Beijing, China concluded talks with the EU on a landmark investment treaty ending a long, drawn-out negotiations.

On Wednesday, Chinese President Xi along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron announced that they have completed investment agreement negotiations as scheduled.

The agreement will provide greater market access, higher level of business environment, stronger institutional guarantees and brighter cooperation prospects for mutual investment, Xi said.

US Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger blasted the EU for reaching the deal with China despite Beijings human rights record.

The EU has removed a fig leaf, Pottinger said, Chinas state-run Global Times reported.

White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro also called it a bad deal, which will pose a geopolitical challenge to the US.

Wang, in his interview, said that the most important conclusion is that our cooperation and common understandings far outweigh competition and differences. China and the EU are comprehensive strategic partners, not systemic rivals, he said.

Wang also hailed Chinas burgeoning ties with Russia, which Chinese experts say could get stronger if Biden pursues former US president Barack Obamas policy of identifying Moscow as a prime enemy of Washington than Beijing.

China and Russia will continue to be the example of good-neighbourly and friendly relations between major countries, which would underpin the global strategic stability, Wang said.

He hailed the intensive interactions between the two heads of states, noting that President Xi and President Vladimir Putin have had five phone calls and exchanged correspondence on multiple occasions, providing the most important strategic guidance for the steady growth of the bilateral relations.

The year 2021 is a year of special importance for China-Russia relations, as both countries will enter a new development stage. In developing China-Russia strategic cooperation, we see no limit, no forbidden zone and no ceiling to how far this cooperation can go, he said.
South Carolina's energy industry is at a crossroads as utility officials weigh how much money to invest into renewable sources, how long to keep their aging nuclear reactors operating and how quickly to shut down their remaining coal-fired power plants.

The three primary power generators in South Carolina  Duke Energy, Dominion Energy and Santee Cooper  are all in the process of forming long-term plans for how to supply electricity to millions of power customers in the state over the next 15 years.

Whether South Carolinians realize it or not, the outcome of those plans will affect them.

The decisions the utilities make will help dictate where South Carolina's electricity comes from in the coming decades, how much that power costs each month and how damaging that energy production is to the environment when people flip on a light switch or adjust the thermostat.

This isn't the first time that Duke, Dominion and Santee Cooper have gone through this type of planning process. Forecasting how much power people will use and studying how to best supply that electricity is something utilities have been doing for decades.

But the work has taken on far more importance in recent years. Companies in the electric utility industry now need to account for man-made climate change, the increased adoption of electric vehicles, the expansion of solar and wind energy, and investments in new technologies such as large battery-storage devices.

"I think the industry is ever-evolving, and this latest evolution is a big change," said Glen Snider, who leads the planning team for Duke's two utilities in South Carolina.

Every utility in the country, Snider said, is juggling how to provide reliable power to customers, how to cut carbon emissions and, at the same time, ensure power bills don't increase too much for homes and businesses.

South Carolina lawmakers recently put a bigger spotlight on that planning process to make sure the utilities in the state are meeting those priorities. In 2019, the Legislature passed a law that set several basic benchmarks that utilities need to meet when developing their long-term forecasts.

That law also gave South Carolina's utility regulators, consumer advocacy agencies, solar developers and environmental organizations a chance to challenge the utilities' business plans.

And those groups have not wasted any time in flexing that newfound muscle. They are now pushing the state's utilities to speed up the adoption of renewable energy, increase energy-efficiency measures for customers and close plants that pump the most heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere.

Eddy Moore, the Coastal Conservation League's energy and climate program director, said the public now has the ability to hold the utilities' feet to the fire. That's important, he said, when companies like Duke and Dominion have made public promises to eliminate or offset all of their carbon emissions by 2050.

"I think it's a turning point," he said. "You put everything on the table and figure out if you can have a better system."

Moore expects public involvement in the companies' energy planning to increase in the coming years. The process, he said, is becoming more important for large businesses, like Google, that have sustainability goals and local governments, like the city of Charleston, that are trying to reduce their carbon footprints.

The plans South Carolina's utilities put forward now, Moore said, will go a long way in determining how quickly those groups can meet their environmental goals, and how costly that transition will be for South Carolina.

'Complicated problem'

Combined, Duke, Dominion and Santee Cooper operate more than 95 generating stations throughout South Carolina and North Carolina.

Their plants are a mixture of gas turbines, nuclear reactors, aging coal-fired boilers, new solar farms, 100-year-old hydroelectric dams and small generating units that are powered by gas from landfills.

Together, those power sources are able to meet most of the energy demands of the three utilities' ratepayers in South Carolina and the more than 2 million people who receive power from South Carolina's 20 electric cooperatives. (Duke's plants also serve roughly 3.4 million customers in North Carolina.)

What South Carolina's power providers are trying to figure out now is how long they should keep their existing plants running and what types of energy sources they'll need to invest in to replace them. It's a process that could dramatically change what South Carolina's energy system looks like by 2035.

In general, all three power providers are considering approaches that include expanding solar power in South Carolina and adding more natural gas generation. They're also looking at extending the life cycles of the seven nuclear stations that supply the state, including the V.C. Summer plant in the Midlands, where a $9 billion expansion that would have added two new reactors failed in 2017 after years of delays and cost overruns.

The final outcome of the utilities' plans could hinge on a variety of factors, such as the price of natural gas, potential regulations on carbon pollution and the utilities gaining approval from the federal government to continue operating their aging nuclear reactors, some of which have been in use since the early 1970s.

Rodney Blevins, CEO of Dominion Energy South Carolina, said he sees the next decade and a half as an opportunity to overhaul the industry and meet customers' growing expectations that their energy will come from "cleaner sources."

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"If you were going to start today, you wouldn't build what we have, but it's what we have," Blevins said. "It's a complicated problem"

South Carolina's three largest power companies have already gone through substantial changes in the past decade.

Data collected by the Energy Information Administration shows the amount of power generated by burning coal has plummeted for all three companies in the past 10 years. The utilities replaced that energy largely by building new gas-fired turbines and converting older coal plants to burn other fuels.

Charlie Duckworth, Santee Cooper's deputy CEO, said that has been the trend across the country. Coal plants, he said, are being eliminated for two reasons: It helps cut a utility's carbon footprint and it is increasingly saving customers money.

"There was a time earlier in my career when the cheapest addition you could make was a coal plant," said Duckworth, who was hired to lay out a new energy plan for Santee Cooper. "That is not the case any longer."

Data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency shows the cuts to Duke, Dominion and Santee Cooper's fleet of coal-fired power plants have helped to lower the utilities' carbon dioxide emissions substantially in recent years. But all three still have a long way to go if they intend to cut their remaining emissions in the coming decades.

The EPA data shows plants operated by the three South Carolina power providers emitted more than 71 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 2019.

Part of that total comes from electricity that Duke supplied to its customers in North Carolina. Nevertheless, that total equals the amount of greenhouse gas emissions released annually by roughly 15.4 million passenger vehicles.

Closing out coal

One of the biggest points of debate right now is what to do with the coal plants that Duke, Dominion and Santee Cooper still operate.

Several environmental groups, including the Coastal Conservation League, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and the Sierra Club, are trying to persuade the companies and South Carolina's utility regulators to close them for good.

All three providers recognize the coal plants will need to be taken offline at some point. But the timelines for those closures vary.

Santee Cooper, for instance, recently announced it would begin to phase out its Winyah station near Georgetown starting in 2023, but said it could keep its Cross station near Lake Moultrie open past 2030.

Duke already shut down all of its coal plants in South Carolina, but it is still working to phase out its remaining coal stations in North Carolina. The Charlotte-based company put forward a forecast last year showing some of its coal units being retired as early as 2022 and the remaining ones largely being shut down by 2035.

Meanwhile, Dominion's plans for its remaining coal-fired power plants recently landed the utility in some trouble.

Dominion, a Virginia-based company that bought South Carolina Electric & Gas two years ago, told state regulators that it does not have any plans to close any of its three coal-fired stations until after 2028. The utility's leaders also said it would take several more years before they could complete a study that would explore whether to retire those plant more quickly.

As a result, the S.C. Public Service Commission, which regulates investor-owned utilities, voted in December to throw out Dominion's energy plan and send the company back to the drawing board.

During hearings, several commissioners asked why the company wasn't speeding up the closure of its coal plants, and others questioned whether Dominion was pursuing its carbon-reduction goals aggressively enough.

Why wait several years before making these decisions? Why not start now?" asked Tom Ervin, one of the PSC members.

Officials at all three South Carolina utilities said the decision to shut down their remaining coal-fired power plants is a balancing act. They understand the push to close those plants, they said, but they need to do it in a way that ensures the utilities can still generate enough power when the demand for electricity peaks in the summer and winter.

"I can't retire the the coal units we have right now because I wouldn't be able to meet the demand," said Blevins. "That's just the bottom line."

Blevins said his team is trying to solve that issue, but he said "it's not in the cards right now."
Changing lifestyles and an aging population present a growing need for quality, professional care for the elderly, Photo: Shutterstock

Leaders of real estate developer Tuan Minh Group last week made a business trip to Japan, visiting a series of nursing homes to study operation models to apply at their own Tuan Minh Paradise Resort  the first resort and nursing centre meeting Japanese 5-star standards in Vietnam.

The centre is located on a 99-hectare area in Luong Son district, Hoa Binh province, with construction kicked off in the second quarter of 2019 and slated for completion in 2021.

Tuan Minh Paradise Resort is designed with Japanese interior and exterior elements and upon completion will be managed and operated by a Japanese company, according to the agreement with Ozawa Civil Engineering and Construction Co., Ltd. and Hashimotogumi Co., Ltd. to develop the project, signed in 2018.

The project also combines with an international hospital with many faculties to serve the needs of elderly clients, including treatments such as physiotherapy and rehabilitation. The doctors are Vietnamese and Japanese geriatricians and can speak English and Japanese fluently.

Such moves are being looked at more often in the context that Vietnams poulation make-up is set to drastically change over the next few decades. The results from a 2019 Population and Housing Census (PHC) conducted by the General Statistics Office of Vietnam (GSO) showed that the Vietnamese population is in an ageing phase, with 11.4 million aged 60 and over.

Associate Professor Giang Thanh Long from the National Economics University told VIR that the demand for nursing care services would be large due to the increasing number of older persons in the coming decades, which is expected to be about 27 million by 2049.

Added to the PHC 2019 results, Long noted that about 15 per cent of older persons had difficulty in self-care; 26 per cent in walking; and about 12 per cent in communication, implying a great need for old-age care.

Elderly needs

According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), more seniors have been exposed to new chronic diseases resulting from socioeconomic changes, with around 95 per cent of them suffering from at least one health condition like joint degradation, cardiac problems, blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, or urination disorders. While their families can take care of the elderly with mild or moderate debilitation, in case of serious debilitation, they need care by trained nursing staff.

In addition, many seniors opt for nursing homes for companionship and proper care because their children live either far away or have little time to see to their needs.

The need for healthcare services for the aged will surely expand, said Dr. Nguyen Tuan Ngoc, chief executive and founder of Thien Duc Nursing Home.

Thien Duc Nursing Home has opened three facilities in Hanoi, one in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province, and one in Dong Nai province within the last two decades. The company plans to expand further in Hanoi, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Danang, and Ho Chi Minh City to meet the mounting demand.

Numerous Japanese investors want to develop nursing homes in Vietnam to serve not only Vietnamese seniors but also Japanese elderly who wish to stay in Vietnam to enjoy its advantageous climate and natural landscape, especially in coastal cities and provinces, Long said.

Greater care service demand

Along with private investment in this sector, international groups are looking into implementing such projects under the public-private partnership (PPP) model. For example, the Asian Development Bank is currently exploring public social protection centres in various cities and provinces in order to see opportunities in upgrading services as well as providing paid old-aged care at these facilities. Long is particularly impressed with a small-scale PPP care model in Thai Binh province and said that such a model would be accessible and affordable.

However, he emphasised that nursing homes should consider providing home-based care, with a 2019 survey noting that about half of older people wish to be taken care of in their own homes. thus raising the demand for caretakers and specialised training facilities.

Care for the elderly in general is not cheap. Families must pay at least VND7 million ($300) per month for elderly care, depending on health status and choice of accommodation. Service with a single room can cost up to VND15 million ($650), around three times Vietnams estimated average monthly income per capita in 2019 of VND4.2 million ($180). A room with two beds could cost as much as VND20 million ($870).

When investors develop such projects or services, they should consider accessibility, affordability, adequacy, and acceptability to ensure service packages are appropriate for clients, Long said.

However, according to Dr. Ngoc from Thien Duc Nursing Home, even if suitable availability is found, the challenge lies in negotiations about rental fees and length of time. Although investors want to rent land at public nursing centres to upgrade their services, these centres are not allowed to rent out land for private investors, Ngoc said.

In addition, in Vietnam, the children usually pay for nursing services for their parents, adding a measure of uncertainty. These factors make both foreign and domestic investors hesitant, despite the clear potential, Ngoc said.

Long added that Vietnam is facing an alarming shortage of qualified care workers. Almost all elderly are cared for by relatives or domestic helpers with little medical expertise. Meanwhile, because of the multitude of possible health conditions, caretaker knowledge of physical and mental health is vital, just as much as soft skills.

In general, in order to attract investors to exploit the opportunities presenting themselves, it is necessary to complete the legal framework and improve the skills of nursing staff by learning from foreign models, including those from Japan, Long said.
The Week

After publicly expressing "grave concerns" over Arizona's audit of the 2020 election results, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) was "stripped" of her ability to "defend election lawsuits" by the state's Republican-led House Appropriations Committee, reported Arizona's ABC 15 on Tuesday. The duty was transferred "exclusively" to Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) through the end of the 2023 fiscal year. Democrats say the move is retaliation against Hobbs' defense of Arizona voters in "lawsuits filed by the State Republican Party and others challenging Arizona's election results," per ABC 15. "It can't be just a coincidence" that Republicans are blocking a "vocal critic of the audit," writes Elvia Diaz for azcentral.com. Democratic State Rep. Randy Friese reportedly called the move "troubling," "disturbing," and "quite nefarious." Furthermore, the Appropriations Committee removed Hobb's "oversight of the Capitol Museum," ABC 15 reports, after Hobbs angered state lawmakers when she "flew a gay pride flag from the building's balcony" in 2019. Katie Hobbs has conscientiously supervised elections in Arizona. Republicans there just stripped her of some powers -- including her ability to litigate election lawsuits. They gave control of that process to the state AG, a Republican. This is how democracy gets dismantled. https://t.co/VamVgXfxgR  Tim O'Brien (@TimOBrien) May 25, 2021 In an article for azfamily.com, Hobbs labeled the entire audit "a political stunt," adding that it is "dangerous to people's safety and to the integrity of our democracy." She later tweeted a photo on Tuesday of a fruit basket sent by Stacey Abrams and Fair Fight, saying that's how "you know you're doing it right." When @staceyabrams, @gwlauren, and their crew at @fairfightaction send you a fruit basket, you know you're doing it right. pic.twitter.com/yQ11UdmXso  Katie Hobbs (@katiehobbs) May 25, 2021 Read more at azfamily.com. More stories from theweek.comBiden says he underestimated Trump's ability to spread 'the big lie'Biden needs some braggadocioReport: D.A. convenes grand jury expected to hear Trump investigation evidence
The Gujarat government will try to bear the cost of coronavirus vaccination as far as possible so that people get it free, Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel said on Saturday. Patel, who also holds the Health portfolio, said the state is fully prepared to administer vaccination to the priority groups as soon as doses are received from the Centre.

So far, the Central government has not fixed any cost for the coronavirus vaccine. We provided treatment and medicines to lakhs of coronavirus patients free of cost in the state, he said. We have been discussing this (free vaccination) with the chief Minister from time to time that as far as possible, we shall not let the citizens bear the cost of vaccination, he told reporters here.

Patel said preparations for the first phase of vaccination had been completed in the state and the list of priority beneficiaries was also ready with the government. Patels assurance comes after Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan tweeted that details of how the beneficiaries will be vaccinated were being finalised.

In 1st phase of #COVID19 Vaccination free #vaccine shall be provided across the nation to most prioritised beneficiaries that incl 1 crore healthcare & 2 crore frontline workers Details of how further 27 cr priority beneficiaries are to be vaccinated until July are being finalised, Vardhan tweeted during the day. On Friday, an expert panel of Indias Central Drug Authority recommended granting permission for restricted emergency use of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine Covishield, being manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, paving the way for the roll-out of the first COVID-19 shot in the country in the next few days.

The SEC recommendations have been forwarded to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) for final approval. Patel was here to inaugurate new facilities at the trauma centre of Ahmedabad civil hospital, including 21 operation theatres, a central sterile services department and a skin bank.
A marching contingent of the Bangladesh army will take part in the Republic Day parade of 2021, the second time foreign soldiers will be marching down Rajpath as part of Indias biggest ceremonial event, officials familiar with preparations said on Saturday. The Bangladeshi contingent has been invited to take part in the parade at a time the two countries are celebrating the golden jubilee of the birth of Bangladesh.

The Bangladeshi marching contingent will consist of 96 soldiers. They will be carrying their BD-08 rifles during the march past, a license-produced variant of the Chinese Type 817.62mm assault weapon, the officials said on condition of anonymity. The Bangladesh Ordnance Factories produce more than 10,000 such assault rifles every year.

Foreign soldiers took part in the parade for the first time in 2016 when a French army contingent of 130 soldiers marched down Rajpath. Then French President Francois Hollande witnessed the parade as the chief guest that year.

The parade this year will be shorter, involve fewer participants and only a fourth of the usual number of spectators will be allowed at Rajpath, with the ceremonial event being curtailed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, as reported by Hindustan Times on December 30.

The marching contingents will be seen in a rectangular formation this year instead of the traditional square formation because of fewer participants being allowed in the squads.

These squads will only have 96 participants compared to 144 in the ordinary course. The shortened route of the parade will see it end at the National Stadium instead of Red Fort, the officials said

Fewer people will be allowed to witness the parade, with the government following strict social distancing protocols. Not more than 25,000 spectators will be allowed at Rajpath this year, compared to over 100,000 people who usually turn up for the parade. Children below the age of 15 will not be permitted at the parade.

Last years Independence Day celebrations were also muted as a result of the coronavirus outbreak and measures imposed to check the spread of the disease, with fewer VIPs attending the annual August 15 event at Delhis Red Fort while school children skipped it altogether.
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BEAUMONT, Texas  East Texas police fatally shot a man after he began firing a gun while officers were responding to a call about him being suicidal, authorities said.

Officers in Beaumont received a call to a commercial part of the city, 85 miles (137 kilometers) east of Houston, around 5 a.m. Thursday about an armed man who was suicidal, the police department said in a statement.

Officers tried to negotiate with the man, but more than two hours later they called in a SWAT team. The man then began shooting a gun and an officer returned fire, killing him, according to the statement.

Police did not release the mans name, age or the identity of the officer who shot him. A department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

No one else was injured during the shooting, which the Beaumont police are investigating.

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Mohnish Bahl made his acting debut with a supporting role in Bekaraar in 1983 but the film was a critical and commercial failure. He delivered a spate of flops after that and thought his career in Bollywood was finished until Maine Pyaar Kiya turned things around for him.

Dejected by the failures, Mohnish was planning to become a pilot and was working on getting his commercial flying license. However, things changed when Salman Khan recommended his name for the villains role in Maine Pyaar Kiya.

By the time I got Maine Pyar Kiya, not only had I started my career, but also ended it. I thought I was finished after a few flops and was planning to become a pilot. I was working on getting my commercial flying license as I wanted to get a job in something I like doing - in the aviation sector. Salman Khan and I bumped into each other one day and we became friends. He was also trying to get into the business of filmmaking, so when he got this break in MPK, he recommended my name for the villains role, Mohnish told The Times of India in an interview.

It was tricky for me to do a villains role those days, as I was a flop hero. Any inclination I had to play hero was over by then. So I took on the villains role, but never expected that this would be the start of an actual career for me, which still makes me viable even 30 years later, he added.

Also see: Ananya Panday shows off lean beach body in a bikini on Maldives vacation, Suhana Khan loves it

Directed by Sooraj Barjatya, Maine Pyaar Kiya starred Salman and Bhagyashree in the lead roles, with Mohnish playing one of the antagonists. The film was the highest-grossing release of 1989 and is considered a classic.

With the success of Maine Pyaar Kiya, Mohnish rebuilt his career and went on to star in a number of successful films, including Hum Aapke Hain Koun, Raja Hindustani, Hum Saath Saath Hain and Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai. He was last seen on the big screen in the historical drama Panipat.

Follow @htshowbiz on Twitter

ott:10
I remain optimistic that with the roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccine, 2021 will be the year we overcome coronavirus. At the same time, as a dad, it is clear to me that while this takes place, I want my children to be at school.

Keeping our kids out of classrooms is damaging. We know that as parents and we know it from the data. It is for this reason that keeping schools open has been a national priority.

Naturally, as parents would expect, this includes taking a proportionate response and considering the clear damage that we know is caused to young peoples education and wellbeing by closing education.

With the new variant, the goal posts have shifted as we fight this horrible virus, but I want to assure parents that we have been working throughout the holidays to make the return as safe as possible.

Writing in The Mail on Sunday, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, urged teachers and parents to move heaven and earth, adding the young must not bear the heaviest cost of the pandemic

This means pushing back the staggered start date for all secondary schools by one week.

It also means triggering our contingency plans, so that in some areas where there are high transmission rates of the virus or those rates are rising quickly, schools should offer face-to-face education to exam year groups, vulnerable and critical-worker children, and remote education to all other students  so no child misses out on education.

We have identified the areas where primary schools must move to this system from tomorrow and will do the same for secondary schools before pupils are due to return on the 18th.

Our fantastic teachers have already worked tirelessly to make schools Covid-secure, and it remains the case that schools are safe.

For secondary schools and colleges, we are also rolling out mass testing to make schools, the pupils attending them, and the wider community even safer. I want to be clear what this means: all secondary school students and staff will be offered tests before they go back to school  whether their school is open to all pupils or to some.

This kind of mass testing will help protect not just children and young people, it will benefit everyone in the community because it will break the chains of transmission that are making infection rates shoot up.

This in turn will make it safer for more children to physically return to school.

Teachers are not expected to carry out the tests themselves, and 1,500 members of the armed forces will provide support to schools and colleges in this important mission.

While this takes place, schools and colleges will stagger the return of their students.

Those in exam years will be educated remotely during the first week of term, and face-to-face beginning on January 11, with other secondary schools and college students returning full time on January 18, in areas where we have not had to apply the contingency framework.

Vulnerable children and the children of key workers should be educated face-to-face from the start of term in all circumstances.

For now, given how prevalent the virus is in London and after engagement with London leaders, primary schools in our capital will only open for vulnerable and critical worker children tomorrow.

We will continually review the data and allow more pupils to return as soon as possible.

During this time we are taking unprecedented action to ensure remote education is delivered to all children.

We will deliver over 50,000 laptops and tablets to schools across the country tomorrow, and over 100,000 in total during the first week of term. In total, weve delivered over 500,000 and are on our way to our target of nearly one million.

We are taking these measures because it is what we need to do to overcome and suppress the transmission of the virus in communities.

These decisions are not political calculations, they are concrete steps to support our childrens education, futures and dreams  which must not be put on hold.

For secondary schools and colleges, we are also rolling out mass testing. This means all secondary school students and staff will be offered tests before they go back to school (stock image)

The safety of teachers and pupils will always be paramount, but we must all move heaven and earth to get children back to the classroom where they best thrive.

Both of my daughters, one of whom is in an exam year, have had to self-isolate. I know how difficult the last year has been, because I have seen them miss being in the classroom, where they want to be.

So I want my children, and all children, to be able to get back to school and stay in class  we will continue to prioritise making this happen where we can.

In all of this, we must all face up to the fact that, unfortunately, there is a new variant of Covid and that this is spreading across the country.

But it remains our duty to provide a future for our children that is full of hope and opportunity.

This year, my admiration for teachers and all that they do has reached an even higher level, and it gives me faith in how we will continue to fight this virus.

The fight has already been a long one, and many have lost so much, but we must remain steadfast in our final push. As a nation we are in this together and we will overcome it together, as our country always does.

During this time, I remain determined to do all I can to protect our children, protect education and ensure the youngest in our society do not bear the heaviest cost while beating this virus.

I want my children, all children, to be able to go back to school

Lefts new bid to keep schools shut: Councils and unions unite to keep pupils out of lessons even though its the disadvantaged wholl suffer most

Left-wing councils join revolt against Government plans to keep schools open

Brighton and Hove City Council demanded primary schools teach remotely

Yesterday, UKs largest teaching union advised members it was not safe to return

More Left-wing councils were last night joining the revolt against Government plans to keep schools open.

Brighton and Hove City Council followed eight authorities in London in demanding primaries teach remotely amid rising Covid cases.

Most primaries in England are expected to open their doors tomorrow, while secondary schools will reopen on a staggered basis later this month with plans to test every student weekly.

Yesterday, however, the UKs largest teaching union advised members it was not safe to return to the classroom and called for a move to online teaching.

CLASS WAR: The Government is keen to get children back to schools however, left-wing councils have joined revolt against Government plans as UKs largest teaching union advised members it was not safe to return

The National Education Union, which has 450,000 members, said the Government was failing to protect children, their families and our communities, adding that their members had a legal right to refuse to work.

The move has put them on a collision course with Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, who said it was imperative that the nations children were back in class to stop them falling behind.

Writing in The Mail on Sunday, the father-of-two has urged teachers and parents to move heaven and earth, adding the young must not bear the heaviest cost of the pandemic.

He said: Both of my daughters, one of whom is in an exam year, have had to self-isolate. I know how difficult the last year has been, because I have seen them miss being in the classroom, where they want to be. So I want my children, and all children, to be able to get back to school and stay in class  we will continue to prioritise making this happen where we can.

The start of the new academic term has been mired in confusion as Covid rates continue to rise, driven by the new variant.

Recent notes from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) revealed scientists have warned that schools may need to be closed to bring down transmission.

But Childrens Minister Vicky Ford yesterday told MPs there was no evidence that the new strain caused more serious illness in either adults or children.

Senior Government sources said that Mr Williamson had tried to keep schools open but has been overruled by Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Michael Gove.

The pair have pushed for tighter measures until more people have been vaccinated, but critics accused them of natural authoritarianism.

Childrens Minister Vicky Ford yesterday told MPs there was no evidence that the new strain caused more serious illness in either adults or children

Last week, Mr Williamson announced all primaries would return on Monday. Ten London boroughs were told to open their schools but after a revolt by eight Labour-led councils, Mr Williamson was forced into a U-turn. Now all schools in the capital will operate remote learning for the first two weeks.

The rebellion was led initially by Haringey, once dubbed the first Corbyn council because of its large number of Left-wing Momentum councillors. Council leader Joseph Ejiofor said he would back head teachers who wanted to defy the Government and he was later followed by Harrow Council.

Brighton and Hove has now advised all primary schools to teach remotely until January 18.

Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, has accused the Left of politicising the issue saying: This is about knocking the Tories. Keeping schools open should be non-negotiable. More than one million four to 11-year-olds will now start the academic term with lessons online.

In advising members to work from home, Dr Mary Bousted, the NEUs joint general secretary, said: If Government does not act to follow the science, we must.

Her views were echoed by the NASUWT union.

Ministers are considering proposals to make teachers a higher priority in the vaccine roll-out as a way to keep physical classrooms open.

Plans for schools reopening differ across the four nations of the UK.In Scotland, most pupils will have online learning for the week of January 11. In Wales, schools are expected to provide face-to-face learning for the majority of their pupils by January 11.

And in Northern Ireland, secondary school years eight to 11 will be taught via remote learning throughout January while primary pupils will return to the classroom on January 11.
In new TN assembly DMK has most MLAs with pending criminal background, crorepatis

MK Stalin sworn in as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister for first time

In Tamil Nadu, Gandhi will handle Khadi ministry, while Nehru gets Urban Development

DMK will form govt in Tamil Nadu, says Stalin

India

pti-Deepika S

Erode, Jan 02: People in Tamil Nadu have decided to choose the DMK in the 2021 Assembly polls to capture power in the state, party president M K Stalin said on Saturday.

"Certainly, the DMK will form the government and the corrupt AIADMK Ministers will be punished after proper enquiry," he said at Siruvalure village in Gobichettipalayam Assembly constituency while participating in the Makkal Grama Sabha'' meeting.

He claimed Palaniswami got the Chief Minister''s post because of Sasikala, a close confidante of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, and said the DMK would capture power within four months.

After the formation of the DMK government, a detailed probe into Jayalalithaa''s death would be conducted, he said.

Congress revamps Tamil Nadu unit, sets up key poll panels

Later, residents of Siruvalure complained about the sanitary conditions in the village.

They said there was no higher secondary school there and a number of students have stopped studies after high school.
The situation as U.S. forces leave Afghanistan looks dire for the thousands of interpreters and their families that helped our troops. Read more
The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), on Friday, expressed sadness over the death of two leading members of the Zazzau Emir...





The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), on Friday, expressed sadness over the death of two leading members of the Zazzau Emirate, the Iyan Zazzau, Alhaji Bashir Aminu; and Talban Zazzau, Abubakar Pate in one fell swoop.

His condolence message was contained in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, titled President Buhari mourns Iyan Zazzau Aminu and Talban Zazzau Pate.

Shehu quoted the President as describing their death as a double tragedy.

According to the statement, Buhari said, The death of such two prominent figures in Zazzau emirate comes to me as a rude shock not long after the death of former Emir Shehu Idris.

I wish to extend my deepest and heartfelt sympathies to the families of the two leaders, the Zazzau Emirate Council, the Government and people of Kaduna State. May Allah forgive the gentle souls of the departed and reward their good deeds with paradise.

Meanwhile, Shehu said the President has dispatched a delegation to visit the palace on his behalf.
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The Rajasthan Government has decided to impose a night curfew in 13 districts of the state amid a surge in cases of coronavirus.

The restrictions will be in place from 8 pm to 6 am till 15 January in Kota, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Udaipur, Ajmer, Alwar, Bhilwara, Nagore, Pali, Tonk, Sikar and Ganganagar, according to an order issued by the Rajasthan Government, as per a report.

All offices, restaurants, commercial places, and markets will remain shut during the given time. The staff has been directed to leave at 7 pm so that they reach home by 8 pm, the circular read.

View Full Image All offices, restaurants, commercial places, and markets will remain shut during the given time

However, this will not be applicable for:

1) Factory with production of continuous nature.

2) Factories having night shift.

3) IT and IT companies.

4) Chemist shops.

5) Offices related to essential emergency services.

6) Marriage-related gathering.

7) Any workplace related to Medical services.

8) Passengers coming/going to bus stand, railway station and airport.

9) Movement of all trucks and other goods carrier vehicles and persons employed for loading and unloading goods.

Rajasthan had earlier imposed a night curfew from 8 pm to 6 am within urban limits of 13 district headquarter towns of Kota, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Udaipur, Ajmer, Alwar, Bhilwara, Nagore, Pali, Tonk, Sikar and Ganganagar from 1 December to 31 December.

Meanwhile, four more people died from Covid-19 in Rajasthan on Friday as 609 fresh cases surfaced, taking the number of infections to 3,08,852.

As many as 2,700 people have died from the infection in the state so far.

On Friday, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Sikar and Tonk reported one death each while maximum 91 new infections were reported from Jaipur. Jodhpur recorded 85 cases.

At present, the state has 9,223 active cases while 2,96,929 people have recovered from the disease till now.

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A mesmerising, picturesque mountain-top marriage proposal ended in disaster after a mans fiancee tripped and fell off the cliff. The man had got down on his knee to propose to his girlfriend whose back was facing the edge of the cliff and after saying yes, she took a step behind and found herself falling off the cliff.

The woman, 32, survived the fall off the 200 meters high Falkert mountain in Carinthia. Her fall was broken by a bed of snow at the bottom of the mountain. In a bid to save her life, her parner jumped after her and was found gripping the edge of a cliff after a 15-meter fall from the main cliff where he proposed to her.

The Daily Mail reported that a police officer at the scene said, 'The two were extremely lucky! Had it not been for snow, it would have turned out very differently.'

Emergency services quickly arrived at the site and had to rescue the man hanging from the cliff with a helicopter. The couple was rushed to the hospital where the doctors revealed that the boyfriend only suffered a fractured vertebra.

The woman was admitted to the hospital as well but has no major life-threatening injuries.
Syracuse, N.Y. -- The citys Christmas tree will go dark tonight for eight hours to honor the more than 400 people whove died from the coronavirus in Onondaga County.

Thats about one minute for each Covid-19 death in Onondaga County since March.

When you do the math, it becomes very sobering that weve lost that many lives among our neighbors, Mayor Ben Walsh said today.

The idea for the tribute came from the family of William Winslow Sr., who worked for the citys Parks Department for 36 years. Winslows job included putting up the Christmas tree each year in Clinton Square. He died of Covid-19 on Dec. 6.

Bill worked for over 35 years as a tree trimmer for the city of Syracuse. One of his favorite parts of the job was picking out, cutting down, and decorating the Christmas tree in Clinton Square for the entire city to enjoy each year, his obituary says. He would be shown on the news every year; he was a star in our eyes.

Winslows family reached out to city hall with the idea, Walsh said. Other parks workers have been honored in similar tributes, the mayor said.

But Winslows family wanted the memorial to be about more than their loss, Walsh said.

What I thought was really special, Walsh said, they wanted to honor not just him but all the other neighbors weve lost in Onondaga County over the past year.

The family also wants the tribute to honor medical workers, according to a statement from Robin Winslow, one of Bills daughters.

Winslow, 77, was one of 19 children, according to his obituary. Hes survived by his wife of 57 years, Sarah, six children, 12 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren.

His favorite hobby was playing the lottery, the obituary says. He loved camping, fishing, being a boy scout leader, helping people and spending time with his family.

Winslow was first hired when William Walsh, Bens grandfather, was mayor.

During his time working for the city, he also took charge of putting the lights on the tree until city electricians took over, his daughter, Jenn Winslow said.

He also contributed to the redesign of Clinton Square two decades ago. He looked at the plans and reminded officials to leave a hole for the tree, she said.

Her dad retired on Dec. 6, 2002. Even after that, she said, city workers would call him for advice about the citys Christmas tree.

The city switched to a fake tree in 2019, a move projected to save $370,000 over a decade.

He was not happy about that, Jenn said. He did not like that fake tree.

She said its not clear how her father got Covid-19. He was always helping people, she said. It could have been anywhere.

Jenn Winslow said he dad fought off the virus for about a week before going into the hospital. Once there, he was put on a ventilator and never came off, she said.

The memorial, which starts at 8 p.m., will last 480 minutes. As of Friday, the county had reported 441 coronavirus deaths since March.

Its likely there will be more today. The last day the county reported no deaths was Nov. 29, about five weeks ago.

Got a story idea or news tip youd like to share? Please contact me through email, Twitter, Facebook or at 315-470-2274.
NBC News (WASHINGTON)  The Senate on Friday joined the House to override President Donald Trumps veto of a sweeping military policy bill, delivering the first such blow to Trump just weeks before he leaves office.

The Senate then adjourned later in the day Friday, effectively killing the effort to increase stimulus check payments to $2,000, a demand Trump had made after signing a coronavirus relief bill that included $600 payments.

The Senate voted 81 to 13 to approve the $741 billion National Defense Authorization Act, achieving the two-thirds majority required to defeat the veto. The House overrode the veto on Monday by a vote of 322-87. As a result, the legislation will become law.

Trump vetoed the measure on Dec. 23 after lawmakers refused to include his request to add a provision repealing an internet liability law known as Section 230 that protects social media companies. The previous eight vetoes issued by Trump had been allowed to stand.

Among the lawmakers who voted against the override were Republicans Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Josh Hawley of Missouri and Democrats Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Ron Wyden of Oregon. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was a no vote as well.

Kamala Harris, the vice president-elect and Democratic senator from California, voted in favor of the override.

Republicans Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, who'd dodged questions about how they'd vote on the issue, were not present. Perdue is quarantining after a member of his campaign team tested positive for the coronavirus and Loeffler was campaigning in Georgia ahead of next week's runoff election, which will determine party control of the Senate.

Sen. Doug Jones, a Democrat from Alabama who's being considered as Joe Biden's nominee for Attorney General, also missed the vote. He's been quarantining since his wife tested positive for the coronavirus earlier this week.

Trump criticized "Our Republican Senate" on Twitter after the vote, calling their refusal to add a Section 230 provision "Pathetic!!!"

The vote came after attempts by Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Sanders and Hawley to force a vote on Trump's call for $2,000 checks to Americans were rejected. Trump called Republicans' failure to approve the checks, "Not fair, or smart!"

The NDAA is typically a bipartisan exercise that passes Congress with little drama. This year was different due to Trump's demand, which leaders of his party dismissed as irrelevant to a bill that structures the Pentagon. Both chambers originally passed the legislation with sweeping bipartisan support.

The process of overriding the veto took days in the Senate after Sanders led an objection to a speedy vote unless Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., would allow a vote on the CASH Act to raise stimulus payments to $2,000.

McConnell refused, choosing to wait him out instead.

Schumer, the minority leader, attempted to pass the House bill raising the stimulus payments by unanimous consent on Friday, but Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., objected. Sanders and Hawley tried again later in the day, offering to also vote on an alternate version offered by McConnell that combined the $2,000 checks with Section 230 reform and legislation to review the 2020 election, but that was blocked as well.

Trump, who'd repeatedly called for increasing the payments to $2,000, had been largely silent at the issue as Democrats and Hawley tried to get the measure passed this week.

Shortly after Thune objected, Trump tweeted that Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem should run against Thune in a primary.

"She would do a fantastic job in the U.S. Senate, but if not Kristi, others are already lining up. South Dakota wants strong leadership, NOW!" Trump wrote.

It's unclear if Trump attacked Thune because of the objection. Trump also mocked Thune, the number two Republican in the Senate, in a tweet last week after the senator predicted any Republican objection to the Electoral College vote count on Jan. 6 would "go down like a shot dog."

About a half hour after his Thune tweet on Friday, Trump tweeted another call for supporters to show up to rally for him on the 6th in Washington, D.C.

Thune made light of the Trump jibes to reporters after the vote. "Well, finally an attack tweet! What took him so long? Its fine  thats the way he communicates," Thune said, adding, "Im not sure what I did to be deserving of all that, but that's fine."

The military legislation affirms a 3 percent pay raise for American troops and includes a provision led by Warren to rename U.S. military bases and property honoring Confederate soldiers within three years.

The last president to never have a veto overridden by Congress was Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s, according to Senate archives.
Around 300 students of Government Girls College in Sector 14 on Saturday took out a march to protest against the university administrations purported plans to conduct the second-semester exams from January. After gathering in front of the college around 11am, students moved further ahead and reached the city bus stop, where they raised slogans against the university administration.

In June last year, the higher education department had said that first and second-year students will be promoted to the next semester without any exam and on the basis of marks obtained in internal assessment and previous examinations. However, students, who were promoted to the third semester, said they were told on Thursday that the second-semester exams would be conducted in January. Most students said that they were not in favour of holding second-semester exams since the syllabus couldnt be completed due to the pandemic. They also said that the announcement had come at such a short notice that it would be difficult to handle third-semester studies along with second-semester exams.

Soni Sharma, who was among the protesting students, said, Our second semester was disrupted due to Covid-19 and we did not complete the syllabus. The semester exams did not take place and we were promoted to the third semester. However, we are now being told that second-semester exams will take place in January in 10 days. How can we be tested when the syllabus was not completed properly and we are busy with the third-semester studies? We have so many papers and science subjects are particularly difficult, said Sharma, a BSc student. She said that students had received information about the conduct of classes only on Thursday.

Sonia, another third-semester student, said that the matter was discussed with the principal on Thursday but nothing conclusive came out of it after which students decided to protest on Saturday. Most students are not in favour of exams. If students in other universities can be promoted, why cant the same mechanism apply to us? Ideally, third-semester exams should be conducted now. We cant handle third-semester studies along with second-semester exams with so much syllabus left to cover, said Sonia.

She said that exams for the second semester did not make sense since the semester had been disrupted due to various factors, including the Covid-19 pandemic. We did not have classes for the most part in January 2020 since our results were declared late. Only limited classes took place in February due to which the syllabus couldnt be covered and later the pandemic struck in March. How can we be expected to take exams for a semester where the syllabus was not completed? said Sonia.

Markanday Ahuja, vice-chancellor of Gurugram University which is responsible for conducting exams for students, said that students were agitating unnecessarily and no examination date sheet had been prepared. No date-sheet has been made till now. We have simply called a meeting of college principals to explore the possibility of conducting exams since the government has said that exams need to be taken. The UGC has also made a recommendation, said Ahuja.

He said that college principals had been asked to take feedback from students for a preferable time for exams but students had reacted unnecessarily. We are simply trying to explore the possibility of holding exams, whether exams should be conducted during the third semester or later, said Ahuja. He said that a follow-up meeting was due for Monday where further decisions in this regard will be taken.

Protesting students said that they had been assured that they would get to be a part of the discussions scheduled to take place on Monday after which theyd decide the next course of action.
NEW DELHI: The rapid production and proliferation of nuclear and missile technologies by Turkey have been a major concern for democratic powers across the world. It has threatened the peace and tranquillity of countries from the North Atlantic to the Middle East. A series of recent developments have attracted the eyes of the world on an emerging phenomenon wherein Turkish President Erdogan is banking on Pakistani nuclear and missile technologies to fulfil his geopolitical aspirations.

The latest development in the series is the 15" Turkey-Pakistan High-Level Military Dialogue Group (HLMDG) on 22-23 December 2020, which is the biggest institutional setup between both the countries on defence cooperation. Pakistan's Defence Secretary Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Mian Muhammad Hilal Hussain led the Pakistani delegation, while Deputy Chief of Turkish Army General Selcuk Bayraktaroglu led the Turkish delegation.

The meeting was part of a series of several meetings between top level representatives of armies of both the nations. The progress made in previous meetings between defence representatives was also reviewed and discussed. Turkish media reported that besides other things, much emphasis was laid on defence industry cooperation including joint production and procurement. Pakistani generals also met Turkish defence minister Hulusi Akar and Chief of Turkish Army General Yasar Guler.

Insiders believe that the meeting and the deliberations discussed during it were just the tip of the iceberg as it is part of a larger screenplay of sharing nuclear and missile technologies between the two countries. It is believed that Erdogan has personally requested Pakistani Army Chief General Bajwa for sharing nuclear weapon technology which Pakistan has reportedly agreed. The meeting was organised to discuss procedural aspects of the technology transfer that could take place and covering the process at the same time.

The Pakistani defence delegation visited Turkish defence companies including Bakyar (UAV OEM), TAI,HAVELSAN and ASELSAN. It also met top Turkish Army generals and bureaucrats dealing with the production of missiles and other aerial technologies. The list of such people also included head of Presidency of Turkish Defence Industries Prof. Ismail Demir and CEO of Turkish Aerospace Limited (TAI) Dr. Temil Kotil.

The recent seizure of a Chinese autoclave  a device that is used for manufacturing motor of very long range missiles in Kandla Port from a Hong Kong ship going to Pakistan's Port Qasim underlined the rapid transfer of missile technology from China to Pakistan. Experts argued that the type of autoclave seized is used in very long range missiles like Shaheen-ll, capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Pakistan has accumulated a large battery of missiles from China  the conventional ones as well as those capable for carrying nuclear warheads. China is also believed to be the country responsible for the transfer of nuclear technology to Pakistan and helping the country to build its nuclear capabilities.

Pakistan is rapidly transferring the missile technologies to Turkey and Pakistani scientists are helping Turkey build its capacity in the production of missiles. Scores of Pakistani scientists are currently working with Turkey to enhance its ballistic and nuclear capabilities. By brokering the transfers of missile technologies between countries and manoeuvring the dynamics of geopolitics, Pakistan has brazenly violated the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and non-proliferation rules.

Erdogan has been blatantly expressing his nuclear desires through his speeches and comments. Articulating his nuclear aspirations very recently in September 2019, Erdogan stated, Some countries have missiles with nuclear warheads, not one or two. I, however, am not supposed to have missiles with nuclear warheads. This, I cannot accept... And right next to us , there is Israel, right? With everything, it is frightening."

It is pertinent to note that for decades, Pakistan has been a kingpin of the nuclear black market and Turkey has been contributing to Pakistans business. Giving a jolt to nuclear non-proliferation, the nuclear black market of Pakistan led by Abdul Qadeer Khan helped numerous countries in sharing missile technologies, especially in the production of centrifuges. According to the International Institute of Strategic Strategic Studies, Turkish companies helped the gangster of Pakistan indulge in the business of nuclear technologies to covertly import materials from Europe and export the finished products to players like Libya, Iran and North Korea . Several media reports have also highlighted that Turkey might be possessing a considerable number of centrifuges made by Pakistan.

The next meeting of HLMDG is scheduled in 2021 and insiders have revealed that both the countries have set these targets to be achieved before the next meeting: fast tracking of missile technology transfer, capacity building of Turkey in producing centrifuges, purchase of small armed Turkish drones by Pakistan, acquisition on high-range Turkish mini drones by Pakistani Army.

In another important development, Lt. Gen. Sahir Shamshad of Pakistani Army met Lt. Gen. Wali Turkchi of Turkish Army in Ankara for the Second Round of Turkish-Pakistani Military Talks on December 21st, a day ahead of the HLMDG. Besides HLMDG, Turkish-Pakistani Army Military Talks is another important institutional arrangement between both the countries dedicated to defence cooperation and transfer of defence technologies. The transfer of missile technologies and UAVs was the central theme of this meeting as well. It is also believed that Pakistan assured Turkey of helping it to find new buyers of Turkish defence equipment after recent CAATSA (Countering Americas Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) sanctions imposed by the US. Turkey is afraid of losing its defence market after these impositions and has sought Pakistan's assistance.

Scholars argue that Erdogan sees Pakistani nuclear and missile capabilities as an important weapon in achieving his caliphate aspirations. The blatant transfer of defence technologies and equipment between both countries is now increasingly threatening the peaceful world order. However, these transactions have irked the western powers along with the Saudi-led countries which now are hurriedly dissociating from Pakistan and are planning to take action against it, making Pakistan a pariah in the Islamic world.
Olivia Attwood has hit out at trolls who accused of patronising her followers for suggesting they couldn't afford her 1,595 designer Balmain blazer.

The Love Island star, 29, was taking part in a Q&A on her Instagram story on Friday night, when a fan had asked her where she had purchased the black blazer she was seen wearing in one of her recent snaps.

'This has been asked so many times,' Olivia captioned the post. 'I'm sorry this one is @balmain, but there are so many great copies on the high street (Zara are great for blazers).

Hitting back: Olivia Attwood has defended a blazer she purchased from Balmain after some of her followers criticised her for suggesting they could not afford it

'And if you were looking to splurge, it's a great investment piece, very timeless xx.'

However, Olivia was slammed by some of her followers for this comment, with many accusing her of patronising them for suggesting that they could not afford clothes from Balmain.

Balmain is a French luxury fashion brand, which is known for its pricier items compared to most other high street outlets.

Olivia later shared a screenshot of a DM a fan had sent, which read: 'I'm sorry' but I think other people can afford Balmain too.'

Backlash:The Love Island star, 29, was taking part in a Q&A on her Instagram story on Friday night but some slammed her for suggesting that they could not afford clothes from Balmain

In response, Olivia stated: 'Jesus I never suggested that they couldn't. I just know a large amount of my following look to me for outfit inspo etc but are not looking to drop 1,500 on a f*****g blazer.

'I know when I'm looking at people's outfits etc you always hope that they are Zara etc etc.

'Just thought I would explain that, didn't mean to patronise/offend anyone. Just being realistic. (sic)'

Olivia later shared a video to her story to clarify her statement, revealing she was 'struggling in how to approach Instagram' and share the right content with her fans.

'I think it's really hard to satisfy people,' she said. 'And by satisfy I mean you guys, and I love you for it, you're always asking what I got for Christmas and I get asked it hundreds of times a day.

'I wanna share with you guys because that's why I'm on Instagram, I love seeing what people buy, even if I couldn't afford it I still love to see it, but at the same time I don't wanna seem like I'm out of touch with reality.

'It's really hard to satisfy people': Olivia later shared a video to her story to clarify her statement, revealing she was 'struggling in how to approach Instagram'

'So when I'm posting something like that, for example that blazer, I've had hundreds of questions about where it's from. I'm not gonna f*****g lie and say, 'Oh, it's from Zara', and give you a 'swipe up' link like something to do and f*****g lie, like I'm gonna be honest.'

The reality star later explained that she was attempting to word her initial post in a way that would not come across as 'braindead' to followers who had previously criticised her for sharing where she got her fashion items from in the past.

'That's what my wording was,' she continued. 'It may come off a bit patronising but that's what I meant behind it.

Setting the record straight: The reality star later explained that she was attempting to word her initial post in a way that would not come across as 'braindead' to followers

'There's a fine line between sharing this stuff you guys wanna see and looking gross. It's a very fine line, and I wanna be on the non-gross line while still giving you guys the content you want.'

Olivia also revealed that she had previously comedown with both coronavirus and swine flu, but has since recovered.

She told followers that her best friend was hospitalised after they contracted swine flu while on holiday in Cyprus, while she also managed to 'survive Covid'.

'Girls, Thomas Cook said don't go, we were like, 'No, it'll be fine'. We pretty much all caught swine flu,' she explained.

'My best friend was hospitalised in Cyprus for like two weeks, we had to leave her and her dad had to come out and look after her.

'It was not fun, so I can say that I've survived Covid and swine flu. I dunno if that looks bad on me or good on me.'
American space agency NASA, on the last day of 2020, shared stunning images of planet Earth from the "cosmic vantage point". The images were captured during the course of the previous year by a fleet of NASA's Earth-observing satellites and instruments on the International Space Station. NASA shared the beautiful pictures on Instagram, giving us a chance to take a glance at 2020 through the lens of its satellites.

"In the vastness of the universe, the life-bringing beauty of our home planet shines bright," NASA captioned the post, which has since garnered nearly 1 million likes. The pictures, taken by the "robotic scientists" that orbit Earth constantly and provide crucial information to researchers on the ground, showcasing some of the devastations, wonders, and exceptions 2020 had to offer.

Read: NASA Says Golden Gate Bridge-sized Asteroid Will Pass By Earth In Early Jan

Stunning images of Earth from space

This picture shows the beautiful Ili river Delta Oasis in Southeastern Kazakhstan in all its natural-colour. The picture was taken from the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 on March 7, 2020. The image shows the ice on Lake Balkhash breaking up to reveal the shallow sandy bed and swirls of sediments in the western part after the end of a chilly winter.

This picture shows a dangerous storm approaching the southern coast of the United States against the bright city lights. The picture was taken from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on NOAA-20 on August 26, 2020, as Hurricane Laura approached the southern coastline at 2:20 am. Hurricane Laura caused major disruption in the United States earlier last year as it was dubbed one of the ten worst storms to ever make landfall in the country.

This picture is from January last year when Australia was battling to control the massive wildfire that had engulfed the country since November 2019. The picture taken from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASAs Aqua satellite on January 4 shows thick smoke-filled skies with bright white patches of clouds.

Read: NASA Shares Rare Cloud-free View Of Elephant Island, Netizens In Awe Of Gorgeous Pic

This picture captures the COVID-19-induced shutdown in China's central Hubei province, where the disease is believed to have originated in December 2019. The picture was taken from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the NOAANASA Suomi NPP satellite on February 4, days after China announced a lockdown in Wuhan.

This picture shows the false-colour image of the parched Parana River near Rosario, Argentina. The image was taken from the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 on July 3 and it aims to shows the drop in water level to its lowest in decades due to warm weather and drought. The drought has affected the region since early 2020, and low water levels have grounded several ships, and many vessels have had to reduce their cargo in order to navigate the river.

Read: 'Step Outside, Look Up': NASA Shares Stunning Image Of 'Wolf Moon', Explains What It Is

This picture showcases the historic devastation caused by the wildfire in the western United States. The image shows North America on September 9, 2020, as a frontal boundary moved into the Great Basin and produced very high downslope winds along the mountains of Washington, Oregon, and California. The winds triggered more extreme fires and as a result, a thick blanket of smoke covered the west coast.

Read: NASA Shares Four Most Liked Pictures From 2020, Asks People To Chose Their Favourite

(Image Credits: NASA)


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Mr. Mladenov said he feared that another Gaza war would have let the world revert to its usual talking points about this place, doomed any hope of peace talks, left a Somalia on Israels doorstep, drawn condemnation of Israel from across the Arab world and deterred donor countries from paying to rebuild Gaza the way they did after the 2014 war.

It would have been much easier to sit on the sidelines and preach, he said, but preaching never gets you anywhere.

I come from the Balkans, he said. Weve changed borders. Weve fought over holy places, languages, churches. Weve exchanged populations, for 100 years, if not more. And when you carry that baggage, it does help you see things a bit differently. This is not a conflict where you can come in and just draw a line. Its emotional.

I know from my own experience that when the quote-unquote foreigners come and tell you what to do, you just shut them off. Youre like, Thank you very much, he added. You cant preach to these guys. Remember, theyve been it at it for half a century.

Last spring, insiders say, Mr. Mladenov was among the first officials to conclude that no deterrent would stop Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel from making good on his promises to annex West Bank territory, but that it might be possible to induce him to drop annexation for a bigger prize: normalization with Arab states that had long shunned Israel.

The annexation plan was gaining momentum, he said. And were it to happen, it would be terrible for Israel. Forget about another Gaza cease-fire, he said. Imagine the worldwide condemnation.
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Stolberg (21 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single vertical bump / very short : Plotzlicher Knall als wenn etwas das Haus gerammt hatte. Aus dem Schlaf aufgewacht und gemerkt, dass der Strom kurz unterbrochen war. | 21 users found this interesting.

Friesenrath (17.2 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / vertical swinging (up and down) / 2-5 s : two bumps in approx 5 seconds | 11 users found this interesting.

52223 Stolberg - Breinig / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Es hat sich angefuhlt wie ein kurzer Einschlag. | 9 users found this interesting.

Aachen / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 1-2 s : It seemed to be a single wave, coming from south west and leaving to north east. Could also have been caused by an explosion. Iowas afraid it was one of the Belgium nuclear power plants. Time was approx. 7:37 CET | 6 users found this interesting.

Aachen Sief, Germany / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / complex motion difficult to describe : Our house is 12km from epicenter. Iheard 2 explosionlike noises, as if deep under our house a bomb is exploding. Middleloud and clearly to hear.thought my neighbours were shooting at each other. Calleed the police and the already had the information of the eathquake | 3 users found this interesting.

Stolberg-Breinig / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Wir wurden aus dem Schlaf gerissen. Es war wie eine heftige Explosion allerdings weit entfernt. Die Kommode hat geklirrt | 3 users found this interesting.

Aachen (29.6 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s : I woke up from it. Thought Someone fell down the stairs. I was alarmed and checked the house but nothing. It was scary. | 2 users found this interesting.

Stolberg, Breinig (21.1 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 1-2 s : I was still in bed when out of a sudden it felt like there'd be something hitting the house, like a pressure wave, and the house was shaking back and forth and back again. | 2 users found this interesting.

Roetgen (9.8 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Es fuhlte sich an, als ware etwas stumm explodiert und als ware eine ubahn unterm Haus hergefahren | 2 users found this interesting.

19.7 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / very short : Woke up exactly at 7:36/7:37 by a Single bump. Felt like a truck passing, but was wondering because usually I don't wake up by trucks, I only perceive their vibrations when I'm awake. | 2 users found this interesting.

Aachen, Nutheim / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / very short : I felt 2 small vibrations, cups clinked very slightly. | 4 users found this interesting.

Stolberg / Light shaking (MMI IV) / vibration and rolling / 2-5 s : I was awakened because of this. There was a bang and a quake was felt very well. Others in our house were awakened too. | 2 users found this interesting.

Stolberg Rheinland, 52223 Breinig / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 1-2 s : I woke up in bed because of the vibration/shaking. It swung horizontal for maybe 2-3 seconds. Dogs in my neighborhood barked a lot and my cat was nervously running back and forth in the flat. | 2 users found this interesting.

Roetgen / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating : It felt and sounded like a huge amount of snow sliding from the roof - but there is hardly any snow at all which is what led me to believe it might have been an earthquake. I actually didn't even check whether it was an earthquake until our neighbor texted me about it 10 min later. | 2 users found this interesting.

Aacgen, Germany / Weak shaking (MMI III) : It was shaking, things were moving slightly on the table, noises from moving kittle things and the house aking. Bigger movement than all the trucks passing by created | 2 users found this interesting.

Aachen (25.5 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s : Was sitting on the couch indoors 4th floor, felt a very light sideway movement below me which left me confused if the couch did move. Wasnt more intense then heavy cars driving by but for sure a different motion in vibration. | One user found this interesting.

52159 Roetgen lammersdorfer Strae / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s : A loud sound, like an explosion. House shaking strong, but very short. | 3 users found this interesting.

Roetgen / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / vertical swinging (up and down) / 2-5 s : Deep bass, 2x movement | 3 users found this interesting.

Aachen-Brand / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short : Schlafend im Bett, wach geworden von Erschutterung | 3 users found this interesting.

Kalkbergstr Aachen Eilendorf (27.2 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 1-2 s : The Plants inside were shaking | 2 users found this interesting.

11.4 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Strong shaking (MMI VI) / 1-2 s : Grollen vorher, dann ein heftiger Sto. Dachte, das Haus wurde gerammt. | 2 users found this interesting.

Wurselen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short : I heard it and it sounds like two (fat) people have fallen one after the other. First a slight and then a slightly longer vibration could be felt or heard throughout the house. | One user found this interesting.

Alsdorf / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 1-2 s : It woke me up and you felt a short shake and an Bois going thought the house. Earthquake are not very common here therefore you had to think a few minutes about it what a was and what is going on | One user found this interesting.

Roetgen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s : I was sleeping, when I suddenly heared a rumbling. Bed und house house was shaking. My children felt it too. | One user found this interesting.

Wurselen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short : I heard it and it sounds like two (fat) people have fallen one after the other. First a slight and then a slightly longer vibration could be felt or heard throughout the house. | One user found this interesting.

Aachen Hahn / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single vertical bump / very short : Germany,Aachen-Hahn,vor Eifel....feel it. Think because same blue Stone in the ground in Luttich/Liege same here. | One user found this interesting.

Aachen, Dohlenweg / Weak shaking (MMI III) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / very short : Woke up due to our house swinging a little sideways and some vibrations in a cupboard / Door frame on top floor 3rd). Damage to bei assessed (probably nothing). | One user found this interesting.

Vaals (26.2 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : Ich lag im Bett im 2 Stock, uber mir hangt eine Lampe an einer 1 m langen Schnur. Die Lampe wackelte und ich fuhlte mich plotzlich schlecht.

25.3 km NNE of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s : We were woken up by a loud bang and the house shook. We thought a car drove into the house or something like that.

15.8 km NNE of epicenter [ Map ] / not felt : No earthshaking observed; I only observed a low frequent sound like a heavy explosion at 20 km distance,airplane crossing sound barrier, etc.

Strauch (14.4 km NE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 2-5 s : First i thought it was a shot from the military training area elsenborn but then i realizet it was an earthquake. The first two seconds were stronger with a light shaking and creaking in the wooden ceiling and then it got less.

Stolberg (Rheinland) (25.3 km NNE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / vibration and rolling / 1-2 s : Grumbling sound, then two short shaking motions. The second one was stronger. The first one was from the smaller quake which occured almost at the same time closer to Stolberg (2.5).

52076 Aachen-Kornelimunster (20.8 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 1-2 s : The whole family woke up, because of the shaking and the rumbling noise, checked house and garden, almost everyone Welt then Back to sleep.

52076 Aachen-Kornelimunster / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 2-5 s : Ich spurte 2 Stoe, ich dachte es ware ein Auto gegen unser Haus geprallt ! | 2 users found this interesting.

Roetgen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s : Came like a wave, short rattling followed by a stronger final bump | 2 users found this interesting.

Stolberg Breinig 52223 / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s : Ich habe es als rumpeln empfunden. | 2 users found this interesting.

Stolberg Mausbach / Very weak shaking (MMI II) : I felt a short, very weak shaking followed by a single bang | 2 users found this interesting.

Aachen Haaren / not felt / very short : Wir haben es anhand eines starken Rucks des Hauses gespurt. | 2 users found this interesting.

52223 Stolberg-Dorff, Germany / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s : Moderate shaking, woke up immediately. 1 second of grooming. Location: Dorff, 52223 Stolberg | 2 users found this interesting.

52076 Aachen/Hahn (19.1 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s : First idea was thinking of a gas explosion or something like this | One user found this interesting.

Stolberg-Dorff (21.8 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / very short : I thought I heard an explosion and our beams in the roof creaked loudly | One user found this interesting.

21.1 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / very short : Waked me up. Furniture trembling in 2nd floor. Short push in the ground floor. | One user found this interesting.

aachen (23.3 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single vertical bump / very short : Sat on my desk. Desk suddenly shook strongly as if hit really hard. | One user found this interesting.

52152 Einruhr / not felt : Habe es selbst nicht gespurt, aber es erklart im Nachhinein das Verhalten meiner Katzen. Sie waren sehr unruhig und anhanglicher als sonst, selbst das Futter war uninteressant und wollten auch nicht raus.

Aachen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating : I heard my glasses and Cups rattleing while I was still in bed. I didn't feel much but I heard a couple of noises.

Hamich Heisterner Str. 2 b / not felt : lautes grollen, als ob ein LKW gegen eine Hauswand kracht. ahnlich wie 1992 nur keine Erschutterungen

52152 Kesternich, Ringstrasse / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 2-5 s : Ich sa am Schreibtisch und plotzlich ein Grummeln und leichtes Zittern im Gebaude.. Mein Hund reagierte mit Aufspringen aus seinem Korbchen und bellte aufgeregt, er beruhigte sich dann aber auch sofort wieder.. Ich dachte sofort an ein leichtes Erdbeben

Roetgen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) : I was lying in bed just woken up. (1.floor) I felt a weak shake for a second City: Roetgen near Aachen

Aachen, North Rhine Westphalia / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 1-2 s : I slept and then I woke up because the wind was so loud in front of my closed windows. And than there was this vibration. I got afraid if my roof top would fly away.

Aachen - Oberforstbach / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : We recognized a noise and vibrations on the 1st floor in our house while laying in bed at ~ 7:35 in the morning

Aachen, Venwegen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 1-2 s : Durch leichtes Grollen und Schutteln wach geworden und dann einen Knall, ahnlich wie bei einer Explosion gehort.

Stolberg 52223, Stolberger Heck 3 (25.4 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 1-2 s : Slight Vibration to be felt. Window was slightly swinging. I felt a slight Vibration even during end of my sleep phase. A grumbling noise even to be heared.

52223 Stolberg Breinig / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single vertical bump / 2-5 s : At 7.33 a.m. I heard 2 moderate dark sounding "underground explosions". There was no shaking I could feel.

Monschau Rohren / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 5-10 s : My cat wakes me up, screaming Last night around 1 o clock I felt not good, heard beat | One user found this interesting.

Aachen Kornelimunster / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s : Awoke from rolling and 2 slight shakes | One user found this interesting.

52224 Stolberg / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s : I felt it, did not need an alarm clock | One user found this interesting.

Aachen / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s : Vibration and Glases in the cupboard made noices. | One user found this interesting.

Stolberg / Light shaking (MMI IV) / very short : Rollen, dann Knall | One user found this interesting.

52393 Raffelsbrand / Hurtgenwald / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short : Kurzes Rutteln gespurt, aus dem Schlaf hochgeschreckt. | One user found this interesting.

Friesenrath / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / 2-5 s : Sudden single lateral shake felt while being already awake in bed. Well audible. | One user found this interesting.

Roetgen, Rott / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 2-5 s : It sounds like a explosion, everything was shaking | One user found this interesting.

Roetgen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating : I heard a loud bang and some shaking whilst in bed sleeping. Woke up bcs I was scared | One user found this interesting.

Aachen - Burtscheid / Very weak shaking (MMI II) : Short ground vibration and parallel little cracking sounds in building | One user found this interesting.

Koln (77.7 km NE of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt

Stolberg (24.6 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / 2-5 s

Bonn (72.2 km ENE of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt (reported through our app / not felt

20.1 km NNE of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / very short

Friesenrath (17.2 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / vertical swinging (up and down) / 2-5 s : two bumps in approx 5 seconds

Kelmis (22.2 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt : I was sleeping and did not wake or notice the earthquake.

Friesenrath (17.2 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / vertical swinging (up and down) / 2-5 s : two bumps in approx 5 seconds

90.7 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / not felt (reported through our app / not felt

26.1 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / not felt

Friesenrath (17.2 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / vertical swinging (up and down) / 2-5 s : two bumps in approx 5 seconds

15 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

68.2 km NNE of epicenter [ Map ] / not felt (reported through our app / not felt

Alsdorf (37.7 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt Didnt feel anything of this earthquake (reported through (reported through our app / not felt

Friesenrath (17.2 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / vertical swinging (up and down) / 2-5 s : two bumps in approx 5 seconds

57.7 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / not felt

Herzogenrath (36.4 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating : Light vibrating of dishes and light movement of the cabinet.

23.1 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s

11.2 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV)

14.1 km NW of epicenter [ Map ] / not felt / 1-2 s

28.7 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / not felt

Stolberg (27 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / very short : strong short bam, we woke up!

18.8 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV)

27.3 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Just a few secounds

Aachen (25.6 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt : Was sleeping but also did not feel anything

90.7 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / not felt (reported through our app / not felt

Walheim (18.4 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s

27 km NNE of epicenter [ Map ] / not felt (reported through our app / not felt

23.5 km NW of epicenter [ Map ] / not felt (reported through our app / not felt

17.7 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Sippenaeken, belgique (25.4 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt : Rien remarque du tout

22.7 km NNE of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s

27.8 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / very short (reported through our app / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / very short

52076 Aachen (Walheim) (18.7 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / vibration and rolling / 1-2 s : I felt and I even heard a light rolling.

Breinig (21.3 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single vertical bump / very short : I was awakened. The things in the cupboard made noises several seconds. I heard a bang.

11.4 km NE of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Dort, Lammersdorfer Str. 67 (15.7 km NNE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / vertical swinging (up and down) / 1-2 s : Kurzes vertikales heftiges Beben

22.3 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / not felt / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

Alsdorf (37.1 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt : Didn't feel anything here in Alsdorf.

52224 (25.8 km NNE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Stolberg Mausbach (27 km NNE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s : Es hat gut gerumst, bin davon aufgewacht, das Bett hat auf jedenfalls gewackelt.

22.9 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 1-2 s

35.7 km ENE of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) (reported through our app / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

58.1 km ENE of epicenter [ Map ] / not felt (reported through our app / not felt

52223 Stolberg (21.4 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s : ahnlich wie erdrutsch im Bergwerk

Aachen (19.9 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s : D

52222 Stolberg Atsch (17.9 km SSW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV)

15 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

8.1 km NE of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Aachen (25.1 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt

Roetgen (15.8 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

22.7 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s : zuerst ein Grollen gehort, dann eine deutliche Bewegung des Hauses

Kelmis (22.3 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / 2-5 s

84.4 km S of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / very short (reported through our app / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / very short

23 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / not felt

Aachen, Lichtenbusch (18.9 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 5-10 s : Ich bin von geweckt worden und habe es deutlich gespurt

Roetgen, Kalfstr.16 (10.7 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) : one heavy shock, like a wave of pressure

Hurtgenwald-Simonskall (19 km NE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV)

11.7 km NNE of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

20.4 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV)

18.3 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single vertical bump / 2-5 s

13.9 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / not felt

24.5 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s

16.2 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

Aachen Brand (0.1 km NNE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 2-5 s

13.9 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

52066 Aachen (24.3 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV)

25.7 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s

Aachen, Germany (25.8 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s : I was sleeping and i felt the nes was shaking 1-2 seconds

52076 aachen (19.1 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s : First idea was thinking of a gas explosion or something like this

13.8 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

25.1 km NNE of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / very short

Kornelimunster, Germany (20.6 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s : 2 bumps within 1 or 2 seconds.

Aachen, Verlautenheide (28.2 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s

Raeren (15.2 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short : Leichte Bewegung im Bett

20.4 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III)

22.6 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / not felt

18.4 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Inden (34.8 km NNE of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt

Roetgen (11.6 km NNE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single vertical bump / very short : Similar to a detonation

Walheim (17.6 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / vertical swinging (up and down) / 1-2 s

24.5 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / very short

Stolberg-Mausbach, Rhld. (12.2 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

52223 Stolberg, m Steg (21.3 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : Almost everybody awakened, some alarmed, but we didn't see any damages

18.6 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / both vertical and horizontal swinging / 2-5 s

Aachen (25.9 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single vertical bump / 2-5 s : I thought "Tihange" exploded. Now I'm thankful that it "only" was an earthquake.

23.4 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

20.4 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / very short

Stolberg Busbach (23.5 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / very short : Felt more like a pressure wave

26.6 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / not felt

Schmithof (16.8 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s : Felt more like an explosion in the ground

10.9 km NNE of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) : At first I thought snow fell from the roof, it was a pretty loud bang.

Aachen (23.3 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

52066 Aachen (24.5 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Awakened by Vibration INSIDE (Second Floor)

Aachen Hahn (18.5 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

25.9 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

19 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Monschau (5.5 km ENE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single vertical bump / 2-5 s : Omg. That was crazy.

33.3 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / not felt

Walheim (19 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / very short : Like a gas explosion shock wave

20.6 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s

16 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / vibration and rolling / 1-2 s

Aachen (23 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Walheim, Aachen (17.7 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / very short : While lying in bed there was a single shake felt, but strong enough to wake us up.

28.1 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / vibration and rolling / 1-2 s

Wurselen (31.3 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Aachen (24.8 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

10.9 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s

Stolberg (24.6 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / 2-5 s

1.1 km WSW of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single vertical bump / very short

11.3 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single vertical bump / very short

Stolberg 52223 (23.7 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV)

25.5 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) : Woke me up. My bed shook and banged a few times lightly against the wall.

11.7 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Hasbach, 52076 Aachen (18 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

19.5 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s

25.1 km NNE of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / very short

24.4 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

Roetgen (19.4 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 2-5 s

Stolberg (23.4 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short

19.3 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single lateral shake / very short

14.1 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 1-2 s

Zweifall (189.1 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 2-5 s : Light earhquake

23.7 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III)

24 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

10.9 km NNE of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) : I woke up.

27.8 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

Eilendorf, Aachen (26.7 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / 2-5 s

Raeren (15.5 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 2-5 s

Roetgen (19.9 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s : N hab jjb

11.8 km NNE of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s

Am Kranensterz 4, D-52223 Stolberg (22.8 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

22.5 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short

Raeren (15.2 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s

Roetgen (10.9 km NNE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single lateral shake / very short

17.5 km NNE of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s

18.4 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating

22.1 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV)

24.9 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / very short

Walhorn (17.1 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

12 km NNE of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV)

10.8 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / complex motion difficult to describe / 2-5 s

20.6 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single lateral shake / very short : It was like a single explosion nearby

25.3 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

11.6 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / vibration and rolling / 1-2 s

Aachen 52078 (22.8 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single vertical bump / very short

26.4 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / very short

15.4 km NNE of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III)

52.7 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / very short

Roetgen (11.2 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 1-2 s

25 km NNE of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Oberstolberg (25.2 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

21.1 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

26.5 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single lateral shake / very short

Stolberg Vicht (19.9 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single lateral shake / very short

Aachen (21.6 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 1-2 s

Stolberg Pirolweg (24.9 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 1-2 s

15.2 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Roetgen (10.2 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Strong shaking (MMI VI) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

25 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / very short

16.8 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

22.3 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / very short

23.8 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single lateral shake / 2-5 s

25.4 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) (reported through our app / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Roetgen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s

Roetgen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s

DE 52223 Stolberg, Wilhelm-Pitz-Strae 40 / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / vibration and rolling / 1-2 s

Aachen, Deutschland / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / very short

Oberforstbach / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Aachen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short

Roetgen / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / very short

Aachen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Aachen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 1-2 s

Aachen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single lateral shake / very short

stolberg 52223 / Strong shaking (MMI VI)

Stolberg / not felt

Raeren, Belgien / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Roetgen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / very short

Aachen - Burtscheid / Very weak shaking (MMI II) : Short ground vibration and parallel little cracking sounds in building

Lichtenbusch, Belgium / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

52076 Aachen / Moderate shaking (MMI V)

STOLBERG (RHLD.) / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

My place was in Aachen, Dammstrae. 13. I felt a / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 1-2 s

52076 Aachen / Moderate shaking (MMI V)

Stolberg / not felt

Rott / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 1-2 s

Kalterherberg / not felt

Roetgen-Rott (PLZ:52159) / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s

Stolberg 52223 / Light shaking (MMI IV) / vibration and rolling

Stolberg / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / very short

Kelmis / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Roetgen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

52080, Aachen Eilendorf / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Roetgen, Grunepleistr. / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / 2-5 s

Breinig / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

Aachen / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Aachen - Burtscheid / Very weak shaking (MMI II) : Short ground vibration and parallel little cracking sounds in building

Eschweiler / not felt

Stolberg / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 1-2 s

4720 / not felt

52249 / not felt

Raeren / Weak shaking (MMI III) / vertical swinging (up and down) / 1-2 s : Erst dachte ich, meine Frau sei aufgestanden.

Stolberg Mausbach / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Roetgen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

Roetgen / not felt

Stolberg-Breinig / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 2-5 s : A loud echoing bang ... a little bit like a detonation / explosion

Eupen / not felt

Aachen-Brand / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 1-2 s

Leverkusen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 5-10 s

Simmerath Strauch / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Hurtgenwald / not felt / single vertical bump / 2-5 s : Es klang als wurde es drauen ganz doll donnern.

Roetgen / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single vertical bump / very short

52070 Aachen, Hochbruck 3 / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Leichtes Beben, Kuhlschrank hat jedoch eine kurze Zeit nachgebebt. Hochbruck 3, 52070 Aachen

52223 Stolberg / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s

52152 / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s : Wurde doch Grollen wach, fuhlte ein Zittern, Wackeln, so als haette man kurz Schuttelfrost.

Raeren / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 1-2 s

Breinig / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Stolberg / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 1-2 s

Aachen / not felt

52076 Aachen-Krauthausen / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

52222 Stolberg, Schneidmuhle 10 / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s

Aachen / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

Stolberg 52223 / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / very short : One shake

Lammersdorf / not felt

Stolberg / not felt

52078 Aachen - Brand / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single vertical bump

Roetgen Germany / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / 2-5 s

Hurtgenwald-Gey / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 5-10 s

Raeren / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Aachen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s

52076 Aachen - Schmithof / Light shaking (MMI IV)

52393 Huertgenwald-Vossenack / not felt / 1-2 s : Rumbling Noise, no Vibration

Aachen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single lateral shake / very short

Aachen Normannenstrae / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Haus vibrierte leicht

Aachen-Walheim / Light shaking (MMI IV) / vertical swinging (up and down) / 2-5 s

Koln / not felt

Stolberg, Breiniger Berg / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Aachen Hasselholzer Weg, 1,2 Km Luftlinie vom Drei / Very weak shaking (MMI II) : In Aachen haben wir es deutlich mit einem Gerausch (Rums) wie ein starker Windsto gespurt.

Stolberg (Rhld.) / not felt

Stolberg-Zweifall / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Aachen, Germany / not felt : Just heard a little "bum"

Raeren / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 1-2 s

Aachen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short

Aachen/ Friesenrath, Hundertsweg / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 1-2 s

Mulheim an der Ruhr / not felt : I heard it in the radio.

Simmerath-Strauch / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short

Herbesthal / not felt

Monschau / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Stolberg / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 2-5 s

Stolberg / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / single lateral shake / 2-5 s

Roetgen, Bundesstrasse 258 / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Stolberg / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short : It was like a short detonation

Stolberg Rhld. / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / very short

52078 Aachen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s

Aachen / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Aachen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s

52223 Stolberg / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s

Stolberg / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Aachen / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Aachen Kornelimunster / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 1-2 s

52076 Aachen / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Aachen / not felt

Friesenrath / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Stolberg (Rhld.) / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / very short

Wurselen, Aachen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 1-2 s

52223 Stolberg Busbacj / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / 2-5 s

DE 52223 Stolberg, Wilhelm-Pitz-Strae 40 / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / vibration and rolling / 1-2 s

Aachen - Burtscheid / Very weak shaking (MMI II) : Short ground vibration and parallel little cracking sounds in building

Stolberg / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s

Aachen / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single vertical bump / very short

Aachen Brand / not felt

Raeren / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

Aachen / not felt

Aachen Schmithof / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Aachen Kornelimunster / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 1-2 s

Montzen 4850 Belgium / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s : Doors were rattling, felt like a big truck driving past our house.

Stolberg-Breinig / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 1-2 s

Simmerath-Eicherscheid / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 2-5 s

Stolberg Busbach / not felt / vibration and rolling / 2-5 s : In Busbach starke Vibration mit lautem Knall spurbar

Aachen Brand / Light shaking (MMI IV) / very short

52078 Aachen, brand / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Durch Vibrationen wach geworden, Turen klapperten, Vibrationen des Hauses deutlich spurbar

52223 Stolberg Breinig / Weak shaking (MMI III) : Es war wie eine laute Erschutterung.

Simmerath Eicherscheid / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s

Stolberg (Rheinland) / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / complex motion difficult to describe

52076 Aachen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s

Stolberg busbach / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / very short

Aachen Walheim / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 2-5 s

Stolberg (Rheinland) / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 1-2 s

Stolberg Mausbach / Weak shaking (MMI III)

52223 Stolberg / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 1-2 s

Roetgen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short

Nideggen / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

RAEREN 4730 /BELGIUM / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 10-15 s

Breinig / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s : Shirt abd heavy shake like an explosion

Aachen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s

Stolberg / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / very short

Stolberg Rheinland / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single vertical bump / very short : Der Boden bebte mit einem kurzen Ruck.

52080 Aachen Eilendorf / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 1-2 s : Es gab einen dumpfen Knall und ein Deckel der schief auf einer Porzellandose lag hat gewackelt.

Stolberg / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short

Monschau / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / very short

Gehort u gespurt in Aachen Walheim / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

Breinig / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / very short

Roetgen, Germany / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / vibration and rolling / 1-2 s : Felt a short Vibration from our house, exspecially from the windows.

Eicherscheid / not felt / 2-5 s

Stolberg Rhld. Ortsteil Munsterbusch / Light shaking (MMI IV) / vibration and rolling / 1-2 s

Aachen / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single lateral shake

Stolberg / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single vertical bump / very short

Aachen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / very short

Stolberg-Breinig / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 1-2 s

Bonn / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 20-30 s

Walheim, Aachen / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Hergenrath / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

Stolberg / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single vertical bump / very short

52080 Aachen Haaren / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Monschau / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Aachen / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / very short

Aachen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / very short

52249 / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

Raeren / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 5-10 s

Heinsberg / not felt

Breinig / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 1-2 s

Stolberg / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / 1-2 s : increasing noise, then one bang together with shaking

Stolberg / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Stolberg Zweifall / Light shaking (MMI IV) / vibration and rolling / 1-2 s

Im Mittelvenn 62, Simmerath, GERMANY / not felt

Roetgen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s

Lichtenbusch / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 1-2 s

52076 Aachen, An der Hohe, ground floor of a sinl / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

41812 / not felt

52066 Aachen / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Stolberg / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s

Aachen / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Eynatten / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Eupen / Light shaking (MMI IV)

52076 Aachen Kornelimunster / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

52223 / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

Kettenis / Weak shaking (MMI III) / very short

4731 Eynatten Belgium / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Aachen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s

Raeren / Moderate shaking (MMI V)

Aachen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s

Oberforstbach / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single vertical bump / very short : Woke up by the door frame creaking and felt light shaking

Roetgen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Roetgen / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

52223 stolberg-liester / not felt / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

Aachen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s

Roetgen / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Aachen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

Aachen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short

Roetgen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s : It shaked inside a bit. I have stairs with something loose on it and it made noises

Aachen Hahn / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

Aachen Hahn / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

Stolberg Mausbach / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake

Stolberg / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

Hauset, Belgien / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 1-2 s

52223 / Strong shaking (MMI VI) / single vertical bump / 5-10 s

Stolberg / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Herzogenrath / not felt

Aachen Schleckheim / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / very short

Stolberg / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short

Aachen / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Roetgen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short : short vibration... felt like something hit the house.

Roetgen / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Was awakened

52076 Aachen Walheim / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Aachen 52076 / Light shaking (MMI IV)

52078 Aachen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / very short

aachen oberforstbach / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Ardennenstrae 52076 / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s

Aachen / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

52224 / Strong shaking (MMI VI)

Stolberg-Zweifall / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s

Aachen / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Walheim / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

Stolberg / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 1-2 s

Lontzen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 1-2 s

Aachen Walheim / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single vertical bump / very short

Germany 52076 Aachen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) : A smooth vibration

Roetgen / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Two rumors like little explosions, doors rattled.

Roetgen Rott / Strong shaking (MMI VI)

52223 Stolberg -Dorff Deutschland / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Keusgasse / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Monschau/ Konzen / not felt / rattling, vibrating / very short

Stolberg / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / single vertical bump / very short

Aachen Brand / Strong shaking (MMI VI) / 1-2 s

52224 Stolberg Germany / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Aachen-Brand / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Aachen, Deutschland / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / very short

Stolberg / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / single vertical bump / very short

Aachen Eilendorf / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

52076 Aachen / Weak shaking (MMI III)

52076 / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

Roetgen / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s : I was sleeping when i suddenly heared a rumbling. Bed/ house was Shaking. I felt the Earthquake

Stolberg Breinig / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s

Breinigerberg / Strong shaking (MMI VI) / 2-5 s

Eupen, Belgium / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s

Raeren Bergstrae 37 / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 2-5 s

52076 Aachen / Moderate shaking (MMI V)

Lichtenbusch / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

Aachen / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Breinig / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single vertical bump / very short

Aachen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating

Eupen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 1-2 s : a short feeling like a thunder

Aachen Walheim / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 1-2 s

Aachen Walheim / Weak shaking (MMI III) / very short

52223 Stolberg Am Wingertsberg 8 / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

Raeren / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Roetgen / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Aachen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : Ratteling noise

Stolberg / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s : Komisches Gefuhl. Ich wurde wach.

Haust, Kirchstr. / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 1-2 s

Stolberg / Light shaking (MMI IV) / vibration and rolling / 1-2 s

Breinig / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Walheim Aachen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / vibration and rolling / 1-2 s : Ho sentito un tonfo da sotto terra tremare

Simmerath / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 1-2 s

Aachen-Friesenrath, Northrhine-Westphalia, Germany / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / very short : MMI III, tendentiously MMI IV

Stolberg Munsterbusch / Very weak shaking (MMI II) : One short shake. Thst Was all

Aachen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / simple rolling (tilting sideways along one direction) / 2-5 s

52159 Roetgen Lammersdorfer Strae / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 2-5 s

Stolberg / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / 2-5 s

Aachen / Weak shaking (MMI III)

52159 Rott / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : I was afraid!!!! From Rott, end corner Lensbachstrasse near Lensbach, no vibrations felt,no shaking of house, only sound like explosion at 20 km distance, 2-5 seconds / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Aachen Eilendorf / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 1-2 s

Stolberg (Rhld.) / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 1-2 s

Wurselen / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Roetgen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single vertical bump / very short

Roetgen / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

52159 Roetgen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 1-2 s

Stolberg Mausbach / Weak shaking (MMI III) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 1-2 s

Aachen / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 2-5 s

Roetgen / not felt / single vertical bump / 1-2 s

Roetgen / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 1-2 s

Eynatten / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / both vertical and horizontal swinging / 1-2 s

Lammersdorf, 52152 / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / complex motion difficult to describe / 5-10 s

Roetgen / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

Venwegen / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 2-5 s

Roetgen / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / very short

Roetgen / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s

Stolberg / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short
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Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-01 21:11:29|Editor: huaxia

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Aerial photo taken on Oct. 12, 2019 shows machinery working at Qindeli Farm of Jiansanjiang, an important grain production base, in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. (Xinhua/Xie Jianfei)

China has seen a bumper harvest in 2020, with grain output up 0.9 percent year on year. Intelligent technologies have become part of the drive to modernize agriculture, liberate manpower and improve production efficiency.

As of September 2020, China had set up 18 unmanned pilot agriculture zones for 14 types of crops in 12 provinces and autonomous regions, covering more than 5,300 hectares of farmland.



China's sales of self-driving agricultural machinery equipment and systems reached more than 11,700 units in the first half of 2020, posting strong year-on-year growth of 213 percent.

BEIJING, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- Unmanned transplanters and harvesters, intelligent irrigation control system and leaf age diagnose technique, these technologies are empowering Jiansanjiang, an important grain production base in Heilongjiang Province as a pioneer of China's intelligent agriculture.

The production base piloted six unmanned farms in 2020, with 875 unmanned transplanters covering about 17,600 hectares and unmanned harvesters harvesting 1,000 hectares of rice, soybean and corn.

Apart from the agricultural machinery, the production base also heralds a digital agriculture platform that gathers information on environmental factors, soil fertility and crop growth in different stages, offering scientific guidance for agricultural field management.

"Despite three typhoons, the per-unit yield is higher than last year, thanks to the application of new agricultural technologies," said Liu Linyi, a rice farmer from the production base.

China has seen a bumper harvest in 2020, with grain output up 0.9 percent year on year. Intelligent technologies have become part of the drive to modernize agriculture, liberate manpower and improve production efficiency.

As of September 2020, China had set up 18 unmanned pilot agriculture zones for 14 types of crops in 12 provinces and autonomous regions, covering more than 5,300 hectares of farmland.

"The development of intelligent agricultural machinery is gaining ground, and the unmanned farms will promote the transformation and upgrading of China's agriculture," said Luo Xiwen, a professor from South China Agricultural University.

Photo taken on May 26, 2020 shows an unmanned tractor equipped with BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) sowing seeds in the field in Anzhong Village of Xiaoyangying Town in Dengzhou City, central China's Henan Province. (Xinhua/Feng Dapeng)

China's sales of self-driving agricultural machinery equipment and systems reached more than 11,700 units in the first half of 2020, posting strong year-on-year growth of 213 percent.

Autonomous agricultural machinery could reduce the use of pesticides and fertilizers by over 30 percent and increase work efficiency by over 50 percent, playing a very positive role in agricultural production.

In May 2020, Chinese authorities released a guideline to promote digital technologies in rural areas as part of their efforts to advance agricultural and rural modernization.

The guideline, jointly issued by four government departments including the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, encouraged the use of technologies like big data, artificial intelligence, remote intelligent agricultural machinery and agricultural drones in rural areas.

With some 76,667 hectares of cotton fields, Yuli County is a cotton hub in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Agricultural drones are widely used to spray defoliants in the harvesting season to facilitate cotton collection.

Official data showed that Xinjiang had over 5,000 agricultural drones powered by China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) by July, serving over 1.3 million hectares of fields.

"The orders for our agricultural drones have been growing in recent years," said Zheng Tao from XAG, a Guangzhou-headquartered agriculture technology startup which set up an operation center in Yuli to serve Xinjiang customers.

The company has also developed a system to monitor and manage cotton growing in real-time. "Cotton fields in Yuli are now pilot zones for smart agriculture," said Zheng.

Peng Bin, also from XAG, said the company has been committed to fostering an ecosystem for intelligent agriculture, hoping to lower the consumption of water and pesticides and reduce pollution through high-tech agricultural equipment.

A self-driving tractor sows cotton seeds in the field at Yaha Township of Kuqa County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, March 23, 2018. (Xinhua/Hu Huhu) (ry)

China's self-developed BDS has also contributed to the modernization of agriculture. Roughly 45,000 sets of BDS-based automatic driving agricultural machinery are working nationwide, cutting labor costs by 50 percent.

Greatly enhancing operation management efficiency, the BDS-based machinery monitoring platforms and Internet of Things platforms are serving for more than 400,000 units and sets of agricultural machinery.

Zhang Taolin, vice minister of agriculture and rural affairs said at a recent forum that in the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), China will strengthen original innovation and develop key agricultural technologies.

China will foster the application of technologies and build sci-tech innovation centers for modern agricultural industries, Zhang said. 




Representative Image - SsangYong Tivoli

Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) on January 1, 2021 said it is in discussions with a potential investor to sell its majority stake in South Korean arm SsangYong Motor Company (SYMC) which has already filed for bankruptcy, and expects to sign a non-binding agreement next week.

The Mumbai-based auto major, which currently holds nearly 75 percent in the Korean firm, expects to finalise the deal by February end.

"We are in discussion with a potential investor for majority stake in SsangYong. We hope to conclude the term sheet with the investor sometime next week," M&M Managing Director Pawan Goenka told reporters in a virtual press conference.

On December 21, the homegrown automaker had announced that SYMC has filed for bankruptcy.

The loss making firm has filed an application for commencement of rehabilitation procedure with the Seoul Bankruptcy Court under the Debtor Rehabilitation and Bankruptcy Act of South Korea.

The troubled automaker has also applied for an autonomous restructuring support (ARS) programme which is a court-designed process.

"Under ARS scheme the court gives approval to the company to find solution on its own in certain timeframe and during this time the company is managed by its management and the court doesn't intervene," Goenka said.

He further said: "The court has granted ARS to SYMC and the date is February 28, so we have two more months from now to conclude a deal with the investor."

If the deal gets concluded then things continue normally and if the deal doesn't happen then SYMC goes into court receivership and its management is taken over by the court, Goenka noted.

"It will be known on March 1 and we do hope that during this two-month period we will complete the deal with the investor.

If the deal goes through, the majority ownership will be with the new investor, Mahindra will be in minority with around 30 percent or less and the company will also do 25 percent capital reduction which is allowed under RBI regulation," he added.

Goenka also noted that SYMC trade union is supportive of the ARS process.

He however did not name the investor with whom the negotiations were going on.

Elaborating further, Mahindra Group Deputy Managing Director and Group CFO Anish Shah said the company was optimistic that a buyer may come in and continue SsangYong operations.

"If that doesn't happen, then the company will go through pre-package rehabilitation and there could be other options as well but in either scenario from M&M standpoint we would cease to be the majority shareholder before the end of this fiscal year," he noted.

Commenting on financials involved with SYMC, he said: "We have around Rs 980 crore of equity, we have guaranteed Rs 680 crore of loans from foreign banks and 40 billion Korean won (around Rs 270 crore) that we have already put in loans. So, Rs 980 crore of equity and Rs 950 crore on debt."

The extent of potential write-offs will depend upon what scenario plays out, Shah added.

SYMC has reasonable amount of assets and it should be therefore able to support both the debt equity, he noted.

"M&M doesn't have any further liability beyond these equity and debt numbers which we have shared," Shah further said.

In December 2020, M&M had informed the bourses that SYMC has missed repayments of loans aggregating to 60 billion Korean won (around Rs 408 crore).

The Korean automaker has outstanding loans aggregating to 100 billion Korean won (around Rs 680 crore) from Seoul-based branches of JP Morgan Chase Bank, BNP Paribas and Bank of America.

Already, JP Morgan has sought repayment of loan worth 40 billion Korean won from SYMC and the South Korean automaker has expressed its inability to pay the amount now.

In April last year, M&M board had rejected a proposal to inject any fresh equity into SYMC.

The Mumbai-based auto major had acquired the loss-making SsangYong in 2010 but has failed to turn it around since then despite several attempts.

M&M has since invested over $110 million in the loss making automaker. SsangYong has been struggling with deteriorating earnings since 2017 when it slipped into the red with a net loss of 66 billion won as against a net profit of 58 billion won in 2016.

In 2018, its net loss rose to 62 billion won and then ballooned to 341 billion won in 2019.
Over 1400 people (as of press time) have signed a petition asking the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to sack the managing director of First City Monument Bank (FCMB), Adam Nuru.

The petition alleged that the bank chieftain was responsible for the demise of Tunde Thomas.

Mr Thomas was said to have died of depression on December 16, 2020.

According to the petition, the FCMB MD allegedly had an affair with his staff, Moyo Thomas, who was the deceaseds wife, resulting in two children.

It alleged that Moyo had informed her husband that she was leaving Nigeria for the United States with the kids only to call him upon arrival that the children do not belong to him.

The petition claimed the news initially caused Mr Thomas to be down with a stroke but later recovered and thereafter met another lady whom he planned to marry.

Mr Thomas was, however, said to have suffered a cardiac arrest after returning from work about two days before his introduction to his already pregnant girlfriend.

The petition

Here is an excerpt of the petition posted on change.org:

Tunde Thomas died recently like about a week or 2 from Depression.

Apparently, kids from his marriage to Moyo Thomas belong to his wifes boss (Adam Nuru, the current MD of FCMB).

Moyo Thomas left Tunde to go to America with the kids. She told him kids were not his when she got to America. He was later down with a stroke but recovered.

Apparently, Tunde met someone else he was going to remarry but apparently didnt recover from the first Marriage issues.

Tunde was just made director for the MFB he works for. Got back from work last week and had a cardiac arrest 2 days before introduction to a pregnant new girlfriend.

This is a case of gross misconduct based on ethical grounds and unjustifiable economic oppression by the elites (Adam Nuru) against the less privileged in the society.

The MD has been doing everything possible to sweep this case under the carpet. We implore the Central Bank of Nigeria as the apex regulator and the board of FCMB to investigate this for the integrity of the bank and Nigerian banking industry.

This is a case too many, while I agree that this is not the full story, the barest minimum will be an investigation of this unethical conduct by the current MD of FCMB Bank Adam Nuru.

An Akure-based human rights lawyer, Bolanle Cole, has also begun his own Twitter campaign to compel the CBN and FCMB to sack the bank chieftain.

In a Twitter thread on Friday, Mr Cole called out Mr Nuru and lampooned the FCMB boss for allowing the unprofessional romance to happen.

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He gave the bank two weeks from 30 December to sack Mr Nuru or else witness a campaign of a boycott by customers.

When PREMIUM TIMES contacted FCMBs spokesman, Diran Olojo, he said the bank was reviewing the matter.

He said, We are aware of several stories circulating across several media platforms about our banks Managing Director Adam Nuru, a former employee Ms Moyo Thomas and her deceased husband, Mr. Tunde Thomas.

While this is a personal matter, the tragedy of the death of Mr. Tunde Thomas and the allegations of unethical conduct, require the banks board to conduct a review of what transpired, any violations of our code of ethics, and the adequacy of these code of conduct ethics. This will be done immediately.

We enjoin all our stakeholders to bear with us as we conduct this review and to please respect the various families involved.
RTE has apologised over the satirical clip. Photo by: Niall Carson/PA

RTE has apologised after 600 complaints have been made over a satirical clip broadcast on its New Year's Eve Countdown Show that has been deemed blasphemous by the Catholic Church.

The clip, which was part of a Waterford Whispers News sketch, showed God being led away by gardai for sexual harassment offenses.

Archbishop Eamon Martin has called for it to be removed immediately" from the national broadcasters online player.

Read More

It is not believed that RTE will be removing the clip, however, the broadcaster has said a warning will be placed on the video.

In a statement, the national broadcaster said: RTE recognises that matters which can cause offence naturally differ from person to person, within comedy and satire in particular.

"Having reviewed the feedback and complaints received up to this point, RTE wishes to apologise to those who were offended by the segment.

"The formal complaints received by RTE are being entered into our complaints system and will be responded to in accordance with the relevant statutory process."

In two tweets sent yesterday by Archbishop Martin, he said the mock news clip, featuring former news anchor Aengus Mac Grianna and accusing God of rape, must be denounced.

To broadcast such a deeply offensive clip about God and Our Blessed Mother during the Christmas season on RTE and on the eve of the Solemn Feast of Mary, Mother of God, is insulting to all Catholics and Christians, Dr Martin said.

"I am shocked that producer/editor of 'NYE Countdown Show' didnt realise how deeply offensive was a mocking 'news report' accusing God of rape & reporting his imprisonment. This outrageous clip should be removed immediately & denounced by all people of goodwill.

His condemnation was echoed by Fianna Fail councillor, Micheal Sheehan, from Wexford, who said he has made a complaint to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI).

He described the mock Waterford Whispers news item as gross and distasteful and said an apology was needed.

Read More

Online Editors
The election was two months ago, and I'm still waiting to hear about a Democrat who beat a GOP candidate in a competitive election. On the contrary, none of the Democrats who won in 2020 have a reason to send Joe Biden "a thank you" card.

There are many reasons to be skeptical about this election, but the lack of "coattails" tops my list. This is from Victoria Taft:

Stories about President Trump's weak coattails were legion before the election. His likability was questioned and still is, but, what ho! Look what actually happened. After the usual midterm 2018 thrashing for the president in power (George W. Bush and FDR are the only presidents who added seats during the midterms), Republicans made up some of those losses in congressional races and statehouses across the country in 2020. Ballotpedia reports that while Democrats won 222 seats to Republicans' 212, the GOP unexpectedly flipped 14 seats from D to R compared to three seats for the D's. Among the claw-backs were four California seats lost in the 2018 election to the new "ballot harvesting" measures Democrats put into effect. Trump didn't come to California to hold rallies but did he did come to fundraise. The candidates won on the backs of law and order (sound familiar?) and opening up the economy. They were Trump messages without the man. And Republican Michelle Steel is already working on getting Governor Gavin Newsom to change his disastrous tax and law and order policies that have made California so unpopular that people are fleeing in droves and the state could lose a congressional seat. Republicans expanded their "trifecta" of governor's mansions and state houses by two and possibly three, according to Ballotpedia. Alaska is still tallying the votes, believe it or not. The media are loathe to give Trump any credit, but Trump received ten million more votes than he did in 2016  the most of any Republican president ever. He energized the voter base and flipped back a bunch of seats in both state houses and Congress. What's the definition of coattails again?

How exactly did Biden win?

I keep hearing that it was all of those voters who voted for Biden and then checked every GOP candidate on the ballot. Seriously, does anyone believe that? Do you know anyone who did that? My experience with a couple of NeverTrumps is that they just didn't vote at all.

I repeat. Two months later, and I'm trying to understand how Biden pulled this off.

All I can tell you is this: there are 75 million voters who will turn on a TV channel that honestly and seriously tries to inquire about this. There is a story sitting out there, and lots of people who would love to hear about it.

PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.

Image: Pixabay.
Carlo Ancelotti had ruled James Rodriguez out of Everton's clash with West Ham United on Wednesday yet, just 48 hours later, the Colombian was sitting on the bench.

Even more surprising, however, was when Ancelotti brought the Colombian on with 30 minutes left to play in a bid to try to break the deadlock.

Yet it would prove ineffective as James looked off the pace, which was logical considering he hadn't played for almost a month.

It was Ancelotti himself who acknowledged at the end of the match that his midfielder was not yet 100 percent fit.

"James had some problems that did not allow him to play or train much and against West Ham he only played 30 minutes," he said after the 1-0 home defeat.

"He needs to improve his condition, but he will be much better in the next matches."
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John Major dithered over replacing Her Majesty's Yacht Britannia amid fears of a backlash in the wake of two high-profile Royal divorces, newly declassified papers reveal.

Documents from the National Archives show that the Major administration was concerned at potential public anger over the cost of a replacement vessel.

Widespread debate had opened up about the funding of the Royal Family as the marriages of Prince Charles and Prince Andrew fell apart.

In March 1996, Sir John's private secretary, Alex Allan, described his boss's rationale in a note marked 'Confidential': 'In the light of the current debate about the Royal Family and the Monarchy, the Prime Minister did not feel it was the right time to take a decision on a new Royal Yacht.

John Major dithered over replacing Her Majesty's Yacht Britannia amid fears of a backlash in the wake of two high-profile Royal divorces, newly declassified papers reveal

'The matter should, however, be kept under regular review: once the divorce between the Prince and Princess of Wales had been completed, for example, public sentiment could turn quickly.'

The Government finally decided to replace Britannia from public funding in January 1997, but the plan was reversed by Tony Blair when he was elected to Downing Street four months later.

The Queen, however, is said to have reserved the largest share of the blame for Sir John, with an official history of the yacht in 2003 pointing the finger at his delay in making a decision.

Sir John later said: 'Ask yourself this question. In the midst of the recession, with the British people facing economic hardship, how popular would it have been to announce a 50 million spend on a new yacht for the personal use of the Royal Family?'

Documents from the National Archives show that the Major administration was concerned at potential public anger over the cost of a replacement vessel

The 412ft Britannia was launched in 1953 and served the Queen for state visits abroad.

It was also used by other Royals, including Charles and Diana on their honeymoon.

The vessel is now a tourist attraction in Edinburgh's port of Leith and welcomes 390,000 visitors a year.

Widespread debate had opened up about the funding of the Royal Family as the marriages of Prince Charles (pictured with Princess Diana) and Prince Andrew fell apart

Successive Prime Ministers, including David Cameron and Boris Johnson, have reportedly considered proposals to commission a new Royal Yacht but the plans have not materialised.

Although Charles and Diana's divorce was not finalised until August 1996, their 'amicable separation' had been announced by Sir John in the Commons in December 1992.

The marriage between Andrew and Sarah Ferguson was formally dissolved in May 1996, four years after they parted company.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday lauded the role of innovation, integrity, and inclusion in the field of management, terming them as key mantras as he laid the foundation stone of the new campus of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Odishas Sambalpur.

In his virtual address, PM Modi also asked students to focus on Brand India in addition to ensuring that their vision incorporates the less privileged sections of society.

Here are the key highlights from PM Modis address:

- Today, along with the foundation stone of an IIM campus, a new stone has been laid to strengthen the youth capacity of Odisha. This permanent campus of IIM will give Odisha a new identity in the management world with recognition of Odishas great culture and resources.

- Todays startups can become tomorrows multi-nationals. These start-ups are mostly starting in Tier-II and Tier-III cities in the country.

- The youth of India needs to be prepared for the massive opportunities that lie ahead in India. In this new decade, were responsible to give a new image to brand India globally.

- Management experts, who are coming out with new experiences in new areas of the country, will play a big role in taking India to new heights. This year India has given more unicorns than previous years despite the Covid-19 crisis.

- To turn local into global, IIM students need to find new and innovative solutions. Im certain that our IIMs can act as a bridge between local products and global collaborations.

- The work pattern and demand for management skills are changing rapidly. Today, top-down and top-heavy management isnt the need. It has changed to collaborative, innovative and transformative management.

- During Covid, India found permanent solutions for PPE kits, masks and ventilators. India had perpetually adopted short-term measures for problem-solving. Today, India has changed its approach to long-term solutions.

- Today, Indias gas coverage stands at over 98%, helped by our long-term solution approach. You know that turning coverage into 100% is the real challenge and were striving hard for it.

- Were trying to remove silos that existed in professional education. We want to include everyone in the mainstream for better development, a clear example of inclusive nature.

- With the concept of work from anywhere, the whole world has changed from a global village to a global workplace. India too has swiftly done all the necessary reforms in the last few months.
Paris, Jan 2 : The French government announced on Friday that the nationwide curfew to contain the coronavirus epidemic will be brought forward by two hours in 15 regions worst hit by the infections.

Starting from Saturday, the curfew imposed in these regions -- mostly in the northeast and southeast -- will start from 6 p.m., instead of 8 p.m. in force in other parts of the country, said government spokesman Gabriel Attal, Xinhua news agency reported.

"The virus continues to circulate in France...with a disparity between regions," said Attal when announcing the move on television channel TF1.

"In a week, we will take stock of the effects (of the measures) and the circulation of the virus" and this restriction will be be reassessed, he said.

If the situation were to deteriorate further in certain territories, necessary decisions will be taken, he added.

As of Thursday, France has the fifth highest COVID-19 infections cases in the world, at 2,620,425 in total, with a death toll of 64,632.

The country went into its first lockdown from March to May, followed by another less strict one from October 30 to December 14. Businesses are now open, although restaurants, bars and cinemas remain closed. A nationwide nighttime curfew is in place to stem the spread of the disease.
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More than two years after his demise, the late business mogul, philanthropist, and industrialist, High Chief Olu Benson Lulu-Briggs will be finally laid to rest on March 13, 2021 according to an announcement by the Oruwari Briggs House of Abonnema in Akuku-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State.

Until his death, the late Lulu-Briggs was also the Paramount Head of Oruwari House of Abonnema.

But for controversies and litigations that trailed his demise, including legal tussles in Nigerian and Ghanaian Courts over where the deceased truly died and who should take possession of his remains, the oil and gas industry player would have long been buried.

The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent restrictions by the federal and state governments as regards funerals and large gatherings further elongated the final burial rites.

Addressing a press conference at Abonnema on behalf of the Oruwari Briggs House, Ibim Dokubo, a lawyer, stated that when on December 23, 2019, a High Court in Ghana ruled that the body of the paramount head be released to the family led by Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs, the matter was appealed up to the Supreme Court before the body was finally brought on March 16, 2020, in the midst of Covid-19.

Mr Dokubo said: It is our pleasure at this point to break the news that the late High Chief Olu Benson Lulu-Briggs, OON, DCF, DSSRS, the Iniikeiroari V of Kalabari Kingdom and Paramount Head of Oruwari Briggs House of Abonnema will be committed to mother Earth on Saturday, March 13, 2021.

The major reason we could not plan the burial ceremony was because for more than fifteen months we could not take custody of the mortal remains of High Chief O.B. Lulu- Briggs because of the series of Court cases that denied the family from taking custody of the body. The controversy (that) surrounded the demise of our Paramount Head was widely reported in the media.

Even when on December 23, 2019, a High Court in Ghana ruled that the body of the monarch be released to the family led by Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs, the matter was appealed up to the Supreme Court before the body was finally brought on March 16, 2020 into the waiting arms of the prevailing Covid restrictions.

The overwhelming view was we needed to wait for the relaxation of the Covid-19 restrictions because High Chief O.B. Lulu-Briggs was a man of many parts, who had positively touched many lives.

He was a public servant, a labour leader, a politician, a businessman, a philanthropist par excellence and a very High Chief. It would therefore be a gross disservice to his memory to deny his legion of friends and associates the opportunity to honour him at his funeral.

According to him, a broad-based burial committee has been set up to actualise the mandate of giving our patriarch the honour that he very well deserves.

Also speaking, the son of the deceased, who is also the head of Young Briggs House and O.B Lulu-Briggs family, Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs commended the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike for his untiring efforts at resolving contentious issues and for also approving a state burial for their father.

According to him, their late father represents so many diverse interests that it is only fitting that he be given a burial befitting of his status, especially as people are expected from different parts of the world.
A man wearing a face covering walks past graffiti on the Lower Newtownards Road in Belfast with a message reading 'Wear a mask, it hasn't gone away you know' Friday, Jan. 1, 2021. (Liam McBurney/PA via AP)

With daily coronavirus infections surging as a result of a new virus variant, the British government faced mounting pressure Saturday from teachers' unions to keep schools in England closed for at least another two weeks.

The government, which oversees schools in England, has already decided to keep all schools in London closed next week to try to stem new infections. Unions want the policy extended across the whole of England, expressing fears about the health of both teachers and children.

The U.K. on Saturday hit a daily record for new coronavirus infections57,725and looked set to soon overtake Italy once again to become the worst-hit country in Europe with nearly 75,000 COVID-19 deaths. The fear is that with rising infections, the number of deaths will also grow over the coming weeks.

The U.K. has recorded its five highest daily new infection numbers over the past five daysall above 50,000 and double the number of only a few weeks ago.

After an emergency meeting on Saturday, the National Education Union, which represents over 450,000 education workers, called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative government to move learning online for at least two weeks. It also told members they have a legal right not to have to work in an "unsafe environment" of accelerating coronavirus cases, hospital admissions and deaths.

The Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, England, where doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based drugmaker AstraZeneca arrived on Saturday Jan. 2, 2021. at The UK has 530,000 doses available for rollout from Monday. (Gareth Fuller/Pool via AP)

"We are doing our job as a union by informing our members that they have a legal right to refuse to work in unsafe conditions which are a danger to their health and to the health of their school communities," said Kevin Courtney, the union's joint general secretary.

Another union representing teachers, the NASUWT, also called for an immediate nationwide move to remote education due to virus safety concerns. Its general secretary, Patrick Roach, said there's "genuine concern" that schools and colleges are not able to reopen safely at this time.

"The NASUWT will not hesitate to take appropriate action in order to protect members whose safety is put at risk as a result of the failure of employers or the government to ensure safe working conditions in schools and colleges," he said.

The government's own Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies warned at a Dec. 22 meeting that schools needed to stay closed to bring down virus transmission rates.

Doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based drugmaker AstraZeneca arrive at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, England, Saturday Jan. 2, 2021. The UK has 530,000 doses available for rollout from Monday. (Gareth Fuller/Pool via AP)

The U.K. is struggling with a sharp spike in new cases as a result of a new virus variant that officials say could be up to 70% more infectious.

The variant has been particularly prevalent in London and in surrounding areas, prompting Education Secretary Gavin Williamson to row back on plans to allow some primary schoolsthose for children 11 and underin the capital to reopen as scheduled on Jan. 4.

Most other primary schools in England are still scheduled to open on Monday. High school reopenings have already been delayed for millions of students, with exam-year pupils scheduled to return on Jan. 11 and others a week later.

With many British hospitals at or near capacity, there are growing concerns over how the already stretched National Health Service will cope with an expected rise in people seeking treatment after getting infected over the holidays. Field hospitals are getting outfitted again to take in patients.

A vial of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based drugmaker AstraZeneca is checked as they arrive at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, England, Saturday Jan. 2, 2021. The UK has 530,000 doses available for rollout from Monday. (Gareth Fuller/Pool via AP)

On the inoculations front, Britain began vaccinating people over 80 and health care workers on Dec. 8 with the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine. Last week, the government approved another vaccine made by Oxford University and pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca that is cheaper and easier to use.

The U.K. plans to ramp up vaccinations on Monday using 530,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and has set a goal of vaccinating 2 million people a week as soon as possible.

The Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath in southern England was one of the first to get the newly approved vaccine on Saturday.

Dr. George Findlay, the trust's chief medical officer, said the newly approved vaccine is "much easier" to administer than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which needs to be stored at temperatures around minus 70 degrees Celsius (minus 94 Fahrenheit).

Assistant Technical Officer Lukasz Najdrowski unpacks doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based drugmaker AstraZeneca as they arrive at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, England, Saturday Jan. 2, 2021. The UK has 530,000 doses available for rollout from Monday. (Gareth Fuller/Pool via AP)

Doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based drugmaker AstraZeneca arrive at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, England, Saturday Jan. 2, 2021. The UK has 530,000 doses available for rollout from Monday. (Gareth Fuller/Pool via AP)

Assistant Technical Officer Lukasz Najdrowski unpacks doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based drugmaker AstraZeneca as they arrive at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, England, Saturday Jan. 2, 2021. The UK has 530,000 doses available for rollout from Monday. (Gareth Fuller/Pool via AP)

Doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based drugmaker AstraZeneca are checked as they arrive at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, England, Saturday Jan. 2, 2021. The UK has 530,000 doses available for rollout from Monday. (Gareth Fuller/Pool via AP)

Doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based drugmaker AstraZeneca arrive at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, England, Saturday Jan. 2, 2021. The UK has 530,000 doses available for rollout from Monday. (Gareth Fuller/Pool via AP)

A vial of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based drugmaker AstraZeneca is checked as they arrive at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, England, Saturday Jan. 2, 2021. The UK has 530,000 doses available for rollout from Monday. (Gareth Fuller/Pool via AP)

Doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based drugmaker AstraZeneca are logged by a technical officer, as they arrive at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, England, Saturday Jan. 2, 2021. The UK has 530,000 doses available for rollout from Monday. (Gareth Fuller/Pool via AP)

Doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based drugmaker AstraZeneca are checked as they arrive at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, England, Saturday Jan. 2, 2021. The UK has 530,000 doses available for rollout from Monday. (Gareth Fuller/Pool via AP)

More than a million people in the U.K. have already received their first jab of the Pfizer vaccine.

In a shift from practices in the U.S., Britain plans to give people second doses of both vaccines within 12 weeks of their first shot rather than within 21 days, to accelerate immunizations across as many people as quickly as possible.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.


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The union representing workers at the Capital Area Transit System filed a lawsuit Thursday accusing the agency's CEO, Bill Deville, of retaliating against employees who spoke out publicly about unsafe working conditions amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The lawsuit was filed shortly after CATS leaders sent a letter to employees saying they didn't plan on recognizing the union's collective bargaining agreement in the new year because the union hadn't offered proof that it represented a majority of workers.

For months, the union's leadership has been at loggerheads with CATS' management. They held a press conference in April to decry what they say was inadequate personal protective equipment and watered down hand sanitizer for bus drivers risking their lives to work during the pandemic.

+3 Conflict at CATS: Baton Rouge transit union, CEO battle over health care switch An abrupt decision by the CEO of the Capital Area Transit System to hire a new insurance broker caused months of problems at Baton Rouge's pub

In July, CATS fired four of the union's leaders, saying they were untruthful and failed to cooperate in an internal investigation into the dissemination of a sexually explicit video filmed off-premises by two CATS employees. The lawsuit called the investigation "out of proportion to the incident" and said it served only as a cover to engage in a "mass firing" of union activists.

"This is flat out censorship and union-busting by CATS," John Costa, the international president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, wrote in a statement. "They are violating our First Amendment rights in an attempt to silence Union officers by firing them for speaking about the dangerous and unsafe conditions at CATS during the pandemic."

CATS' CEO Bill Deville did not return a request for comment.

The collective bargaining agreement between CATS and the worker's union expired on Dec. 31, 2020. In a letter sent to employees earlier this week, Deville said the union failed to "affirmatively demonstrate that it represents a majority of bargaining unit employees," and therefore CATS planned to override the contract and implement a new arbitration policy come Jan. 1, 2021.

The letter also says the agency anticipates future pay raises for CATS employees, "with or without the union's participation."

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Yvette Rhines, the president of CATS' union, said she believed management felt threatened by the union's power, noting that she and others helped to overturn several disciplinary actions lodged against workers.

"They felt like we had the upper hand," Rhines said.

CATS and the union agreed to a 30-day contract extension on Thursday night, according to Anthony Garland, an international vice president with the ATU.

The lawsuit, filed in the federal Middle District of Louisiana, asks the courts to reinstate the fired union members and provide back pay. It argues that their First Amendment rights were violated.

The union says its members also faced retaliation for speaking out against "corrupt business practices within CATS management." In September, they picketed a CATS board meeting, charging the agency's leadership with mismanagement and demanding better oversight of how taxpayer dollars were spent.

CATS is funded in large part by $17 million in property taxes paid by residents living inside the cities of Baton Rouge and Baker. It also receives millions of additional dollars from federal grant programs.

Deville's leadership recently came under scrutiny from union officials after an abrupt switch in insurance brokers made it difficult for several employees to collect benefits they had paid for. Deville also did not include the union in its decision to switch insurance carriers, as required by the union contract, forcing CATS' board into a renewal with its previous carrier that's resulted in a $140,000 hike in insurance premiums.
She recently finished shooting the anticipated movie Jurassic World: Dominion in the UK  the sixth film in the hugely successful franchise.

And Laura Dern was spotted enjoying some family time on Friday, as she stepped out with her daughter Jaya, 16, for a stroll on the beach in California's Pacific Palisades.

The 53-year-old actress wrapped up in a black quilted coat as she and her daughter went for the leisurely walk, which culminated in them watching the first sunset of 2021 on the breathtaking coastline.

New Year's Day stroll: Laura Dern was spotted enjoying some family time on Friday, as she stepped out with her daughter Jaya, 16, for a stroll on the beach in California's Pacific Palisades

Rounding out her casual ensemble with a black tracksuit bottoms and a pair of matching mid-top Allbirds sneakers, the star adhered to local COVID-19 safety measures by donning a protective face mask.

Meanwhile, Jaya also stepped out in casually cool style, donning baggy taupe hoodie, which she teamed with patterned black bottoms and white plimsolls.

Laura shares her daughter with musician ex-husband Ben Harper, to whom she was married between 2005 and 2013. They are also the parents of son Ellery Walker, 19.

Her upcoming film Jurassic World: Dominion wrapped shooting at England's Pinewood Studios in November, after adopting rigorous health and safety measures worth around 6 million.

Wrapping up: The 53-year-old actress wrapped up in a black quilted coat as she and her daughter went for the leisurely walk

Safety first: Rounding out her casual ensemble with a black tracksuit bottoms and a pair of matching mid-top Allbirds sneakers, the star donned a protective face mask

First sunset: The walk culminated in them watching the first sunset of 2021 on the coastline

The sixth film in the Jurassic Park franchise became the first major movie to resume production amid the COVID-19 crisis, as lockdown restrictions began to ease over the summer.

In order to do so, cast and crew had to isolate together for months, without being able to see their families, and a total of 40,000 novel coronavirus tests were carried out in the process.

According to Deadline, the Jurassic World set was equipped with a 'Greenzone', which saw staff temperature-checked daily, a slew of medical staff on hand and isolation booths at the ready.

Pinewood plastered 1,800 COVID-related signs around the studios and added 150 hand sanitiser stations as well as 60 more sinks for hand-washing. At the end of each day, all communal areas were antiviral fogged.

Former husband: Laura shares her daughter with musician ex-husband Ben Harper, to whom she was married between 2005 and 2013. Pictured in 2012

Family: Laura and Ben are also the parents of son Ellery Walker, 19. Pictured with Jaya in 2019

As a result of the strict measures, only an estimated 100 COVID-19 tests returned positive - some of which were false positives.

One positive case forced production to halt temporarily last month, but this was a minor spanner in the works and shooting soon resumed.

Director Colin Trevorrow said: 'Im not sure I can put it into words. It has been remarkable. Our crew and our cast has been so resilient. All producers have worked around the clock to make it the best it can be. It has been inspiring.'

Likening the process of returning to work amid a pandemic as being part of a family, he added: 'Ive never been as immersed in a filmmaking process.

'Because of the protocols, the actors didnt go far from set. The distance was stripped away. There was a lot of laughter at a time when it has been hard to find things to laugh about.'

Film: Laura's film Jurassic World: Dominion wrapped shooting at England's Pinewood Studios in November, after adopting rigorous health and safety measures worth around 6 million

Sequel: The sixth film in the Jurassic Park franchise became the first major movie to resume production amid the COVID-19 crisis, as lockdown restrictions began to ease over the summer

The director - who also co-wrote the sequel - marked the end of filming this weekend by posting a snap with some of the cast to Instagram, captioning it: 'Wrap on Jurassic World Dominion. Always hard to say goodbye to family.'

The film continues the Jurassic Park saga, picking up where 2018's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom left off, with a collection of dinosaurs - including a Tyrannosaurus Rex and a Velocirapter - loose on mainland America.

And Trevorrow mused on this theme, and how well-suited it is to current times.

'This movie is about the need to co-exist and survive together. If this pandemic has taught us anything its that we need the different generations to protect each other. It was the right movie to be making at this moment,' he added.

The film features Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, but brings back Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, who starred in 1993 original Jurassic Park.

Director Colin Trevorrow [second left] - who also co-wrote the sequel - marked the end of filming this weekend by posting a snap with some of the cast to Instagram

Returning to the saga: The film brings back Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, who starred in 1993 original Jurassic Park. Pictured on the set in October

While all three have since appeared in the franchise again [Neill and Dern in 2001's Jurassic Park III, Goldblum in 1997's The Lost World and 2018's Fallen Kingdom] this will be the first time the trio are on set again together.

The movie also sees the return of recurring cast B D Wong, Justice Smith, Isabella Sermon, Omar Sy and Daniella Pineda, and adds Mamoudou Athie and DeWanda Wise to the roster.

While the film was slated to be the end of the Jurassic World trilogy, producer Frank Marshall told Collider earlier this year that it will likely not be the end of the Jurassic Park franchise.

'Its the start of a new era,' he said. 'The dinosaurs are now on the mainland amongst us, and they will be for quite some time, I hope.'

As a result of the pandemic, Jurassic World: Dominion's release date has been pushed back a year, to June 10 2022.

Continuation: Picking up where 2018's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom left off, Dominion sees a collection of dinosaurs - including a Tyrannosaurus Rex and a Velocirapter - loose in the US
As the world ushers into a hopeful 2021, a lesson learnt from 2020 as far as environment is concerned, especially in India is how beautiful our skies looked during lockdown, making people realize the importance of clean air. One way to contribute to cleaner and greener environment is by adopting electric vehicles as preferred mode of transportation. While it would be a far fetched idea to think that lockdown will help change buyer's mentality, it surely has ignited a spark and will choices available, it wouldn't be wrong to say that in coming times, EVs could become important transport mode, only that charging infra should be adequate. To talk on current charging technology, we had a discussion with Maxson Lewis, MD of Magenta.

Tell us about current charging Infra in India

EV is the future and huge opportunities exist in this space given that this transition is starting from almost zero. EV charging is just one aspect of the business opportunities. Other opportunities exist like Battery swapping, Charging Software, Installation & maintenance, EV sales, EV services, Charger maintenance and operationsand the list will build up as the ecosystem grows.

Actually, the current EV charging infra (here I refer to public charging infrastructure) is racing ahead of EV sales. This can be seen by the number of EV chargers being installed but lying unutilized. But this is an expected problem  the EV first or EV charging first question will continue for some time now. But the biggest challenge of AC charging in residential areas will be the piece to solve to crack open the adoption of EVs in India  be it 2W, 3W or 4W.

Hows Magenta contributing to charging infra of India?

Magenta has the mandate of Empowering Electric Mobility & Making Electricity Clean. We realized early on, that copy-pasting International EV charging solutions into India will not work. India has unique set of requirements and challenges and unless solved will not really propagate EV adoption in India. Hence magenta has taken the unique position of being an Integrated EV Solutions Company providing Socket to Software products, and Concept to Commissioning services.

A couple of unknown facts about us is that our charging hardware and software is fully designed, developed and manufactured in India. Our Charging software (ChargeGrid) was Indias first fully integrated EV charging Software developed and operational way back in 2018. We also have developed India specific solutions for residential charging which we will be releasing shortly, We have helped the govt of India and its agencies install more than 3.5 MW of EV charging infrastructure in India.

We continue to work on these lines and will be soon launching more such solutions in 2021.

Whats the next big tech innovation we can expect in charging technology?

The general view and expectation in charging technology is in the race for the fastest charging solutions and vehicle battery and BMS technology to absorb such high dispensation rates. But my view for India is different. India is the electric 2W and 3W market and smart standardization of the EV charging protocols for this market is the key. This is not going to be a BIG tech innovation but a small but a very significant game changer if resolved.

Your thoughts on Tesla finally entering India in 2021?

India awaits eagerly for Teslas entry and Magenta is keen to see that happen. This will open a different level of discussion and conversation in the Auto ecosystem in India. However, we are obliged not to comment beyond this for now on Tesla or any other OEM entering into India - but More the merrier.

How do you see the current EV market of India?

Like I always say EV is the future and anyone ignoring it or saying it will take time is not up to date on whats happening. There is a huge tailwind for EV adoption in India and there are amazing number of challenges to solve. There is a huge focus on this sector both by central and state governments. One example is the FAME-II scheme.

Along with PSU's and government agencies, we believe the government this time will encourage private participation. This subsidy will pull in investments in this EV infrastructure play directly. But the more important way this will encourage investments in EV charging is through the indirect investments in the ecosystem.

But the big insight is that Tier II and Tier III cities is where EV adoption will take off. Infact Tier II and Tier III cities have a huge advantage which is availability of land to setup EV charging infrastructure. In fact, my personal belief is once the adoption of EV is understood on the back of TCO, Tier II and Tier III cities will see a bigger surge of EV's than in the metropolitan cities and that is the place to watch out for.
A COUNTY Limerick farmer who was convicted, earlier this year, of beating and sexually abusing his daughter was before Kilmallock Court on two counts of breaching the terms of a barring order on two separate dates.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is currently serving a four year prison sentence after he was found guilty, by a jury in October 2020, of six counts of sexual assault and four counts of child cruelty at the family home on dates between September 1, 2007 and August 1, 2019.

During a trial earlier this year, Limerick Circuit Court was told the abuse happened consistently when the victim was aged between 13 and 16.

Imposing sentence in November, Judge Tom ODonnell said there had been an enormous breach of trust over a number of years and he commented that the man had imposed his will and had his way with his daughter.

The defendant, the judge was told, does not accept the jury verdict and maintains his innocence.

In relation to the separate charges, under the provisions of the Domestic Violence Act, solicitor Brendan Gill said his client, who is aged in his 40s, was pleading guilty.

Inspector Sandra Heelan told Kilmallock Court that on May 17, 2019, the defendant attempted to speak to the applicant by phone on two occasions in contravention of the barring order.

Mr Gill said these were missed calls as the applicant had his clients number blocked at the time and did not receive any calls.

Judge Marian OLeary asked if the number is blocked can the person see who rang?.

Yes, said Mr Gill.

Insp Heelan said another offence occurred on July 30, 2019.

On that date the defendant and the woman attended a family law court sitting in relation to an agricultural Glas grant.

At 9.30pm he came up near the homeplace hence breaching the barring order, explained Insp Heelan.

Addressing the court in relation to the phone calls, Mr Gill said his client may have pocket dialled the woman and did not intentionally call her.

He only noticed after the gardai informed him. He has had strict bail conditions since 2016 and complied in full, said Mr Gill.

With regard to the breach which occurred at the womans home, Mr Gill said it was a misunderstanding on the part of his client.

In the interest of all parties with regard to the Glas grant a contractor needed to gain access to do the work. It was not sinister. He was showing the contractor where to go. It was a technical breach, said Judge OLeary.

After recording a conviction in relation to the first of the breaches. Judge OLeary placed the defendant on probation for a period of 12 months.

Given the nature of the second offences and noting the defendant guilty plea she took that charge into consideration.
Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner Sees Silver Lining in Pandemic

Looking ahead to a post-pandemic Orange County, Supervisor Don Wagner foresees a different kind of life for residents of the Southern California region.

And, he says, thats not necessarily a bad thing.

There may be some things that come out of COVID-19 that we ought to be focusing on and trying to encourage, Wagner told The Epoch Times during a year-end interview. For all the bad and all the horrors of COVID, there are some things we can look at and say, This is something we ought to [change].

Wagner has hardly made a secret of the changes hed like to see at the state level; hes part of a push to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom, who he says has blundered through Californias pandemic response.

On a more positive note, he said the pandemic has brought a more innovative line of thinking to the county that could help streamline government processes while changing the way people work and live.

Changing Dynamics

The closure of some municipal offices has prompted county officials to find more effective ways of serving the public, Wagner said. He hopes to see some of those changes stick.

Government has been more streamlined, he said. Were trying to do more of our processes online. Its silly to drive down to city hall to do something that could be done electronically. Were being forced to think a little bit outside of the box, and that is a good thing.

The pandemic has also changed the way people work. Wagner said he expects to see many residents transition to permanently working from home, resulting in less traffic, but also fewer tenants for Orange Countys commercial properties.

Major commercial landlords [can] expect significant downsizing and a retooling of their properties, he said. I know they recognize the retail and commercial space is going to look very different after COVID.

Government, he said, must keep pace with such changes. With people driving less and a lower demand for parking spaces, he said its possible to transition some of that space into outdoor dining centers.

Some of these businesses that are going to be challenged in the next couple years do have the opportunity to rethink how that space is going to be used, he said.

State Leadership

Wagner has been an outspoken critic of Newsoms restrictions and the need for local autonomy.

Rather than shut much of the state down, Wagner said Newsom should have focused on protecting high-risk groups, such as seniors, by encouraging them to stay home. Those not at high risk of dangerous complications from the virus could carry on living their lives, with appropriate precautions, he said.

If I were Newsom, I would have started allowing more of a targeted response, allowing locals in the cities or counties to determine [the appropriate response] for their communities and open the rest of the economy, he said. If he had done that, we wouldnt have had the state spend the trillions of dollars weve spent propping up an economy that weve artificially closed.

County Challenges

Although the county received $554 million in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funding, it wasnt enough to balance the budget. The county will likely use its reserves to offset an anticipated $200 million deficit for the 202021 fiscal year, but Wagner said the challenges wont end there.

The county will continue to have COVID-related expenses at least into the New Year, with testing and personal protective equipment needed. It may also need to continue supporting the local economy with small business grants and more.

Wagner said the financial fallout could last years.

County departments are currently working to identify ways to cut costs. Wagner said the county is trying to avoid layoffs, but is filling vacant positions at a slower pace.

Long term, I do feel that most county and city governments will struggle over the next several years, he said. Theres going to have to be belt-tightening. Theres going to be a decline in government services. Expect some lean years.
The group, which presented no new evidence of election problems, includes senators Ron Johnson, of Wisconsin, James Lankford, of Oklahoma, Steve Daines, of Montana, John Kennedy, of Louisiana, Marsha Blackburn, of Tennessee, and Mike Braun, of Indiana, as well as senators-elect Cynthia Lummis, of Wyoming, Roger Marshall, of Kansas, Bill Hagerty, of Tennessee, and Tommy Tuberville, of Alabama. Trump, the first president to lose a re-election bid in almost 30 years, has attributed his defeat to widespread voter fraud, despite the consensus of non-partisan election officials and even Trump's attorney-general that there was none. Of the roughly 50 lawsuits the President and his allies have filed challenging election results, nearly all have been dismissed or dropped. Hes also lost twice at the US Supreme Court. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video The days ahead are expected to do little to change the outcome. Joe Biden will be inaugurated on January 20th, and no publicity stunt will change that," said Senator Amy Klobuchar, of Minnesota, the top Democrat on the panel overseeing the Electoral College count.

Klobuchar said the Republican effort to create a federal commission to supersede state certifications when the votes have already been counted, recounted, litigated, and state-certified was wrong. It is undemocratic. It is unAmerican. And fortunately, it will be unsuccessful. In the end, democracy will prevail, she said in a statement. The convening of the joint session to count the Electoral College votes is usually routine. While objections have surfaced before  in 2017, several House Democrats challenged Trump's win  few have approached this level of intensity. Vice President Mike Pence is under pressure to use his ceremonial role at Biden's confirmation to block votes. Credit:AP On the other side of the Republican divide, Nebraska senator Ben Sasse  another possible 2024 contender  has urged his colleagues to "reject this dangerous ploy", which he said threatened the nations civic norms.

Caught in the middle is Vice President Mike Pence, who faces growing pressure from Trumps allies over his ceremonial role in presiding over the session on Wednesday. Pence's chief of staff, Marc Short, said in a statement on Sunday AEDT that the politicians had the right to raise their objections. "The Vice President welcomes the efforts of members of the House and Senate to use the authority they have under the law to raise objections and bring forward evidence before the Congress and the American people on January 6," Short said. Pence will be carefully watched as he presides over what is typically a routine vote count in Congress but is now heading towards a prolonged showdown that could extend into Wednesday night, depending on how many challenges are mounted. Several Republicans have indicated they are under pressure from constituents back home to show they are fighting for Trump in his baseless campaign to stay in office.

Senator John Thune, the second-ranking Republican, told reporters at the Capitol that leadership was allowing senators to vote their conscience. Thunes remarks as the Republican in charge of rounding up votes show that the party's leadership is not putting its muscle behind Trumps demands, but allowing senators to choose their course. He noted the gravity of questioning the election outcome. This is an issue thats incredibly consequential, incredibly rare historically and very precedent-setting, he said. This is a big vote. A judge in Texas dismissed a lawsuit from Republican congressman Louie Gohmert and a group of Arizona electors trying to force Pence to step outside mere ceremony and shape the outcome of the vote. US District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, dismissed the suit late Friday, and an appeal the next day was rejected. To ward off a dramatic unraveling, McConnell convened a conference call with Republican senators on Thursday specifically to address the coming joint session and logistics of tallying the vote, according to several Republicans granted anonymity to discuss the private call.

The Republican leader pointedly called on Hawley to answer questions about his challenge to Bidens victory, according to two of the Republicans. But there was no response because Hawley was a no-show, the Republicans said. Loading Hawley's office said he sent an email afterward to his colleagues explaining his views. In the email, Hawley said constituents back home are angry and disillusioned with the outcome of the election. Republican Senator Pat Toomey, who has acknowledged Bidens victory and defended his states election systems as valid and accurate, spoke up on the call, objecting to those challenging Pennsylvanias results and making clear he disagreed with plans to contest the result, his office said in a statement.
She recently returned to New York after spending the Christmas holiday with family at her mother Yolanda's picturesque ranch in Pennsylvania.

And Bella Hadid looked every bit the NYC fashionista as she celebrated New Year's Day with her best pal Jessie Jo Stark and fellow supermodel Stella Maxwell, 30.

Taking to her Instagram Story, the runway maven, 24, showcased the 90s inspired get-up she threw together for their girls-only hangout.

You better werk! Bella Hadid looked every bit the NYC fashionista as she celebrated New Year's Day

Get a good look: Taking to her Instagram Story, the runway maven, 24, showcased the 90s inspired get-up she threw together for their girls-only hangout

Hadid, still rocking her red highlights, slipped her fit physique into a black mini dress with sexy side cut-outs.

The Vogue covergirl threw a stylish red jacket over her statement dress and fastened a silver chain belt around her waist.

When it came to accessorizing her look, Bella fastened a stunning multi-layer pearl choker around her neck and secured a pair of drop earrings to her ears that coordinated with her belt.

She also had on a slew of mismatch bracelets and slipped a variety of rings onto her slender fingers.

Modeling: Removing her red jacket, Bella moved to the couch in her NYC apartment and had one of her gal pals capture an image of her posing with a rose in her mouth

Skinny mini: Hadid, still rocking her red highlights, slipped her fit physique into a black mini dress with sexy side cut-outs

Her edgy tresses were parted down the middle and she highlighted her ice blue eyes with a generous amount of eyeshadow.

To complete the look, Hadid put on some opaque black pantyhose and grabbed her favorite pair of platform combat boots.

She modeled the entire outfit in a brief Instagram Story video that showed her laying atop a plush ivory rug, while effortlessly posing for the camera.

Girl gang: The stunner was joined her best pal Jessie Jo Stark and fellow supermodel Stella Maxwell, 30

Strike a pose: The trio stopped for a moment to pose for snaps in a floor-length mirror

Removing her red jacket, Bella moved to the couch in her NYC apartment and had one of her gal pals capture an image of her posing with a rose in her mouth.

Resting behind her was a gorgeous Christmas tree, which was riddled with ornaments and twinkle lights.

Hadid's staircase was wrapped with flocked garland that also had a myriad of different figurines attached to it.

Outfit change: Although Bella was clearly feeling her highly curated outfit, she decided to change into an entirely different ensemble before heading out with her girls

Switching it up: Instead of going for a straight and sleek look, the V Magazine calendar star decided to crimp her hair

Although Bella was clearly feeling her highly curated outfit, she decided to change into an entirely different ensemble before heading out with her girls.

The new ensemble consisted of a pair of zip-up leather trousers and an oversized matching leather jacket.

Before heading out the door, the sister of Gigi Hadid captured a low angle selfie that showcased her grungy makeup application and dyed strands.

Ready to go: Bella and her BFF Jessie appeared to make their way over to a nearby establishment where they sipped on various beverages

Soul friend: She noted on her Instagram Story that Jessie is one of the people in her life who just 'get [her]'

Instead of going for a straight and sleek look, the V Magazine calendar star decided to crimp her hair.

Bella and her BFF Jessie appeared to make their way over to a nearby establishment where they sipped on various beverages.

She noted on her Instagram Story that Jessie is one of the people in her life who just 'get [her].'

Just a peek: Prior to enjoying the night out with some of her favorite ladies, Bella gave her over 37million followers a peek into her day on Friday

Eventful: The catwalk star indulged in a bit of reading as a precious pop rested on her laugh, before crafting some Blood Mary drinks with her pals

Hadid labeled the musician her 'real life twin' and remarked that it's 'crazy how you just, over time, find people in your life that just get ya.'

Acting as the grand finale to her wild Instagram Story, Bella shared a snapshot of herself immersing her designer boot into snow.

Prior to enjoying the night out with some of her favorite ladies, Bella gave her over 37million followers a peek into her day on Friday.

The catwalk star indulged in a bit of reading as a precious pop rested on her laugh, before crafting some Blood Mary drinks with her pals.
Passengers will have to pay more for flying out of Delhi for the next couple of months. The Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) has given the go-ahead to Delhi Internation Airport Limited (DIAL) to impose Rs 65.98 plus tax on departing passengers from February 1, 2021, to March 31, 2021. This additional amount is being collected in lieu of "fuel throughput charge' which has been levied on airlines till January 15, 2020.

The new charge per passenger, who is departing from IGI Airport, will drop in the consecutive financial years. From Rs 65.98 in 2021, till will drop to Rs 53 in FY22, Rs 52.56 in FY23 and Rs 51.97 in FY24.

AERA still hasn't approved DIAL's request to levy an additional charge of Rs 200 and Rs 300 on each outbound domestic and international passenger, according to The Times of India. This is being planned to recover some of the lost revenue during the COVID-19 flight bans. AERO had sought to impose this charge till March 2024. "AERA has asked DIAL to approach it after March 2022 regarding this levy if its financial problems persist. The operator is examining what step it can take, such as an appeal to a tribunal given its financial deficit," a source told the daily.

DIAL has anticipated a total revenue shortfall of Rs 3,538 crore between April 2020 and March 2024 and had therefore requested the Civil Aviation Ministry in December 2020 to order the AERA to take into consideration the loss in revenue caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

DIAL CEO V K Jaipuriar in a note to Aviation Secretary P S Kharola wrote, "Viability gap support of Rs 3,538 crore would be required for third control period (till FY 2024) to maintain operations, service levels, safety and security of the airport... the (declining) traffic scenario has taken a toll on DIAL's financial position and put forth a challenge for sustainable operations".

"In case, AERA does not consider our request of viability gap, DIAL will end up with a serious cash flow deficit and find itself difficult to continue the airport operations," he had added.

Also Read: Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine Covishield may get emergency use approval today

Also Read: 'COVID-19 vaccine will be free across the country,' says Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan
Gibraltar Goes into Social Lockdown

In a press conference held today at No.6 Convent Place, Chief Minister Fabian Picardo issued 'stay at home' orders for Gibraltar and announced a legal social lockdown.

"My dear fellow Gibraltarians.

Thank you all for joining to watch this important live press conference from No6 Convent Place.

I am sorry to have to interrupt your Christmas and New Year holidays once again, not even 48 hours after my last press conference from No6.

And let me start by hoping that we all have a healthy, happy and prosperous 2021.

The reality, however, is that the numbers of new infections with COVID-19 in our community are remarkably high and concerning.

We are seeing rates of growth in new infections which are quite exponential and which are having a serious effect on the numbers of people hospitalised and the numbers of frontline workers in self-isolation.

The measures we took before Christmas and just after Christmas also, will not have percolated into these numbers yet.

We believe that those measures will have a positive effect on the rates of new infections.

But we can also see that the rate of community infection and community transmission is so high that we will not be able to turn down the rate of infection without more drastic measures.

With Christmas behind us, a curfew in place and all non-essential retail closed already, we need to further upscale the level of restrictions which are in place in order to have the best chance to control the virus as soon as possible.

We must also factor in when we want to take these measures. No doubt, this is the slowest time of the year for most businesses. It is a time when we are mostly spending time at home.

That in itself gives us no right to interfere with your constitutional rights of freedom of movement. Your civil rights are not just important to us  they are SACRED.

But we do have public health reasons to act.

And those are now becoming obvious.

The rate of infection will today show 92 more active cases.

Yesterday we added 172 active cases.

Todays numbers include 16 new positives in Mount Alvernia.

The total number of people with the infection today is 973 active cases. That is just shy of a thousand active cases.

The total number of confirmed cases since we started testing is up to 2,304 cases.

Exactly one month ago, on the 2nd of December, we were reporting 5 new cases of the infection.

Today we had 92 and yesterday 172.

On 2nd of December we had 1,035 total cases of COVID in our Community since we started testing.

We have more than doubled that rate in one month, up by almost 1,300 cases.

More than double.

The rate of growth has now got to be arrested.

The R rate today is calculated at 1.51.

The virus is therefore propagating more quickly than we can control it.

The numbers of people admitted to the Critical Care Unit at St. Bernards Hospital is up to 5 today.

We therefore had to open our second Critical Care Unit.

Day surgeries will therefore have to be cancelled.

This second CCU will have to be staffed, although there is huge pressure on GHA staff as a result of positive infections amongst them and a lot of people also in self-isolation.

Additionally, the number of persons in the COVID ward is up to 20. The pressure is building on the GHA.

And that is also happening in a lot of other frontline agencies. We cannot allow this pressure to build to breaking point.

It has not helped, of course, that whilst we have taken measures to have an effect here, we have seen some residents of Gibraltar, decide to go to Spain.

Those who have gone to their second homes, I fully understand.

But those who are going to Spain to do there what they cannot do here because of restrictions designed to avoid the spread of the infection and then are coming back into Gibraltar, are not assisting us.

We are therefore left with very little choice now, if we are to turn the tide and curb the rise of new infections.

We are left with very little choice if we are going to be able to continue to offer frontline services.

We are left with very little choice if we do not want to see an even sharper rise in self-isolations, hospitalisations and deaths.

As a result, we will impose a legal lockdown as a circuit breaker. The lockdown will initially be for a period of 14 days.

I have nonetheless asked the Cabinet to agree that the lockdown should nonetheless be reviewed every 7 days.

I do not believe that we should maintain a lockdown which deprives you of important civil liberties for one moment longer than is necessary.

I have sought the advice of the Attorney General who confirms that the public health exception provided for in the chapter on fundamental rights in the 2006 Constitution is engaged.

He has also confirmed that the measures proposed are proportional in light of the potential consequences to our ability to continue to provide frontline services and to protect public health and human life.

A full civil contingency is now in play.

I am declaring a Major Incident Posture for the whole of Gibraltar.

I have considered the matter with the Leader of the Opposition, who agrees that these measures are necessary.

The additional measure we are taking is to impose a 24-hour curfew in effect.

For the next 14 days, you will not be permitted to leave your homes after 10pm tonight UNLESS it is for the reasons you became familiar with in the spring of 2020.

That is to say, you will only be able to leave your home to work, to exercise, to shop for the essentials in Gibraltar in the shops that remain open and to take out children.

Of course you will be able to leave home for medical reasons also, whether emergencies or appointments in Gibraltar or outside of Gibraltar.

There will be special arrangements for children and persons with special needs.

There will be special arrangements for families where children live with one parent and another has residence or visitation rights.

There will be permission to take essentials to elderly or otherwise vulnerable relatives.

There will be special arrangements for exercising dogs and the need to visit vets for example.

There will be permission to do essentials, but not frivolities.

BUT LETS BE CLEAR: THIS IS A STAY AT HOME ORDER.

It is not something we are doing lightly.

As in every instance, we are taking these measures with a very, very heavy heart.

This runs contrary to our civil libertarian instincts as a Government.

But we have no choice.

And I believe each of you has no choice, if you want to support your nation, other than to abide strictly by these new regulations.

And remember that elsewhere these stay at home orders have not provided for the right to exercise as they do in Gibraltar.

Our strict lockdown is lighter than in most other nations.

So please do not try to find a way THROUGH the rules, try to ensure your strict compliance WITH these rules.

Work from home if you can.

Act as if you had been required to self-isolate and come out only if it is essential that you should. These are difficult things to require of you, but require them we must.

Of course, these measures are cumulative.

They are in addition to existing measures.

BUT we are not closing work places.

Please continue to work in a manner that is safe.

The COVID-19 officer in your workplace can seek advice from Public Health Gibraltar in order to ensure a safe system of work.

I have already been in contact with Christian Hernandez, the President of the Chamber of Commerce in order to discuss how we will have to assist some businesses through this.

I will convene a virtual meeting of CELAC early next week to start calibrating assistance for affected businesses.

We will be there for businesses.

For our entrepreneurs.

For our wealth creators.

Just as we were in 2020, we will be in 2021.

The behaviour of the virus with such massive infectivity suggests that we are seeing the new, more infectious variant at play here. But we cannot confirm that genetically.

The social behaviour we have seen in the last three weeks will have assisted that new strain or even the original strain to propagate as it has.

So we must act and we must act now.

I felt it was important that you should have as much notice as possible of these measures, and for that reason I alerted you to the lockdown in social media posts yesterday.

I also felt you needed to hear directly from me when we are dealing with an issue as fundamental as the restrictions on your liberty.

Finally, HOPE.

The arrival of the vaccine is confirmed for the 9th January.

We are working with Public Health England and the Department of Health in the United Kingdom to agree that we can go with a one-dose strategy.

That means that instead of being able to vaccinate only about 2,500 people in our first tranche, we will be able to vaccinate about 5,000 people.

In the context of our population, this is a huge potential step forward.

Our size often puts our figures out of kilter.

We are testing more than anywhere else in the world almost on a per capita basis.

That means our figures are higher per capita for detected infections than anywhere else in the world.

But if weighted against testing per capita, our figures can be seen in a different light. Now, also, our vaccination rates will be higher.

With a one-dose strategy we will be able to cover all or almost all of our vulnerable and elderly with the first 5,000 doses to arrive in Gibraltar on 9th January.

One sixth of our population can be covered in very quick time.

I have asked Public Health Gibraltar and the GHA to provide me with a vaccination strategy immediately to reflect the new potential one dose approach.

Professor Whitty, the United Kingdoms Chief Medical Advisor has already alluded to this new approach.

We will be ready to deploy in this way if we can agree that we should. BUT FOR TODAY, we must concentrate not on HOPE but on EFFORT. COLLECTIVE EFFORT.

We must face this virus off together.

Like we did in the spring.

Like we did with all challenges that we face.

Like we have done for generations.

Christmas is over.

A new year is here.

Our first and foremost resolution for 2021 must be to see the back of this damned virus and get back to freedom as soon as possible.

Your Government however, cannot do it alone.

The GHA cannot deliver this alone.

Your support is essential.

And so, alongside the law requiring you to stay at home, I call on each and every one of you to resolve to act in the spirit of this order and to support us in this final push to get beyond this virus.

That is how we will finally turn the page."
The Pfizer vaccine arriving in Dublin last Saturday for distribution around the country

The first doses of a vaccine against the Covid-19 virus to be administered in Sligo will take place in just under three weeks.

The rollout of the vaccine sends out a real signal the virus can be beaten as the number of new cases surged past the 1,000 mark over Christmas week and the country headed into further lockdown from St Stephen's Day.

Nursing homes will be targeted first in the strategic rollout with Bailey's Nursing Home in Tubbercurry set to be the first to administer the Pfizer vaccine on January 18th.

It will be followed by Ballymote Community Nursing Unit on the 19th, Mowlam Nursing Home in Sligo on the 20th, Nazareth House Nursing Home, Sligo on the 22nd, Summerville Nursing Home, Strandhill on the 26th, St. John's Community Hospital on the 27th and Sonas Nursing Home Ard Na Greine, Sligo on the 29th.

All residents and staff in nursing homes throughout the country will be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 by the end of February.

From January 11, vaccination teams will travel to each of the 583 Hiqa older persons residential care facilities, both public and private, to administer two doses to over 70,000 people over a six-week period. This includes 29,456 residents and 41,856 staff.

Teams will work five-days a week and it will take three weeks to administer the first dose, and a further three for the second. It is estimated it will take each vaccinator 12 minutes to administer the vaccine with a Pfizerday. After the nursing homes and acute hospitals have been taken care of, the HSE will then roll out its vaccination programme to GPs and pharmacies.

The first shipment of 10,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine arrived in Ireland on Saturday. Another 30,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine are due for delivery next week with 40,000 doses due each week through January and into February.

Sligo Champion
Rep-Elect Lauren Boebert Affirms Plan to Carry Gun on Capitol Hill

Rep.-elect Lauren Boebert (R-Co.) wrote a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, asking her to stop 21 House Democrats attempt to ban a 1967 regulation that allows congress members to carry firearms.

Eighty-two other congress members and members-elect signed Boeberts letter to Pelosi.

21 Democrats wrote a letter to Nancy Pelosi asking her to stop me from being able to carry on Capitol Hill, Boebert wrote on Twitter. I choose to defend my family and my life with all of the force the Constitution provides.

21 Democrats wrote a letter to Nancy Pelosi asking her to stop me from being able to carry on Capitol Hill. I choose to defend my family and my life with all of the force the Constitution provides. Im honored that 82 of my colleagues have decided to stand with me. pic.twitter.com/OBkVuAFvv7  Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) January 1, 2021

She also released a public statement saying that she will not give up her Second Amendment rights, adding that she is a mother of short stature and light weight that needs to be able to defend herself in one of the most dangerous cities in the U.S. 

I will not let a bunch of gun-grabbing House Democrats take away my Constitutional right to protect myself, she wrote in the statement.

Public members are not allowed to carry firearms on Capitol grounds, but members of Congress have been exempt from this law since the late 60s.

The effort to override the law was led by 21 Democrats, notably Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), who survived multiple gunshots during the Jonestown shooting.

The 83 representatives and rep.-elects specified in their letter that they need protection which would otherwise not be possible without a firearm in Washington D.C.

The last-mile transition of self-protection is critical. The current regulations provide transitional coverage once the Member is physically on campus. Changing the current regulations could create new problems and uncertainty for lawful carrying Members in terms of what to do with a firearm once the Member arrives at the Congressional Complex, the 83 signees stated.

Moreover, and most importantly, Members need to be able to protect themselves once the Member is in the public space/street and out of the protective care of the Capitol Police, the lawmakers said. If the current regulations are changed, the Member will be at risk of physical assault and real danger.

Boebert, a mother of 4, told Fox in November that she intends to carry a gun to Congress, and would talk to Capitol police to see if she could find further options to do so. She is concerned that due to the present situation, Washington is becoming more and more dangerous and she might become a target that needs to be able to defend herself.

Im not walking around with security. I am the security, Boebert told Fox. So Ill carry in my office. I know that its OK for members to carry there and I am going to set up a meeting with the Capitol [Police] chief and talk to him about further options to carry.
The Pakistan Army opened heavy fire and shelled mortars at forward posts along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district on Saturday, prompting Indian troops to retaliate, officials said.

"At about 1645 hours today, the Pakistan Army initiated unprovoked ceasefire violation by firing with small arms and intense shelling with mortars along the LoC in Nowshera sector in district Rajouri," a defence spokesman said.

The Indian Army retaliated befittingly, he said.On Friday, JCO Naib Subedar Ravinder died after being injured in shelling by Pakistan in Nowshera sector, spokesman said.

Jammu and Kashmir recorded 5,100 instances of ceasefire violations by Pakistan along the Line of Control (LoC) in 2020, official sources said.

This was the highest in the 18 years with an average of 14 cases daily. Thirty-six people were killed in these violations and over 130 injured.

Security officials said that shelling and firing by Pakistani troops was "very heavy" in 2020, virtually making the 2003 India-Pakistan border truce "redundant".

A senior police officer said that Pakistani troops repeatedly targeted forwards posts and villages along the LoC and the International Border (IB) to create a fear psychosis among people and destabilise peace along the borderline.

(IMAGE CREDITS:AP)

(Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed; only the image & headline may have been reworked by www.republicworld.com)
United Nations:

The United Nations has dismissed Pakistan Army's allegation that the Indian Army targeted its military observers near the Line of Control. The UN said that there was "no evidence" of them being attacked.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said there was no evidence that an UNMOGIP (United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan) vehicle was targeted by the Indian Army along the LoC near the Khanjar sector.

"I can say to you that this afternoon in Bhimber district, in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, UNMOGIP military observers accompanied by Pakistani Army escorts heard gunshots in their vicinity. There is no evidence that the UNMOGIP military observers were targeted by the gunfire. No UN military observer was injured," he told reporters on Thursday.

Read | After Pakistan Army and Air Force, its Navy also warns India amid ongoing tensions; says 'fully capable to thwart any aggression'

In a statement, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the Pakistan Armed Forces, had said that a vehicle carrying two officers of the UN military observer group came under attack by Indian troops during a visit to the LoC.

The Pakistan Army had claimed the vehicle was carrying UNMOGIP officers Major Emmanual of the Philippines and Major Mirko of Croatia.

Asked about the increasing tension between the south Asian neighbours and whether the UN secretary-general will look into the situation, Dujarric reiterated, "we're obviously concerned at the situation in Kashmir, and it's an issue that the secretary-general is following closely."

Read | Pakistan accuses India of diverting nuclear materials obtained under NSG waiver to make weapons

According to the UN Security Council mandate of 1971, UNMOGIP observes and reports on ceasefire violations along and across the LoC and the Working Boundary between India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir, as well as reports developments that could lead to ceasefire violations.

India has maintained that UNMOGIP has outlived its utility and is irrelevant after the Simla Agreement and the consequent establishment of the Line of Control. The observer group is headed by Major Gen Per Lodin of Sweden. It currently has 38 military observers and 73 civilian personnel.

Read | CPEC may instigate more tensions between India and Pakistan: UN report

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Five women were killed in war-torn Yemen when a projectile exploded at a wedding held on New Year's Day in the Red Sea port city of Hodeida, officials said Saturday.

The government and Huthi rebel forces blamed each other for the Friday night bombing of the hall near Hodeida's airport, a frontline between the warring sides on the edge of the Huthi-held town.

It came just two days after at least 26 people were killed in blasts that rocked the airport of the southern city of Aden as government ministers got off a plane.

General Sadek Douid, the government representative in a UN-sponsored joint commission overseeing a truce, condemned the Hodeida blast, which also left seven wounded, as "an odious crime committed by the Huthis against civilians".

Hodeida's Huthi-appointed governor, Mohammed Ayache, said on Al-Masirah television, which is run by the Shiite Muslim rebels, that "the forces of aggression never hesitate to blame others for their crimes".

Saudi-backed government forces launched an offensive in June 2018 to retake Hodeida, the main entry point for humanitarian aid to poverty-stricken Yemen.

But a ceasefire has been partially observed since December of the same year.

Short link:


Jagan Reddy betrayer of hindus: Chandrababu Naidu lashes out after 400-year-old Ram statue beheaded

India

oi-Deepika S

Amaravati, Jan 02: Incidents of desecration of idols in some temples in Andhra Pradesh have triggered a political storm with opposition parties lashing out at the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government, holding it solely responsible for the attacks.

Retaliating, ruling YSR Congress leaders accused Telugu Desam Party chief N Chandrababu Naidu of hatching a conspiracy to provoke antipathy towards the government.

First the head of Lord Ramas idol was defaced at the famous Ramateertham hill temple in Vizianagaram district on the night of December 28.

Two days later, the hands and legs of the Subrahmanyeswara Swamy idol were found broken in a temple in Rajamahendravaram.

The two incidents kicked up a furore in the state with opposition parties hitting out at the government for failing to protect the temples.

There were more than 125 incidents of desecration and vandalism in various temples across the state since Jagan took over, some opposition party leaders claimed.

Chandrababu visited Ramateertham on Saturday demanding that the government order a CBI probe into the temple vandalism and alleged religious conversions.

Rajya Sabha member of the ruling party V Vijaya Sai Reddy too undertook a counter visit to the temple while BJP MLC P V N Madhav also led another group for an on-the-spot inspection.

In a related development, the state government removed former Union Minister P Ashok Gajapati Raju as the Ramateertham temple chairman, alleging that he failed to discharge his legitimate duties and address the issues relating to the security aspects of the temple. He also failed to take steps to prevent the vandalisation of Lord Ramas idol in Sri Rama Swamy Devasthanam, the government alleged.

Raju, who as the founding family member, was also removed as head of the Pyditalli Ammavari temple in Vizianagaram and Mandeswara Swamy temple in East Godavari district.

Endowments Minister V Srinivas, at a press conference at the YSRC office here, hit out at the former Union Minister and alleged that Lord Ramas idol was vandalised in an attempt to destabilise the state government.

The BJP, Jana Sena and Congress also castigated the government over the desecration of temples and slammed its "failure" to bring the culprits to book in such cases.

"Defacing temples and idols has become a routine affair during the rule of Jagan Mohan Reddy.In not even one case the miscreants were punished, which was emboldening the perpetrators," state Congress working president N Thulasi Reddy said in a release.

BJP state general secretary S Vishnuvardhan Reddy claimed police were acting like mute spectators as vandals were going around damaging the temples and idols.

The Jagan government failed grossly in protecting the temples and the Hindu faith, he alleged. It would pay a heavy price if it did not take effective steps and put an end to such acts of vandalism, Vishnuvardhan warned.

Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan, in a statement, alleged a conspiracy was on to hurt the sentiments of Hindus in AP as the government was remaining silent over growing attacks on temples.

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Story first published: Saturday, January 2, 2021, 22:41 [IST]
Amy Huberman and Brian ODriscoll have welcomed their third child into the world, a baby boy called Ted.

Born on December 28, the rugby star announced the news of their new arrival on Instagram today.

Read More

Sharing a snap of him carrying Ted into their home, Brian captioned it: 2020 was a bit crap but the end of it was aiiiiight!

"Ted ODriscoll arrived on Dec 28th and he is deadly. His mum is a champion and his brother and sister are thrilled at having a new little bro.

In September, Amy announced the news that she and husband Brian were expecting their third child.

The actress took to Instagram to share that she had been cooking something other than banana bread and sourdough over lockdown.

In a very punny post, Amy announced the happy news by posting a picture of a bun in an oven, telling her 405k followers that there is an actual little bun in the oven," and that she is just over four months into her pregnancy.

Amy and Brian, who have been married for the past 10 years, have two children together, Sadie (7) and Billy (5).

Download the Sunday World app Now download the free app for all the latest Sunday World News, Crime, Irish Showbiz and Sport. Available on Apple and Android devices

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The United States expressed significant concern with Chinese aggression along the border with India in a defence policy law passed by the Senate on Friday, completing a congressional override of President Donald Trumps veto of the legislation.

Continued military aggression by the government of China along the border with India is a significant concern, says the $740 billion National Defence Authorisation Act 2021 (NDAA).

It calls upon Beijing to resolve all disputes using existing diplomatic mechanisms.

The legislation became law after the Republican-controlled Senate voted 81-13 to pass it, with way more than the two-third votes required to override a presidential veto. The Democratic-led House of Representatives had passed the override last week with a similarly overwhelming support - 322 to 87.

Trump had vetoed the legislation passed earlier by both chambers, but his reasons had nothing to do with the section on Chinese aggression on the border with India.

He had demanded that it should repeal liability protection for social media platforms, drop sections renaming military facilities named after confederate military figures, and thinning US military deployments in certain areas.

It was the first congressional override of presidential veto for Trump, whose term ends on January 20, when President-elect Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th US president.

The NDAA conveys bicameral and bipartisan support for India in its border standoff with China. Though it is neither a demand nor a threat enforceable with consequences, it is a significant show of support for India.

In Section 1206 titled Sense of Congress on the aggression of the government of China along the border with India and growing territorial claims the law says, Continued military aggression by the government of China along the border with India is a significant concern.

The government of China should work with the government of India towards de-escalating the situation along the Line of Actual Control through existing diplomatic mechanisms and refrain from attempting to settle disputes through coercion or force, it adds, and goes on to point to Chinas other aggressive actions in the region.

It says US congress believes that attempts by the government of China to advance baseless territorial claims, including those in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and with respect to Bhutan, are destabilising and inconsistent with international law.

Raja Krishnamoorthi, the Democratic lawmaker who proposed this language in the law, said after its passage, Through todays New Years Day vote in the Senate, Congress has made the National Defence Authorisation Act into law, including elements of my resolution calling on China to end its military aggression towards India and others in the broader Indo-Pacific region.

He added, The Chinese militarys violent aggression along the Line of Actual Control with India and elsewhere is unacceptable, and the passage into law of this legislation sends a clear message of support and solidarity to India and our other partners across the world as we enter the New Year.

The bicameral and bipartisan snub for Trump came amid his efforts to overturn his defeat to Biden in the presidential election.

Having failed to convince courts and state legislatures with claims of election wrongdoings, he is trying to get congress to overturn it when it meets on Wednesday to certify Bidens victory, the final stage in the presidential election.
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Thousands of Britons at risk of blindness will benefit from a new drug that slows vision loss and can even improve sight.

The medicine, brolucizumab, has now been approved by NHS chiefs for patients with wet age-related macular deterioration  a painless yet incurable eye disease that's the leading cause of blindness in over-55s.

Previously, sufferers needed monthly injections, carried out in hospital, to slow the condition's progress. But the new jab needs to be given only every 12 weeks, while some patients may be able to go even longer between appointments.

During a trial, a third of patients given brolucizumab experienced significant vision gains within just four weeks of their initial jab, compared with six months when given the older drugs.

Age-related macular degeneration, or AMD, affects more than 700,000 Britons, with numbers rising. Age, a genetic predisposition and smoking are the main risk factors, with one in 20 over-65s, and one in ten over-80s, suffering from it.

There are two main forms of AMD  wet and dry.

A graphic demonstrates how the brolucizumab medicine works to slow vision loss

Both occur when cells deteriorate in the macula, the light-sensitive area at the back of the eye that enables detailed sight.

Patients lose central vision and the ability to discern features, although peripheral vision remains normal. It means a sufferer may be able to see a clock's outline but not to tell the time. An inability to recognise faces is also common.

AMD typically affects both eyes. However, the speed of deterioration can vary between them.

Dry AMD accounts for nine in ten cases, and although the exact causes are not fully understood, it's linked to a build-up of fatty deposits called drusen under the macula. Vision deteriorates gradually over many years.

There is no treatment available, but it is generally seen as a less serious threat than wet AMD.

With wet AMD, the eye has an excess of a protein that promotes the growth of new blood vessels, called vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF).

However, with too much in circulation in the eye it triggers the growth of tiny abnormal blood vessels under the retina which are fragile and prone to leaking blood and fluid  very quickly causing irreparable damage.

Untreated, it can cause permanent blindness in months.

Brolucizumab, also known by the brand name Beovu, binds to the VEGF protein and stops the development of the abnormal blood vessels, slowing disease progression. It is the newest in a class of medicines called anti-vascular endothelial growth factor, or anti-VEGF drugs.

In trials, the vision of two-thirds of patients given brolucizumab improved by several lines on the eye chart over six months, and the effect is expected to last about two years.

Eye surgeon Professor Faruque Ghanchi at Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, who was involved in trials of brolucizumab, said: 'Anti-VEGFs have been a game-changer for wet AMD, in terms of preventing blindness. 'With brolucizumab, patients will need a starter dose of three injections over three months before moving on to a once-every-three-months schedule.

Eye surgeon Professor Faruque Ghanchi at Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was involved in trials of brolucizumab

'If a patient is assessed to having reacted particularly well, we may be able to stretch it out even longer between clinic visits.'

Before the injection is carried out into the white of the eyeball, anaesthetic drops are applied. The needle delivers the drug directly into the vitreous jelly, and while this sounds worrying the procedure causes mild discomfort at most.

Prof Ghanchi says: 'Patients are usually anxious the first time, but then they find out how straightforward and painless it is.'

After brolucizumab is injected into the eye, it binds to the VEGF proteins, stopping them from attaching to receptors on blood vessel walls. This means the protein is unable to trigger new and damaging growths.

It is vital that patients do not miss injection appointments, Prof Ghanchi adds. 'Missing a dose can mean losing vision. We want patients to know, despite the pandemic, ophthalmology clinics are running and are safe to attend.'

One patient set to benefit is Judith Whaling, from Newcastle, who was diagnosed with wet AMD in July. The 67-year-old retired nurse was told she had early signs of the condition after a routine eye check-up at her local optician.

Judith says: 'I had noticed my eyesight wasn't what it used to be, but didn't think much of it, so I was slightly shellshocked.'

She started on an older anti-VEGF injection in September, and will be switched to brolucizumab this month. 'I've had three now, and the first was fine  in fact, I've felt a bit more anxious before subsequent appointments because now I know what to expect. It's not painful, but it stings a bit  although it's over as soon as you notice it.

'I'm glad it'll soon only have to be once every three months. My vision is fine at the moment, and I'm still able to drive. I hope the treatment will help me stay this way for as long as possible.'
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The new bishop was appointed on November 14 by Pope Francis. The Vatican charge d'affaires read the papal bull and handed it over to Msgr. Lee. The message of wishes from Vice-President Chen Chien-jen. Given up for adoption as a child to one family and then to another, Msgr. Lee is very busy with the world of youth and the marginalized.

Tainan (AsiaNews) - Yesterday, the feast of Mother of God, Tainan diocese ordained its fifth bishop at the gymnasium hall of Catholic-run Sheng Kung Girls High School in Tainan city, southern Taiwan. About 1,500 guests, around 100 priests, 11 bishops and the Vaticans Charge daffaires joined the ordination of Bishop John Lee Juo-wang. The Kuangchi Program Service of Taipei assisted the live broadcast, allowing those who could not attend to share the joy of the ceremony.

Before the ordination Mass, a short video clip of the new bishop John Lee Juo-wang was broadcast. Lee is the first native bishop of Tainan diocese in 30 years. He was born in Tainan city in 1966 and entered the local minor seminary at the age of 12. He then entered the local St. Pius Major Seminary in 1984 and ordained a priest in 1993.

The Taipei-based Holy See Charge d 'Affaires, Monsignor Arnaldo Catalan, displayed and read out the papal bull of Pope Francis.

When Bishop Bosco Lin Chi-nan, retired bishop of Taiwan and main celebrant, said to the congregation, Dear Catholics, this is your bishop. The hall broke into applause, welcoming the new bishop. Accompanied by Archbishop Thomas Chung An-zu of Taipei, Bishop Lee walked down the altar and extended peace to the congregants.

At the end of the Mass, Monsigor Catalan delivered a speech, giving thanks to Bishop Lin for his 11 years of service in Kaohsiung diocese and 16 years in Tainan Diocese. Then he encouraged Bishop Lee to stay in communion with the Pope and become a member of the universal Church. He also welcomed then new bishop to the Bishops Conference for the continual cooperation with the Holy See. The monsignor then asked the faithful in Tainan to pray for their bishop for good pastoral services. At the end of the ordination Mass, Bishop Lee imparted solemn blessing to the congregation.

After the Mass, there was congratulatory messages from special guests, including the former Vice President Philip Chen Chien-jen. Chen added that Bishop Lin has been in Tainan diocese for 16 years, and he has been at the forefront wherever there was need for help. He wished Bishop Lee would do the same and advance better in evangelization, education and social service. In the face of the pandemic, we need to love each other more, so that this love will spread throughout Taiwan, said Chen.

Huang Wei-cher, mayor of Tainan, lauded that the Catholic Church has done for decades most of Tainans social services and Bishop Lins service has won the respect of local citizens. He invited Bishop Lin to serve as a municipal consultant after his retirement to help provide better services needed by the people and presented to him the appointment letter.

In his speech of thanks, Bishop Lee expressed gratitude to Bishop Lin and Archbishop Chung and to all other bishops for their acceptance.

In the photo session after the ceremony, Bishop Lee took photos with his original family surnamed Chang and his adopted family surnamed Huang.

Bishop Lee has a special life experience. His parents fled to Taiwan in 1950 due to political turmoil. They gave their youngest son to a Lee family in the same village because of financial difficulties to support a big family. Later, the Lee family also ran into difficulties and he was then adopted by the Huang family. After being a priest, his life experience, helped him understand well how to assist the children and teenagers from marginalized families. He accompanied them by organizing after-school tutoring classes at Causa Nostrae Laetitiae Church in Juzin, where he served as parish priest. He is also keen on youth services, leading the college youth and young workers.
As Minnesota officials crack down on pandemic restriction violations, an Albert Lea business owner is taking a stand.

The interchange in Albert Lea is facing a 5-year liquor license revocation for opening to indoor dining in violation of an executive order.

This Sunday, The Interchange is holding a planned peaceful protest in hopes of taking a step toward reopening Minnesota.

Owner Lisa Hanson expresses her passion about her constitutional right to own and operate business, and is prepared to fight for that right.

Hanson explains, This is a big deal. It's a trickle effect and it's hurting a lot of people very majorly. We have an unalienable right to be able to do business."

She tells KIMT News 3 they are not doing this just for their business, but for the state as a whole, and hopes to encourage other business owners to join this fight.

She adds, I really believe we're going to see a fairly good crowd-- I hope we do -- there's a lot of patriots in the area that have shown a huge amount of support."

The plan is to march from Albert Lea City Hall to the court house. The peaceful protest is expected to start at 1 pm.
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On the FactCheck page, The Associated Press tracks down some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals that were shared widely on social media. The AP takes those untrue stories, checks them out and sets the records straight in this weekly series of news articles.


Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 09:33:32|Editor: huaxia

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Photo taken on Jan. 29, 2018 shows a view of Gwadar Port in southwest Pakistan's Gwadar. (Xinhua/Ahmad Kamal)

In the year of 2020 when the world was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, factories have stopped roaring, people stayed at home, fearing of contracting the virus. However, projects of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) have kept proceeding, offering a beacon of hope for Pakistan that has been longing for a recovery from the pandemic and a takeoff of its economy.

by Deng Kaiyin

ISLAMABAD, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- As night fell, 30-year-old Aisar Uddin called on his families in Hunza as usual. This time though, he was making sure whether his sister had received the money he had sent back home for her school fees.

Unlike some of his friends who lost their jobs due to the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic and have been suffering till now, a stable income Uddin earns from the job in Port Qasim power plant in the southern port city of Karachi enables him to support his families and survive this hard time.

In a year when the world was hit by the pandemic, factories have stopped roaring, people stayed at home, fearing of contracting the virus. However, projects of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) have kept proceeding, offering a beacon of hope for Pakistan that has been longing for a recovery from the pandemic and a take-off of its economy.

From Rashakai special economic zone in the country's northernmost province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to southern Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea, CPEC has delivered on promise to benefit local people.

The aerial photo taken on Aug. 6, 2019 shows the Sahiwal Coal Power plant in Sahiwal, Punjab Province, Pakistan. (Xinhua/Ahmad Kamal)

Muhammad Dawood Khan joined the Suki Kinari (S K) Hydropower Project in Naran Kaghan valley of District Mansehra this November when the second wave of the pandemic started sweeping through the South Asian country.

"The company offered me very handsome package and attractive allowances. Why should I turn down a job with competent working environment, professional behavior of staff and learning opportunities?"

On the other hand, said Khan, S K hydro has been striving for betterment and achieve its targets even during this pandemic situation. All of these makes him feel proud to choose the company.

For Uddin, a virus-free working environment is also what he needs besides a stable income. The zero-affected rate of the contagious virus among workers of CPEC projects gives employees like Uddin and their families consolation.

Chairman of the CPEC Authority Asim Saleem Bajwa said earlier that CPEC projects have achieved major progress despite grave economic and health challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring economic stability and well-being of the people of Pakistan.

A train for the Orange Line arrives at a subway station in Lahore, Pakistan, Oct. 26, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Tian)

On Oct. 25, Pakistan's first ever metro train service, the Orange Line, started its commercial operation in the country's historical city of Lahore, opening a new stage for the South Asian country in the public transportation sector.

During the five years of construction, the Orange Line created over 7,000 jobs for locals, and in the operation and maintenance period it will create 2,000 employment for locals.

The eco-friendly mass transit project is believed to be helpful in addressing the congestion problem of the capital city of Punjab province.

It will lead to green GDP growth, further promote urban development and modernity of the Pakistani eastern megacity and increase economic activities, said the Chief Minister of Punjab Sardar Usman Buzdar during the inauguration ceremony of the metro's commercial operation.

"The number-one group this train will benefit is women - they don't usually have their own vehicles," says a Pakistani politician Kiran Imran Dar quoted by media.

Research shows that women in Pakistan are much more dependent on public transport than their male counterparts are, because they have less access to other travel modes such as motorbikes.

In fact, an increasing number of women are joining the CPEC projects, strengthening the "she power" in the sub-continent country.

"Being a woman, I am well respected and appreciated for my contribution to the project," said Saima Nawaz, an advisor of legal and commercial department at S K Hydro (Private) Limited.

"It is an opportunity to be part of CPEC project which feel like being part of history in making which will change the face of sub-continent," Nawaz noted.

Photo taken on Nov. 18, 2019 shows a view of the expressway section of the Karakorum Highway (KKH) project phase two in Pakistan. (Xinhua/Liu Tian)

This is echoed by Altaf Shahid, a Karachiite who works as a design and project engineer in Port Qasim power plant. "It is pride for me as I'm directly involved for the development of my people and for my country," said Shahid.

This pride and honor will continue when benefits are relayed to the next generation. By providing a better education, the fate of the nation will be changed.

Vocational training is being provided to enable local population to participate and get fully benefited from the development projects under CPEC, noted the CPEC Authority chairman during a webinar convened by Pakistan-based think tank the Sustainable Development Policy Institute.

After chatting with his elder brother on phone, Shahid has a clearer plan for the future. "I will save the money into bank for the education of my children. By receiving better education, I am sure they will have a brighter future," said Shahid. 
San Francisco, Jan 2 : US federal agencies must update the hacked Solarwinds Orion software or take all its apps offline, the country's top cybersecurity agency has warned.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has updated its official guidance for dealing with the repercussions from the SolarWinds supply chain attack that has affected thousands of enterprises and government agencies, including Microsoft.

CISA said that all US government agencies that still run SolarWinds Orion platforms must update to the latest 2020.2.1HF2 version.

"Agencies that can't update by that deadline are to take all Orion systems offline," the guidance read.

Tracked as CVE-2020-10148, the vulnerability is an authentication bypass in the Orion API that allows attackers to execute remote code on Orion installations.

SolarWinds last month released the 2020.2.1HF2 version.

"The National Security Agency (NSA) has examined this version (2020.2.1HF2) and verified that it eliminates the previously identified malicious code," the CISA said in its update.

At least 24 big companies, including tech giants like Intel, Cisco, VMware and Nvidia, have suffered part of the SolarWinds hack allegedly orchestrated by Russia-backed cybercriminals.

The suspected Russian hackers installed a malware in the Orion software sold by the IT management company SolarWinds, and accessed sensitive data belonging to several US government agencies, at least one hospital and a university.

According to Microsoft, it detected malicious SolarWinds applications in its environment, which were isolated and removed.

Cybersecurity firms FireEye and CrowdStrike have admitted they were affected during the SolarWinds attack.

Russia has denied having any role in the hacking.
BEREA, Ohio -- The interior of an historic home on Prospect Street, located next to the Berea Fire Station, is being demolished in order to repurpose the structure as the future public headquarters for the fire department.

Berea Director of Public Service Paul Anzalone explained the citys plans during the Dec. 7 City Council meeting.

The primary purpose for the demolition is to see the structure of the framing from the later 1800s to see what we have to work with, Anzalone said.

Future planning is suggesting we use that (building) for administration of the fire department, potentially for the chief and the assistant chief, and for training rooms for the fire department staff.

This would also be the public headquarters for anybody who wishes to come and meet with fire department staff, he added. We are just under way with the demolition.

Council President Jeff Dettmer said fire station parking has been an issue, and he asked if the property behind the house perhaps could accommodate additional spaces.

We have discussed the idea of it, Anzalone replied. My current role is to make sure our budgeting is going to be pretty close to what weve been spending to get the interior done. I will work with engineering on any of the parking and pavement issues behind it to create more parking, both for residents and our firefighters.

The city also is currently updating the police station to create larger and more efficient workspaces.

Read more stories from the News Sun.
Before popular girl groups like TLC, Xscape, SWV, and En Vogue there was Salt-N-Pepa. The ladies burst onto the scene at a time when rap music was dominated by men but their sound appealed to a wide audience and they released a number of hits such as Push It and Shoop. The trio has sold over 15 million records worldwide and cemented their legacy as The First Ladies of Rap and Hip Hop.

Many fans are wondering what Salt, Pepa, and DJ Spinderella are up to now. Heres more on that and who has the highest net worth today.

(L to R): Deidra Roper aka DJ Spinderella, Cheryl Salt James and Sandra Pepa Denton of Salt-N-Pepa | Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for VH1

Cheryl James aka Salts net worth

Cheryl Jones aka Salt was born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. She met her future bandmate Sandra Denton aka Pepa in nursing school. They became close friends and recorded a song together for a project Salts then-boyfriend, Hurby Azor, produced. The single was called The Showstopper and released in 1985. The ladies then signed a deal with Next Plateau Records and adopted the stage name Salt-N-Pepa. Salt and Azor dated from 1984 until 1989. She later married Gavin Wray and they have one daughter and one son together.

In 2007, she and her groupmates appeared in the VH1 series appropriately titled The Salt-N-Pepa Show. Today, Salt has an estimated net worth of $14 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.

Many of Salts fans remember that she was rumored to have dated the late Tupac Shakur. The two did have a close friendship. The rapper was even featured in the 1994 video Whatta Man although his face wasnt shown. During an interview on LL Cool Js website Rock The Bells, Salt explained that was the record companys decision because of Pacs legal issues at the time.

[His reputation] was the whole reason, Salt said. I hate that when I watch the video, it really bothers me. Being around him, that guy had charisma. He was the most amazing person that walked in the room. When he walked into a room, it was truly all eyes on him.

Sandra Denton aka Pepas net worth

Denton, better known as Pepa, is the youngest of eight children. She was born in Kingston, Jamaica. Her family moved to the Queens section of New York City when she was a child.

Salt-N-Pepa released five studio albums Hot, Cool, and Vicious in 1986, A Salt with a Deadly Pepain 1988, Blacks Magic in 1990, Very Necessary in 1993, and Brand New in 1997.

In 1999, Denton married Treach, whose real name is Anthony Criss, of the rap duo Naughty by Nature after dating on and off for several years. Like Tupac, Treach had a small cameo in the Whatta Man video. The two have one daughter together. Pepa also has a son from a previous relationship. In 2001, Treach and Pepa divorced.

In 2008, she wrote a book about her life called Lets Talk About Pep and today has a net worth of $15 million via Celebrity Net Worth.

Deidra Roper aka DJ Spinderella

Deidra Roper, better known as DJ Spinderella, was also born in New York City. Spin became interested in a career in music in high school as her boyfriend was a DJ. When she was 16, she auditioned to be part of Salt-N-Pepa. Before Spin joined the group though another up-and-coming DJ was offered the opportunity.

On a 2012 episode of The Wendy Williams Show, the programs host talked about how she was asked to be the DJ before Spin.

I was 21 years oldI was a DJ in Washington, D.C., Williams said. [Salt-N-Pepa] came to town and they came to [my] show on the station. Hurby came to me after and said, Me and the girls was talking and we wanted to know if you wanted to be our DJ.

Williams said she passed it up to follow her dream of becoming a radio and TV host. Spinderella actually became a radio host as well. She co-hosted Back Spin, a nationally syndicated weekly radio show from 2003 to 2006, Celebrity Net Worth noted that today Spin has an estimated net worth of $10 million.
Channel Nine star Sylvia Jeffreys is expecting her second child with husband Peter Stefanovic.

And on New Year's Day on Friday, the pregnant journalist and TV personality was spotted enjoying a relaxing walk with their son Oscar, 10 months.

The 34-year-old covered up her baby bump in a baggy black T-shirt and doted on her son as they strolled around Sydney.

Out and about: On New Year's Day on Friday, pregnant Sylvia Jeffreys was spotted on a walk in Sydney with son Oscar, 10 months

Sylvia looked chic in all-black activewear, wearing her T-shirt with a pair of leggings and Nike sneakers.

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She wore her short locks out and over her shoulders, appearing to have had a fresh blowdry.

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Sylvia showed off a golden tan on the day and teamed the look with a stylish pair of tortoise shell, cat-eye sunglasses.

Downtime: The 34-year-old covered up her baby bump in a baggy black T-shirt and doted on her son as they strolled around

One hot mama! Sylvia looked chic in all-black activewear, wearing her T-shirt with a pair of leggings and Nike sneakers

One hot mama! Sylvia looked chic in all-black activewear, wearing her T-shirt with a pair of leggings and Nike sneakers

Chic: Sylvia showed off a golden tan on the day and teamed the look with a stylish pair of tortoise shell, cat-eye sunglasses

At one point, Sylvia could be seen attending to her son as they walked around, who had some toys in the pram to keep him entertained.

Sylvia and journalist Peter, 39, welcomed Oscar in February last year and described him as being 'absolutely magic.'

In October last year, Sylvia announced that she's pregnant with their second son.

Doting: At one point, Sylvia could be seen attending to her son as they walked around, who had some toys in the pram to keep him entertained

New addition: Sylvia and journalist Peter, 39, welcomed Oscar in February last year and described him as being 'absolutely magic.' In October last year, Sylvia announced that she's pregnant with their second son

Alongside a photo of Peter holding up their son Oscar, Sylvia wrote: 'When you find out you're getting a best bud for life.'

'Oscar's little brother due in April next year. We are so lucky,' she added, tagging her husband.

It came after Sylvia revealed for the first time that she underwent IVF to have Oscar.

Sylvia broke down in tears as she discussed her own struggles with infertility on Today Extra.

Struggles: It came after Sylvia revealed for the first time that she underwent IVF to have Oscar. Sylvia broke down in tears as she discussed her own struggles with infertility on Today Extra

Sylvia was speaking to mother Brooke Campbell about IVF treatment and the 'daunting and overwhelming' decision of what to do with leftover frozen embryos once a family no longer wants to use them.

As Brooke discussed the options available, a clearly-emotional Sylvia said: 'Brooke, I know from my personal experience with IVF that so much goes into having a successful embryo.'

As she fought through tears, she continued: '...and having something sitting there that gives you the opportunity to make life for your family. How are you and your husband coping?'

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Peter and Sylvia married in 2017 in the idyllic Kangaroo Valley, in NSW.
Mali's Opposition Leader Soumalia Cisse was buried on Friday in Bamako following his death from COVID-19 last week.

A public ceremony was held in the Malian capital for Cisse who died at a Paris hospital on 25 December.

Cisse's death at the age of 71 throws Malian politics into new uncertainty.

He was the runner-up in the country's past three presidential elections and was thought to have a high chance of winning the next poll in 2022.

He was taken hostage by al-Qaida-affiliated jihadis in March while campaigning for legislative elections in his hometown of Niafunke in northern Mali.

Amid public pressure, the Malian government obtained his liberation in October, along with that of French and Italian hostages, in exchange for the release of around 200 jihadis from Malian prisons.

(Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed; only the image & headline may have been reworked by www.republicworld.com)
Officials with the Rock County Sheriffs Office and police departments in Janesville and Beloit said they have not seen any rise in marijuana possession charges this year  though they caution the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic may cloud the data as it has drastically affected businesses and travel.
The management of the University of Ghana (UG) says the double track academic calendar scheduled to commence mid-January 2021 will offer a safe and an uninterrupted academic year.



The modular arrangement according to the university will be for the 2021 and 2022 academic year.



This, according to the university is to help minimize the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on campus among students, lecturers and staff.



It is also to lessen the burden of accommodation for students on campus.



Per the new arrangement, fresh men and final year students will go to school for nine weeks starting mid-January 2021 whilst level 200 and 300 will go between April and June.



Some students have expressed worries about the arrangement and said they were not excited about it.



Some have said the double track system was very questionable as they do not know what it entails considering the workload which they think could affect their academic performance.



Others think it would be very stressful for them.



There are some who also think that it is very innovative.



But reacting and defending the move, the Pro-Vice Chancellor in charge of students and academic affairs, Professor Nana Aba Appiah Amfo said, What we are planning to do now, is [that] normally a semester runs for 16 weeks including examinations.



This time around this is for the undergraduate students, we are going to have [a total of] nine weeks, six weeks of lessons, teaching, a week of revision and two weeks of examination, Prof Amfo told Joy News in an interview monitored by Graphic Online.





We run a course credit system and so it is about contact hours so what this means is that contact hours per week will be increased.



[When] everything comes back to normal i.e. have all our students on campus, all four streams and our graduate students as well, remember that this demands a lot of work on the part of [and] out of our faculty and staff so this is not something anybody wants to be the norm. We will as soon as things are favourable return to normal, Prof Amfo said.



Last week following the expression of misgivings about the new arrangement, it came to light that student leaders of the University of Ghana gave their approval to the proposal by the management to adopt the double-track system for the 2020/2021 academic year.



Mrs Lydia Nyarko-Danquah, who is the head of the teaching and examinations unit of the Academic Affairs Directorate of the University stated that leaders of the Students Representative Council and the Graduate Students Association were in a meeting where the academic calendar was discussed.



Her intervention contradicted claims by some students that management of the university took an individual decision.



Mrs Nyarko-Danquah spoke to Radio Univers, a University of Ghana campus radio station and added that there was proper consultation with student leaders on the model it wants to run for the 2020/2021 academic year.



Related: UG: Student leaders approved double-track model for 20/21 academic year  Management



Initially, we put out a calendar for the start of the semester in November 2020 and that is what was suspended. Before that calendar came out, the student leaders, that is GRASAG and SRC, had a discussion with senior management and that is what came out. On the basis of that calendar, we have this calendar. Everything is the same its just that the dates have been updated, she said



Mrs. Nyarko-Danquah stressed that the decision to allow students to come in batches was in the best interest of students.



She added that the decision was taken in order to reduce the risk of COVID-19 spreading among members of the university community.



We are running the double-track because we care about our students health. Covid is with us and we cannot take it for granted. We are running it so we keep to the protocols, keep our students safe and make sure that our students also get the quality that they need, Mrs. Nyarko-Danquah said.



On the mode of teaching for the academic year, she indicated that lectures will be mainly held online.



As much as possible, lectures will be held online, but then there are exceptions. It depends on the course and the examiner. But in most cases, we are encouraging our examiners to have their classes online.



The Management of the University of Ghana on Tuesday, December 22, 2020 released its academic calendar for the 2020/2021 academic year.



They have appointed Monday, January 18, 2021, for the start of teaching activities for newly admitted students and final year students.



Teaching activities will end for these students on Friday, February 26, 2021, after which there will be a two-week period for the main first-semester examination.



The first semester for the level 100s and 400s will end on Sunday, March 21, 2021.



These two groups of students are expected to report between Thursday, June 17, and Sunday, June 20, 2021, for the start of their second semester of the academic year.



First-semester teaching activities for second-year and third-year students will commence on Monday, April 5, 2021, after a disinfection exercise has been undertaken on the campus.

Source: Graphiconline.com









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THE Harare City Council (HCC) says its capacity to meet service delivery as the new year starts has been paralysed after the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) garnished $115 million from its bank accounts for tax arrears.

In a statement, the HCC said it was already struggling to make payments to service providers to ensure water treatment, refuse collection and pay its workers.

The City of Harare wishes to advise residents and ratepayers that the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) last week garnished our bank accounts demanding full payment of $115 million in outstanding taxes, HCC said.

The garnishee order is adversely affecting the councils daily operations as the city cannot honour payments to service providers, including fuel and water treatment chemical suppliers. This has seen the city failing to collect refuse in time, resulting in garbage piling up across the city.

The city is resultantly failing to pay its workers. Management is currently engaging the revenue collector to seek relief so that available resources can be ploughed into service delivery. Revenue inflows have been greatly affected by the effects of Covid-19.

Although residents said there was a need for HCC and Zimra to engage considering the effects of Covid-19, they blamed the local authority for lack of financial prudence.

The City of Harare is justified to complain about the inappropriate action by the revenue authority. However, the City of Harare was fully aware of their obligations to the tax collector. Despite that knowledge, they have recruited nearly 3 500 workers since July 2018 through a partisan process that involved a group of councillors recruiting their party activists into the council employment, Harare Residents Trust leader Precious Shumba said in a statement.

Covid-19 has worsened the ability of Harare City Council and other local authorities to purchase water treatment chemicals and fuel, which both require foreign currency

The Local Government ministry has failed to support local authorities by not appointing the local government board, which has the legal mandate to finalise recruitment and dismissal of senior council workers.

Shumba added that without substantive directors in the finance department, water, human resources and chamber secretary for the past three years, the situation for the local authority was untenable and unsustainable.

Community Water Alliance leader Hardlife Mudzingwa echoed similar sentiments, adding that the maladministration at HCC had become political. Daily News
On the first day of 2021, President Donald Trump signaled the war to come within the Republican Party.

"I hope to see the great Governor of South Dakota @KristiNoem run against RINO @SenJohnThune in the upcoming 2022 Primary," he tweeted. "She would do a fantastic job in the U.S. Senate, but if not Kristi, others are already lining up. South Dakota wants strong leadership, NOW!"

What offense had Thune, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, committed? Certainly not breaking with Trump's agenda over the past four years -- as the South Dakota senator voted with the President 93.6% of the time, according to calculations made by 538. (That was the same score as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.)

No, what Thune "did' to Trump is publicly acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. "I understand there are people who feel strongly about the outcome of this election, but in the end, at some point, you have to face the music," Thune told the New York Times last month.

And, say that the planned congressional challenge to the Electoral College on January 6 would a) not succeed and b) put lots of Republicans in a terrible political position.

"I think the thing they got to remember is, it's not going anywhere," Thune told CNN last month. "I mean in the Senate, it would go down like a shot dog. I just don't think it makes a lot of sense to put everybody through this when you know what the ultimate outcome is going to be."

For stating these facts, Trump is actively encouraging Noem, the state's governor and an ardent Trump-er, to take on Thune.

And, make no mistake: This isn't about ideology -- as Trump seems to suggest in his tweet attacking Thune as a "RINO" (Republican in name only). Thune has spent much of the last two decades serving in the House and Senate, and racking up a solidly conservative voting record. His American Conservative Union lifetime score is almost 85. (Fellow South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds has a 75 conservative score.)

Trump's push for a primary challenge to Thune then is solely about the President believing that the senator is not sufficiently loyal. And "loyalty" is defined as supporting his baseless conspiracy theories about the election and/or attempting to overturn the results by extra-legal means.

Thune is not the first Republican elected official who Trump has threatened over a lack of loyalty.

In the wake of his November defeat in Georgia, Trump has repeatedly pushed Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, a Trump loyalist through and through, to find a way to overturn the results.

When, after several recounts, Kemp said he had no way of changing the outcome, Trump began attacking him -- and casting around for a primary challenge in 2022.

"Doug, you want to run for governor in two years?," Trump asked of GOP Rep. Doug Collins at a rally for Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in advance of their January 5 runoff races."He'd be a good-looking governor."

The standard being set here by Trump is clear: If you don't support his fact-free attempts to overturn the election, he will cast you as not a "real" Republican -- and work to find someone more loyal to him to take you on.

Which brings me up to the debate -- and vote -- coming this week in Congress over objections in regard to the Electoral College registered by Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley as well as a handful of die-hard Trumpers in the House.

That vote will almost certainly be used by Trump as a loyalty litmus test going forward. Either you vote with him (and against, well, you know, a little thing called democracy) or he will find someone to run against you the next time you are up for reelection.

"One of the GOP senators up for re-election in '22 acknowledged that voting against Trump may spur a primary challenge," tweeted Punchbowl News' John Bresnahan on Friday. "'This is a problem for me,' said the senator, who asked not to be named."

Yup! Big time! (Remember, too, that Senate Republicans already have plenty to worry about in 2022; they have to defend -- as of today -- 21 seats as compared to just 13 for Democrats.)

What Trump's threats against Thune and Kemp suggest is that the outgoing President is entirely comfortable ripping the Republican Party in two: Those who back him until the bitter end (and beyond) and those who, well, don't.

Which, if it comes to pass, is an utter disaster for the near-term (and maybe middle and long term ) future of the GOP. A fissure that creates a Trump party and a Republican Party would likely lead to losses up and down the ballot in swing seats and states -- as there are simply not enough Republicans in the country to split themselves up and still win.

Smart conservative minds -- like Thune and McConnell -- understand this math. Trump either doesn't or doesn't care. Either way, what he is threatening to do to the Republican Party could leave it badly damaged for years to come.
KABUL (Reuters) - An Afghan journalist was shot dead in a car ambush in the central province of Ghor, the fifth media professional to be killed in the country in two months, officials said on Saturday.

Bismellah Adel Aimaq, 28, the editor-in-chief of Sada-e-Ghor (Voice of Ghor) radio station, was killed near Firoz Koh city, the capital of Ghor, on Friday.

No militant group has claimed responsibility for the killing.

Unfortunately, Bismellah Adel Aimaq, the head of Sada-e Ghor Radio, was killed by unknown gunmen this evening in Firoz Koh.

"He was 28 years old, and started working with Sada-e-Ghor Radio since 2015, said Habibollah Radmanesh, the deputy governor of Ghor.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani condemned the killing and said his government was committed to supporting and promoting freedom of expression.

"The Taliban and other terrorist groups could not silence the legitimate voices of journalists and the media by carrying out such attacks," he said in a tweet.

A civil society activist was also killed on Friday by unknown militants.

Targeted killings of journalists, government officials and rights activists, have increased rapidly in recent months as violence surges in Afghanistan despite peace talks between the government and the Taliban.

The Taliban stated in December it was not involved in the killing of media professionals.

(Reporting by Orooj Hakimi, Writing by Rupam Jain, Editing by Neil Fullick)
Another District Court judge needs to be appointed to County Kildare, according to the local judge Desmond Zaidan.

Im the busiest District Court judge in Ireland, he said, at a sitting of the court in Naas more than once during the year, adding that there are statistics to prove the fact.

There is only one judge and this county needs a second judge, he added.

He said he cannot keep apologising for the lack of judges and delays in the District Court system in County Kildare.

Blaming the political system for the failure to make another appointment, he said: People are coming into the court and they just see the judge, they dont see the politicians or the Oireachtas.

Judge Zaidan was the fourth busiest judge in the country in 2014 after it was revealed that he handled over 13,000 District Court cases in the space of 12 months.

Figures published in the Irish Times shows that District 25, which takes in Naas, Athy and Kilcock courthouses, was the sixth busiest district for court cases in 2014, with some 13,223 cases passing through the doors.

Limerick and Cork were the two busiest districts in the country, but Limerick had two judges sitting over the 24,542 cases, while three different judges presided over the 33,687 cases in the Cork district.

The highest amount of cases handled by a single judge was in the Ennis/Gort district, with Judge Patrick Durcan working his way through 14,984 cases in 2014.

Delay

The issue arose again when it emerged that a relatively routine careless driving case  arising from a non-fatal road accident which occurred in July 2016 - was only dealt with on October 14 at Naas courthouse.

The matter, involving a young man from County Cork, had been listed four times for hearing, but his case was not reached for hearing on any occasion.

This is because of the volume of cases being heard. It amounts to a systems failure; the man turned up each and every time, said solicitor Conal Boyce.
TOLAND (nee King), Grania, 1st January 2021 at Melmount Manor Nursing Home, beloved wife of the late Bobby, formerly of Culmore Road, loving mother of Mary, Grania, James, Maeve and Robert, mother-in-law of Gerry, Padraig, Siobhan, Martin and Fionnula and a much loved grandmother. Funeral restricted to family and close friends only due to the Coronavirus pandemic restrictions. Queen of the Most Holy Rosary pray for her.

EDWARD, Valerie, 31st December 2020,, beloved partner of the late Robert Carlin,10 Top of the Hill. Family and friends are welcome to pay their respects at W.J. OBrien & Sons Funeral Home, 110 Clooney Road, Eglinton on Saturday from 6 to 7pm. Sadly, funeral restricted to family and close friends only please, due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Requiem Mass can be viewed via the webcam. Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, pray for her.

SHIVERS (nee Kearney) (1 Mc Gurk Villas, Gulladuff) 1st January 2021 Susan RIP, beloved wife of the late James, much loved mother of Patrick and loving sister of John, Tony, Annie Mary, Kathleen (Mc Cabe) and the late Joey, Pat and Brigid (Downey). Susans remains are reposing in WJ ODonnell Sons Funeral Home, 85 Innishrush Road, Clady. Friends and family are welcome to pay their respects from 5pm on Saturday 2nd January until 6pm whereby her remains will then be removed to St. Marys Church Lavey. Requiem Mass on Sunday 3rd January at 12.30pm via webcam (https://churchmedia.tv/camera/church-of-our-lady-of-mercy) followed by burial immediately afterwards in the adjoining cemetery. Deeply regretted by her sorrowing son, brothers, sisters, sister in law, nephews, nieces and all the family circle. Our Lady of Lourdes pray for her. Detail enquires to: WJ ODonnell & Sons Funeral Directors Tel : 028 2582 2242 or visit: nifunerals.com NB: Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic Susans wake and funeral will be Strictly Private. Mourners are welcome to stand outside the Funeral Home or the Church to pay their respects, whilst maintaining social distancing.

KIRK, Gerry, 1st January 2021 beloved husband of Elizabeth, formerly of The Wells, loving father of Declan, dear father-in-law of Maria and much loved grandfather of Christian and Natalie. Sadly, funeral restricted to family only please, due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Requiem Mass can be viewed live via St Mary's Church, Creggan website. Family flowers only please. Donations in lieu of flowers, if wished, to Friends of Altnagelvin (Ward 42), C/o Mr Brian Moran, MDEC Unit, Altnagelvin Hospital, Glenshane Road, Derry, BT47 6SB. Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on his soul.

LONG (nee Harte), Martha (Matty), 1st January 2021 peacefully at Altnagelvin Hospital on her 92nd birthday, beloved wife of the late James, loving mother of Alex, Lester, Charlotte and Andrew, mother-in-law of Robert and much loved grandmother of Sarah and Stewart and great-grandmother of Emily, Tyler, Zach and Jude. Sadly, funeral restricted to family only please, due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Family flowers only please. Donations in lieu of flowers, if wished, to Faughanvale Presbyterian Church Sunshine Club, Killylane Road, Eglinton, Co Londonderry, BT47 3DW. The Lord is my shepherd.

MEYLER (nee McKenna) December 31, 2020, Dolores R.I.P formerly Tullybrick, Draperstown passed away in hospital in Dublin. Beloved wife of Keith and loving mother of Laura and Mary. Funeral will leave Murray's Funeral Home on Monday January 4 at 10.45am to the Holy Rosary Church, Draperstown for 11.00am Requiem Mass. Burial afterwards to St. Patrick's Church, Sixtowns. Deeply regretted by her sorrowing husband, daughters, brothers Thomas, Pat Joe, Gerald, Stephen, Sean, Gabriel, Colm, Christopher and Vincent, sisters Mary Archibald, Kathleen, Teresa McGlade, Veronica, Roisin Quinn, Celine Glass and entire family circle. Sacred Heart of Jesus have mercy on her soul. Sadly due to the new government restrictions the wake and Funeral will be strictly private (immediate family). Requiem Mass will be broadcast live on Ballinascreen Parish webcam (www.parishofballinascreen.com)

HOCTOR, 31st December 2020, suddenly at Altnagelvin Hospital, HAYLEY (late of Ederowen Park), beloved daughter of Bernadette and Peter, loving sister of Ashley, and a dear and loving granddaughter and niece. Dearly loved and will be sadly missed by the entire family circle. Sadly, due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, the wake and funeral are strictly private for immediate family and close friends only. Sacred Heart of Jesus have mercy on her soul. Our Lady of Lourdes intercede for her.

RODGERS, Jimmy, We regret to inform you that the death has taken place of Jimmy Rogers peacefully at home on the 1st of January 2021, may he rest in peace. Late of 286 Foreglen Road, Dungiven, Co Derry. Beloved husband of Margaret and loving father of Karen, Damien and Tracy. Dear brother of Paddy, Joe, John, Terry, Julie, Bridget, Ann and the late Peter, Barney and Mary R.I.P. Reposing at his late residence, Funeral from there on Sunday 3rd of January leaving at 12noon for 1pm Requiem Mass in St Eugenes Moneyneena, interment immediately afterwards in the adjoining cemetery. Sadly due to the ongoing pandemic the wake is for family and friends only and the numbers at the funeral mass are strictly limited. Funeral mass will be live streamed via https://www.facebook.com/Mclaughlinfuneraldirectors/ Family flowers only and donations if desired in lieu to Foyle Hospice c/o McLaughlin Funeral Directors. Deeply regretted and will be sadly missed by all his loving family. St Joseph patron of the departed souls pray from him.

COLLINS, Kathleen, 31st December 2020 Peacefully in the Foyle Hospice. Late of Killaloo. Dearly Beloved wife of the late Cecil. Devoted Mother of Jonathan, Matthew and Catherine. Mother-in-Law of Ciara. Loving Granny of Eleora and Zachery. R.I.P. Due to the current restrictions a private family funeral will take place in St Columbas Church Long Tower on Saturday 2nd January 2021, followed by Burial in Ballyoan Cemetery. Family Flowers only. Donations if desired made payable to the Foyle Hospice, 61 Culmore Road, Londonderry BT48 8JE. All Enquires to Adair and Neely Funeral Directors 02871311321 Will be deeply missed by her loving family and Friends.

SPENCE (nee Boyd), Kathleen, December 31, 2020 Peacefully at Altnagelvin Hospital (in the tender loving care of her family in her 82nd year) formerly of 33, Parkmore Drive, Strathfoyle, dearly beloved wife of the late Billy, devoted mum of Margaret, loving mother-in-law of William adored granny of Ryan, Bradd and the late Tara, dearest sister of Frank, William, and the late Etta. Funeral service at D & R Hay & Sons Funeral Home, 24A, Church Road, Altnagelvin, Londonderry BT47 3QQ on Saturday 2nd January at 12.00noon funeral is restricted to immediate family and friends, followed by burial in Ballyoan Cemetery. Family flowers only donations in lieu if desired cheques made payable to W.H.& S.C.T. Altnagelvin Hospital Ward 42, c/o Mrs Ruth Hay, Funeral Director above address. Dearly loved and will be greatly missed by her entire family circle. At the rivers crystal brink, Christ shall join each broken link.

DEERY, Brian (Co Derry), Beloved son of the late Patrick and Pauline. Passed away at home on Christmas Day May he rest in peace. Funeral on Thursday 7th January 2021 at 11.30am in OKanes Funeral Home. Sadly, due to government restrictions, the funeral is private to family and close friends, but the service will be webcast from the funeral home. Family flowers only. Donations in lieu, if wished, to the Northlands Centre C/o OKanes Funeral Directors 116-118 Donegall Street, Belfast BT1 2GX (HYPERLINK "Tel:028" Tel:028 90243129) or online at HYPERLINK "http://www.okanesfunerals.co.uk" www.okanesfunerals.co.uk.

BEST (nee Simpson) - December 31st 2020 (peacefully) at Brooklands Nursing Home, Louise Maude, beloved Wife of the late Jack, formerly of Crew Drive and latterly of Mullagh Court, Maghera, much loved Mother of Ian, Richard, Mark and Joanne, a dear Mother-in-Law of Pauline, Beverley and Michael, devoted Grandmother of Kayt, Matthew, Sarah, Adam, Kyle, Jacob and Lucy. House and funeral strictly private, due to government guidelines. Maude's funeral cortege will leave D. Watters Funeral Home on Saturday, January 2nd at 10:15am (approx.) for a private Service and Burial in Lurgan Cemetery. Friends and Family are welcome to stand outside the Funeral Home or along the route via the Desertmartin Road, to pay their respects whilst maintaining social distancing. Family flowers only please. Donations in lieu, if desired, to The Salvation Army, payable to D. Watters (Donations A/c), 55 Main Street, Tobermore Magherafelt BT45 5PP. Will be sadly missed by her sorrowing Family and Family Circle.
Brexit: Fishing in troubled waters View(s):

All around the country, its the Great Ocean; nevertheless, we still have to import fish for our meal. You must have heard this many times. Some may lament over it thinking that its wrong economics; they may even argue that it is a problem of not having enough import controls.

The UK is also facing a similar problem. While the country is surrounded by the ocean and there is a vibrant fisheries industry too, 70 per cent of fish consumed in the UK is said to be imported. The UK exports fish, but it imports more than that! For instance, in 2018 the UK had exported US$2.2 billion worth fish, but imported $2.8 billion worth fish. Why didnt the UK think of saving that foreign exchange by controlling fish imports?

The UKs cry was not for controlling fish imports, neither for protecting the domestic fish industry from imported fish. It was rather the opposite: The UK wanted to avoid the impending import duties that were due to come into effect on January 1 of the New Year, as a result of winding-up free trade with the EU. Import duties after the Brexit would have affected the countrys fish imports, resulting in less choices and higher prices in the UK. Equally worrying was that the new import duties in the EU against the UKs exports were due to make the UK exports expensive and uncompetitive in the EU countries too. Thus, the UKs four- and half-year long struggle was to defend its free trade with the EU even after leaving the EU.

As far as the fishing industry is concerned, the UKs biggest issue was sharing the fishing rights between the UK and the EU. The economic contribution of the fisheries industry to the UK economy is not at all a big deal. This industry employs only 24,000 people out of 33 million labour force and makes only a tiny contribution to the countrys GDP. Similarly, even fish exports worth $490 billion add less than 0.5 per cent to the UKs total exports.

Nevertheless, it is a politically sensitive key issue in the UK-EU negotiations for a Brexit deal. The issue is important not only for the fishing industry of the UK, but also for some of the EU-member countries such as France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and Denmark which have been fishing in the same waters.

Deal on Christmas Eve

All hopes to leave the EU with a deal were fading away as the deadline for the Brexit transition was approaching. The people on both sides were also preparing to deal with the new situation after the deadline. Finally, the COVID pandemic issue also multiplied the confusion, negating every hope for a deal. Just a few days before the end of the Brexit transition, the deadlock was broken; as a surprise, here comes a Brexit deal on the Christmas Eve.

The UK has now left the EU  the economic union of the 27 European nations which guarantees free movement of goods, services, money and people with harmonized policies and regulations. However, the Brexit deal ensured some form of relationship of the UK to the EU. The deal was aimed at retaining some of the benefits of integration and at avoiding some frictions of the broken relationship.

Lets take a look at some of the salient features of the deal to figure out to which extent the UK has secured its economic benefits that it enjoyed for nearly 50 years of its integration with the EU.

The Brexit deal covers a wide range of areas for collaboration and integration which would make it different from any category of standard agreements such as a Free Trade Area (FTA) or Custom Union or any other. At the outset, it appears to be that the agreement is on issue-based in order to keep the door open for some of the areas for collaboration and integration, while closing the door for others after leaving the pact. Perhaps, it may be the reason why the agreement is also as lengthy as more than 1,200 pages.

Half-baked free trade

The Brexit deal, of course, covers trade in goods between the UK and the EU; but it does not necessarily mean that trade in services has been covered too. This makes it less than a full FTA, which would entail free trade in both goods and services. However, one of the grave economic concerns was that merchandise trade between the UK and the EU would contract after Brexit because there would be import duties, quota restrictions, and customs procedures on both sides. This would make EU goods imported to the UK more expensive, and the UK goods exported to the EU more expensive too.

As per the agreement, there will be no import duties or quota restrictions on trade so that current free trade between the UK and the EU will continue; but there will be customs procedures on both sides so that trade is not as free as it used to be.

It is not yet clear about the agreement on trade in services, which is distinctively important for the UK economy. The UK is a service-sector economy with over 70 per cent value added contribution to GDP and over 80 per cent contribution to employment. The sector is dominated by finance, transport, ICT, trade, and hotels and restaurants. When the economy was hit by the 2009 global financial crisis, the fast recovery of the UK economy was also driven by its quickly-recovered service sector.

Service trade is different from merchandise trade, because the supplying and buying should take place at the same location and at the same time. You cannot buy a haircut while you are at home and your service supplier is at his barber shop; you both must meet either at your home or at his barber shop. Free trade in services is hindered not by trade taxes but regulations. As the compatibility of the regulatory mechanisms is no longer valid after the separation of the UK from the EU, it has to be worked out in order to facilitate trade in services.

A new episode

Even though the Brexit deal does not cover both trade in goods and services, it has covered many other issues pertaining to the separation of the UK from the EU. Of course, fishing rights in British waters have been recognised in favour of the UK. In addition, the other areas that have been addressed include travel and visa, EU insurance, fair competition, dispute resolution, sharing of data and information, security issues, and the European law. In most of these areas, the new set up under the Brexit deal is different from what the UK enjoyed previously.

A peculiar area in which the post-Brexit outcome is not yet clear is the economic and political implications of the deal on the position of Northern Ireland, which didnt vote for Brexit and which didnt want a hard border with the Republic of Ireland.

The political leaders of Northern Ireland have welcomed the deal. Obviously, trade in goods with no import duties and quota restrictions is a positive move to maintain a soft border between the two countries  Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland; it is, indeed, a soft border between the UK and the EU, in reality. But the differences that the deal has created between the UK and the EU are far more important than free trade in goods too.

By implication, Northern Ireland is likely to have a closer relationship with the EU (through its soft border with the Republic of Ireland) than UKs relationship with the EU (as outlined in the Brexit deal). This means that Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK would be different from what they appeared to be previously under the EU system. Brexit with a deal is not the end of the story, but rather the beginning of a new episode of the same story.

(The writer is a Professor of Economics at the University of Colombo and can be reached at sirimal@econ.cmb.ac.lk and follow on Twitter @SirimalAshoka).
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Ukraine has particular hopes for the involvement of the OSCE in the work of the Crimean platform.

Ukraine's First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Emine Dzhaparova (Dzheppar) has said Ann Linde, Sweden's Foreign Minister and the new OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, will pay her first foreign visit in her new capacity to Ukraine.

"We welcome the Swedish side's intention to focus its efforts on strengthening respect for the European security order and resolving conflicts in the OSCE area," she wrote on Facebook on January 1.

Read alsoPresident's Office names priorities in 2021"It is symbolic that Ann Linde plans to pay her first foreign visit in her new capacity to Ukraine. We are expecting her in Kyiv as early as this month. We hope that this visit will be an important occasion for the OSCE head to see the consequences of Russia's ongoing aggression and the temporary occupation by the Russian Federation of parts of Ukraine's territory," she added.

Dzhaparova noted that Ukraine has particular hopes for the involvement of the OSCE in the work of the Crimean platform. She added that during the visit it is planned to discuss in detail the practical aspects of its implementation.

"Sweden has traditionally supported Ukraine, being one of our greatest friends. Therefore, we look forward to close cooperation in this new format for our countries in 2021," she added.

Other related news reports

Reporting by UNIAN
State Senator Ben Chafin Jr. of Virginia died on Jan. 1 at the age of 60 after contracting the infectious and deadly COVID-19.

The first day of 2021 was a sad day for people living in Virginia as they lost Chafin from COVID-19 complications.

After contracting the virus, the lawmaker has been hospitalized at the VCU Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia, where he was treated and given medical attention, but to no avail. The senator is survived by his wife and three children.

Read: California Reports First Case of New COVID-19 Strain

Virginia Senator Dies From COVID-19

The deadly COVID-19 continues to claim millions of lives across the country, including prominent persons like Virginia state Sen. Ben Chafin Jr., according to a published article in WRAL.com.

A statement released by his office confirmed the lawmaker's death.

"State Senator Augustus Benton (Ben) Chafin, Jr., a native son of Russell County located in Southwest Virginia, passed away on January 1, 2021, from Covid-19 complications," the statement read.

The Republican lawmaker's family thanked all the healthcare workers at the VCU Medical Center for "its vigorous care and heartfelt support during his two weeks of medical services there."

Chafin will always be remembered in Virginia because of his milestone as a lawmaker.

Chafin, a lawyer and a cattle farmer, served Virginia's 38th District before elected to the state's House of Delegates in 2013. In 2014, he was elected to the state Senate.

Read also: CBP, ICE Report Thousands of Border Arrests and Seizures

State of Virginia Honors Sen. Ben Chafin Jr.

Chafin's office honored him and described him as "a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, economic development and health care coverage for hundreds of thousands of low-income Virginians." These are just a few of his significant contributions to the state and for the Virginians.

His office added that "he advocated jobs in his district, particularly in the coalfields where the decline of coal has devastated local economies."

Virginia Democratic Governor Ralph Northam ordered Friday the state flag atop Virginia's Capitol to fly at half-staff until the senator's internment.

In a statement, Northam said: "I knew Ben as a lawmaker, an attorney, a banker, and a farmer raising beef cattle in Moccasin Valley, working the land just as generations of his family had done before him."

The governor noted that Chafin "loved the outdoors" and serving people.

"He pushed hard to bring jobs and investment to his district, and I will always be grateful for his courageous vote to expand health care for people who need it," he added.

The state governor said losing a kind and gracious man like Chafin was sad news to begin the new year. While saying this, Northam reminded everyone to take extra steps in taking good care of each other against the COVID-19.

California Congressman tests positive for COVID-19

Meanwhile, California Congressman David Valadao announced Saturday that he has tested positive for COVID-19.

The lawmaker, who represents the 21st District of California, noted that he received a rapid antigen COVID-19 test on Friday afternoon that returned a positive result.

Valadao tweeted that he will work and quarantine from his Hanford home in the meantime.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been rated highest among global leaders, the BJPs president JP Nadda said on Saturday citing research by an American firm. According to news agency PTI, Morning Consult has said over 75 per cent people approve of PM Modi while 20 per cent disapprove, putting his net approval rating at 55 per cent. This is higher than any other world leader the firm tracks, it said.

Our PM has yet again emerged the most popular head of Government for his efficient handling of various issues and management of the COVID-19 crisis, he said in a tweet.

Nadda asserted that the rating by Morning Consult was a testimony of the Prime Ministers able leadership and hard work and is a thing of pride for all citizens of the country. Ever since the Modi-led government came into power, peoples trust in the government and the faith that nation is progressing in the right direction has risen drastically, he added.

In another post, Nadda hailed Modi as one of the most popular leaders across all regions in India and his acceptance across the globe. Hon PM @narendramodi jis popularity not only rises unabated across all demographic groups & geographic regions of the country and he also gets a thumbs up globally for his dedication to his country. PM Modi ranks Number 1 among all global leaders in this challenging times, the BJP president tweeted.

Hon PM @narendramodi jis popularity not only rises unabated across all demographic groups & geographic regions of the country and he also gets a thumbs up globally for his dedication to his country. PM Modi ranks Number 1 among all global leaders in this challenging times.  Jagat Prakash Nadda (@JPNadda) January 2, 2021

In April last year, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had shared findings of the same US research firm, according to which Modis popularity was increasing at a rapid rate then. @PMOIndia leads #IndiaFightsCorona from the front. Consistent high approval ratings for @narendramodi. Nation has confidence in its leadership in an extraordinary situation due to a pandemic, Sitharaman had tweeted on April 22 along with charts reflecting public opinion based approval ratings of world leaders.

Public opinion based approval ratings of world leaders shown in the charts. @PMOIndia leads #IndiaFightsCorona from the front. Consistent high approval ratings for @narendramodi. Nation has confidence in its leadership in an extraordinary situation due a pandemic. pic.twitter.com/fwrRDsp0o7  Nirmala Sitharaman (@nsitharaman) April 22, 2020

Truth is self evident!



Entire world is praising PM @narendramodi, the way he is handling COVID-19 global pandemic, taking care of Indians and helping the world community in such challenging times. Every Indian is feeling safe and trusts his leadership. pic.twitter.com/caq5y8Hjio  Amit Shah (@AmitShah) April 23, 2020

Union home minister Amit Shah had also hailed the Prime Minister for the global praise he was receiving in the backdrop of the Covid-19 fight that Modi led in India. Truth is self evident! Entire world is praising PM @narendramodi, the way he is handling COVID-19 global pandemic, taking care of Indians and helping the world community in such challenging times. Every Indian is feeling safe and trusts his leadership, Shah had tweeted on April 23, 2020.
Misreading the 69 lakshaya mantra  no extra powers conferred View(s):

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa obtained 69 lakhs of votes at the Presidential Elections in November 2019 to be elected as the Head of State and Head of Government. Since then the phrase heta nama lakshaya (sixty nine lakhs) has become a catch phrase and is often used on political platforms.

The current usage of the phrase particularly by those supporting the Government reveals a total misreading and misinterpretation of the number of votes received by the President as a justification of Governmental actions irrespective of the merits or otherwise of such actions.

It is particularly used when opposition is expressed to any action of the Government with the counter that 69 lakhs of votes were cast in favour of the President in order to carry out such actions.

Victory at an election only gives the winner the legal authority to govern. But such governance has to be within the framework of the Constitution and the laws of the country. The margin of victory does not give any additional power to govern and implement policies that are politically advantageous to the Government but detrimental to the country at large.

The fact that the number of votes obtained has gone to the heads of some Government politicos as well as those individuals and organisations who claim they were responsible for bringing the Government to power is evident from the arrogant tone of their speeches when they confront those who express a view that is different to the Government on any matter.

The COVID- 19 Pandemic posed unexpected challenges to Governments all over the world including that of Sri Lanka.

The Public Health issues around the pandemic and the economic fall out would have tested the capabilities of any Government. The present Government too had to face up to this unexpected challenge from the beginning of 2020.

In such a context it would have been prudent and empowering for the Government to unite the whole country to face up to the situation arising from the pandemic. A Joint Committee of the Government, Opposition and other strands of society including civil society and religious leaders to coordinate and give leadership in the form of a National Response would not only have strengthened the Governments hand but would have brought the country together.

Instead the Government was still intoxicated with the  Heta Nama Laksha feeling and preferred to go it alone in the belief that they could take the sole credit for any success achieved in combatting the COVID- 19 first wave. In fact the triumphalism of the Government was on public display with Government spokesmen making statements such as we are winning when the Government was successfully containing the spread of the virus during the early days.

However recent months have shown that things have gone completely wrong with the spread of the virus to all parts of the country. It is not a coincidence that the failure of the Government to combat the second wave of the virus is the absence of top Health officials who handled the first wave like Dr. Anil Jasinghe, Dr. Jayaruwan Bandara and Dr. Paba Palihawadana to name a few. While the current crop of Health Officials are making every effort to manage and contain the second wave, their efforts would have been greatly benefited from the experience gained by the officials who were in the frontline during the first wave.

Even now it is not too late for the Government to enlist the support of the Opposition and other sections of society and make the task of combatting the spread of the virus a truly National Effort.

What is even worse is the Governments action of creating a new polarising issue of denying burial rights to those who die of COVID-19 As a result it has created created a great deal of anguish in the Muslim community and succeeded in alienating a section of Sri Lankan society.

While the Government is reluctant to take the step of bring the whole country on board, it has now taken the unprecedented step of appointing Army officials to each of the 25 Districts to coordinate the COVID-19 response. Such a task is right up the sleeve of the Government Agents of such districts and the Governments move to appoint Army officials is sure to create contradictions between the two agencies which can in turn undermine the efforts of Health Ministry officials.

Another instance of the 69 lakhs mentality was the Governments preoccupation with the 20th Amendment while the Covid 19 virus was spreading in the country. When all its energies should have been directed in resolving the Public Health issues facing the country, instead the Government was more focussed on the draconian 20th Amendment.

Such an attitude on the part of the Government was all the more inexplicable because the Government had already announced that one of its priorities was to enact a new Constitution. It would have been more logical for the Government to have postponed the changes to the 19th Amendment to be included in the new Constitution and instead concentrated its efforts to contain the second wave of the Corona 19 virus.

Even after the enactment of the 20th Amendment which was touted as being essential for decisive decision making there has been no qualitative change visible.

An example of this is the Governments lackadaisical approach to obtaining the vaccines for the virus. While several countries the world over have commenced administering the vaccine to its citizens, Sri Lanka seems to be at the end of the line of countries queueing up for the vaccine.

In fact it is not clear whether Sri Lanka has joined the queue at all because it is only now that the Government is attempting to source the funds necessary for the vaccines.. The Governments decision to appoint Presidential Advisor Lalith Weeratunge to lead the effort to obtain the vaccine is a good one, although belated. (javidyusuf@gmail.com)
Ensuring sustainability in the pharma industry View(s):

The Sri Lanka Chamber of the Pharmaceutical Industry (SLCPI) has reiterated its commitment towards ensuring the availability of efficacious, safe and good quality medicines to the general public, in 2021.

A top priority for the chamber this year is the implementation of a fair pricing mechanism, to ensure the availability of efficacious, safe and good quality medicines, medical devices and borderline products to the general public.

At present, the Government and regulators depend on ad-hoc price controls on medicine and pharmaceuticals to keep prices in check. This mechanism has proven to be unsustainable in the long run, the chamber said in a media release.

Presently, the National Medicine Regulatory Authority of Sri Lanka has imposed a price ceiling on 73 molecules with the intention of making these medicines more affordable and accessible to patients.

The lack of a proper mechanism for the regulation of prices along with high regulatory fees has negatively impacted the industry, which is already burdened by fragile market conditions owing to COVID-19 and a depreciating rupee, making importing drugs more expensive.

What we need right now is a rational mechanism that is simple and workable. Pharmaceutical pricing is complex as we are dealing with medicines, patients and the countrys healthcare needs. It is essential to take a collaborative approach between the industry and regulators on the best way forward, said SLCPI Vice President Sanjiva Wijesekera.

He said emerging technologies are transforming the pharmaceutical sector, and members are integrating new technology in their day-to-day operations.

The pharma industry is striving to maintain a balance between the need for novel medicinal drugs, improved operational efficiencies, and innovation in areas such as precision medicine, wearables, and digital therapeuticsall of which can directly impact the pharma value chain, he noted.

With a rapidly ageing population and rise in non-communicable diseases (NCD) in Sri Lanka, the demand for pharmaceuticals and medical care too is increasing.

SLCPI is committed to its vision of making available quality medicines for all Sri Lankans, and we need to enhance our systems to ensure that we make this possible. At a consumer level, there is also more that can be done to educate the public about the impact that their lifestyle choices can have on the quality of life. By adopting a holistic strategy that addresses all stakeholders, I believe that we can arrive at a truly progressive outcome for all, Mr. Wijesekera added.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 14:49:40|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- As the world bid adieu to an extraordinary and extremely difficult year largely defined by a once-in-a-century pandemic, world leaders have conveyed hope that 2021 will see positive changes, and urged people to be more prepared for the challenges ahead.

MESSAGES OF HOPE

The year 2021 is "a time for new beginnings and a time to be hopeful," Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Friday in his New Year message.

"The COVID-19 pandemic may have cost us so many lives and material resources, but we also learned so much from it," he said. "Now, we march on to a new year wiser, stronger and more prepared for the challenges ahead."

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, who appeared live from home on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve television broadcast, said that he is "more optimistic about America's chances" than he has ever been.

"I'm absolutely, positively confident -- we're going to come back and we're going to come back even stronger than before," he said.

U.S. COVID-19 cases hit a grim milestone of 20 million on New Year's Day. The country, which makes up about 4 percent of the world's population, now accounts for nearly one-quarter of over 83.8 million cases, and 19 percent of 1.8 million deaths reported worldwide, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University on Friday.

Despite the fact that the threat of the pandemic is still looming large, President Donald Trump described his administration's accomplishments as "historic victories" in his New Year's Eve message.

VACCINE AS KEY

Some leaders have highlighted vaccines as a key tool to protect their citizens in the new year.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella, in his New Year speech on Thursday, said the vaccine is a crucial factor of "our rebirth."

"We are now implementing complex strategies, starting with the vaccination plan that has begun across Europe," he said.

Italy kicked off its vaccination campaign on Dec. 27, and plans to vaccinate 10-15 million of its roughly 60 million citizens against COVID-19 by April 2021.

Mattarella said he wanted to be administered the vaccine, after the priority categories receive their shots. He also encouraged Italians to do the same and have faith in their own resources.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that his country will continue the fight against the virus "with a renewed sense of hope."

"Canadians have already started to receive doses of safe and effective vaccines," he said, adding that the government will continue to work with relevant parties "to ensure that all Canadians will have access to free vaccines as soon as possible."

CAUTION MATTERS

While the world has been encouraged by the progress made in developing effective vaccines, some other leaders have also urged citizens to remain cautious and keep up guard.

"We are in the midst of a second wave of coronavirus infections, which may be even worse than the first wave," said South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in his New Year message delivered on Thursday.

"While we are greatly encouraged by the progress made in developing an effective vaccine, we know that it will be some time before the pandemic ends," he said, adding "the year ahead will therefore require our greatest effort and resilience."

In his New Year message on Thursday, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong urged his citizens to stay cautious and vigilant, and comply with rules and restrictions applied in the nation.

"This is absolutely not the time to relax, and let our guard down, or to hold a big party, imagining that the problem has disappeared," he said.

"Let us keep up our efforts in this final stretch, to cross the finish line together, and complete our mission to defeat COVID-19," he said. Enditem
London: Oscar Wilde described it as his "numbered tomb" - the prison cell where he spent two years after being jailed for gross indecency. And when he was released in 1897, he turned his "pitiless" misery and the execution of a fellow inmate into one of his greatest works, The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

Now Hollywood stars are pleading with the Government to save the disused prison for the nation after ministers tried to sell it off to developers.

Dame Judi Dench, Sir Kenneth Branagh and Stephen Fry - who portrayed Wilde on screen - are among those who want the Grade-II listed building to be turned into an arts hub where the plays of Wilde, among others, could be performed. They fear that if the Ministry of Justice, its owner, sells it to the highest bidder, the building will be turned into flats, and Wilde's cell, as well as the building where he spent his days in hard labour, will never be open to the public.

The interior of Reading Gaol, which was converted into a museum but is now up for sale.

Dame Judi said: "It is vitally important that Reading Gaol, a place of such culture, be used in a way that pays tribute to its artistic history, namely, to become a cultural and artistic centre. It would be a great gift, not only to Reading, as a town and growing population centre of the South, but also to the UK and the world as a whole."
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The logo of Vietcombank on an ATM in Hanoi. Photo by Shutterstock/Asia Images.

The credit market share of Vietnams three largest banks has fallen by 2.7 percentage points in the last two years due to liquidity constraints.

The three, all state-owned and listed and the countrys largest by assets, Vietcombank, Vietinbank and BIDV, account for 34 percent of all loans outstanding, securities company VDSC said in a note last week.

But this represents a 2.74-percentage-point fall even as the four largest non-state banks, Techcombank, VPBank, Military Bank (32.42 percent state-owned), and ACB, increased their share of loans outstanding by 1.6 percentage points.

During the two years ending in the third quarter of 2020, VietinBanks share fell by 1.96 percentage points, BIDVs by 0.7 percent and VCBs by less than 0.1 percent.

The big fall in VietinBank's market share is because it has been strapped for cash. There have been no major infusions of capital in the past few years, return on equity has been low, bonuses and employee welfare funds cause a big drain on resources, and the government appropriates much of its earnings.

This situation has been exacerbated by Basel II standards, which prescribe a capital adequacy ratio (CAR) of 8 percent of risk-weighted assets for all financial institutions. Thus, to lend more, banks have to increase their charter capital.

Though the Government has agreed to reduce its ownership in state-owned banks from 65 percent to 51 percent by 2025, it has yet to be implemented.

But the government issued a decree in October allowing state-owned banks to pay dividends in stocks to increase their capital, helping them improve their growth prospects in the medium and long terms.

According to the State Bank of Vietnam, banks total outstanding loans were worth VND8.69 quadrillion ($376.87 billion) at the end of the third quarter.

Credit growth is expected to be 11 percent in 2020, down from 13.5 percent in the previous year.
Get the bells out! Rejoice! 2021 brings the breakthroughs we've been waiting for and a welcome return to the lifestyles we enjoy.

They say hindsight is 20-20 and, as this miserable year moves into the rearview mirror, we can begin looking forwards again.

After a proper annus horribilis, a spectacular event I've dubbed the Arc of Aquarius will shine over 2021, bringing brilliant flashes of innovation and the renewal of hope.

So, what is the Arc of Aquarius? It is a series of celestial events we haven't experienced for decades: starting with a 'stellium', where a remarkable gathering of planets converges in Aquarius in February.

As well as this, Aquarius's modern and traditional rulers, Uranus and Saturn, will lock in a year-long dance, meaning breakthroughs are high on the cosmic agenda  making plenty of reasons to expect exciting changes and opportunities in 2021.

After a proper annus horribilis, a spectacular event I've dubbed the Arc of Aquarius will shine over 2021, bringing brilliant flashes of innovation and the renewal of hope

Indeed, with Aquarian themes dominating the next year, we won't be held back by convention. The cosmos is in our corner in 2021, encouraging us to make better, longer-lasting choices that will improve all our interactions  especially in love and romance.

That's not to say we can simply return to pre-pandemic life. But 2021 brings the tools to build a new, bright future. When the Solar Eclipse arrives in June, we may not be virus-free, but society will be so much better equipped to deal with the consequences, we'll dare to dream again.

Aquarius might not be the most emotionally expressive sign, but lockdowns have reminded us all of our need for human contact.

Of course, lockdown restrictions won't disappear overnight. Some emotional challenges will take time to heal. But in 2021, relationships needn't be Covid casualties or collateral damage.

The auspicious Arc highlights opportunities for love to blossom. Established partnerships will find fresh ways to have fruitful fun, and anyone looking for love should be ready for exciting encounters in the most surprising places.

Here, OSCAR CAINER takes a closer look at what 2021 has in store for love and relationships.

ARIES

(March 21  April 20)

No one finds collaborating, co-operating or co-existing particularly easy. With the best of intentions, situations arise that test our resolve.

Sometimes, defence mechanisms kick in. Before we know it, we've created self-protective barriers that stop us realising our relationship potential.

Yet no one's an island. And although independence is an important aspect of your personality, it takes teamwork to feel really connected. You're as in need of that as anyone!

In 2021 you can change an unrealistic expectation about your heart's desires. January's Full Moon encourages you to take a risk that will make you feel emotionally much more secure.

TAURUS

(April 21  May 21)

Since Venus, your ruler, brings love and abundance into the cosmos, you have an intuitive understanding of your inner strengths and virtues.

This will grow in 2021, and your breakthrough comes from the realisation that you don't need confirmation of your attributes.

The Arc of Aquarius brings reminders you're good enough, and can be loved, just for being you.

As you realise you no longer need to emphasise qualities you consider most desirable, you'll become even more attractive to someone who sees and values the more subtle aspects of your nature.

As Venus creates another 'stellium' planetary conjunction with Mercury and Uranus in April, you'll understand that exaggerating the qualities you think people want you to have inadvertently hides the true you.

The Arc of Aquarius, which shapes 2021, signals less stress and more satisfaction in your key relationships. Your love life will gently blossom in unimaginably delightful ways.

GEMINI

(May 22  June 22)

Relationships are complex; the more we think about them, the more complicated they become. And, emotional minefields are challenging for anyone to navigate without getting hurt.

Surely, with all your experience, you've learned the techniques to be able to make good choices and find a clever way through? Think of the Full Moon, in January, as your passing out ceremony!

2021's the year when you get to put your knowledge into practice and enjoy the fruits of your learning.

You are no longer going to have to focus your agile mind on trying to work out what to do in order to attract the attention you desire. What unfolds, will unfold naturally. What's more, by your birthday, you'll have the confidence to be able to know when something (or someone) is 'right'.

2021's the year when love comes more easily into your life than you dare imagine.

It won't be perfect, of course . . . nothing is. Yet your prospects of success are very high indeed.

CANCER

(June 23  July 23)

Once upon a time, your dreams of romantic bliss involved visions of castles and happy-ever-after endings.

But, like everyone else, experience taught you to put those ideals to one side, and make the best of whatever life throws at you. Yet every once in a while, you allow yourself to dream.

The Full Moon, in January, brings an experience that reminds you true love is a consequence of emotional affinity; and the deepest bonds are forged over time rather than seemingly haphazard encounters.

By August's astrological Blue Moon, you'll appreciate valuable friendships are often forged in the fires of dispute and diversity.

A relationship that's gone through a struggle will turn out to be rewarding and enduring as a deep level of trust develops. 2021's Arc of Aquarius has treats in store.

However you define fairy tales and magic, the ambitious dreams you've long set aside won't stay tucked away in your imagination.

The deeper into 2021 you get, the more deeply someone special will 'get into you'. It looks very promising.

LEO

(July 24  August 23)

You're a charismatic Leo. You were born with a magnetism that attracts people to you.

Yet you can't help but wonder if your admirers are the type of folk you actually want to be admired by.

You're discerning and perceptive. You also tend to raise the bar so high it's almost impossible for anyone to jump over it.

This year, the Great Conjunction enables you to reassess your exceptionally high standards and allow yourself a broader vista.

As your own levels of compassion and kindness are intensified, so you come to value those qualities in the people around you.

By the Solar Eclipse in June, you'll have successfully relaxed some of your control mechanisms, enabling you to be more receptive to love and friendships.

It also makes it easier for other people to love you!

Throughout 2021, the feeling of contentment will grow. This will encourage you to address your deep-seated need for achievement, and focus on satisfying, meaningful relationships.

VIRGO

(August 24  September 23)

Virgos often find it easier to give than to receive. It's as if you don't think you're worth as much as other people, and suspect that anyone who tells you they love you doesn't know the real you.

Maybe you even fear they'd run away if you showed the pricklier sides of your character.

You're a perfectionist; but you judge yourself more harshly than you judge anyone else.

The January Full Moon reminds you no one's perfect, and enables you to let go of the impossibly high standards you set yourself, and share the more vulnerable aspects of your personality.

June's Solar Eclipse heralds a new way of thinking and being. Your self-questioning, critical inner voice will be calmer and quieter.

As you stop doubting your decisions, you'll allow your relationships room to flourish.

Miscommunication issues will be easier to spot and address; and new beginnings, even within old friendships, will enable both parties to change and develop in encouraging ways.

LIBRA

(September 24  October 23)

It's only in storybooks that bad fairies cast spells over people to prevent them experiencing true love.

Yet, in your imagination, you're not averse to such thoughts.

Since you're ruled by Venus, the planet of love, you have an extra-sensitive radar when it comes to relationships; and you want yours to be the best.

But the risk is that you tend to dismiss ordinary happiness, because you want a fairy tale version.

The good news is that 2021 starts with a promise of harmony as you embrace a more meaningful experience by developing close yet pragmatic, interpersonal relationships.

The Arc of Aquarius reminds you we're all unique. You are you. And everyone else is everyone else!

Your sense of self-judgment will soften, and you'll be more able to see the magical qualities in other people. As you recognise their inner prince or princess, they'll see yours.

SCORPIO

(October 24  November 22)

Relationships are like mirrors; they reflect our expectations and our approach to life.

We tend to put on our 'best look' when we know we're going to see our reflection, but in 2021, as your journey of self-discovery continues, you'll start seeing yourself, and the key people in your life, through a different lens.

The January Full Moon enables you to polish the way you express your most heartfelt desires.

This enables someone to respond more enthusiastically to you, making the relationship you've been longing for more likely.

By the Solar Eclipse in June, your willingness to compromise and co-operate will significantly improve your romantic outlook.

By the end of the year, the changes you've implemented will provide the platform to build a new kind of partnership.

There'll be times when you have to work to protect your personal space. But you'll find new ways of being with people you care about, which prove extremely rewarding.

SAGITTARIUS

(November 23  December 21)

So, if you want to bring a deep sense of love and emotional connection into your life in 2021, what do you need to do? Actually . . . not much! In fact, the harder you try, the greater chance you'll complicate something that should be simple.

By being your Sagittarian self, and letting go of any desire to manipulate situations to meet your needs, you're much more likely to benefit from the encouraging cosmic climate.

The January Full Moon brings an opportunity to deepen an important connection by communicating your feelings, and gently adapting your behaviour.

By the June Solar Eclipse, you're fully embracing your hopes, and self-doubt and nervousness have dissipated.

A relationship can be rebooted as you find yourself more willing to communicate your desire to explore life with someone you care about.

An unexpected relationship holds the potential to become much more meaningful.

As you connect with people on a deeper level, the bonds of your relationships will grow stronger, and you'll find the courage to back up your hopes with actions that speak louder than words.

CAPRICORN

(December 22  January 20)

Just because the astrological textbooks don't list 'romantic' as one of your main characteristics doesn't mean you're not as emotional as others.

Capricorns are just better at disguising their feelings.

This year, your ability to distinguish between your desires and those of others enables you to break down self-protective barriers and create a comfortable space where a merging of two souls can take place.

Your sensitive inner radar enables you to reveal your emotions. Like a dancer who's found a good partner, you can spin with flair and skill on the emotional dance floor.

A series of links between Saturn and Uranus punctuates 2021, enabling you to focus on the needs of other people. Shared emotional investments are key to relationship success.

By the final Saturn/Uranus link in December, you'll be free to liberate yourself from tired friendships and groups, and focus on making healthy relationships flourish.

AQUARIUS

(January 21  February 19)

Fans of rom-com movies often think we need to find the perfect partner before we can have a perfect relationship.

Disagreements, and real-life stresses and strains are rarely accurately depicted.

As the Arc of Aquarius dominates 2021's skies, freedom from unrealistic expectations enables you to appreciate the reality of healthy, honest relationships.

In 2021, your quirky attitude is exactly what's required; you'll be appreciated for who you are. Your qualities and natural independence make you more attractive.

And not only does the Arc of Aquarius empower you, but a series of Saturn/Uranus links encourage a new sense of optimism.

Your love life won't fit into a conventional box, but you'll discover a sense of contentment that you can share with someone special.

You'll leave past dissatisfactions behind as you appreciate the benefits of sharing and caring.

2021 encourages you to pursue your dreams rather than do what you think you 'ought' to do. It's time to focus on being happy rather than on being right.

PISCES

(February 20  March 20)

It's easy to idealise romance. We tend to observe others' relationships and imbue them with attributes we long to share with someone special.

But, in 2021, the Arc of Aquarius enables you to see behind the facade and realise the value of being authentic.

The amount of love you share doesn't have to be limited by the amount you expect to receive.

And, as you stop weighing up the emotional accounts, you'll find yourself willing to keep giving, regardless of what comes back to you.

And you'll be surprised by the response to your generosity.

Jupiter briefly enters Pisces midway through the year, giving you a foretaste of 2022's delights when it spends longer in your sign.

Think of this as an appetiser  an amuse-bouche  and take every opportunity to make your feelings work for you in ways that bring love and satisfaction.
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Kendallville, IN (46755)

Today

Partly cloudy skies early then becoming cloudy with periods of rain late. Low 64F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early then becoming cloudy with periods of rain late. Low 64F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
China will take "necessary measures" to safeguard the interests of its companies after the New York Stock Exchange began delisting three Chinese telecom firms that Washington says have military ties, the country's commerce ministry said on Saturday. The NYSE said on Thursday that it would delist China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom following President Donald Trump's move in November to bar U.S. investment in 31 firms that Washington says are owned or controlled by the Chinese military. "This kind of abuse of national security and state power to ...
The new year rang in Friday with the expectation that a president of the United States born in Scranton will soon live in the White House.

Just had to write that.

Of course, well have our own politics to worry about again after the guy born in South Side who lived in Green Ridge and kept coming back to visit takes the oath of office at noon on Jan. 20.

Just 14 months ago, Paige Gebhardt Cognetti assumed a place in city history as the first woman elected mayor and the first winner who wasnt listed on the ballot as a Democrat or Republican since Alex T. Connell defeated John F. Durkan in 1917. Connell and Durkan were on the ballot without a party affiliation because in early 1913 the state Legislature passed a bill that required second-class cities like Scranton and Pittsburgh to conduct nonpartisan elections for city offices.

Connell and Durkan actually were quite active in their parties, Connell as a Republican, Durkan as a Democrat.

In case you were wondering, Edmund B. Jermyn won as a nonpartisan candidate for Scranton mayor in 1913. Jermyn and his opponent, William G. OMalley, both ran as nonpartisan candidates.

OMalley, city director of public safety at the time under Mayor John Von Bergen Jr., a Republican, actually rallied with Republicans just before the election.

Jermyn didnt run in 1917, but won again as a Republican by 109 votes in a 1925 comeback bid. The Scranton Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police is known as the E.B. Jermyn Lodge No. 2, named after Jermyn, who was still mayor on July 17, 1917, when the lodge was instituted, according to a history on the lodges website.

Jermyns first term in office ended before the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic began. Cognettis first term began just before the COVID-19 pandemic began. She also took office in January in a year that marked the 100th anniversary of the passage of the constitutional amendment that guaranteed women the right to vote.

History surrounds Cognetti, but voters worry less about history than whether they have jobs, their streets are paved, their garbage is picked up and their police and firefighters respond when needed, and the value they get for their taxes. Well let the voters sort that out later this year.

Cognetti certainly has tried to remain visible, conducting regular virtual town hall meetings on her Mayor of Scranton Facebook page as the pandemic rages.

City Controller John Murray, a Democrat, has suggested he may run for mayor. Were betting Cognetti, who won election as an independent after switching from the Democratic Party, switches back to her former party for the May 18 primary election. It just seems too risky to think you can win twice as an independent. You have to remember her opponents combined for a lot more votes than she got, and Murray is better known and maybe better liked than most of them.

Cognetti picked up some interesting help this week. In a fundraising email, state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale urged his supporters to contribute to Cognettis campaign before Dec. 31. The money contributed before then will show up on the year-end campaign finance report that Cognetti must file by the end of January. Showing financial strength may deter challengers.

As auditor general, I dont work alone, DePasquale said. I have had the privilege to get to know the dedicated local officials across Pennsylvania  and across political affiliations  that do the hard work of making sure taxpayers arent getting ripped off. One of these local officials is Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti.

He goes on to praise Cognetti for the job she did working for him in the auditor generals office, which included recommendations to put Scrantons school district on the path to recovery, (challenging) for-profit nursing homes to provide transparency on how they spend public money and care for the most vulnerable among us, and (uncovering) the true economic cost to taxpayers of the opioid and fentanyl epidemic.

Paige has been fighting for everyday Pennsylvanians for years, and shes made huge strides for Scranton in her first year as mayor. Shes guided Scranton through public health and economic crises and ended 2020 with a budget surplus. Now thats the kind of management we need more of, DePasquale said.

Thats a pretty nice endorsement and comes from someone who once employed Murray, too.

Yep, Murray directed the northeast regional auditor generals office. He worked for three auditors general  his close friend, Bob Casey, who served as auditor general before his election as state treasurer and U.S. senator; Jack Wagner, and DePasquale. Murray retired from the auditor generals office in 2017 and won election as controller the same night last year that Cognetti won the mayors office.

DePasquale cant vote for Cognetti, but he can attract money to her campaign.

You know who can vote for Scranton mayor as of today?

Former Lackawanna County Commissioner Patrick OMalley. Rumors abound about his future political plans, and he wouldnt say a few weeks ago, but as it turns out hes living in Scranton again. He and his wife moved to Blakely a few years ago.

He changed his voter registration to a Scranton address on Oct. 17, according to voter registration records. His mom, who owned the home, transferred it to his name in 2001, county records show. OMalley changed his voter registration early enough that he meets the state requirement of living in the city or county where you run at least a year before the election for the office you seek.

Just sayin.

BORYS KRAWCZENIUK, The Times-Tribune politics reporter, writes Random Notes.
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How many times have you started a home improvement project and then found your budget for said project was totally unrealistic? Sometimes its just smarter to stop the whole venture, take the loss and cover up the mess with some plywood or paint. Maybe you tell yourself youll get back to it someday.

That is where we are with the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. Except nothing can cover up the landscape-scarring, unfinished sections of this project.

The promise of a big, beautiful wall to curb illegal entry into the U.S. was one of President Donald Trumps signature issues during the 2016 campaign. He said Mexico would pay for the wall. It didnt. But Mexico was persuaded to pay to deploy thousands of its security forces, helicopters and boats to patrol its side of the border. Mexico also agreed to pay for deportation flights and a program that keeps immigrants seeking asylum in the U.S. in Mexico while they await their court date in America.

That could be considered payment toward curbing a mutual problem. It would be like a kind benefactor who, upon learning of your costly home improvement project, stepped in to pay outsiders to help lessen your burden. But the financial responsibility of completing the project would still be up to you.

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For right now, construction on the wall continues. The last tally from Customs and Border Patrol reported 423 miles of wall have been completed. Less than the current administration promised, but still a considerable feat when you see the gigantic 30-foot-tall steel-and-concrete barrier that now snakes along part of the U.S./Mexican border.

There have been massive complaints and cost overruns. Environmentalists and reluctant landowners are furious about disruptions to terrain and wildlife and being forced into eminent domain sales of property that, in some cases, had been in families for generations.

What was originally touted as an $8 billion to $12 billion project ballooned by extra billions in cost overruns. A recent ProPublica/Texas Tribune review of federal spending data for the wall estimates that if a total of 738 miles of wall were built, that would translate to roughly $20 million a mile.

President-elect Joe Biden seems adamant about stopping the project immediately as he reverses Trumps immigration strategies. There will not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration, Biden told reporters a few months ago. But now its clear it wont be easy to simply pull the plug on the most costly wall the world has ever seen.

First, the government cannot just ignore the contracts it awarded to more than a dozen construction companies now doing wall-related work. Those firms will be entitled to compensation for the cost of withdrawing equipment and crews from work zones. How much will that cost taxpayers? That is unknown at this point, but it will surely be multiple millions  or more  in contract termination fees.

Second, the Biden administration now says the incoming president favors installing sensors, lighting, cameras and other surveillance technology along the border. Will they be able to modify current contracts for those installations, or will new agreements with other companies have to be reached? If it is the latter then taxpayers will wind up paying for no work to be done and for a new, untested idea to curb illegal entries.

And what about the cost of maintaining the miles of wall that have already been built? Will politics dictate that they be left unattended? What a waste if that happens.

This country has a long-standing problem with illegal immigration. It should have been seriously addressed decades ago. While each of the last five administrations did construct border walls or barriers along our southern border, they were obviously not enough to encourage migrants to enter through the legal process. Biden seems determined to break the pattern of a border barricade by employing all manner of technological monitoring.

But I have a question. Since those determined to cross the border into the United States illegally will likely choose a route around any existing wall, I cant help but wonder something that seems so obvious. If there is no wall, where will Bidens lights, sensors and the other gadgets be mounted? On trees, perhaps?

Diane@DianeDimond.com.
New Delhi, Jan 2 : Acclaimed actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui recalled his days of struggles and said that it has helped him achieve all the success he has today.

Nawazuddin started his acting career with a one-scene appearance in the 1999 film "Sarfarosh". Anutag Kashyap's "Gangs Of Wasseypur" series of 2012 helped him attain critical acclaim and popularity, which he soon substantiated doing films such as "Kahaani" and "Miss Lovely". Today, Nawazuddin is tagged as one of the finest actors in Hindi cinema.

Talking about his run in Hindi cinema, Nawazuddin told IANS: "In my journey, I spent 12 years struggling. Finally, I started doing small roles and now, thank god, in 2012 'Gangs Of Wasseypur', 'Kahaani', 'Talaash' and other films released, and the journey absolutely changed." The 46-year-old actor has had his share of hits and misses.

"There were ups and downs in the beginning," he recalled, adding: "The times of struggles cannot be forgotten. I have learned a lot from those times. too. I experienced a lot of things then and it has helped me today. A man can also learn if the time is bad. I have learned a lot from that time (phase), and that is helping me today," Nawazuddin added.

In 2020, the actor had two acclaimed performances, in releases the OTT-released films "Raat Akeli Hai" and "Serious Men".

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
The Junta de Andalucia has ordered the perimeter closure of eight towns in the Campo de Gibraltar area due to the proliferation of infections linked to the new strain of coronavirus first detected in the UK

The municipal mobility blockade affects the towns of La Linea de la Concepcion, Algeciras, Los Barrios, Castellar de la Frontera, Jimena de la Frontera, San Martin del Tesorillo, San Roque and Tarifa.

All these municipalities are part of the Campo de Gibraltar area and higher incidence rates per 100,000 inhabitants have been registered in the last 14 days, standing at 316 cases compared to the 140 average across Andalucia.

This Saturday mass screening of the population has begun in of La Linea de la Concepcion and will continue on Sunday in Algeciras.

These measures have been announced by the regional governments health minister Jesus Aguirre after a crisis committee meeting in the area.

The proliferation of cases associated with the new strain of the virus that has also been detected in Gibraltar was also analysed.

Aguirre said he considered the movement restrictions "necessary to avoid an exponential growth in the coming days that could directly affect the pressure of care "  particularly on intensive care beds.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
Mohammad Adil, the mastermind of the Kabul University attack, was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court, said the Interior Affairs Ministry.

Citing the Afghan Supreme Courts statement, Tolo News reported that five other collaborators of the attack were sentenced to various jail terms on charges of treason, transfer of explosive materials and cooperation with Daesh.

On November 2, at least 22 people were killed and over 40 others were wounded after two gunmen attacked Kabul University, a raid that ended after six hours.

In total, 18 students, 16 students from the Public Administration Faculty and two of them from the Law Faculty, lost their lives in the attack. The attackers had military uniforms, Tolo News reported.

Ten who were killed were female students. They were students of the public administration faculty.

All students who lost their lives aged between 20 to 26 years old.

Afghanistans First Vice President Amrullah Saleh hit out at the Taliban for the Kabul University attack but the Taliban rejected the claims.

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History beckons to all, but only a few dare follow. Such a person is Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who has braved the derision of the news media and announced that he will not rubber-stamp the putative election victory of Joe Biden.

On Wednesday, Hawley will rise during a joint session of Congress and object to the certification of electors from states where fraud is suspected. In that task, he will join perhaps dozens of House members who say they have studied the evidence and cannot in good conscience declare Biden the victor in several states where fraud has been alleged.

Whether any of Hawleys Senate colleagues will join him is unknown. Soon-to-be-sworn-in Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama has hinted that he plans to object to the certification, but he has not committed to doing so.

It doesnt matter. Only one senator and one member of the House need to object to the electors of any state in order to force a hearing. As long as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cant cow Hawley into silence, the process will play out, and history will judge who stood and delivered and who ducked and cowered.

Mind you, there is no reason to expect that the Jan. 6 session of Congress will result in certification of President Trump as the victor of the 2020 election. Despite the extensive evidence of fraud that has been amassed, this vote will be an exercise in raw political power, not an expression of blind justice. Probably the best that Trump supporters can hope for is a fair hearing before the American people regarding the reason why doubts exist as to the legitimacy of Bidens apparent victory. When it is over, Biden will be holding the reins of government, but he may not have the consent of the governed.

Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama has been leading the charge among the GOP members of the House to deny that consent, and if he and Hawley file a written objection to the electors of any state, then the two houses will separate and engage in two hours of debate on the objection and then vote on whether to accept or reject the challenged electors. This may play out repeatedly for the states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada, all of which have had their electoral integrity questioned.

Since both houses would have to vote to reject the challenged electors, it is a certainty that Bidens majority will remain intact throughout the process. The Democrat-controlled House would not back Trump regardless of what new facts are uncovered. Nor is there any reason to expect that the GOP-controlled Senate would vote for Trump as long as Mitt Romney is the 50th vote. It is even rumored that McConnell is plotting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on how to sabotage the pro-Trump forces.

Thats because, lets face it, Mitch and Nancy have more in common with each other than either does with Donald Trump. They are institutionalists and he is a constitutionalist. They believe that their power comes from their positions; he believes that his power comes from the people. What is being decided on Jan. 6 is whether the people and the Constitution still matter, or whether the only thing left of any consequence is the lumbering ravenous beast that ate Washington.

Josh Hawley gets it. When he announced that he is willing to fight the behemoth, he knew that his political future was at stake. Either he would be remembered as a man of principle who fought for justice against great odds or be vilified as a man who brought disrepute to himself, his party and democracy itself.

Certainly, among Trump supporters Hawley is seen as a patriot and a hero. We have waited for some Republican senator to stand up and fight for Trump, as the rally chant demands. But just as during the American Revolution of 1776, the country is deeply divided, and one mans patriot is another mans traitor.

Walmarts Twitter account tagged Hawley a sore loser in a tweet supposedly posted by accident. The Washington Post ran an op-ed by George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson calling Hawleys ambition a threat to the republic. Obama CIA Director John Brennan had the audacity to name Hawley the most craven, unprincipled and corrupt senator. Take away the word senator and you have a description many have applied to Brennan himself for his role trying to destroy the Trump administration before it began. Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, who is vying for the chance to be humiliated in the 2024 GOP presidential primary as the next Jeb Bush, said Hawley and Brooks were pointing a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government.

The smugly self-satisfied Sasse has arrogated to himself the authority to determine what is legitimate self-government, but he has no more right to speak for his countrymen than Joseph Galloway and other Tories did in 1776. We may or may not be at the point of a second American revolution, but I believe we certainly are at the kind of crossroads described by Thomas Paine in The American Crisis when he wrote about standing against tyranny or surrendering to it:

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.

Its not up to Ben Sasse or Mitch McConnell or Vice President Mike Pence or even President Trump to dictate the outcome of the election. They all can make their own decision, but it is up to each member of Congress and each citizen to study the facts and consult their own conscience when deciding whether or not to sanction the Nov. 3 results.

Sen. Hawley is doing his job. The question now is whether the other members of Congress will do theirs, or will they just do as they are told?
The world is waving goodbye and good riddance to 2020, as most countries are still gripped by the pandemic and governments cancelled fireworks and told people to stay home to curb infections.



The first countries to enter 2021 on Thursday - Samoa and Kiribati in the South Pacific - have less to celebrate than usual, as they are cut off from the world due to border closures and face rising waters due to climate change.



New Zealand rang in the new year with a number of large music festivals and fireworks shows as well as a light show in the country's largest city Auckland.



With no community cases of Covid-19 in the country, events went as planned without crowd limits or other health restrictions.



Australia's most populous city Sydney, on the other hand, was like a ghost town as the clock ticked over from 2020 to 2021.



The harbour fireworks were smaller than in previous years and aimed at a TV audience. Wire fences blocked entry to the foreshore and police stopped anybody from heading towards vantage points, where normally up to a million people watch the world famous fireworks.



New Year's revellers who breach Sydney harbour lockout laws risk being hit with fines of 1,000 Australian dollars (770 US dollars), as authorities try to stem a Covid-19 outbreak in the city.



In Seoul, the traditional bell-ringing ceremony was performed without an audience and broadcast on TV. Usually, tens of thousands of people watch as a large bronze bell at the Bosingak pavilion is rung 33 times for luck. Outdoor celebrations were also cancelled in other Korean cities.



Taiwan staged its iconic New Year's Eve fireworks display at the 509-metre tall Taipei 101 building, one of the tallest buildings in the world, while some planned outdoor events around the island were downsized or cancelled.



Some fireworks went ahead in Chinese cities without restrictions, as the pandemic is largely under control there.



However, Chinese New Year is traditionally celebrated in February, meaning December 31 is not a particularly important holiday in the country.



Celebrations in India, too, were muted, with restrictions on large gatherings and night curfews in New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai and several states.



While case numbers have fallen in recent months, authorities want to prevent New Year's parties from becoming superspreader events - and stop more transmissible strains of the virus from taking hold.



A bright display of fireworks celebrated the turn of the year in Dubai, along with a laser show on the world's tallest building, the 828-metre Burj Khalifa.



The show thanked doctors and others who fought the pandemic, with the words "dedication," "courage" and "solidarity" emblazoned in light. The 8-minute display had few live spectators, however, as strict restrictions are in place across the city.



Russia's streets were also quieter than usual. While there was a traditional display of fireworks in Moscow, restrictions meant bars, restaurants and skating rinks all shut before midnight.



Members of the security forces were on hand to prevent large crowds from gathering in the city's Red Square and Moscow's mayor urged citizens to stay home and celebrate in small family circles.



In France electronic music pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre performed in a virtual concert from a digitally reconstructed Notre-Dame cathedral as police enforced a night-time curfew in Paris.



Jarre played live at a studio in Paris while an avatar of the electronic pop pioneer was placed inside the digital cathedral.

Source: GNA









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Despite massive traffic to the more than 55 million pages, Wikipedia and the reliability of its entries have been under fire since its first article was posted two decades ago. On this anniversary, University of Georgia professors discuss the credibility of the contentious, crowd-sourced information hub.
Wisconsin pharmacist deliberately removed 57 vials of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine from a fridge

The health worker left them out overnight knowing the vaccines would be 'useless' to those who later received them

He faces charges of first degree recklessly endangering safety, adulterating a prescription drug, and criminal damage to property

Steven Brandenberg was booked under the same charges on Thursday

Brandenburg is also listed as a licensed pharmacist in Wisconsin

The former employee of the Advocate Aurora Health Hospital in Grafton was arrested Thursday afternoon

The value of the spoiled vaccines is estimated to be around $8,000 to $11,000

Wisconsin health officials revealed that 57 people were given the ineffective dose of the vaccine after it had been 'deliberately' spoiled

Dr. Jeff Bahr, president of Aurora Health Care Medical Group in Wisconsin, said Thursday the culprit had taken the vials out of fridge two nights in a row

He not only took them out overnight Friday as first thought but had also done so Thursday - returning them to the fridge the next morning before anyone noticed

A pharmacist technician discovered the vials out of the fridge Saturday morning

Because hospital officials were unaware they had been left out the night before, some of the doses were given to 57 people

Aurora Medical Center Grafton is now working with Moderna to determine how the affected individuals can now be re-vaccinated safely

Wisconsin pharmacist Steven Brandenburg, 46, was booked on Thursday on the same charges

A Wisconsin pharmacist working at the Advocate Aurora Health Hospital in Grafton deliberately removed 57 vials of the moderna coronavirus vaccine from a fridge and left them out overnight knowing the vaccines would be 'useless' to those who received them.

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57 people received the vaccine from the tampered vials at the hospital on December 26 before a further review saw them thrown away and an investigation into how the vials were left out began.

Aurora hospital then informed the police and Grafton and on Thursday the pharmacist was arrested.

The FBI and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are now also investigating.

The male healthcare worker has not officially been named. A roster of inmates at Ozaukee County Jail show that Steven Brandenburg, 46, was booked on Thursday on the same charges.

Brandenburg is also listed as a licensed pharmacist in Wisconsin.

According to Grafton, the pharmacist intentionally removed the vials out overnight on Christmas Eve, with the intent of destroying their effectiveness and making the people who received them think that they had been properly vaccinated when they had not.

He then replaced the vials back in the fridge on Christmas morning. A technician then reported the actions to his superiors.

Currently, the motive for such behavior is not known and law enforcement are trying to establish what triggered Brandenburg into such anti-social behavior.

According to Aurora, there is no other evidence to suggest any other doses of vaccine were subject to tampering.

Those who received the vaccine from the tampered vials have been notified and the company is working with Moderna and the FDA on a strategy to properly vaccinate those individuals however there should be no negative effects from receiving vaccines that were rendered ineffective.

On Thursday, police arrested Brandenburg on charges of first degree recklessly endangering safety, adulterating a prescription drug, and criminal damage to property. He is listed as a pharmacist, although police have not officially named him.

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The value of the spoiled vaccines is estimated to be around $8,000 to $11,000.

Dr. Jeff Bahr, president of Aurora Health Care Medical Group in Wisconsin, said Thursday that the culprit had not only taken the vials out of refrigeration overnight Friday as first thought but had also done so Thursday night - returning them to the fridge the next morning before anyone noticed.

The net closed in on the suspect when a pharmacist technician discovered the vials out of the fridge Saturday morning.

Because hospital officials were unaware they had also been left out the night before, some of the doses were presumed to be fine and were given to 57 people before the remainder was discarded.

The medical center originally thought the doses 'were inadvertently removed from a pharmacy refrigerator overnight,' but on Wednesday said the culprit had acted 'intentionally' and fired him, while Grafton Police and the FBI launched an investigation.

Bahr gave a press conference via Zoom Thursday where he revealed the culprit was a pharmacist at the hospital and gave further details on the saga.

He said a pharmacy technician first discovered 57 vials of the Moderna vaccine had been left outside the fridge in which they were being stored in the early hours of Saturday.

The technician returned the vials to the fridge and reported the incident to their superiors.

Bahr said the pharmacist responsible claimed at first they had simply made an 'inadvertent error' in leaving them out of the fridge when they were accessing other items in the same unit.

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The vaccine can be kept outside of a fridge for up to 12 hours before it becomes ineffective.

Based on the belief that the removal was accidental and that the vials had been out of the fridge for less than this time, clinical leaders at the hospital 'determined that the vaccines were still able to be administered' that morning.

A total of 57 people were given their first dose of the Moderna vaccine on the morning of December 26 at Aurora Medical Center Grafton.

The remainder of the vials were then discarded after being 'rendered ineffective'.

Dr. Jeff Bahr, president of Aurora Health Care Medical Group in Wisconsin, revealed Thursday that the culprit behind the destruction had not only taken the vials out of refrigeration overnight Friday as first thought but had also done so the previous night - before returning them to the fridge before they were caught

But following an internal review, hospital staff grew 'increasingly suspicious' of the pharmacist's behavior over the next few days, according to Bahr.

He was suspended before finally admitting 'after multiple interviews' to 'intentionally removing' the vials from the fridge.

The pharmacist then also admitted that he had removed the vials from the fridge and left them out overnight Thursday but had returned them to the fridge Friday morning before anyone saw.

This meant the vials were actually ineffective or noneffective, Bahr said.

Bahr insisted there is 'no evidence' the ineffective doses may have harmed the individuals given them and the hospital is working with Moderna to formulate a plan for how those affected can be given an effective dose safely.

'The 57 have been notified,' said Bahr.

'There is no evidence that the vaccines posed any harm to them other than being potentially less effective or ineffective.

'Moderna reassured us there are no safety concerns with administering a vaccine that has been out of the fridge too long. We will partner with them and the FDA to figure out a strategy on the future vaccination of the affected 57 individuals.'

The hospital boss also said he is confident that no other vials other than the 57 had been spoiled because the hospital had not received any doses prior to the day in question.

There is also 'no evidence' he tampered with the vaccine in any other way other han removing it from the fridge, Bahr said, as he sought to reassure people that this was the work of one 'bad actor rather than a bad process.'

Grafton Police said the former employee of the Advocate Aurora Health Hospital in Grafton was arrested Thursday afternoon on charges of first degree recklessly endangering safety, adulterating a prescription drug, and criminal damage to property

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Police and federal authorities launched an investigation Wednesday after the Wisconsin health system said the employee had admitted to deliberately spoiling 500 doses of coronavirus vaccine.

Aurora Medical Center first reported that the doses has been spoiled on Saturday, saying they had been accidentally left out unrefrigerated overnight by an employee at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton.

The health system said Wednesday that the doses of vaccine were deliberately spoiled.

In a statement late Wednesday, Aurora said the employee involved 'acknowledged that they intentionally removed the vaccine from refrigeration.'

Aurora said it fired the employee and referred the matter to the authorities.

'We continue to believe that vaccination is our way out of the pandemic. We are more than disappointed that this individuals actions will result in a delay of more than 500 people receiving their vaccine,' the statement said.

Police and federal authorities launched an investigation Wednesday.

The number of COVID-19 cases in Wisconsin continued to rise after dipping in early December.

The state Department of Health Services reported 3,810 newly confirmed cases on Thursday, marking the third straight day of rising daily infections.

The state has now seen 481,102 cases.

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COVID-19 was a factor in 41 more deaths, pushing the state's overall death toll to 4,859. The survival rate remained unchanged at 99 percent.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 09:40:31|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese President Xi Jinping attends Session II of the 15th G20 Leaders' Summit via video link in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 22, 2020. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin)

BEIJING, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- The biggest highlight in China's foreign relations has been the "cloud diplomacy" conducted at the head-of-state level, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said when commenting on China's diplomacy in 2020.

In 2020, President Xi Jinping personally planned, oversaw and engaged in "cloud diplomacy", having 87 meetings and phone calls with foreign leaders and heads of international organizations and attending 22 important bilateral or multilateral events through this virtual platform, according to Wang in a recent interview with Xinhua News Agency and China Media Group.

Xi has championed solidarity in the world's fight against COVID-19, offered a series of proposals in light of China's experience in coordinating pandemic response and economic and social development, and pointed the way forward for reforming the global governance system through "cloud diplomacy", said Wang.

"With 'cloud diplomacy', China has demonstrated its sense of responsibility, contributed its wisdom and expanded the ways it conducts foreign relations," he said. 
Who will be the next CBI chief? PM Modi-led panel shortlists these three names; Congress protests

PM to deliver keynote address on the occasion of Virtual Vesak Global Celebrations on Buddha Purnima

Turn local to global: PM Modi lays foundation stone for IIM Sambalpur

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Jan 02: Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the students of the Indian Institutes of Managements across the country should work towards turning local to global. The PM was speaking after laying the foundation stone of the permanent campus of the IIM Sambalpur in Odisha.

The PM said, "to turn local into global, students of IIM need to come up with new ways. The country has 20 IIMs and this huge talent pool will help the vision for a self-reliant India."

"This decade will be devoted to the development of new Multinational corporations (MNCs) in India.

Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury urges PM Modi to rescue stranded Indian sailors in Chinese waters

Today's startups are tomorrow's MNCs. These are largely growing in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. These startups need able managers and those passing out of these institutions will lead the way," the PM also said.

Vaccines to be provided for free across India, says health min | Oneindia News

PM Modi also added that it is our responsibility to get global recognition for brand India. Those who will be part of this institution need to encourage development and focus on inclusivity of all, he also said.
Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 3 mesi fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

Market Reports on Saudi Arabia Provides the Trending Market Research Report on Saudi Arabia Oilfield Chemicals Market, By Application (Enhanced Oil Recovery, Stimulation, Cementing, Completion Production, Drilling, Others), By Oilfield Type (Onshore, Offshore), By Type (Commodity Oilfield Chemicals, Special Oilfield Chemicals), By Region, Competition, Forecast & Opportunities, 2025 under Chemical category. The Saudi Arabia Oilfield Chemicals Market is projected to exhibit highest growth rate over report offers a collection of superior market research, market analysis, and competitive intelligence and industry reports.

Saudi Arabia Oilfield Chemicals Market is estimated to stand at around $ 710 million in 2020 and is forecast to grow at around 10% to reach $ 1.1 billion by 2025. Anticipated growth in the market is driven by the growing demand for oil & gas across the globe and increasing investments in offshore exploration and production activities in Saudi Arabia, which makes the country the largest market for oilfield chemicals in the Middle East region. The market is likely to witness healthy growth in the coming years as the country aggressively expands oil and gas exploration activities to establish oil-market supremacy over the United States, Iran and Russia. In April 2020, SABIC announced plans to boost production to 12.3 million barrels a day with increase of 2.5% from maximum sustained capacity.

Saudi Arabia Oilfield Chemicals is segmented based on type, application, oilfield type, and region. Based on type, the market can be segmented into Special Oil Field Chemicals and Commodity Oil Field Chemicals, with the former category hold majority of the market share in 2019. Based on application, the market can be segmented into Enhanced Oil Recovery, Stimulation, Cementing, Completion Production, Drilling, and Others. Drilling application segment is expected to continue holding the largest share during the forecast period because of increase in E&P activities and investments in Saudi Arabia.

Request a free sample copy of Saudi Arabia Oilfield Chemicals Market Report @ http://www.marketreportsonsaudiarabia.com/marketreports/sample/reports/2144410

Regionally, Saudi Arabia oilfield chemicals market has been segmented into Eastern region, Central region and Rest of the Saudi Arabia, Eastern region is expected to hold the lions share throughout the forecast period owing to the large oil field reserves in the region. Major players operating in the Saudi Arabia oilfield chemicals market include Baker Hughes, M-I SWACO, ChampionX Corporation, The Dow Chemical Company, AUBIN Group, Clariant Altamimi Company Limited, REDA Oilfield, BASF SE, CECA Arkema, among others.

Years considered for this report:

Historical Years: 2015 - 2018

Base Year: 2019

Estimated Year: 2020

Forecast Period: 2021 - 2025

Objective of the Study:

 To analyze and estimate the market size of Saudi Arabia oilfield chemicals market from 2015 to 2019.

 To estimate and forecast the market size of Saudi Arabia oilfield chemicals market from 2020 to 2025.

 To classify and forecast Saudi Arabia oilfield chemicals market based on type, application, oilfield type, company and regional distribution.

 To identify dominant region or segment in the Saudi Arabia oilfield chemicals market.

 To identify drivers and challenges for Saudi Arabia oilfield chemicals market.

 To examine competitive developments such as expansions, new product launches, mergers & acquisitions, etc., in Saudi Arabia oilfield chemicals market.

 To identify and analyze the profile of leading players operating in Saudi Arabia oilfield chemicals market.

 To identify key sustainable strategies adopted by market players in Saudi Arabia oilfield chemicals market.

Our Research performed both primary as well as exhaustive secondary research for this study. Initially, Our Research sourced a list of oilfield chemicals players operating in Saudi Arabia. Subsequently, Our Research conducted primary research surveys with the identified companies. While interviewing, the respondents were also enquired about their competitors. Through this technique, Our Research could include the market players which could not be identified due to the limitations of secondary research. Our Research analyzed the service providers, ongoing projects and presence of all major players in Saudi Arabia.

Our Research calculated the market size of Saudi Arabia oilfield chemicals market using both top down and bottom-up approach, wherein data for various segments was recorded and forecast for the future years. Our Research sourced these values from the industry experts and company representatives and externally validated through analyzing historical data of these product types and applications for getting an appropriate, overall market size. Various secondary sources such as white papers and secondary literature on BP Statistics, IEA, World Oil, UN Comtrade, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, company websites, investor presentations and annual reports were also analyzed by Our Research.

Key Target Audience:

 Saudi Arabia oilfield chemicals players, suppliers and other stakeholders

 Exploration & Production companies

 Government bodies such as regulating authorities and policy makers

 Organizations, forums and alliances related to oilfield chemicals market

 Market research and consulting firms

The study is useful in providing answers to several critical questions that are important for the industry stakeholders such as service providers, suppliers and partners, end users, etc., besides allowing them in strategizing investments and capitalizing on market opportunities.

Report Scope:

In this report, Saudi Arabia oilfield chemicals market has been segmented into following categories, in addition to the industry trends which have also been detailed below:

 Market, By Oilfield Type:

Onshore

Offshore

 Market, By Application:

Enhanced Oil Recovery

Stimulation

Cementing

Completion Production

Drilling

Others

 Market, By Type:

Commodity Oil Field Chemicals

Special Oil Field Chemicals

 Market, By Region:

Eastern Region

Central Region

Rest of the Saudi Arabia

Competitive Landscape

Company Profiles: Detailed analysis of the major companies present in Saudi Arabia Oilfield Chemicals market.

Available Customizations:

With the given market data, Our Research offers customizations according to a company's specific needs. The following customization options are available for the report:

Company Information

 Detailed analysis and profiling of additional market players (up to five).

Browse our full report with Table of Contents: http://www.marketreportsonsaudiarabia.com/marketreports/saudi-arabia-oilfield-chemicals-market-by-application-enhanced-oil-recovery-stimulation-cementing-completion-production-/ 2144410

About Us

Market Reports on Saudi Arabia provides you with an in-depth industry reports focusing on various economic, political and operational risk environment, complemented by detailed sector analysis. We have an exhaustive coverage on variety of industries - ranging from energy and chemicals to transportation, communications, constructions and mining to Food and Beverage and education. Our collection includes over 2000 up-to-date reports all researched, analyzed and published by top-notch international research firms.

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added 293 new cases to



its tally, which surged past 2.87 lakh while two more fatalities pushed the toll to 1,546.

Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) accounted for the most number of cases with 72, followed by Rangareddy and Medchal Malkajgiriwith 34 and 26 respectively, a government bulletin said on Saturday providing details as of 8 pm on January 1.

The total number of cases stood at 2,87,108 including 2,79,991 recoveries.

As many as 5,571 patients are under treatment and 26,590 samples were tested on Friday.

Cumulatively, over 69.51 lakh samples have been tested.

The samples tested per million population was over 1.86 lakh, the bulletin said.

The case fatality rate in the state was 0.53 per cent, while it was 1.4 per cent at the national level.

The recovery rate in was 97.52 per cent, while it was 96.1 per cent in the country.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pa. Republicans advance three anti-abortion bills. What they would do.
Reckless driver dies following American Canyon Police pursuit

A motorcyclist involved in a pursuit with American Canyon Police on Friday was killed when the rider lost control of the motorcycle and collided with the sidewalk near a community park in Solano County.

Police attempted to pull over an off-road style dirt bike next to the city limit line for riding recklessly at approximately 2:30 p.m. on Jan. 1, according to a release from the department.

The ACPD unit activated the lighting equipment to have the motorcyclist pull over just south of the city limit, near Fairgrounds and Corcoran Drive; however, the motorcyclist sped away and a pursuit was initiated.

The motorcyclist continued through north Vallejo and traveled west through the neighborhood between Fairground Drive and Broadway (State Route 29). During the pursuit, the motorcyclist went off the streets, onto sidewalks, bike paths, and through park walking paths, according to the press release.

The motorcyclist made his way south through residential neighborhoods and as it reached Mini Drive and Tuolumne Street, ACPD ground units terminated the pursuit. The motorcyclist continued south on Tuolumne Street as a CHP air unit monitored from the sky.
The parents of Madeleine McCann have said in a new year message that their hope, energy and determination to find their daughter remains steadfast.

In a message posted on the Official Find Madeleine Campaign website, Kate and Gerry McCann said their thoughts and prayers are with everyone who has suffered during 2020.

Read More

The statement, which also thanks well-wishers, reads: Goodbye 2020. What a year! One we dont want to remember but will find it hard to forget.

Theres no doubt that 2020 has been tough for most people, and often distressing, with so much loss, worry and isolation.

Despite losing a parent each, we are aware we have been more fortunate than many, with our family unit at home and jobs to go to.

The couple, from Rothley in Leicestershire, acknowledged the investigation to find Madeleine had understandably been forced to slow down as a result of the pandemic.

They added: It hasnt stopped, however, and the hope, energy and determination to find her and uncover the truth remain steadfast.

We are very grateful for the continued support, especially throughout this rubbish year and for all the Christmas wishes too. Thank you.

Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone who has suffered this year. Lets hope 2021 is a brighter, more positive one.

Madeleine was nearly four when she went missing from her familys holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, on Portugals Algarve, on May 3, 2007.

Scotland Yard last month confirmed it has no plans to end its missing person investigation, despite the belief of German prosecutors that Madeleine was murdered.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick said the force is working really, really closely with the German authorities, but does not expect them to share all of their evidence.

A suspect in the German inquiry, Christian Brueckner (43) was told last November that he will remain behind bars until 2026, after losing a bid to overturn a rape conviction.

He was last year found guilty of the 2005 rape of a 72-year-old American woman in the same Portuguese resort and sentenced to seven years in jail, at a court in Brunswick, Lower Saxony.

The German  referred to as Christian B in his home country due to strict privacy laws  was identified as a suspect in the Madeleine inquiry last June.

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Minister of State, Frank Feighan has sounded a positive note about the future for Sligo Airport and the funding for essential works there in order to retain the Coast Guard's search and rescue service.

A meeting between Department of Transport officials, The Irish Coast Guard and Management and members of the Board of Directors of Sligo Airport took place last Tuesday in Dublin and Minister Feighan said there was now a clear pathway for the required funding to be provided for capital investment works at the airport in Strandhill in order to support the continuation of the search and rescue service.

The meeting was attended by Minister Feighan, Marc MacSharry TD, Marian Harkin TD, Department of Transport Airport Division officials, The Irish Coast Guard and representatives of the Sligo Airport Board of Directors.

Minister Feighan said: "There needs to be improved communication in the coming days on this issue between the Department of Transport and CHC, the company which operates the Search and Rescue service on behalf of the Irish Coast Guard.

"I am confident that Sligo Airport will be ready, willing and able to deliver the required runway and lighting upgrade works on time.

"This will significantly enhance the operational capabilities of the airport in supporting the very important Coast Guard Search and Rescue Services throughout the area covered by the Sligo base from Galway to Belfast.

"We now just need to find the funding to support these works.

"From this meeting I wanted to understand what the issues were in relation to the potential problems from the Department side and I am now pleased that we have identified a mechanism whereby funding can be provided to assist Sligo with these essential capital works.

"As a result of commitments made at the meeting, I am now satisfied that there is no threat to the future of this vital search and rescue service or about it being moved from Strandhill for the duration of the contract currently in place which runs until 2023.

"I will now be working with my Oireachtas colleagues over the coming days to ensure that this funding will be delivered to Sligo Airport to support the retention of the Search and Rescue Base there without further delay."

Deputy Marc MacSharry has also written to the Taoiseach, Micheal Martin requesting that funding of 800,000 be provided to the airport.

Deputy MacSharry revealed that the airport needed funding for runway end safety areas together with the associated lighting alternations, the latter being the more costly parts of the required works as they required the reposition of lighting throughout the entire runway. The airport was in a position to fund much of the works from their its own resources but in order to complete the works it required 500,000 in capital expenditure support from Government.

In addition, said Deputy MacSharry in a letter to Mr Martin, the airport was seeking 100,000 per year for just three years to help them overcome the unforeseen impact on its activity and income from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sligo Champion
The Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) has called for online applications from eligible and interested candidates for filling Forty-Three (43) vacancies to the post of Agriculture Development Officers (ADO) through direct recruitment to be posted under the Department of Agriculture, Govt. of Arunachal Pradesh in Arunachal Pradesh, India on a fulltime basis. The online registration-cum-application process towards the same started on January 01, 2021 and closes on February 5, 2021 by 4:00 pm.

CRITERIA DETAILS Name Of The Posts Agriculture Development Officers (ADO) Organisation Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) Educational Qualification Bachelors Degree in Agricultural Science Experience Freshers can apply Job Responsibilities null Skills Required Desirable Job Location Arunachal Pradesh Salary Scale Rs. 56,100 to Rs. 1,77,500 per month Industry Arunachal State Service Application Start Date January 1, 2021 Application End Date February 5, 2021

APPSC Recruitment 2021: Age Criteria And Fees

Candidates interested in applying for APPSC Jobs 2021 through APPSC Recruitment 2021 must have completed 18 years of age and not be more than 32 years as on February 5, 2021 with relaxation (upper age limit) for reserved categories as mentioned in APPSC Recruitment 2021 Notification.

Candidates must pay a specified amount of Rs. 200 (Gen/UR) and Rs. 150 (APST) as examination fee for APPSC Jobs 2021 through APPSC Recruitment 2021 through online (net-banking/credit/debit etc.) mode only as specified in APPSC Recruitment 2021 Notification.

Also Read: UPSC NDA NA Recruitment 2021 For 400 Army, Navy And Air Force Officer Jobs. Apply Online Before January 19

APPSC Recruitment 2021: Educational Eligibility

Desirous candidates applying for APPSC ADO Jobs 2021 through APPSC Recruitment 2021 must possess a Bachelor's Degree in Agricultural Science from a recognised University/Institute and must have adequate knowledge of the local dialects as stated in the APPSC Recruitment Notification 2021.

APPSC Recruitment 2021: Selection And Pay Scale

The selection of candidates to APPSC ADO Jobs 2021 through APPSC Recruitment 2021 will be done through a Written Examination and Viva-Voce/Interview as notified in APPSC Recruitment Notification 2021.

Shortlisted candidates for APPSC ADO Jobs 2021 through APPSC Recruitment 2020 will be paid emolument in the scale of Rs. 56,100 to Rs. 1,77,500 per month as per the designation.

Also Read: SSC CGL Examination 2020-21 For 6,506 Group B (Gazetted/Non-Gazetted) And Group C Posts. Apply Before Jan 31

APPSC Recruitment 2021: How To Apply

Candidates applying for APPSC ADO Jobs 2021 through APPSC Recruitment 2021 must register online through OTR on the official APPSC website and submit their application on or before February 5, 2021 by 4:00 pm.

Download APPSC Recruitment 2021 Notification PDF for Agriculture Development Officers (ADO)
In 1991, Howard Corscadden picked up the Irish Independent and saw a castle for sale.

It was on the front page of the Property section, he recalls. It said: Castle ready to be moved into. Now, it wasnt quite ready to move into...

But he bought it.

Since then, he and his family have spent millions upgrading not just Cabra Castle in Co Cavan, but Bellingham Castle in Co Louth, Ballyseede in Tralee and Markree in Co Sligo as the Romantic Castles of Ireland collection.

The last time we met, in February, Howard was overseeing the completion of a revamped, 280-capacity ballroom at Cabra. Then came Covid.

Whod have thought? he sighed when I called to catch up before Christmas. The big question will be next March, what level of restrictions there will be coming into next season. Everyones on tenterhooks... at the moment, you just cant plan.

Expand Close Howard Corscadden, Managing Director Romantic Castles of Ireland, next to Rory OSullivan, Lily Mae OSullivan and Marnie Corscadden of Ballyseede Castle in Co Kerry / Facebook

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Whatsapp Howard Corscadden, Managing Director Romantic Castles of Ireland, next to Rory OSullivan, Lily Mae OSullivan and Marnie Corscadden of Ballyseede Castle in Co Kerry

Howards love of castles began with a stint working at Dromoland. His parents and grandparents both owned hotels, and when Cabra came along, they teamed up to invest.

You could see there was a market for a castle product maybe not charging those prices, he says. It gave people an alternative.

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Their collection, along with other reboots like Kilkea Castle, Lough Rynn and Kilronan Castle, created a whole new tier of Irish castle hotels.

Overseas visitors love castles, but locals have responded too.

People will travel to a castle, Howard says. Its the atmosphere. We have beautiful public rooms, cellars, nooks and crannies, steps up to lovely little seating or window areas where you can sit and read your book.

Expand Close Howard Corscadden with Oscar the wolfhound at Cabra Castle / Facebook

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All Corscadden castles have open fires and wolfhounds, too. Things like that make it different to a normal hotel stay.

Castles are money pits (You can put an extra zero onto every job you have to do, he laughs), but the philosophy is clear:

The day you stop spending is the day you go backwards. Even this year, with business down 80pc, theyve been planting trees around Cabra, and plan to add nine new bedrooms to Bellingham Castle by summer.

Covid has throttled tourism, but Howard is confident castles will make a comeback. In a hi-tech world, he says the old-school hospitality, ambiance and personal touch will be a bigger draw than ever.

If youre going to celebrate something special, you want to talk to a human being, he says.

Pandemic supports have helped keep the business afloat, and with many 2020 bookings moved to 2021, this could even be a bumper, bumper year... pandemic restrictions permitting, of course.

Im curious. Would Howard buy another castle?

Im always on the lookout, he laughs. But the rest of the family might have something to say about that!

Online Editors
Black Narcissus

BBC1, Sunday-Thursday

Rating:

The Serpent

BBC1, Friday

Rating:

Black Narcissus is based on the novel by Rumer Godden and was famously filmed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in 1947, starring Deborah Kerr, but what that told so successfully in under two hours, this doesnt manage in three.

This was soooooooo slooooooooow. Its a narrative about cloistered sexuality, and at various times you wanted to shout: can we uncloister the sexuality now? Get it all out in the open? And call it a day?

Here, Gemma Arterton steps into Kerrs shoes as Sister Clodagh who, in 1934, is dispatched with other nuns to establish a convent school in an all but deserted old palace high on a mountainside in a remote outpost of the Himalayas.

Mr Dean's main job is to stir the loins of the sisterhood. Not only Sister Clodagh but also Sister Ruth (Aisling Franciosi, above), who had been skating on thin ice mentally since the get-go

Clodagh is sent there by Mother Dorothea (the glorious Diana Rigg in her penultimate role), and it is not a hospitable place. Its not a place where the hills are alive with the sound of music, for instance.

Its not a place where anyones favourite thing is brown paper packages tied up with strings. Its not that kind of place, and these arent those kinds of nuns, and this isnt that kind of story.

Instead, the palace is perched on an outcrop where the winds are strong and windows rattle and doors bang and the bell tower has no railings  many edges to fall off, literally as well as metaphorically  and with The Cello of Dread, as I call it, playing constantly on the soundtrack.

An atmosphere should slowly build. But this is dread from the off  the first scene is of a storm and lightning cracking  and then its three hours of dread across three nights.

And if its dread non-stop, then what you cant have is any taut suspense. Its just more of the same.

Back to the action. Or what there was of it. Once Clodagh arrives, she finds she has to deal with handsome, manly Mr Dean (Alessandro Nivola), clerk to the local general.

The general has donated the palace, and its where his father used to keep his concubines (hence the erotic murals that must be quickly covered up) and where his sister came to a bad end 20 years previously.

(As seen in the prologue. And then over and over, rather unnecessarily.)

Sister Clodagh does not want to seek help from Mr Dean  her sin is pride  but has to if she is ever to get the water closet fixed, for example. I am not given to prayer myself but was praying shed ask him to fix railings to the bell tower, and a handrail to those steps but no joy.

His main job, anyway, is to stir the loins of the sisterhood. Not only Clodagh but also Sister Ruth (Aisling Franciosi), who had been skating on thin ice mentally since the get-go.

However, as there is no sexual chemistry between him and them  not a squeak, not a whisper  this love triangle never especially convinced.

Clodagh is given a backstory, with fleeting images of a love affair that went wrong before she took up holy orders, whereas Sister Ruth goes mad (essentially) without explanation.

So that seemed unbalanced. Meanwhile, as the windows kept rattling and the doors kept banging, the other sisters  Sister Briony (Rosie Cavaliero), Sister Blanche (Patsy Ferran), Sister Philippa (Karen Bryson)  were barely sketched.

And because the pacing was off, it all became quite repetitive. So much so that when Gina McKee turned up in the final episode (as Sister Adela) I was overjoyed. A new nun! At last!

So it was all underpowered, and perhaps rather pointless  what does it say that the film does not?  but it did also have its virtues. The performances were uniformly good.

Arterton skilfully portrayed a woman who comes to realise that everything she believed to be right was wrong, while Sister Ruths increasing lunacy was well handled by Franciosi.

This was also stunning to look at. Unlike the film, which was shot at Pinewood, this was shot partially in Nepal and the cinematography was terrific. That said, I wont be booking a holiday at that old palace soon. And Id want railings. Lots of them.

I got through the first episode of The Serpent but failed to see how anyone would want to watch the next seven. (Seven!) It is based on the real-life serial killer Charles Sobhraj  played here by Tahar Rahim  who, across Asia in the mid-1970s, and abetted by his girlfriend (Jenna Coleman), murdered backpackers travelling the hippie trail.

It is based on the real-life serial killer Charles Sobhraj who, abetted by his girlfriend (Jenna Coleman, above), murdered backpackers travelling the hippie trail

With its brown and orange haze and the incorporation of vintage cine footage, it is spot-on visually, and captures that era really brilliantly, which is how it earned its two stars.

But it was also confusing  so much hopping back and forth in time, I often couldnt remember if we were back or forth  and serially unpleasant.

If a point was being made by seeing a young woman conned, drugged, dragged from a car, tossed into the sea and drowned, then I failed to work out what it was. Theres no whodunnit element, even if a young Dutch diplomat is on his tail, and the thought of having to sit through seven more hours no. I cant.
In December 2020 the film The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone, was released to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the original version, The Godfather, Part III. Produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola from the screenplay cowritten with Mario Puzo, it concludes the story of Michael Corleone, the patriarch who tried to legitimize the criminal family he headed and to escape the past. The film is a coda, an epilogue that brings closure to the great and highly popular Corleone saga, one that ends in anguish and a sense of tragedy.

The revered popular saga has been compelling and seductive with its complicated intrigues, alliances, and anticipations of violence. The present film deals with shadows and memories, a torn leader unable to break free from his past. Michael Corleone, struggles between his desire for legitimacy and respectability, and his inability to renounce the code of honor, the code of silence, omerta, or to escape the consequences of his past, especially ordering the assassination of his brother. Michael could never escape: Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

The film, technically very clever, is not as good or as engrossing as the previous Godfather films, which Coppola once spoke of as a critique of American political economy. That theme is less evident in this film, which is more akin to the melodrama of King Lear than to any critique of Wall Street. The film tells an essentially sad story, not only because of the inability of Michael to escape from the demands of the underworld and the ambitions of younger gangsters, but for three reasons: the reality that power cannot be given, it must be taken; redemption in this world is not possible; and corruption is universal. That corruption is brutal in his own family, as well as in the rival gangs of the underworld, in business, politics, and the church. The corruption and cynicism is displayed at the very beginning of the film, which opens with Michael seeking respectability by his convoluted multimillion business deal with Archbishop Gilday of the Vatican Bank, depositing $600 million to get majority control of the international Immobiliare Corporation, a real-estate company in which the Vatican owned a quarter interest, only to find the deal was all a scam to swindle him. The cynical corrupt archbishop remarks that the power to absolve debt is greater than the power of forgiveness. The Archbishop also, to prevent exposure of his crime, tries to poison the tea of the Pope.

The film ends with the Intermezzo and finale of Pietro Mascagnis one-act opera Cavalleria Rusticana, with the implicit parallel of love, betrayal, violence, jealousy, blood feud, death, disgrace, and dishonor in Sicily. Like the mother whose son is killed in the opera, Michael is heartbroken because of the murder of his beloved daughter, a sacrificial lamb, on the steps of the Teatro Massimo in Palermo. The epilogue brings closure to the Corleone saga, with the spiritual rather than real death of Michael, an isolated figure back in Sicily: The mind suffers, the body cries out.

The film of the fictional Corleone family brings an opportunity to compare the saga of its activities with real organized crime of Mafia families in the U.S. and in Italy, perhaps the best example of contemporary tribalism. Since the early 20th century, small criminal family gangs have operated in U.S. cities, increasing membership from immigrants. The majority of the 500,000 Italian immigrants and descendants was law abiding, and have made remarkable contributions to American culture, especially in music, but a minority became criminal during the Prohibition era of the 1920s and after the immigration of Sicilian Mafia driven out by Mussolini.

Each family has a boss, underboss, capos or captains, consigliare, and associates. A commission of crime families organized and headed first by Lucky Luciano, was created to set policy and mediate disputes between the families. Leaders became celebrated figures, Al Capone, Bugsy Siegel, John Gotti, Vito Genovese, and Sam Giacana, who was recruited by the CIA to assassinate Fidel Castro, and had ties to JFK, as well as having quaint amusing nicknames like Meatball, Mush, Jello, Jimmy the Weasel, Fat Vinnie, Alfred the Butcher.

There are apparently five main families in New York, Gambino, Genovese, Colombo, Bonanno (formerly Maranzano), and Lucchese, with others in other cities: the Outfit in Chicago, Bruno in Philadelphia, Patriarca in Boston, and De Cavalcante in New Jersey. There are 24 known families with 5,000 members. Though a shadow of their former self, the gangs remain active in certain areas: extortion, loan sharking, arson, illegal gambling, labor unions racketeering, narcotics trafficking. But mob hits of top bosses are now rare.

There are transatlantic ties between U.S. organized crime families and the Italian Mafia, as shown by the link between the Italian Inzerillo family and Gambino, both in U.S. and Italy.

Historically, Sicily was attacked by invaders, leading small groups to protect themselves, from which came a process of clans and families, the private armies of a criminal class. Crime syndicates have long been active in Italy, the result mainly of the four major crime networks.

The Sicilian Mafia (Cosa Nostra), Our Thing, which increased its importance in the 1950s, gained control of building contracts and heroin trafficking, including connection with the U.S. Mafia. With an estimated 4000 core members with 100 clans, it had influence in politics under corrupt Christian Democratic governments. It was active up to the early 1990s, and under its boss Salvatore Riina, a ruthless killer who assassinated not only criminal rivals but also government officials, members of parliament, and journalists. It has become less active since 2017 when Riina, nicknamed The Beast, died in prison, where he had spent over 20 years.

The Camorra of Naples has been able to infiltrate police departments, controls drugs, counterfeiting, and money laundering, and specializes in cigarette smuggling . Nydangheta of Calabria, a group with 6,000 members, is active in cocaine trafficking, and police corruption. Sacra Corona Unita of the Puglia region, founded in 1981, is active in drug trafficking, prostitution, and arms trafficking.

In recent years a number of incidents have occurred. Two of them can be mentioned. The mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggia, in office since 2016, claims she and her family have been targeted for death by the Mafia, and she is forced to live with a police escort. Raggia, representative of the anti-establishment Five Star movement, is the first woman to be elected mayor of Rome, the physical embodiment of the she-wolf, the official emblem of Rome. She has been active in dealing with Mafia syndicates, demolishing eight villas, a block owned by the Casmonica criminal family, originally from the Abruzzo region, a group accused of murder, money laundering, drug trafficking, pandering, and which is part of the Roman political corruption, Mafia Capitale, which was mostly disbanded in 2014.

Most interesting, on December 22, 2020 Pope Francis recognized the martyrdom of Rosario Livatino who on September 21, 1990, aged 37, was brutally murdered by a hit squad on his way to work as a judge at the Court of Agrigento in Sicily. A gang, La Stidda (the Star) that has become more prominent in central-south Sicily, had ordered his death because of his investigation of mobsters, a defiance of the Mafia who wanted a weak judge. Livatino acted in accordance with his fervent belief in Christianity. He had been a prosecutor of the Mafia in the 1980s and of the tangentopoli, the corrupt system of bribes and kickbacks for public works contracts. His martyrdom paves the way to beatification, though there was no need for a miracle to be attributed to his intercession with God.

If the Italian Mafia networks have attracted less attention in recent years they are still dangerous, adopting what Italian interior minister Luciana Lamorgese has called increasingly complex models of criminal activity, infiltrating important economic sectors. One example of this was shown in January 2020 with the arrest in Puglia of 40 criminals running a protection racket concerning coffins from funeral homes. A relatively new clan, a fifth Mafia, the Foggia in south Italy, with three criminal subgroups involved in racketeering and extortion, forces funeral homes to pay 50 euros for each body.

Lamorgese believes Ndrangheta is presently Italys most powerful Mafia organization. One study showed that this family made more money than Deutsche Bank and McDonalds put together. Yet Cosa Nostra is still pervasive and dangerous, and the Camorra maintains collusion with public officials. Mafia gangs are present in most areas of business, including health care, agriculture, food distribution, and tourism, as well as in the traditional construction sector.

Interestingly, land has become the object to control. The Sicilian Mafia have managed to take advantage of the large EU agricultural subsidies, getting more than ten million euros for ghost land, land that was nonexistent or owned by the Italian state or regional government. In January 2020, members of two clans, Batanesi and Bontempo Scavo, together with corrupted officials, were arrested in and near the city of Messina, for scams targeting EU rural development funds.

The Godfather film is a reminder that the Mafia still exists. It remains to be said that the gangs, however glamorously portrayed and entertaining, are criminals, not alternatives for the absence of social justice and economic reform.
The homes of Senator Mitch McConnell and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the two most powerful members of Congress, have been reported vandalized, days after the contentious passage of a stimulus bill that has been criticized as inadequate by a broad coalition ranging from progressive activists to President Trump.

In a statement on Saturday, Mr. McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, lamented what he called a radical tantrum drawn from a toxic playbook. The Louisville station WDRB-TV reported that the senators home was tagged overnight with red and white spray paint. Photos show writing on the front of the home, including Weres my money on the front door. The Louisville Metro Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

Ive spent my career fighting for the First Amendment and defending peaceful protest, Mr. McConnell said in the statement. I appreciate every Kentuckian who has engaged in the democratic process whether they agree with me or not. This is different. Vandalism and the politics of fear have no place in our society.

At about 2 a.m. on Friday, San Francisco police officers responded to a report of vandalism at a home in the citys Pacific Heights neighborhood. Graffiti was found spray-painted on the garage door and a pigs head was left on the sidewalk, a Police Department spokesman said. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the home belonged to Ms. Pelosi.
WASHINGTON (AP/WLFI)  A coalition of 11 Republican senators, including US Senator Mike Braun, said it will challenge the outcome of the presidential election by voting to reject electors from some states when Congress meets next week to certify the Electoral College results that confirmed President-elect Joe Biden won.

President Donald Trumps extraordinary refusal to accept his election defeat and the effort to subvert the will of the voters has become a defining moment for Republicans and is tearing the party apart. The 11 senators, led by Ted Cruz of Texas, say they will vote against certain state electors unless Congress appoints an electoral commission to immediately conduct an audit of the election results.

They acknowledged they are unlikely to change the results of the election.

The group of Republican senators released the following statement:

America is a Republic whose leaders are chosen in democratic elections. Those elections, in turn, must comply with the Constitution and with federal and state law.

When the voters fairly decide an election, pursuant to the rule of law, the losing candidate should acknowledge and respect the legitimacy of that election. And, if the voters choose to elect a new office-holder, our Nation should have a peaceful transfer of power.

The election of 2020, like the election of 2016, was hard fought and, in many swing states, narrowly decided. The 2020 election, however, featured unprecedented allegations of voter fraud, violations and lax enforcement of election law, and other voting irregularities.

Voter fraud has posed a persistent challenge in our elections, although its breadth and scope are disputed. By any measure, the allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes.

And those allegations are not believed just by one individual candidate. Instead, they are widespread. Reuters/Ipsos polling, tragically, shows that 39% of Americans believe the election was rigged. That belief is held by Republicans (67%), Democrats (17%), and Independents (31%).

Some Members of Congress disagree with that assessment, as do many members of the media.

But, whether or not our elected officials or journalists believe it, that deep distrust of our democratic processes will not magically disappear. It should concern us all. And it poses an ongoing threat to the legitimacy of any subsequent administrations.

Ideally, the courts would have heard evidence and resolved these claims of serious election fraud. Twice, the Supreme Court had the opportunity to do so; twice, the Court declined.

On January 6, it is incumbent on Congress to vote on whether to certify the 2020 election results. That vote is the lone constitutional power remaining to consider and force resolution of the multiple allegations of serious voter fraud.

At that quadrennial joint session, there is long precedent of Democratic Members of Congress raising objections to presidential election results, as they did in 1969, 2001, 2005, and 2017. And, in both 1969 and 2005, a Democratic Senator joined with a Democratic House Member in forcing votes in both houses on whether to accept the presidential electors being challenged.

The most direct precedent on this question arose in 1877, following serious allegations of fraud and illegal conduct in the Hayes-Tilden presidential race. Specifically, the elections in three states  Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina  were alleged to have been conducted illegally.

In 1877, Congress did not ignore those allegations, nor did the media simply dismiss those raising them as radicals trying to undermine democracy. Instead, Congress appointed an Electoral Commission  consisting of five Senators, five House Members, and five Supreme Court Justices  to consider and resolve the disputed returns.

We should follow that precedent. To wit, Congress should immediately appoint an Electoral Commission, with full investigatory and fact-finding authority, to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed states. Once completed, individual states would evaluate the Commissions findings and could convene a special legislative session to certify a change in their vote, if needed.

Accordingly, we intend to vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not regularly given and lawfully certified (the statutory requisite), unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed.

We are not naive. We fully expect most if not all Democrats, and perhaps more than a few Republicans, to vote otherwise. But support of election integrity should not be a partisan issue. A fair and credible audit  conducted expeditiously and completed well before January 20  would dramatically improve Americans faith in our electoral process and would significantly enhance the legitimacy of whoever becomes our next President. We owe that to the People.

These are matters worthy of the Congress, and entrusted to us to defend. We do not take this action lightly. We are acting not to thwart the democratic process, but rather to protect it. And every one of us should act together to ensure that the election was lawfully conducted under the Constitution and to do everything we can to restore faith in our Democracy.
US Congress Bans Anonymous Shell Companies

WASHINGTONThe U.S. Senate on Dec. 11 passed a bill overhauling anti-money laundering rules and banning anonymous shell companies, a victory for law enforcement and rights groups which have long sought changes to make it easier to police illicit money flows.

The bill requires most companies to report their true beneficial owners to the government, allows greater information sharing between law enforcement and regulators, and authorizes the use of new suspicious activity monitoring tools.

Cracking down on legal vehicles that allow criminals and terrorists to move money around the world has become a pressing issue for policymakers as a slew of scandals in recent years has revealed the true extent of illicit global money flows.

The United States weak rules on disclosing corporate owners have allowed criminals to use legal entities to shuffle their cash around the world, according to the authorities.

In 2011, the World Bank found that the United States each year produced nearly 10 times as many legal entities with anonymous owners as 41 tax havens combined.

The global law enforcement and national security community will reap enormous benefits from anti-money laundering policy that stops bad actors from using shell companies to shepherd crime across international borders, said Greg Baer, CEO of the Bank Policy Institute, which lobbied for the changes.

Fridays bill, included as part of a broader defense funding package, was approved by the U.S. Senate after the House of Representatives passed it earlier this week. The bill now heads to President Donald Trump. While Trump had suggested he could veto the bill over separate policy disputes, the Senate vote of 84 to 13 provides more than the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.

If signed into law, the bill should help banks by allowing them to share the burden of identifying and tracking potential illegal activity.

By Pete Schroeder
Two days after Maharashtra Congress chief Balasaheb Thorat said his party would strongly oppose any proposal that seeks to rename Aurangabad as Sambhajinagar, the Shiv Sena on Saturday said its resistance will not affect the three-party MVA government in the state.

Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut expressed confidence that the issue would be resolved when all the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) allies- Sena, NCP and Congress- sit together and talk.

On Thursday, Thorat had asserted that the Congress would oppose any proposal to rename Aurangabad, saying that changing the names of places was not part of the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) of the three ruling parties.

It was the Shiv Sena, which had first made the demand to rename Aurangabad as Sambhajinagar over two decades ago.

Also Read | Maharashtra: Shiv Sena, Congress fight over renaming Aurangabad; BJP mocks them

A proposal to that effect had been passed in the general body meeting of the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) in June 1995, which was challenged by a Congress corporator in the high court and later in the Supreme Court.

In its party mouthpiece Saamana, the Sena said, The Congress has opposed the proposal of renaming Aurangabad to Sambhajinagar. It has made the BJP happy. But the Congresss opposition to the proposal is not new and therefore, linking it to the MVA government is foolishness. Even if the name has not been changed in the government records, Shiv Sena supremo late Balasaheb Thackeray had renamed Aurangabad as Sambhajinagar when there was Congresss chief minister in the state. The people had also accepted it, it said.

But some people feel that the issue of renaming Aurangabad will create friction within the ruling alliance, the Sena said in a veiled attack on the BJP.

Thorat announced that if any proposal for renaming Aurangabad comes up before the MVA government, his party would oppose it. It is his claim. After his statement, BJP leaders started demanding that the Sena should make its stand clear on the issue. But the Sena has not changed its stance on it. Balasaheb Thackeray had renamed Aurangabad as Sambhajinagar 30 years ago, which was accepted by the people.

And it will soon be changed officially as well, it said.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led party said BJP leader Chandrakant Patil asked that if Allahabads name can be changed to Prayagraj, Faizabads to Ayodhya, why cant Aurangabads name be changed to Sambhajinagar.

But we want to ask why the party did not do so when it was in power in Maharashtra, the Sena added.

Any state requires a foundation of self-respect and even the Congress will agree that Aurangazeb was not a secular person. The Muslims in Maharashtra have stood behind the Shiv Sena. They want development and welfare, it said.

It is an insult to the memory of Chhatrapati ShivajiMaharaj that a city in Maharashtra should bear Aurangazebs name, who brutally killed ChhatrapatiSambhaji Maharaj, it said.

But what Thorat is saying is right. The Maharashtra government is duty-bound to implement the CMP of giving justice to the downtrodden and the farmers, it added.

Congresss opposition to the renaming proposal will not affect the MVA alliance, it said.

Meanwhile, Raut said, Thirty years ago, Balasaheb Thackeray gave the name Sambhajinagar. Only paper work is left now. When all the MVA allies sit together and talk, the issue would get resolved. The renaming of Aurangabad was not a political issue, he said.

Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam said the MVA government has been formed to work and not change the names of cities.

The CMP doesnt mention changing name of Aurangabad, he said.
Maharashtra is all set to roll out its Covid-19 vaccination drive, said state authorities, after a dry run was held in 12 facilities across four districts on Saturday. The state government has trained 18,000 vaccinators, set up 4,200 centres, 3,145 cold chain systems and will vaccinate more than 30 million people in three phases till August this year. Meanwhile, the state has not found any person arriving from abroad infected by the new strain of coronavirus found in the United Kingdom (UK).

State health minister Rajesh Tope said the state machinery was all set. The dry run was conducted successfully. The [dry] run helped the people involved to understand the set- up required for vaccination. Each vaccination facility will have an observation room and an information cell to ensure proper awareness and will take care of any complications during the drive, he said.

According to state government estimates, 30 million people will be covered in the vaccination drives first three phases meant for priority groups health workers; frontline workers; people above 50 years of age and those with comorbidities below the age of 50.

Of them, 800,000 are health workers from the private and public sector and 758,000 of them have been registered so far. The registration of the people in other categories is being done by their respective departments at the district and corporation level. Once the vaccination drive is given a go-ahead by the Centre, the vaccination of these categories will be done and is expected to take six to seven months. The vaccination centres at primary health centres at the taluka level and hospitals at district level will have batches of 100 people each. Multiple batches could be vaccinated daily at these centres. There are no guidelines issued by the centre so far for the vaccination of other categories of the population, said Dr Ramaswami N, commissioner, family welfare, and director, National Health Mission. According to an official, the vaccination of the remaining categories of the population is expected to be undertaken after these three phases. However, we expect the Centre to allow the vaccine to be sold in the market for vaccination through private health care machinery, said another official from the health department.

Maharashtra, meanwhile, reported 3,218 new infections, taking the tally to 1,938,854 and toll to 49,631 after 51 new deaths on Saturday. The state has been clocking fewer than 4,000 cases for the past 17 days despite the projection of authorities of a spike in cases in the last week of December and first week of January. With the addition of 593 new cases and seven deaths, Mumbais tally touched 294,660 and toll was pushed to 11,132. The states case fatality rate (CFR) stands at 2.56%, while the recovery rate stood at 94.64% as 1,834,935 patients have reported to have been recovered so far. State has 53,137 active patients in various Covid-19 facilities. Pune, the second-most affected city in the state, saw no deaths for a second consecutive day on Saturday. The cases in Pune city dropped to 250.

Meanwhile, the state has so far not found anyone with the new variant of the virus found in the UK among the international passengers who had tested positive during a special drive. Till Saturday, 68 passengers who arrived in Maharashtra from UK between November 25 and December 22 tested positive during the states special drive taken to trace them. 62 samples had been sent to NIV, Pune for genomic sequencing. 29 of them are from Mumbai, 13 from Pune, 7 from Thane, 9 from Nagpur, 2 each from Nashik, Aurangabad, Raigd and Buldhana and one each from Nanded and Washim.

For the vaccination drive, the government has set up 27 storage facilities at the block level, 34 at district level, one each at division level and a central facility at the state level. It is like any other vaccine like BCG, pulse polio for us. Once the go-ahead is given by the Centre, the vaccine will be distributed through these storage facilities to the vaccination facilities at primary health centres and district hospitals, medical colleges for actual vaccination, Dr DN Patil, state immunisation officer.
Jay Janner /Associated Press

The Supreme Court of Texas on Friday blocked Austin-area orders that restricted dining-in and drinking at restaurants through Jan. 3. The order followed a New Years Day appeal by Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler and Travis County Judge Andy Brown announced the orders on Dec. 29 in a bid to slow spiraling coronavirus infections and hospitalizations going into New Years Eve.
The Egyptian cabinet postponed on Thursday first-term exams in schools and universities to be held in person after the end of the mid-year vacation to mitigate against the impact of a second wave of the coronavirus.

The mid-year vacation is set for 16 January - 20 February.

The cabinet also ordered remaining classes in the first semester of the current academic take place only through an online system starting Saturday.

The decisions come as apart of the government's strategy to mitigate against the repercussions of the spread of the coronavirus, and in the interest of the health and safety of all members of the educational process, including students, faculty members, and teachers, the statement noted.

On 20 December, the ministry of education had decided to make the attendance of the students optional for the rest of the first semester while leaving schools open to receive students willing to attend.

During the cabinet meeting on Thursday, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly stressed the importance of implementing the cabinet decisions regarding the reduction of the number of employees on duty in ministries and government bodies and ensuring attendance rotation.

The decisions, Madbouly said, come in light of the complaints the government received regarding health concerns at government entities.

The prime minister also stressed the need to implement the recent decision of levying immediate fines starting Sunday on citizens and establishments that do not adhere to the coronavirus precautionary measures, adding that the cabinet will follow up with all governors to see this decision through.

Earlier this week, in an attempt to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the cabinet ordered a number of measures, including the imposition of an immediate EGP 50 fine on citizens who do not wear face masks in public starting 3 January.

Cairos Metro Authority also announced on Wednesday collecting a similar fine from those who do not wear face masks in metro stations, also starting Sunday.

The government has banned New Years Eve celebrations and maintained restrictions on occupancy for hotels, restaurants and coffee shops.

Madbouly emphasised on Thursday that the government would immediately and decisively deal with any attempt to hold celebrations or gatherings on the occasion of New Year's Eve, with legal measures to be taken against violators.

Egypt, which is currently facing the second wave of the pandemic, has recently witnessed a rebound of daily infections after reporting low rates over the past months.

On Wednesday, Egypt recorded 1,411 new coronavirus infections, the highest daily record in almost five months, bringing the total number of cases to 136,644 since the emergence of the pandemic in mid-February.

According to Wagida Anwar, a member of the Supreme Committee for Viruses at the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, the number of coronavirus cases in Egypt is expected to reach its peak during the second wave in late January.

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The total number of COVID-19 cases in the United States topped 20 million on Friday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

U.S. COVID-19 case count rose to 20,007,149, with a total of 346,408 deaths, according to the CSSE tally.

California reported 2,297,336 cases, followed by Texas with 1,766,791 cases and Florida with 1,323,315 cases. The states of New York and Illinois both registered more than 960,000 cases.

Other states with over 520,000 cases include Ohio, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona, the CSSE data showed.

By far, the United States remains the nation worst hit by the pandemic, with the world's most cases and deaths, making up more than 23 percent of the global caseload.

U.S. COVID-19 cases reached 10 million on Nov. 9, and the number doubled in less than two months.

The United States repeatedly saw record numbers of cases, deaths as well as hospitalizations in the deadliest month of December in 2020.

With a toll of 3,750, U.S. daily COVID deaths shattered the record for a second straight day on Wednesday, the deadliest day the country has ever witnessed since the start of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, current hospitalizations in the United States hit a record high of 125,379 on Thursday, according to The COVID Tracking Project.

Entering the New Year, the country will continue to fight the virus in the face of surging cases following gatherings and travel over the holidays, experts warned.

A national ensemble forecast updated Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted a total of 383,000 to 424,000 coronavirus deaths in the United States by January 23, 2021. (ANI/Xinhua)

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Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 13:21:21|Editor: huaxia

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SHENYANG, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- China's Liaoning Province on Friday reported seven confirmed COVID-19 cases, all locally transmitted, the provincial health commission said Saturday.

Three of the new confirmed cases were identified in the provincial capital Shenyang, including one who was previously asymptomatic, while four others were in the port city of Dalian.

The province on Friday also reported one imported confirmed case from overseas arrivals in Shenyang, and one imported asymptomatic case in Dalian.

By Friday, the province had 70 confirmed cases in hospital and another 35 asymptomatic carriers under quarantine and receiving treatment, according to the commission. Enditem
From Yukon to Finland: CBC's radio signal heard from afar Canada's CBC reports an AM radio broadcast on 560 kHz from CBC Yukon was heard 7,000 km away in Finland



CBC says:



Jorma Mantyla lives in Kangasala, Finland. On Oct.15 he was scanning the airwaves and came across the signal from Dawson City, Yukon, broadcasting CBC's Yukon Morning show. The signal lasted about an hour.



"It was clear to hear your Yukon Morning program led by a female journalist and the morning news," he said. The host that day was Elyn Jones in Whitehorse.



Upon hearing the signal Mantyla sent an email with an attached audio clip asking for confirmation. CBC Yukon wrote him back to confirm what he'd heard. We also scheduled an interview by videoconference to speak about his hobby.



Read the full CBC story at

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/cbc-radio-signal-heard-from-afar-1.5793078
Hong Kong: 35 COVID-19 cases detected

(To watch the full press briefing with sign language interpretation, click here.)

The Centre for Health Protection today said it is investigating 35 additional COVID-19 cases, of which 34 are locally transmitted.

The patients include 15 males and 20 females aged between four and 82.

Among the local cases, 10 have unknown sources of infection.

While updating the media this afternoon about Hong Kongs COVID-19 situation, the centres Communicable Disease Branch Head Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan explained that three buildings have been added to the compulsory testing list.

They are Wah Po House on Fuk Wa Street in Sham Shui Po, Chuen Shui House of Shui Pin Wai Estate in Yuen Long, and the left wing of Almond Blossom (Tower 9  L Wing) at La Splendeur, LOHAS Park, 1 Lohas Park Road, in Tseung Kwan O.

Those who had been present on these three premises during a specified period must undergo a COVID-19 nucleic acid test.

Dr Chaung noted that two more COVID-19 patients were found to have the new UK coronavirus variant and one patient has the South Africa variant.

She added that the city currently has 10 coronavirus variant cases imported from the UK and two from South African.

Dr Chuang also responded to concerns over the new COVID-19 strains spreading in the local community.

Our laboratory experts and also various parties in the Hong Kong University and Polytechnic University are doing some genetic sequencing analysis on new coronavirus variants. They do not only do the analysis on imported COVID-19 cases but also the analysis on clusters and the local cases.

So, I think if there is any spread of the new coronavirus variants in the local community, we would know. Of course, there may be a time delay.

For information and health advice on COVID-19, visit the Government's dedicated webpage.

This story has been published on: 2021-01-02. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
The chronicle of a life split between urban Manhattan and rural Montana.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami accused DMK president M K Stalin of "deliberately slandering" him and his AIADMK government with false accusations and said the leader of the opposition has no intention of working hard to come to power.

Stalin was under the impression that he could capture power through shortcut and dislodge the government, he said.

"But this will never work. All I can say to Stalin is that not a single AIADMK member can be ruffled. Moreover, people are solidly behind us," Palaniswami said while addressing a meeting during his poll campaign at Paramakudi on Saturday.

None can shake the dominance of the AIADMK following in the footsteps of great leaders and late chief ministers M G Ramachandran and J Jayalalithaa, who nurtured the party.

"Stalin attempted to break the AIADMK on several occasions but faced utter defeat because the people are with us," he said.

"Only those who truly work hard can reach the highest level. We are really working hard and striving for peoples well-being. Stalin's dream will turn into a mirage and will never come true," the chief minister said.

Palaniswami, who held a discussion with Devendra Kula Vellalar representatives in Paramakudi, informed that he has already forwarded the recommendation (of a panel under IAS officer Hansraj Varma) to the Centre to address the long pending demand of the community to categorise all seven sects in the community under the name of Devendrakula Vellalar.

The state department officials have been told to take up the issue with the Union government and implement it expeditiously.

"They have begun this work. You can hope to have this issue resolve in a months time," he assured.

The Hansraj Varma committee was constituted in 2019 after demands for bringing Devendrakulathar, Kadaiyar, Kaladi, Kudumbar, Pallar, Vathiriyar and Pannadi under the title Devendrakula Vellalar.

The committee recommended to the state government that all seven be called Devendrakula Vellalar.

On the problems being faced by the district, Palaniswami said his government would soon implement the Cauvery-Gundar river linking project at a cost of Rs 14,000 crore, the biggest ever project initiated by his government, to transform the arid Ramanathapuram into a verdant and prosperous district.

Once the project is completed, waterbodies in parched areas will no longer remain dry, he said and added that the groundwater would also be recharged.

"Tenders for this project, which would irrigate nearly 1 lakh acres of land upon completion, has been awarded and the foundation stone will be laid soon," Palaniswami said.

The state government, which protests the interests of all sections including traders and weavers, is determined that none is affected due to political interference.

"Law and order should be maintained well if business has to flourish. Only then the traders can carry out their chores without qualms."

"In our AIADMK, we don't permit the collection of money from traders. Businesses can thrive only when there is money circulation among the people," the chief minister said while campaigning here.

He claimed that the law and order situation in Tamil Nadu is maintained better than other states in the country.
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas and 11 Arizona Republicans that sought to force Vice President Mike Pence to essentially overturn the results of the election and hand it to President Donald Trump. U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, said Gohmert and his fellow Republicans lacked standing to sue. In what was always seen as a far-fetched effort by Trump allies to change the outcome of the presidential race, Gohmert had argued that Pence could unilaterally alter the Electoral College count. The lawmaker had called on the court to say that Pence, who will preside over the Jan. 6 session to certify the election results, could unilaterally decide whether to throw out some of President-elect Joe Bidens electoral votes.

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Kernodle said that Gohmert and his allies couldnt sue because no individual member of Congress has standing to sue if the harm supposedly affects the entire Congress. But in addition to the standing issue, the judge noted that Gohmerts claim is entirely speculative and based on a series of hypotheticals. Plaintiffs presuppose what the Vice President will do on January 6, which electoral votes the Vice President will count or reject from contested states, whether a Representative and a Senator will object under Section 15 of the Electoral Count Act, how each member of the House and Senate will vote on any such objections, and how each state delegation in the House would potentially vote under the Twelfth Amendment absent a majority electoral vote, Kernodle wrote in his 13-page ruling. All that makes Congressman Gohmerts alleged injury far too uncertain to support standing.

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Even as he dismissed the case, Kernodle still left a door open for Gohmert and his allies to pursue their case in court. By dismissing the case without prejudice, Kernodle gave the lawmaker an opportunity to reframe their lawsuit. After the ruling Friday evening, Gohmert and the other plaintiffs said they would be appealing to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. In an interview with Newsmax, Gohmert said he was optimistic about the appeal but said the judges ruling meant that the only option left to those upset about the results of the election could be street violence. Bottom line is, the court is saying, were not going to touch this, you have no remedy, Gohmert said. Basically, in effect, the ruling would be that youve got to go to the streets and be as violent as antifa and BLM.

Kernodles ruling came a day after Pence, who was represented by Justice Department lawyers, called on him to reject the case, claiming that the arguments Gohmert was making meant he had to file suit against Congress, not the vice president. A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction, wrote the Justice Department lawyer. Lawyers representing the House of Representatives also said the Kernodle should dismiss the lawsuit because it would authorize the Vice President to ignore the will of the Nations voters.
Chief Minister K Palaniswami on



Saturday announced Rs 600 crore relief assistance to about five lakh farmers, whose crops on 3.10 lakh plus hectares were hit due to the recent back to back cyclones in

A norm that permitted relief only upto a maximum of two hectares has been relaxed in view of the losses suffered by ryots and the assistance shall cover loss in its entirety without any upper limit, Palaniswami said.

The assistance would be directly credited to the bank accounts of from January 7, he said in an official release.

Palaniswami said agricultural and horticultural crops on 3,10,589.63 hectares were affected in due to the Nivar and Burevi cyclones witnessed during November-December last year. Farmers, who bore huge production cost, were hit badly due to the storms, he added.

The Chief Minister increased aid, covered under input subsidy head, to Rs 20,000 from Rs 13,500 per hectare for rainfed and irrigated paddy and for other crops with irrigation amenities.

For all rainfed crops, barring paddy, the relief assistance per hectare is raised to Rs 10,000 from the present Rs 7,410, he announced.

Similarly, the Chief Minister hiked assistance under the perennial crops category to Rs 25,000 from the present Rs 18,000 per hectare.

The present slab of assistance per hectare is based on the Disaster Relief Fund guidelines and the quantum of hike over and above the NDRF stipulation shall be borne by the state government, Palaniswami said.

has sought Rs 3,750.38 crore assistance for damage due to Nivar and Rs 1,514 crore for Burevi from the Central government.

"Rs 600 crore assistance will be provided to about five lakh and the benefit shall be directed transferred to their bank accounts from January 7," 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.)
A former miner who lived on the same road for 101 years has died of coronavirus months after his whole street turned out to sing him Happy Birthday.

Harold Reed passed away on Christmas Eve after battling the virus in a care home in Dover, Kent.

He had lived on Dickson Road in the Tower Hamlets area of the town his whole life before moving to the facility in May.

Mr Reed made headlines when a video emerged of him being sung Happy Birthday by his neighbours while he was shielding in April.

Harold Reed passed away on Christmas Eve after battling the virus in a care home in Dover, Kent

His son Victor told KentOnline: 'He never needed to leave Dickson Road and he loved it there.

'Neighbourhoods are different now but he knew every person who lived in that street in the late 50s and early 60s.

'All in all, dad had a very happy and fulfilled life and his memories will continue with his family for many years to come.'

In the video from April, Mr Reed sat outside his front door on the seat of his walker to greet his neighbours.

One, June Murphy, said: 'Harold is loved and respected by us all. I am honoured to know this guy. He has my greatest respect.'

Mr Reed smiled as his neighbours burst into a rowdy rendition of Happy Birthday To You.

Mr Reed sat outside his front door on the seat of his walker to greet his neighbours on a street in Dover, Kent, in April

Those who lived on the street stayed at a distance as they all wished him well on his 101st birthday.

At the end of the song the crowd cheered and Mr Reed gave them all a round of applause.

An elderly lady and another woman handed him his birthday cards and he wiped a tear from his eye.

Mr Reed was born just after the end of the First World War, in 1919, and had nine siblings.

But they lost their father when he was 12 and his school headmaster let him drop out to find work and help his family.

He worked at Alston's tailors in Dover as a packing and delivery man before being a minor at the Kent Coalfield by the start of the Second World War.

He was never deployed to fight in Europe because his job meant he was needed at home. But he did join the Home Guard and was stationed at Dover Harbour.

Mr Reed later became a roofer and tiler for a company called John Williams, which he did until he was 69.

Those who lived on the street stayed at a distance from Mr Reed as they wished him well on his 101st birthday

He was married to Phyllis - who died in 2003 - from 1948 and they had lived over the road from his family since 1957.

Their children are Victor, 64, Brian, 58, and Alan. Alan died of a heart attack in 2018 at 69.

Victor and Brian said he had been health for most of his life but his eyesight and mobility started to go six years ago.

The brothers' wives, Mandy and Sharon, looked after Mr Reed until he went into Alandale Residential Home in Whitfield.

Mr Reed is survived by eight grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
Amidst the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and recent spike in infection cases, Nigerian health workers have called for an increase in their hazard allowance as they are major front liners in the fight against the pandemic.

Speaking at a webinar recently, the President of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Innocent Ujah, said all health workers are being paid N5,000 a month as hazard allowance, a sum he described as degrading and insulting.

At the moment, health workers are being paid N5,000 as hazard allowance despite an increased risk in dying and ill health. This is an insult, he said.

The webinar, titled Citizens Response to Covid-19 Second Wave and the State of the Health Sector in Nigeria, was organised by the Alliance on Surviving COVID-19 And Beyond (ASCAB), a coalition of over 80 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and organised labour, led by Femi Falana.

Hazard allowances

Hazard pay, a wage supplement paid to workers who do dangerous jobs, has been the grouse of Nigerian health workers since the advent of the coronavirus pandemic.

Health workers, being the first respondents to patients, have continued to be at risk of exposure to COVID-19 virus.

Although health workers have been advised to use full Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) before attending to patients, many do not have access to this equipment and as a result, over a thousand health workers have tested positive for COVID-19 in Nigeria.

As of July, over 10,000 health workers in 40 Africa countries have been infected with COVID-19 virus, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The NMA recently announced the deaths of 20 doctors within a week from complications arising from coronavirus, a news President Muhammadu Buhari described as sad.

Unfulfilled promises

Following a report by PREMIUM TIMES in April, the Nigerian government promised a special COVID-19 hazard and inducement allowance of 50 per cent of Consolidated Basic Salary to health workers in Nigerian Teaching Hospitals, Federal Medical Centres (FMCs), and designated COVID-19 centres for the first three months.

The report disclosed how nurses and midwives taking care of COVID-19 patients said they had no life insurance and were not receiving any special hazard allowance different from that embedded in their salaries.

An entry-level federal doctor or dentist earns an annual consolidated earning of about 1.7 million ($4,722), rising to 8.5 million ($23,611) for the highest grade, as stipulated in the 2019Consolidated Medical Salary Scale (CONMESS).

Of this, hazard allowance is 60,000 ($167) per annum for medical workers at all grades, said Olanrewaju Amusat, Executive Director of SmileBuilders Initiative.

But several months after, some health workers are yet to receive the promised hazard allowances. A situation that has prompted doctors under the aegis of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) and members of JOHESU to down tools in September.

Obinna Ogbonna, President, Nigeria Union of Allied Health Professionals, said some health workers are yet to receive the hazard allowances while others were paid sub standard.

He said many of the workers are discouraged to face the second wave of the pandemic due to unfair treatment melted out on them.

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The government do not work their talk. They promised us that they will give inducement hazard allowance but they did this for only three months and until date, some of our members have not collected their COVID-19 hazard allowances, he said.

Mr Ogbonna also said the life insurance promised never came to reality, its only on the papers.

Unfair treatment

Biobelemoye Josiah, President of the Joint Health Sector Unions and Assembly of Healthcare Professionals (JOHESU) said health workers are not treated fairly despite the increased risk of losing their lives.

He said his leadership is under pressure to withdraw from the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

But we are still here because of our human feelings, he said. He noted that the ministry of health must bring everybody as a united force and must be treated fairly to defeat the pandemic.

In his remarks, Mr Falana said no sector in Nigeria has suffered more than the health sector during this pandemic.

He called for a massive increase in funding of public health to enable the survival of COVID-19 and beyond, to protect our health workers from COVID-19 and other diseases.
Bhubaneswar, Jan 2 : The Odisha government on Saturday decided that schools will reopen for Class 10 and Class 12 from January 8.

In a statement, School and Mass Education Department informed that students will be taught for 100 days including Saturdays and Sundays.

Classes will be held for Class 10 students from January 8 to April 26 and Class 12 students will attend their classes from January 8 to April 28.

Notably, the schools have been closed in the state since March 17 due to Covid-19 pandemic situation.

Board of Secondary Education (BSE) will conduct the High School Certificate (HSC) examinations from May 3 to May 15. The Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE) will conduct the 12th examinations between May 15 and June 11.

The practical exam of Class 10 students will be held from April 27 to May 2 and Class 12 students will be held from April 29 to May 14, the statement said.

The guidelines issued by the Health and Family Welfare Department and the Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) will be followed strictly at the schools.

The department has released a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the opening of the schools.

It said only the schools outside containment zones shall be allowed to reopen and students, teachers, employees living in containment zones will not be allowed to attend the school.

Online learning will continue to be the preferred mode of teaching and will be encouraged. The students may attend schools with the written consent of parents, the department said.
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New Delhi: We will conduct a tractor march on January 26 and head towards Delhi, protesting farm unions announced on Saturday.

We were peaceful, are peaceful and will continue to be peaceful, but we will stay put at Delhi borders until the new farm laws are repealed, farmer union leaders said.

Farmers' protestNext round of talks between farmers and the Centre will be held on January 4.

Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Friday said the government is hopeful of a "positive outcome" at its next meeting with farmers' unions but refrained from predicting whether the seventh round of talks will be the last one, saying he is not an astrologer.
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump has vetoed a bill that would have gradually ended the use of large-mesh drift gillnets used exclusively in federal waters off the coast of California.

Trump says the bill would have increased reliance on imported seafood and worsened a multibillion-dollar seafood trade deficit. He also says the bill will not achieve its purported conservation benefits.

The bill was sponsored by Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Republican West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito.

Feinstein says Trump's veto ensures that more whales, dolphins, sea turtles and other marine species will be needlessly killed.

(Copyright 2021 The Associated Press)
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A 47-year old dentist was arrested for allegedly forging his daughter's National Eligibility cum Entrance Test score card and a call letter for medical counselling to get MBBS admission, police said on Saturday. The dentist, Balachandran, hailing from Paramakudi in Ramanathapuram district was arrested and produced before a court here which remanded him to judicial custody on Friday.

A police officer said the dentist has been lodged at the Saidapet sub-jail. The forgery came to light recently when the father and daughter duo turned up for MBBS admission counselling session held here and produced a 'call letter' for counselling and a 'NEET marksheet' that showed a score of 610.

On scrutiny, medical admission authorities found that her name did not figure either in the rank chart or call list for couselling. It was found that the girl had a score of 27 but submitted a forged certificate and similarly, the call letter too was fake. Based on a complaint from authorities, police launched a search and arrested the dentist.

In 2019, a NEET impersonation scam rocked Tamil Nadu and at least nine people were arrested including medical students.A number of 'aspirants' allegedly hired 'expert' proxies to write NEET on their behalf.

Such hired individuals scored good marks in the test which aided aspirants to get admissions in medical courses..

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Actor Katie Holmes became famous for her starring role in the hit WB teen drama Dawsons Creek. The 90s-00s series was among the most popular on TV at the time and kickstarted the careers of its young actors. So just how old was Holmes when she first began acting on the show?

Katie Holmes starred as Joey in Dawsons Creek

RELATED: Dawsons Creek: The Real Reason Pacey and Joey Got Together

Holmes broke out as Joey Potter in Dawsons Creek. The series depicted a group of teenagers living in the fictional town of Capeside, Massachusetts. Joey is a hard-working student who is in love with her best friend, Dawson. Throughout the series, she graduates high school, attends college, and goes back and forth between Dawson and Pacey.

The series made all of its young stars famous, but perhaps Holmes most of all. Not only is she the only actor to appear in every episode of the series, but she earned many big-screen roles during its run, from Teaching Mrs. Tingle to Abandon. When Dawsons Creek ended, Holmes was a sought-after star.

She went on to star in such films as Pieces of April

Following Dawsons Creeks finale in 2003, Holmes continued her trajectory as a movie star. She portrayed Rachel Dawes, the titular characters love interest, in the first of Christopher Nolans Dark Knight trilogy, Batman Begins. And she starred as part of the ensemble cast in the dark comedy Thank You For Smoking.

However, Holmes career began to wane following her marriage to Tom Cruise and the birth of their daughter, Siri Cruise. She starred in a handful of box-office bombs such as The Romantics and Jack and Jill. Her 2016 directorial debut, All We Had, received mixed reviews. Holmes also returned to TV in two miniseries to portray Jackie Kennedy.

Holmes rescheduled her Dawsons Creek audition

Holmes was a high school senior when she auditioned for the role. She sent in a tape she recorded at home in Ohio with her mom, so that she could star as Lola in a production of Damn Yankees. But there was a problem when she was asked to come out and test. They wanted me to come the day of my opening night, she told Jimmy Fallon in 2018.

So we called and we said, We cant do it. And then they waited, Holmes continued. The funny thing is, is that [creator] Kevin Williamsonsaid, Katie, I only saw half of your audition because your sisters volleyball game was taped through it. Fallon suggested that was part of the appeal. Thats what got me the role, Holmes jokingly agreed.

How old was Katie Holmes in Dawsons Creek?

Katie Holmes of Dawsons Creek | Mike Albans/NY Daily News via Getty Images

Typically, the first episode of a series, called the pilot, is filmed ahead of the first season. The network decides whether to pick the show up for a season after seeing it. Holmes shared a throwback photo of her, James Van Der Beek, and Williamson, saying, This was the pilot. So this was April of 97.

We were babies, said Holmes of the early days. We were 18 when we started. Michelle [Williams] was 16. Holmes was, in fact, 18 in April 1997, as was Joshua Jackson (Pacey). However, Van Der Beek turned 20 around that time, making him the oldest of the group. Williams, who played Jen Lindley, was 16.
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The Chief of Defence Staff, General Bipin Rawat, visited on Saturday air bases and interacted with frontline soldiers in forward areas near the Line of Actual Control in Arunachal Pradesh amid a border row with China in eastern Ladakh, officials said.

Nothing can deter the Indian armed forces from remaining steadfast in their call of duty, an official statement quoted Rawat as saying. While the current border row is confined to the Ladakh theatre, the Indian military is on high alert to deal with any misadventure by the Chinese forces all along the border --- stretching from Ladakh in the north to Arunachal Pradesh in the east.

Rawat completed one year as Indias first CDS on December 31. As CDS, Rawat is the permanent chairman of the chiefs of staff committee (COSC), heads the department of military affairs, and is the single point military adviser to the defence minister.

The CDS also interacted with personnel from the army, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police and the Special Frontier Force in Dibang Valley and Lohit Sector of Arunachal Pradesh, the statement said.

Complimenting the soldiers for their operational readiness, Rawat said that only Indian soldiers could remain vigilant under the challenging conditions and they were willing to go beyond the call of duty to safeguard the countrys farthest frontiers.

Rawats visit to the eastern sector comes amid the nearly eight-month-long military standoff between Indian and Chinese troops on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which has taken bilateral relations to an all-time low. The two sides havent been able to agree on disengagement and de-escalation at friction points on the LAC despite several rounds of diplomatic and military talks

Earlier this week, defence minister Rajnath Singh said that talks with China on disengagement and de-escalation in the Ladakh sector did not yield any meaningful solution.

Both India and China are prepared for a long haul in the Ladakh sector and are firm about holding forward positions along the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) through the harsh winter months.

Both sides are expected to hold the ninth round of military talks to reduce border but there is no indication of when India and China will hold the dialogue. Both countries had agreed to hold the corps commander-level dialogue at an early date during diplomatic talks on the dispute on December 18.

While India has consistently pushed for comprehensive disengagement at all flashpoints and restoration of status quo ante of early April during the military talks, the Chinese side wants the Indian Army to first pull back troops deployed on strategic heights on the southern bank of Pangong Tso.
Kate Winslset achieved instant fame with her role as Rose DeWitt Bukater in 1997's epic blockbuster Titanic.

Speaking to The Weekend Australian's Review, the English-born star, 45, revealed why her sex scene with Saoirse Ronan, 26, in her latest film Ammonite felt 'very different' compared to her heterosexual love scenes.

Kate plays Mary Anning, a 19th-century British palaeontologist who has an affair with a married woman, Charlotte Murchison, played by Saoirse.

Candid interview: Kate Winslet (pictured in 2018), 45, revealed to The Weekend Australian's Review on Saturday why her sex scene with Saoirse Ronan in latest film Ammonite, felt 'very different' than previous heterosexual love scenes

'It did feel very different,' Kate said of her sex scene with Saoirse. 'I've played LGBTQ characters before. In fact, I played an LGBTQ character in the first film I ever did, Heavely Creatures.'

Kate said in those days she lacked the confidence she now has.

'I was very young, I had only just turned 17 actually and also I had very little experience of actual intimacy in my own life, so I didnt really know what I was doing, other than playing the character,' she explained.

Latest role: Kate (pictured on the set) plays Mary Anning, a 19th-century British palaeontologist who has an affair with a married woman, Charlotte Murchison, played by Saoirse

Kate added that having performed heterosexual sex scenes in many of her other films, she realised that with two women, speaking the 'same physical language' made a huge difference.

The Academy Award winner was thrust into the spotlight in 1997's romance drama Titanic, where she played Rose DeWitt Bukater opposite Leonardo DiCaprio.

Kate told Good Housekeeping back in 2007 how the film's success changed her life.

'It did feel very different': Kate told The Australian that having performed heterosexual sex scenes in many of her other films, she realised that with two women, speaking the 'same physical language' made a huge difference. Pictured with Saoirse, 26

'Well, the thing that it really did for me was give me this incredible freedom of choice,' she said.

'Now that I'm a mother, I'm in a position where I can choose to work or not to work.'

Kate also said she takes acting very seriously, and doesn't just 'turn up' to the set.

'I really fret about it, I do my homework, I prepare myself for the experience of playing a particular character. And I love that about my job.'

Ammonite is in Australian cinemas from January 14 and coming soon to the UK
Terence Glover (above) killed Harley Watson and injured nine other children and an adult in a horrifying attack outside a school

Police warned medical staff that a mentally ill loner was planning to run children over just weeks before he deliberately ploughed his car into a group of pupils, killing a 12-year-old boy, an investigation by The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Terence Glover killed Harley Watson and injured nine other children and an adult in a horrifying attack outside a school.

Until now, the appalling incident in December 2019 has been reported as a 'hit-and-run', committed by a troublemaker who had been the subject of complaints to police for several years.

But we can reveal that Glover is a paranoid schizophrenic with a history of violence who refused to take medication or even acknowledge that he was ill.

Shockingly, a leaked NHS report seen by the MoS shows that nine weeks before Glover killed Harley, a psychiatric nurse was told by police that he had been 'talking about running children over'.

But the chilling warning was overlooked, and hours later a psychiatric team decided Glover was not dangerous enough to be detained in a secure hospital.

Until now, the appalling incident in December 2019 has been reported as a 'hit-and-run', committed by a troublemaker who had been the subject of complaints to police for several years. Shockingly, a leaked NHS report seen by the MoS shows that nine weeks before Glover killed Harley (pictured), a psychiatric nurse was told by police that he had been 'talking about running children over'

The damning internal report by Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust also reveals:

Almost two years before Harley's killing, the NHS received an anonymous tip-off from someone claiming to be a Met Police officer who warned that Glover had threatened a 'vehicle-borne attack';

After his arrest, Glover told a psychiatrist in prison that he had previously warned police that he was becoming angry and that 'this is how kids are going to get run over';

Glover was fixated by delusional thoughts and believed children were harassing him;

He was held in 2012 in a secure hospital after threatening a neighbour with a knife;

Doctors assessed whether Glover should be detained on another five occasions in the seven years before Harley's death, and each time decided not to.

The disturbing disclosures follow our report of how medics knew that a schizophrenic Albanian woman who cut a seven-year-old girl's throat on Mother's Day was a threat to children.

The appalling killing of Emily Jones in a park in Bolton happened less than four months after Glover killed Harley and injured ten others outside Debden Park High School in Loughton, Essex.

Harley's devastated mother Jo Wood, 33, last night spoke of her anger and demanded urgent reform of the way dangerous mentally ill patients are supervised in the community.

'They need to change something because if they don't, just like Harley and Emily Jones, it will be moments until the next child or the next adult loses their life. And for what? It's so unnecessary.'

Glover has pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Harley by diminished responsibility, and the attempted murder of Raquel Jimeno, 23, and six boys and three girls aged between 12 and 16. He will be sentenced on Friday.

The disturbing disclosures follow our report of how medics knew that a schizophrenic Albanian woman who cut a seven-year-old girl's throat on Mother's Day was a threat to children. The appalling killing of Emily Jones (above) in a park in Bolton happened less than four months after Glover killed Harley and injured ten others outside Debden Park High School in Loughton, Essex

Harley had just left school on December 2, 2019, and was walking along Willingale Road in Loughton with a group of friends when Glover, driving a silver Ford Ka, mounted the pavement behind them and ploughed into them. Harley suffered a fatal head injury.

The leaked report seen by the MoS reveals that Glover had taken cocaine before the incident.

The MoS has learned that Glover was well known in Loughton as a deeply troubled individual. He first came on to the radar of local mental health services in October 2012 after he was arrested for threatening a neighbour with a knife.

He claimed that a neighbour had posted information about him on the internet, resulting in school children pointing at him.

Glover was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and detained on a psychiatric ward at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow but was discharged five days later. In August 2015, he was arrested again after grabbing his ex-partner and slamming her head against a wall, causing bruising and swelling.

His mental health continued to deteriorate and by 2017 he was calling police on a weekly basis, falsely claiming that a neighbour was planting listening devices inside his house and monitoring him through the TV.

An officer emailed Glover's GP, warning that he was 'becoming more paranoid' and that the frequency of calls to police were 'quite concerning'. The GP attempted to refer Glover to a mental health team but the leaked report says it appears the referral was rejected.

On March 5, 2018, according to the report, someone claiming to be a Metropolitan Police officer called the NHS 111 to give a stark warning: Glover was 'making threats of a vehicle-borne attack'.

The informant explained that he had 'previous knowledge of Glover' but because Loughton is covered by Essex Police, he was 'unable to organise help himself without an abuse of power'.

Tragically, this extraordinary bid to sound the alarm failed. The anonymous caller was put through to a clinician who requested a police welfare check on Glover, but it is not clear whether this took place.

The 111 call then ended because 'there was no immediate threat to life'.

The last opportunity to stop Glover came on September 30, 2019. He had been arrested for breaching a public protection notice, and his mental state was assessed by a community psychiatric nurse in Harlow police station.

Harley was a 'star pupil' at Debden Park High and was particularly good at maths. His favourite classes, however, were music, dance and drama and he dreamed of becoming an actor. (Above, flowers left near the entrance to the school in December 2019)

In her subsequent report, the nurse wrote that 'police have said he has been found staring at neighbours' children and talking about running children over'. She said another assessment should take place to decide whether he should be detained and warned: 'I am concerned that there is a risk to others, particularly neighbours/children.'

Later that evening, two doctors and a 'mental health practitioner' from Essex County Council arrived at the police station to carry out an assessment under the Mental Health Act. They did not, however, talk to the nurse, who had by then gone home after submitting her alarming report.

They later said 'they could not recall' whether they read her report before making their own assessment. They also claimed they tried to phone the nurse but the call was not answered. The nurse claimed not to be aware of a call.

At least one assessor knew that Glover had been 'using threatening behaviour towards neighbours' children' that day but after being told by the police custody sergeant that there had been no signs of him 'acting strangely', they decided there were no grounds to detain him.

Miss Wood believes Harley would still be alive if Glover had been detained that night. And it remains unclear why Glover targeted the children  Miss Wood and Harley did not know the killer, or live nearby.

Julian Hendy, of the charity Hundred Families, which campaigns for families affected by mental health homicides, said: 'Yet again there were warnings about the danger someone posed to children which don't seem to have got through.'

Essex Police said: 'We had prior contact with Glover before the awful events of December 2, 2019, and made a number of referrals to mental health professionals following those interactions.

Due to this prior police contact, we referred ourselves to the Independent Office for Police Conduct and have co-operated fully with their investigation. We await their findings and will act on any recommendations they make.'

The IOPC has finalised its report but it will not be published until after Harley's inquest.

The Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust said: 'Our findings will be shared with the coroner ahead of the inquest.'

Essex County Council said: 'We are awaiting the outcome of the coroner's inquest and will implement any recommendations.'

How many more mothers must grieve like Jo before mentally ill killers are taken off streets?

Jo Wood has watched CCTV footage that no mother should ever have to see.

The images, captured by a camera near the entrance of Debden Park High School in Loughton, Essex, show the final minutes of her 12-year-old son Harley's life as he left school with a group of friends one December afternoon in 2019.

'They were just walking home, talking about the usual stuff that teenage boys talk about,' Jo tells The Mail on Sunday in an exclusive interview. 'And that was it. It just happened so fast.'

She is unable to watch the footage beyond this point but she knows only too well the horror of what happened next.

Proud mum: Jo Wood with Harley, smiling in his smart uniform shortly after starting at Debden Park High School

At about 3.20pm, a silver Ford Ka driven by Terence Glover, a violent paranoid schizophrenic, deliberately mounted the pavement behind Harley and his friends and ploughed into them. Harley, wearing a blue backpack and his school blazer, went under the car and suffered a fatal head injury.

Witnesses say Harley's friends were 'flung like dolls' as Glover careered along the pavement on Willingale Road, injuring nine other children and one adult. Some were knocked unconscious but none of the other victims suffered life-changing injuries.

Tears stream down Jo's face as she explains that the CCTV footage showed how Harley was initially walking on the left-hand side of the group and was the furthest away from the road.

Fatefully, about a minute before the attack, he skipped around the back of the group, placing himself next to the road  and directly in Glover's path.

'I don't know why,' she says. 'I don't know if his friends there were talking about something but he moves just about a minute before, so he is close to the road.

'They didn't stand a chance that day, they really didn't.'

Jo, 33, was in Central London, where she works as personal assistant at the headquarters of a major bank, when another mum from the school called and told her there had been an incident involving a car.

Panic-stricken, she hailed a taxi outside her work but after getting stuck in traffic, she jumped out and sprinted for Liverpool Street Tube station to head for home.

Above, Harley at the Louvre during a trip to Paris with his mother. Jo believes the NHS should be held accountable for failing to detain Glover under the Mental Health Act on five separate occasions, including just nine weeks before Harley's death

Meanwhile, Ryan, Harley's stepfather, and Jo's parents rushed to the school and found a scene of carnage, as traumatised children huddled under silver survival blankets and paramedics treated Harley.

Minutes later, Jo's friend called again with devastating news. 'My friend said to me they are resuscitating Harley. I was screaming and crying. I didn't know anything  I just knew he was being resuscitated.'

Jo arrived at the Accident & Emergency department of Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone minutes before Harley's ambulance pulled in and she watched in horror as a large team of medics fought desperately to save his life.

'I looked to my left and there was a woman on top of him on the bed and she was giving him chest compressions.

'They pushed him around to where I was standing and the doctor briefly explained what he was going to do. And all of a sudden, within about a minute, he looked at a nurse and he asked what the time was and I just knew that was it. And then they just stopped. I screamed and I begged them to keep trying and they just couldn't.'

We walked to school that day. I never imagined I would never see him again

Jo says it's crucial people understand that Glover's actions were deliberate and not some kind of terrible road accident.

A damning internal NHS report seen by this newspaper reveals police knew that Glover, who suffered paranoid delusions, had previously threatened to run children over in his car. Doctors, meanwhile, declined a string of opportunities to detain him in a secure hospital.

'People mustn't just see this as a hit-and-run,' Jo says. 'It's much bigger than that. There were so many warning signs which could have prevented it happening. What we have is a very, very long build-up which could have been stopped at any time. And people knew about it. People who had the power to stop him  they knew about it.'

She believes the NHS should be held accountable for failing to detain Glover under the Mental Health Act on five separate occasions, including just nine weeks before Harley's death.

Essex Police also have serious questions to answer, she says, including why Glover's car was not seized from him when officers knew he had threatened to use it as a weapon.

'They can't do everything, I understand that. But I am not convinced that they did everything they could have to prevent this happening,' she says.

Jo describes Harley as a 'kind, caring, selfless, intelligent and comical young man' who was an 'extremely loving person'.

'He was really funny and would make up jokes all the time. He was totally selfless as well  he would share everything.'

Jo and Harley's biological father split when Harley was two. His stepfather Ryan, 35, a mentor for primary school children from challenging backgrounds, joined the family three years later.

Budding actor: On stage at Londons famous Sadlers Wells Theatre. Harley was a 'star pupil' at Debden Park High and was particularly good at maths. His favourite classes, however, were music, dance and drama and he dreamed of becoming an actor

He and Jo also have a five-year-old daughter. Harley and Ryan became exceptionally close, bonding over a shared love of Tottenham Hotspur and in recent years enjoying the ritual of watching Spurs play during the Christmas break.

Jo describes a 'complete family'. Half-terms were busy with trips to theme parks or London tourist attractions, and they enjoyed a family holiday to Majorca four weeks before Harley's death. 'He always made friends on every holiday we went on and he always stayed in touch with them.'

Jo and Harley would also go away for what she called 'just us two' trips to celebrate his birthday.

In July 2019, they enjoyed a blissful weekend in Paris for his 12th birthday. 'I wanted to do something that made him realise how special he was to me,' she says. 'We had such a great time there.

They have these pay-as-you-go electric scooters. We went to a big park and he could just about see over the handlebars. I remember him saying that was the best part of his trip  just scooting around together for an hour.'

Harley was a 'star pupil' at Debden Park High and was particularly good at maths. His favourite classes, however, were music, dance and drama and he dreamed of becoming an actor.

He had attended drama classes with performing arts organisation Theatretrain in Loughton and, to the immense pride of Jo, her mother and Ryan, performed in a show at Sadler's Wells Theatre in London on the weekend of his tenth birthday. A picture published today for the first time shows him on stage dressed as a science teacher in the performance of Special Measures.

Jo says: 'He was stood there at the front of the stage with everybody behind him. I just thought, 'Wow!' We were so proud of him. All the way home on the Tube, we were grinning and talking about it. Other passengers were talking to him because he was still wearing his costume. He was lapping it up, bless him.'

Harley was eager to learn a musical instrument and Jo and Ryan were planning to buy him a keyboard and pay for lessons last Christmas.

On the morning Harley died, Jo and her son had walked some of the way to school together. At Debden Underground station, they said goodbye.

Jo caught a train in to London, while Harley carried on to school. 'We got to the station and I gave him a kiss and a hug and said, 'Have a good day. Love you.' I never imagined this would be the last time I'd see him alive.'

Jo had always given Harley strict instructions about walking home, warning him that he did not need to cross any busy roads and he should not look at his phone.

'He did exactly what I asked him to do,' she says. 'He did everything by the book that day, but he didn't stand a chance.'

The horror of what happened to her son has left Jo unable to walk along the left-hand side of a busy road. 'I won't walk down a road if the traffic is behind me. I will cross over. I will always walk facing the traffic. Because if you can't see what is behind you, you are putting your trust in strangers.'

After Harley's death, a pupil at his school launched a parliamentary petition calling for the Government to make it a legal requirement that every school has a line of bollards outside to protect children from vehicles.

Meanwhile, the leaked report seen by the MoS reveals Glover took cocaine, sleeping pills and two boxes of paracetamol before driving his car at Harley and his friends.

In November, during a 15-minute hearing at Snaresbrook Crown Court, the 52-year-old admitted manslaughter by diminished responsibility and ten counts of attempted murder.

It was the first time Jo had seen Glover, who appeared via video-link from a secure hospital.

Jo is tortured by conflicting emotions. She hates the man who killed her son but is also angry that Glover did not get the medical support he so clearly needed.

'I despise the man for what he has done to my son and my family. But if he is as ill as everyone is telling me he is, he should have been better supported. Ultimately, if he had got better support I would still have my son. I hate him so much, I really do.'

Jo explains she has spoken out to ensure such a tragedy does not happen again.

'I want people to understand that these things are happening and they can be prevented. It shouldn't be just brushed under the carpet.'

She has described her overwhelming grief in a powerful personal statement prepared before Glover is sentenced on Friday.

'It wasn't just Harley's life that was taken that day. I lost my life as well. Now I merely exist so that my daughter can have a childhood with both her parents.

'I miss my boy beyond words and I would give my life for Harley to have his.'
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 20:36:15|Editor: huaxia

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LUSAKA, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Had it not been for the intervention of the village head, Precious Moyo, a 16-year-old girl at the Kabeleka village in Lusaka would still be languishing in a marriage with no hope of a better future.

"My parents were struggling to provide for all six of us children. It was then that my peers suggested that I get married so as to lessen my family's financial burden," she recounted.

But after just a few weeks into the supposed marriage, the village head person upon learning of Precious's ordeal decided to confront her parents and had her removed from the arrangement and taken back to school.

Like many developing countries, Zambia still grapples with child marriages. Many girls particularly from lower-income environments in Zambia are married off at a very young age and in the process denied access to education and dignified life.

However, the past few years have seen a reduction in incidences of child brides particularly in rural Zambia because most traditional leaders in the country have made it their mission to end child marriages.

It is for this reason that stories with a much happier ending such as that of Precious are becoming all too common in rural Zambia where child marriages were once very rife.

Many traditional leaders, including chiefs, village heads as well leaders of village development committees, have continued to spearhead the fight against child marriages as well as a host of other gender-based violence challenges in rural Zambia and their efforts are bearing fruit.

"We have, through the Chikwanda Anti-GBV Foundation, an initiative of the royal establishment, managed to prevent child marriages and also successfully retrieved a lot of young girls from such arrangements. A good number of the girls have since gone back to school," Chief Chikwanda of Chikwanda Chiefdom in Mpika district, Northern Zambia, said in an interview with Xinhua.

His royal highness further revealed that because of education and sensitization programs that his administration has been undertaking over the years, most families now apprehend the dangers of child marriage, including maternal death and greater risk of contracting a range of sexually transmitted infections.

"Communities now also appreciate the fact that marrying off young girls is retrogressive in that it not only robs the child involved in a better future but also denies our village the chance to develop. Educated children are an asset to both their immediate communities and the country as a whole," he added. Enditem
MINNEAPOLIS (AP)  The Minnesota Legislature convenes for its 2021 regular session Tuesday, and it won't like anything like normal.

The House will meet via Zoom until further notice because of the pandemic.

The Senate will try a hybrid approach. And the Capitol will remain surrounded by riot fencing. Thats going to make it a challenge for lawmakers to interact with each other, constituents and advocates for a myriad of causes.

With the Capitol mostly closed to the public, phone calls, emails and online meetings will replace most face-to-face work.

And thats going to make it harder for citizens to be heard.
More than 800,000 people in Russia have been inoculated so far against coronavirus and more than 1.5 million vaccine doses have been dispatched, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said on Saturday.

Russia, which began rolling out its Sputnik V vaccine in early December, has the world's fourth higher number of COVID-19 cases and is putting high hopes on several vaccines it plans to produce.

The Sputnik V vaccine, which Russia already started supplying to other countries, is administered in two doses, which use different components, 21 days apart.

Russia sent 300,000 doses of the vaccine to Argentina last week, causing frustration at home, with some people arguing that more shots should be made available at home.

On Saturday, Russia reported 26,301 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, taking its total caseload to 3,212,637.

Authorities said 447 people had died in the past 24 hours, taking the official death toll to 58,002.

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

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Grateful: Kate McCann and her husband Gerry McCann have thanked their supporters and say they remain hopeful their daughter Madeleine will be found. Photo: Joe Giddens/ PA

The parents of Madeleine McCann have said in a new year message that their hope, energy and determination to find their daughter remains steadfast.

In a message posted on the Official Find Madeleine Campaign website, Kate and Gerry McCann said their thoughts and prayers are with everyone who has suffered during 2020.

The statement, which also thanks well-wishers, reads: Goodbye 2020. What a year! One we dont want to remember but will find it hard to forget.

Theres no doubt that 2020 has been tough for most people, and often distressing, with so much loss, worry and isolation.

Despite losing a parent each, we are aware we have been more fortunate than many, with our family unit at home and jobs to go to.

The couple, from Rothley in Leicestershire, acknowledged the investigation to find Madeleine had understandably been forced to slow down as a result of the pandemic.

They added: It hasnt stopped, however, and the hope, energy and determination to find her and uncover the truth remain steadfast.

We are very grateful for the continued support, especially throughout this rubbish year and for all the Christmas wishes too. Thank you.

Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone who has suffered this year. Lets hope 2021 is a brighter, more positive one.

Read More

Madeleine was nearly four when she went missing from her familys holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, on Portugals Algarve, on May 3, 2007.

Scotland Yard last month confirmed it has no plans to end its missing person investigation, despite the belief of German prosecutors that Madeleine was murdered.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick said the force is working really, really closely with the German authorities, but does not expect them to share all of their evidence.

A suspect in the German inquiry, Christian Brueckner (43) was told last November that he will remain behind bars until 2026, after losing a bid to overturn a rape conviction.

He was last year found guilty of the 2005 rape of a 72-year-old American woman in the same Portuguese resort and sentenced to seven years in jail, at a court in Brunswick, Lower Saxony. The German  referred to as Christian B in his home country due to strict privacy laws  was identified as a suspect in the Madeleine inquiry last June.

Read More

Online Editors
More than 800,000 people in Russia have been inoculated so far against coronavirus and more than 1.5 million vaccine doses have been dispatched, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said on Saturday.

Russia, which began rolling out its Sputnik V vaccine in early December, has the world's fourth higher number of COVID-19 cases and is putting high hopes on several vaccines it plans to produce.

The Sputnik V vaccine, which Russia already started supplying to other countries, is administered in two doses, which use different components, 21 days apart.

Russia sent 300,000 doses of the vaccine to Argentina last week, causing frustration at home, with some people arguing that more shots should be made available at home.

On Saturday, Russia reported 26,301 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, taking its total caseload to 3,212,637.

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

Authorities said 447 people had died in the past 24 hours, taking the official death toll to 58,002.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler speaks to the media at City Hall in Portland, Ore., in this file photo taken on Aug. 30, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Portland Mayor Calls Out Antifa Radicals After New Years Eve Riot

The mayor of Portland, Oregon, promised to bring an end to the violence caused by anarchists and Antifa radicals following a New Years Eve riot in the city thats been rocked for months by near-daily protests and riots.

My good faith efforts at de-escalation have been met with ongoing violence and even scorn from radical Antifa and anarchists, Ted Wheeler said during a press briefing on Jan. 1. In response, it will be necessary to use additional tools and to push the limits of the tools we already have to bring the criminal destruction and violence to an end.

Authorities in Portland declared a riot near the federal courthouse shortly before the start of the new year, after a crowd of about 80 to 100 protesters clashed with police, smashed windows, and threw firebombs, according to a Portland Police Bureau (PPB) statement.

Portland police officers evade a Molotov cocktail amid rioting in Portland, Ore. (Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/Reuters)

The riot was declared at about 11 p.m. after the crowd gathered earlier in the night in the area of Southwest Avenue and Southwest Main Street, with some in the crowd engaging in violence. At least two Molotov cocktail-style firebombs and large fireworks were hurled and launched at riot police, the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse, and the Multnomah County Justice Center, police and video footage confirm.

Some rioters also attempted to break into the justice center but failed to do so.

Violence erupted in the city last spring following the police custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Wheeler said its now time to push back harder and bring the violence to an end by increasing penalties on those set on destroying the community.

Lawlessness and anarchy come at great expense and great risk to the future of our community, the mayor said. Its time to push back harder against those who are set on destroying our community, and take more risks fighting lawlessness.

Chuck Lovell, Portland Police Bureau chief, listens as Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler speaks to the media at City Hall in Portland, Ore. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Wheeler said hes in contact with Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt to actively work on cases together to ensure people are held accountable for their criminal conduct.

The mayor addressed three points hes committed to working toward, including increasing penalties, developing a clear plan to address anarchist violence both inside and outside Portland, as well as having rioters convicted of criminal destruction meet with business owners affected by rioters and looters.

These people need to hear, and to understand, the social and human consequences of their irresponsible actions, Wheeler said. All of them should be required to engage in public services like litter pick-up and graffiti abatement.

During the New Years Eve riot, officers were targeted with large rocks, bricks, and frozen water bottles, PPB officials said. Rioters also targeted officers with paint balloons that likely had been laced with a caustic substance as it caused burning to the skin, adding that several officers suffered injuries.

Multiple videos shared on Twitter by reporter Andy Ngo also show businesses, including a Chase bank and Starbucks, destroyed during the violence. A crosswalk sign near the Justice Center was also set ablaze in just one of a number of fires spotted in the area.

This set of pictures shows a crosswalk sign near the Multnomah County Justice Center destroyed by fire (left) and a fire doused on Southwest Main Street during a riot in Portland, Ore., on Dec. 31, 2020. (Portland Police Bureau)

Antifa smashed up a Chase bank and numerous other businesses in downtown Portland after starting fires outside the Justice Center, Ngo wrote in the description of one video. Authorities also confirmed that several businesses had been damaged, and reports of the damage were currently being compiled.

Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Reese said during a press briefing that the violence during the New Years Eve riot was criminal and reprehensible, adding that it was a focused attack on the Justice Center, a public safety facility that protects the community.
The husband of a woman murdered in the Omagh bomb says he hopes her killer is happy in hell.

Stanley McComb insists the public should not feel any sympathy for former Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt, who died on Saturday after a long battle with cancer aged 71.

It doesnt bother me one bit that hes died, said Mr McComb, whose wife Ann was among 29 innocent civilians and two unborn twins killed in the 1998 slaughter.

Michael McKevitt didnt make my life any better, hes dead and gone and Ive no sympathy.

I hope he is happy in hell, I hope he rots there. Thats a terrible thing to say about another human being, but that man is not a human being.

McKevitt was one of four dissident republicans found liable for the Omagh bombing following a landmark civil action by relatives of some of the victims including Mr McCombe. A High Court judge ruled in 2009 that he, Liam Campbell, Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly were all responsible for the bombing, ordering them to hand over 1.6m in damages.

Campbell and McKevitt took their case to Europe, arguing that the civil action had been unfair. However, seven judges at the European Court of Human Rights unanimously rejected the case.

From Co Louth, he was married to Bernadette Sands-McKevitt, the sister of 1981 hunger striker Bobby Sands.

McKevitt joined the Provisional IRA at the beginning of the Troubles and rose to the rank of quartermaster general when he split from the organisation in 1997. The row was over its support for the Good Friday Agreement, with McKevitt and other hardliners forming the Real IRA.

They raided Provo arms dumps, using explosives to manufacture bombs including that in Omagh the following year. The blast there was the biggest single loss of life to occur during the Troubles.

The Real IRA called a ceasefire after the atrocity but within a few years it resumed its armed campaign firing rockets at M16s London headquarters.

McKevitt was eventually jailed in 2003 for directing terrorism after FBI agent David Rupert infiltrated the gang. The spys evidence included claims that the veteran republican plotted to sink a Royal Navy ship.

Having been jailed for 20 years McKevitt broke away from the Real IRA behind bars and set up violent dissident group Oglaigh na hEireann (ONH).

In March 2015, he was granted temporary release in order to have treatment for a cancerous growth on his kidney. Two months later he underwent surgery to have the organ removed.

Frail and in ill-health McKevitt was formally released from prison on Easter Sunday 2016. He kept a low-profile since then, too weak to remain an active republican and spending his time strolling along the seafront in the coastal village of Blackrock.

In 2019, in a case arising out of a failure to pay damages, relatives brought proceedings before the High Court in Dublin where they successfully had McKevitt adjudicated bankrupt.

He did not appear but the court was told he had no assets, had terminal cancer and his only source of income was the state pension.

Paying tribute to McKevitt the political wing of ONH, Republican Network for Unity, described him as a fearless and committed republican soldier.

The group also claimed he was behind a plot to assassinate British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the 1990s and oversaw the importation from Libya of tonnes of weapons by the Provisional IRA in the 1980s.

In a statement, RNU added: We and the entire republican family remember Michael fondly as a comrade, a friend and above everything else as a committed republican leader, who fought the might of the British establishment throughout his entire life.

cbarnes@sundaylife.co.uk.
The Tennessee Health + Housing Summit will convene leaders from the health care, community development, philanthropy and government sectors for deep conversations and exploration of the intersection of health and housing  in particular as it relates to our aging neighbors.
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Copyright  2021 Albuquerque Journal

Last October, store security guards at Coronado and Winrock malls in Albuquerque were stymied in their efforts to stop a young couple, sometimes equipped with a power saw, from stealing pricey items and escaping on foot or in a gold Cadillac.

The two were not normal shoplifters, but armed robbers who would brandish a black handgun when confronted, according to Albuquerque police.

Dont even bother, bro, the young male offender warned while pointing a gun at a Macys store security officer Oct. 27 before the couple fled with several handbags, an APD criminal complaint states.

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The robbers hit Nordstrom Rack, Dicks Sporting Goods, JC Penney and Macys in the span of two weeks. They stole expensive clothing, shoes and handbags.

After a robbery on Oct. 26, police interviewed a Nordstrom loss prevention employee who reported noticing a couple near a display of handbags, and he could hear what he believed to be the sound of a battery powered saw.

The security officer said he believed the woman was using the device to sever the cable and lock securing the purses to the display. The couple then grabbed multiple Michael Kors purses valued at more than $749, states the complaint.

When confronted on their way out of Nordstrom, the male offender lifted his hooded sweatshirt to reveal a black handgun tucked in the waistband of his pants. The man then told the security officer to stand back as he placed has hand on the gun. The couple fled the store, leaving in an unknown model gold Cadillac, police reported.

By that time, Davone Warner, 21, had become a familiar sight from previous shoplifting incidents in the area and several store employees ultimately identified him as one of the robbers.

The criminal complaint also quotes a manager from an Ulta Beauty Store on Louisiana Blvd. NE as having repeated problems with (Warner) entering the store, stealing whatever he wants and even flaunting it to store employees.

Warrants were issued Nov. 4 for the arrest of Warner and his alleged accomplice, 21-year-old Markie Ann Zubia on armed robbery charges.

A month later, records show, Albuquerque police arrested Warner at his Westside Albuquerque home. And the Bernalillo County District Attorneys Office asked a judge to keep him in custody pending resolution of his criminal charges.

Warner had been arrested or summoned to court for 23 crimes over the past 20 months, the DAs office stated in a Dec. 10 motion for pretrial detention.

It is inherently dangerous to point a firearm at a person, escalating a simple theft to a potentially life threatening situation, assistant district attorney DAnn Rasmussen wrote in the motion.

Rasmussen also cited Warners brazenness of committing so many armed robberies in such a short period of time, even two in one day.

Earlier this week, state District Judge Lucy Solimon ordered Warner detained, noting in her order that Warner is escalating his conduct of trespassing and shoplifting by allegedly showing a firearm and verbally threatening employees. And, the judge added, he allegedly keeps returning to the scene of earlier crimes to commit additional heists.

His attorney couldnt be reached for comment. Warner has pleaded not guilty.

Suspected accomplice

Meanwhile, Markie Ann Zubia remained at large until DEA agents and an FBI-led task force converged on a southeast Albuquerque apartment last month in an unrelated federal drug investigation.

Agents believed Marcus Zubia, Markie Ann Zubias father, and his girlfriend, Donna Ponce, were selling large quantities of methamphetamine, heroin, and other drugs, and storing firearms for members of the Syndicato de Nuevo Mexico prison gang, according to a federal search warrant affidavit.

The DEA had also made undercover methamphetamine buys from Marcus Zubia and Ponce, federal records show.

During the early morning raid on Dec. 15, agents discovered Markie Ann Zubia, along with her father, Marcus Zubia and Ponce. They also recovered methamphetamine, fentanyl and crack cocaine in the apartment. Marcus Zubia and Ponce were arrested on federal drug charges and are being held pending trial. Markie Ann Zubia was arrested on a state warrant charging her with felony armed robbery.

A criminal complaint states that she declined to give police a statement other than to say the gun  allegedly brandished by Davone Warner during the shopping mall incidents  was not real.

With no prior criminal record, Zubia was released from jail on her personal recognizance Dec. 16 to await a preliminary hearing set for Feb. 2 on the state charges.

Under her conditions of release, Zubia cannot use or possess illegal drugs, cant consume alcohol, cant return to the location of the alleged incidents, and must maintain contact with her attorney.

Meanwhile, Albuquerque police have made no arrests in the Nov. 9 shooting of a loss prevention officer who was trying to stop a shoplifter at Dillards in the Cottonwood Mall in Albuquerque. The security officer wasnt seriously hurt, according to news reports at the time.

Detectives have made progress, said APD spokesman Gilbert Gallegos in an email on Friday, but the investigation is ongoing.
West Bengal assembly elections 2021: Amit Shah, JP Nadda to visit Bengal again this month

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

New Delhi, Jan 02: West Bengal is all set for Assembly polls in April-May this year. However, the political fight between the ruling TMC and the BJP is likely to intensify.

As the Left Front and the Congress have entered into an electoral alliance, the state will witness a three-cornered contest.

On COVID-19 vaccine, why India could catch up quickly

According to reports, the new year will begin with the visits of two heavyweight leaders of the BJP. While BJP national president JP Nadda is scheduled to visit the state in the second week of January, Union Home Minister Amit Shah is scheduled to visit the state in the third week.

It is also said that Nadda might visit Bolpur in Birbhum district and hold organisational meetings with the state party leadership. Nadda's visit comes close on the heels of Amit Shah and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee visiting Bolpur and holding road shows.

COVID-19 vaccine dry run LIVE: Union health minister Harsh Vardhan visits GTB Hospital

Later, Shah is likely to visit Matua community dominated Thakurnagar area of North 24 Parganas district to quell the anger of members of Matua community who were upset after his statement that Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) would be implemented once COVID-19 vaccination starts.

"Both JP Nadda ji and Amit Shah ji will frequently come to Bengal to hold political programmes and to strengthen the organisation. Our aim is to put pressure on the state government in the run-up to the election. The time is already up for the TMC government. The BJP is all set to come to power in Bengal with huge majority," said West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh.

The TMC is banking on the image of CMMamata Banerjee to take on the BJP. According to a senior party leader, Banerjee is scheduled to undertake a series of visits to the districts to highlight her government's achievements.

Vaccines to be provided for free across India, says health min | Oneindia News

"It is unfortunate that the BJP has deployed its national president, Union Home Minister, chief ministers of others states, CBI and ED to fight against Mamata Banerjee. The BJP lacks leaders and that's why taking away leaders from our party. However, we are not at all bothered as Mamata Banerjee herself enough to fight the BJP. She will undertake multiple visits to the the districts in the new year," said a senior TMC leader.

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Story first published: Saturday, January 2, 2021, 10:12 [IST]

The NCB has arrested two Zambian nationals and seized over five kg of "fine quality" heroin over the last week as it said new routes for smuggling the drug into India are being exploited by traffickers.

In the first case, Zambian man Mulapi Joshua was nabbed by the sleuths of the federal anti-narcotics agency from the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport here on December 25 with 4.6 kg of heroin.

His compatriot, Mambwe William, was similarly apprehended from the IGI airport on December 31 with 700 grams of heroin.

The two had landed here from Dubai, official sources said.

"The arrest of two Zambian nationals with fine quality heroin revealed a reverse route of heroin trafficking into India," Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) Deputy Director (operations) K P S Malhotra said, adding that the value of the seized drug is around Rs 22 crore in the international market.

The normal route for heroin smuggling into the country is through the Pakistan border and in some cases, through the eastern frontiers. The reverse route refers to heroin being trafficked into India from "two different routes" after sourcing it from Afghanistan, the "main cultivator" of opium and "producer" of heroin, Malhotra said.

He said the new tracks are being used by traffickers as the border-guarding forces are keeping a "strict vigil" along the eastern and western frontiers.

Malhotra said one of the two new routes is -- heroin sourced from Afghanistan and Pakistan is shipped via sea cargo to Sri Lanka and Maldives and from these two countries, it is trafficked into India.

Recent huge seizures of heroin revealed this modus operandi, he added.

The second circuit is where heroin is trafficked from Afghanistan and Pakistan to African countries and then using the air route, with the help of couriers and passengers, it is trafficked into India, the officer said.

(Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed; only the image & headline may have been reworked by www.republicworld.com)
Only three lorries were turned away at the Kent border on New Years Day, making a mockery of dire predictions of chaos at the ports.

Ministers were given the figure at a Cobra meeting chaired by Cabinet Minister Michael Gove on Friday evening.

The three trucks arrived at Dover without the correct paperwork to leave for Europe, but the problem was quickly resolved. All three were fined.

Last night, a Government source told The Mail on Sunday: People thought there would be disruption, but that has not come to pass. It is good that things are flowing smoothly.

The briefing is understood to have been delivered by Emma Churchill, director-general of the Border Delivery Group.

The three trucks arrived at Dover without the correct paperwork to leave for Europe and were fined

The report was very good, added the source. You probably find three lorries get turned away every day.

'There is nothing new about that at all.

Hauliers require new paperwork as part of Britains revised trading relationship with the EU.

Before the end of the transition period, the Government said that those without the correct documents would be stopped, prompting the Road Haulage Association to warn of teething problems.

The source said those present at the Cobra briefing had greeted the news with a sense of relief but that some disruption at the border is still expected tomorrow when business returns more fully after the festive break.

Hauliers require new paperwork as part of Britains revised trading relationship with the EU

Many hauliers and businesses rearranged their plans to avoid the first days of January, so comparatively few consignments of goods arrived over the weekend.

Britain struck the deal with Brussels on Christmas Eve. Last Wednesday, Parliament overwhelmingly backed it, with MPs voting by 521 to 73 after five hours of debate.

Boris Johnson vowed to keep Brexit done  a reference to fears Labour might try to rewrite the deal if the party gets into office.

Last week, it emerged that Britain has already agreed trade deals with 62 countries worth about 885 billion  with more to follow.

One Minister said: Now its all about trade deals  knocking them out left, right and centre.
She moved in with her partner Jack Whitehall earlier in 2020 after just two weeks of dating.

And Roxy Horner looked like the picture of happiness on Saturday as she posed on the beach under the night sky for a series of sultry snaps.

The model, 29, uploaded the stunning images to social media as she showcased her sensational figure in a slinky red mini dress.

Picture of happiness: Roxy Horner flaunted her sensational figure in a slinky red mini dress on Saturday as she posed on the beach under the night sky for a series of snaps

Her figure-hugging outfit featured a cowl neckline and ruched fabric which highlighted her svelte frame.

Roxy styled her blonde tresses in tight waves and enhanced her stunning looks with a flawless make-up look.

It is not known if Roxy has jetted on holiday for the New Year or if she was posting throwback snaps as the model was spotted in London on Wednesday.

It comes after her comedian beau Jack, 32, revealed she had moved into his London home after just a few weeks of dating earlier this year.

The two had met during a trip to Australia, and shortly after, they decided to spend the coronavirus lockdown together with the romance progressing from there.

Lithe physique: The model, 29, uploaded the stunning images to social media and her figure-hugging outfit featured a cowl neckline and ruched fabric

Jack admitted although the decision 'accelerated' their relationship, they did miss out on doing ordinary things like restaurant and cinema dates.

Speaking on the Couples Quarantine podcast, he explained: 'Weirdly that was quite nice because we spent a lot of time together and it accelerates the relationship in a way.

'Then when lockdown ended, there's a lot of things we realised. We'd never gone to see a film together. We'd never been to a restaurant in England because we met in Australia.'

Jack dated actress Gemma Chan, 38, between 2011 and 2017, and he previously said that he regretted not marrying her.

Preened to perfection: Roxy styled her blonde tresses in tight waves and enhanced her visage with flawless make-up

Getaway? It is not known if Roxy has jetted on holiday for the New Year or if she was posting throwback snaps as the model was spotted in London on Wednesday

Speaking to his mother Hilary in an episode of his Netflix series, Travels With My Father, he said: 'I f****d up my chance of that. I did. I could have got married but I messed it up.'

In the episode, which was filmed before Jack began dating Roxy, he apologised to his mother for being the only single member of their immediate family as it meant he had to attend his sister Molly's wedding alone.

He added: 'I'm sorry I'll be attending the wedding alone and I'm sorry you have two children who have model relationships and one who is going to be there on his own trying to sh*g a bridesmaid.'
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The birth of San Antonios first baby of 2021 was a spark of wonder and joy, shining through a crisis.

After midnight, Cheryse Williams began pushing in the labor and delivery department at North Central Baptist Hospital. Less than an hour later  at 12:53 a.m.  she gave birth to a baby boy. Khario Deyvan Moore weighed 6 pounds, 9 ounces and measured 19 inches.

As night became morning, Williams couldnt sleep. She was unable to stop marveling at her son.

Nine hours earlier, San Antonio hospital leaders had issued an ominous letter, begging residents to help reduce transmission of the coronavirus. They described hanging on the edge of a precipice: With more than 1,100 people hospitalized with COVID-19 across the city as of Wednesday, this surge was on pace to become worse than the one that pummeled San Antonio over the summer. If area hospitals became overrun with patients, they warned, medical care would suffer.

On ExpressNews.com: Birth in the time of coronavirus

It was amid that chaos that Williams, a first-time mother, and her partner, Martel Moore, drove to the hospital on New Years Eve. It made Williams all the more thankful for a healthy delivery.

It was still a beautiful experience, Williams, a 25-year-old interior designer, said by phone. Its not the ideal way that everyone plans it to be. But its not the worst thing in the world because the reward was much more appreciated.

Throughout her pregnancy, Williams had to move through the world with caution. By the time she found out she was pregnant, the pandemic was already in full swing, and it colored every step along the way.

Williams social distanced the whole nine months. There were no baby showers, no visits from friends and extended family members. To keep herself safe, she worked from home and saw few people other than her parents, who were frequently tested for the virus.

A lot of things did not go as you dream, Williams said. Things were weird. It just felt out of place.

Such precautions became ever more urgent as evidence emerged that pregnant women were at higher risk of suffering severe complications from COVID-19 and problems with their pregnancies.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonios first baby of the year born 25 seconds after midnight

Before her prenatal visits, Williams underwent temperature checks and symptom screenings. The only appointments Moore was allowed to attend were the few that involved ultrasounds, a rule that made him feel involved from a distance, Williams said.

As the pandemic dragged on, Williams research on where to give birth had to account for COVID-19 precautions and protocols. She eventually landed on North Central Baptist, which delivers a high volume of babies each year. She felt comfortable with the hospitals physical layout and its process for separating expectant mothers from other patients.

During the pandemic, many hospitals restricted visitation, typically allowing just one or two people in to support laboring mothers. In rare cases, fathers were not allowed inside hospitals at all, instead observing births through windows or over video calls.

In Williams case, she was allowed one support person: Moore. When they arrived at the hospital around 8 a.m. Thursday, several hours after her water broke, both were tested for the virus. Moore manned the camera, holding a phone up so Williams mother and sister could observe the delivery.

On ExpressNews.com: Birth on demand: An investigation of cesarean rates along the Texas border

Williams had wanted her mother to be at her side.

It was hard. Shes on FaceTime, trying to see whats going on. It is upsetting, Im not even going to lie, Williams said. I do wish she was there. But she was still there in spirit, and at least on a screen.

Shortly after the delivery, Williams heard applause from the hallway. She figured hospital staff was celebrating another birth. She was shocked when they told her she had delivered San Antonios first baby of the new year, nearly an hour after 2021 began. In 2019 and 2020, the citys first baby of the year was born at the stroke of midnight.

Although it was scary to give birth under such circumstances, Williams encouraged other expecting parents to not let themselves become consumed by discouragement or fear.

In the end, she said, it was all worth it.

lcaruba@express-news.net
A man holds a picture of George Floyd during a Black Lives Matter protest in New York City on June 18, 2020. (Jeenah Moon/Getty Images)

Prosecutors Seek 3-Month Delay in Trial Over George Floyds Death, Citing COVID-19

Prosecutors in the case against four Minneapolis police officers involved in the death of George Floyd requested this week that the trial be delayed by three months citing concerns related to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic.

March 8 has been the date set for the trial to start before Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill for the four now-fired police officers charged in the death of Floyd on May 25 while he was forcibly detained on a south Minneapolis street corner.

Derek Chauvin, 44, Tou Thao, 34, J. Alexander Kueng, 26, and Thomas Lane, 37, are scheduled to be tried together. Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter, and the other three former officers are charged with aiding and abetting murder and manslaughter.

However, attorneys filed a motion to move the trial start date from March 8 to to June 7, arguing that putting it off appropriately balances the need to protect public health with the need to ensure that this case is resolved expeditiously, as reported by the StarTribune.

Waiting until then, the motion continued, would substantially reduce the risks to trial participants from COVID-19, and thereby reduce the risk that this trial is delayed or disrupted by a COVID-19 outbreak among the trial participants.

(L-R) Former Minneapolis Police Department officers Derek Chauvin, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao, in booking photos. (Hennepin County Sheriffs Office via AP)

The prosecution backed its motion with an affidavit filed with the court by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a member of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Bidens COVID-19 advisory board, who noted that millions of Americans in the general population [are likely to] receive a COVID-19 vaccination between March 2021 and June 2021.

He therefore reasoned that large public gatheringsincluding those conducted with proper social distancing and mask protocolswill be substantially safer in June 2021.

The doctor added, An in-person trial in March 2021 that attracts a large number of people who are indoors for prolonged periods of time with public speaking is likely to create a substantial risk of COVID-19 transmission [and] could even become a super-spreader event.

Chauvins attorney, Eric Nelson, told the StarTribune that he does not plan on objecting to the prosecutions motion.

Last month, Nelson made a motion for a delay in the trial and accused prosecutors of mishandling how they share evidence with the defenseincluding burying important information in between irrelevant material, providing duplicates of the same item and turning over thousands of pages of unrelated documents.

Keungs attorney, Thomas Plunkett, said the prosecutions motion citing COVID-19 as their reasoning was confusing.

The timing of their motion seems curious to me, Plunkett said. The pandemic has been around for a while.

In December, a judge in Minnesota upheld his decision to live-stream the trial against the four ex-Minneapolis police officers.

In a ruling issued on Dec. 18, Hennepin County District Court Judge Peter Cahill said that he is permitting video coverage of the trial due to immense global interest in the case and limited courthouse space amid the unique and unprecedented situation created by the CCP virus pandemic.

Cahill brushed aside concerns by state prosecutors, who argued in a motion filed Nov. 25 (pdf) that a live-stream of the trial would violate court rules and scare away potential witnesses.

Floyds death was classified by a county medical examiner as a homicide, with his heart stopping while he was restrained by police and his neck compressed. A summary report listed fentanyl intoxication and recent methamphetamine use under other significant conditions but not under cause of death.

A separate autopsy commissioned for Floyds family concluded he died of asphyxiation due to neck and back compression.

His death sparked protests and riots that spread across the world and prompted Minneapolis to shift almost $8 million in police funding to expand other services, including crime prevention programs, mental health crisis response teams, and other initiatives.
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Lakhvi is alleged to be a leader of the Lashker-e-Taiba group that organised the Mumbai attacks in 2008 that killed 166 people. He was detained days after the Mumbai attacks but released in 2015 by Pakistani courts

Multan: Pakistan's security forces arrested Saturday an alleged leader of the militant group that was behind the bloody 2008 Mumbai attacks in India.

An official with the Pakistani counterterrorism police, Shakil Ahmed, said that Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was seized in the eastern city of Lahore, on terrorism financing charges.

Lakhvi is alleged to be a leader of the Lashkar-e-Taiba group that organised the Mumbai attacks in 2008 that killed 166 people. Lakhvi was detained days after the Mumbai attacks but released in 2015 by Pakistani courts.

Pakistani authorities allege that Lakhvi was running a dispensary in Lahore as a front for financing militant activities.

Lakhvi was a prominent figure in Hafiz Saeeds charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which is believed to be a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Saeed, who has been designated a terrorist by the US Justice Department and has a $10 million bounty on his head, is presently serving multiple jail terms in Pakistan after being convicted in several cases in recent months. The Pakistani government has seized Saeeds extensive network of mosques, schools, seminaries and charities and other assets in the country.

Relations between Pakistan and India were strained after the attack on Indias financial hub in 2008. The rival South Asian powers have fought two wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947.
New Delhi: A total of 40 people who recently arrived in Delhi from the UK have tested positive for COVID-19, the Health Department of the city government said on Saturday (January 2).

Delhi recorded 494 fresh COVID-19 cases on Saturday (January 2), the lowest in over seven months, and '14 new fatalities, even as the positivity rate stood at 0.73 per cent', authorities said.

"Even after reducing the availability of beds, 10,500-11,000 beds are still vacant. Only 2,000 beds are occupied at present," Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain was quoted as saying in a statement by the Delhi Health Department.

As far as the situation over the new strain of coronavirus is concerned, 40 cases have been traced in total, and have been admitted to the LNJP Hospital. "Along with this, four private hospitals too, have been authorised (for institutional isolation units). We are well aware and fully prepared to combat any situation," Jain said.

The statement did not mention if these two more cases were detected with the new strain or not.

Interacting with reporters on December 29, Jain had said a total of 38 people were found positive since coming to Delhi from the UK recently and were kept in a separate institutional isolation unit on the LNJP Hospital premises.

"Four such patients have been found infected with the new UK strain of COVID-19. The persons who came in their contact have been also traced and tested, and it's not in them. So, only these four cases of new strain are in Delhi so far," he had said.

Officials had later said that four persons with their addresses in Delhi and three having addresses of elsewhere, had been infected with the new strain, making a total of seven such cases.
Riot police broke up an illegal 40-hour New Year's Eve party in Spain - leaving 300 revellers facing fines.

The lockdown-breaching party began on December 31 in the village of Llinas del Valles, 19 miles northeast of Barcelona.

Catalan police confiscated the sound system and all other equipment used at the party and revealed they will be pressing charges against all involved.

The penalty for attending an illegal gathering starts at 3,000 euros (2,600) and can go up to 600,000 euros (530,000) for the most-serious offenders, police said in a Twitter statement.

The 300 attendees were pictured pouring out of the building, after riot police with helmets and shields stormed inside.

Riot police (right) broke up an illegal 40-hour New Year's Eve party in Spain (revellers pouring out of the warehouse, left) - leaving 300 revellers facing fines

The lockdown-breaching party (party-goers leaving, pictured) began on New Year's Eve in the village of Llinas del Valles, 19 miles northeast of Barcelona

Catalan police confiscated the sound system and all other equipment used at the party and revealed they will be pressing charges against all involved.

The post read: 'We will prosecute the organizers and all the partygoers.

'The three organisers of the illegal party in Llinars have been arrested. They will go to court in the next few hours.'

At the scene, a police helicopter flew overhead as hundreds of officers entered the warehouse.

A large crowd of onlookers gathered nearby, Spain's RNE public radio reported.

Footage from inside the warehouse shortly before the raid showed a large group of people dancing in front of a huge skull wearing a Santa hat, all of them in close proximity with no masks, and often smoking.

Catalan police (police vehicles, pictured) confiscated the sound system and all the other equipment used at the party and revealed they will be pressing charges against all involved

The penalty for attending an illegal gathering starts at 3,000 euros (2,600) and can go up to 600,000 euros (530,000) for the most-serious offenders, police (pictured at the scene) said in a Twitter statement

When the police arrived, most of them in riot gear, brief scuffles broke out on the dance floor where a young topless woman could be seen trying to calm the situation.

At least nine police vans could be seen parked inside the building.

It was not immediately clear how many people had been arrested, nor were the police immediately available to comment on media reports that many of the revellers had come from abroad.

Asked why the operation only began around midday on Saturday, police officials told local media it was a complex operation and they didn't move in until they were able to ensure the safety of officers and partygoers.
Christina Aguilera recently served some body in a bikini for a poolside Christmas.

And the five-time Grammy winner was even more underdressed while ringing in the new year.

She stripped down to a cowboy hat Friday, as she polished off a huge bottle of Jay-Z's Champagne brand Armand de Brignac, while soaking in 2021 with a New Year's Day bubble bath.

Bubbles and bubbly: Christina Aguilera stripped down to a cowboy hat Friday, as she polished off a huge bottle of Jay-Z's Champagne brand Armand de Brignac, while soaking in 2021 with a New Year's Day bubble bath

The 40-year-old left little to the imagination, dancing around with her bubbly to some sexy smooth jazz in the Instagram video, which featured a vintage filter.

She popped the gold bottle, before posing with it in the tub, covering her busty chest with her arm and some suds.

Christina sat up and leaned over the edge of the black stone freestanding tub, pouring herself a glass.

She also gave a glimpse at her beautiful spacious bathroom, which featured matching marble walls and black and white tiled floor.

Au naturel: The 40-year-old left little to the imagination, dancing around with her bubbly to some sexy smooth jazz in the Instagram video, which featured a vintage filter

Popping bottles: She popped the gold bottle, before posing with it in the tub, covering her busty chest with her arm and some suds

Raise a glass: Christina sat up and leaned over the edge of the black stone freestanding tub, pouring herself a glass

Bathroom goals: She also gave a glimpse at her beautiful spacious bathroom, which featured matching marble walls and black and white tiled floor

Queen size: She posed with an even bigger version of the Armand de Brignac bottle, writing: 'New year, this energy'

The Burlesque star previously ordered up some fake snow for her poolside Christmas with fiance Matthew Rutler, 35, and their children, posting a glimpse Monday on Instagram.

She wore a Minnie Mouse Santa hat with her swimsuit, as she puckered up to Rutler in the pool, writing: 'holiday photo dump - stay home edition'

Christina shared a sweet photo of their daughter Summer Rain, six, passed out in her pajamas on the floor after opening presents.

In another cute snap, she hugged her son Max Liron, 12, whom she shares with ex-husband Jordan Bratman, 43, to whom she was married from 2005 to 2011.

The Reflection artist posted a video of a man hosing their gated yard down with snow, for a white Christmas in Beverly Hills, complete with a bounce house.

Sexy Santa: The Burlesque star previously ordered up some fake snow for her poolside Christmas with fiance Matthew Rutler, 35, and their children, posting a glimpse Monday on Instagram

Mrs. Claus: She wore a Minnie Mouse Santa hat with her swimsuit, as she puckered up to Rutler in the pool, writing: 'holiday photo dump - stay home edition'

Passed out: Christina shared a sweet photo of their daughter Summer Rain, six, passed out in her pajamas on the floor after opening presents

Mama's boy: In another cute snap, she hugged her son Max Liron, 12, whom she shares with ex-husband Jordan Bratman, 43, to whom she was married from 2005 to 2011

White Christmas: The Reflection artist posted a video of a man hosing their gated yard down with snow, for a white Christmas in Beverly Hills, complete with a bounce house

She also shared a clip of their yellow lab pups Mowgli and Baloo running around and playing in what was likely their first snow.

In addition to Christmas, she celebrated another trip around the sun last month with her milestone 40th birthday.

Christina wrote a touching note to her new age on Instagram, which included: 'This ever-present social stigma exists around getting older, but I have ALWAYS embraced it!

'I am forever an old soul and I appreciate the wisdom, grace and beauty that comes with each new year of life. I treasure the growth that comes with age and I welcome the knowledge from the greats that came before me.'
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Hafiz Mansour, a member of the Afghan government team negotiating with the Taliban, said on Saturday that the militant group was not yet ready for any ceasefire.

Both teams are scheduled to resume talks next week.

Mr Mansour added that a majority of the Taliban forces believe they could seize power militarily, a dangerous mindset, he warned the government.

The two sides began talks last year with the goal of establishing a ceasefire, paving the way for a democratic government whenever foreign forces leave the country.

The U.S. had previously reached a deal with the Taliban whereby the U.S. and Taliban forces would try to limit attacks.

Although Kabul is leading the current talks, the U.S. continues to play a coordinating role as a major military occupier.

Mansour said that some countries that have helped Afghanistan during the past two decades were willing to help establish an interim government, which would help the government transition from its current form to whatever is agreed upon in peace talks.

However, some regional countries oppose the idea, saying the idea of forming an interim government is an American plan.

In the meantime, Mr Mansour said that the U.S. would try to help the negotiating team reach an agreement before the planned full withdrawal of U.S. forces in May, as per an agreement struck with the Taliban in Doha in February.

Mr Mansour said there was no choice but to accept an interim government in the interest of preserving basic human rights.

He said the team would get its final guidance from the government on Monday, before leaving Kabul to Doha for a new round of talks set to start on Tuesday.

Earlier, Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh said that Afghanistan is a complicated country, where the rule of one group was impossible and asked the militant group to participate in government.

Taliban members have always said they will continue fighting until what they call a pure Islamic government has been established.

(dpa/NAN)
Developers of a new residential project on Southern Cross Road will be hiring locally for the project.

Contractors Townmore started works earlier this year on a multi-million Euro residential scheme in Bray for Lioncor.

The mixed-use residential development will include 160 apartments across four five-storey blocks.

The contractor wishes to engage with the local community, it said, particularly construction workers, subcontractors and suppliers across Wicklow and Leinster for this and other construction projects in the region.

The supply chain and construction workers being sought encompasses the following: crane drivers, general operatives, groundworks, masons, concrete subcontractors, roofers, scaffolding companies, plasterers, partitioning contractors and suppliers for all key materials for this project.

Headquartered in Tullamore, County Offaly, Townmore recently built and opened a new regional office in Santry, North Dublin. This follows the opening of offices in Cork and London in recent years.

'The designation of both public and private housing delivery as an essential service throughout the latter months of the pandemic was a welcome and necessary move,' said James Godley, managing director of Townmore. 'Southern Cross is an important project, not just for Townmore, but for the people of North Wicklow who have been waiting for new homes and greater access to quality rental homes. It will be a transformative addition to the town and indeed to the surrounding area. At Townmore, we understand the importance of local contribution to this building work. By adopting such a partnership approach, the value added to the local community is enhanced.'

An Bord Pleanala granted permission in November 2019 for the development, also including 30 houses and 18 duplex units as well as a creche.

The board also granted permission, as part of the same application, to construct a link road from the Southern Cross through Deer Park and on to the Boghall Road.

The plans include a neighbourhood centre adjacent to the new supermarket, which will include retail units, the creche and four community units including a youth services centre and a health care unit.

The contractor can be contacted at southerncross@townmore.ie.

Bray People
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[January 02, 2021] Lockheed Martin Statement on the Passing of Aeronautics Executive Vice President Michele Evans

BETHESDA, Md., Jan. 2, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The following is a statement from Lockheed Martin President and CEO James Taiclet: "The entire Lockheed Martin team was saddened to learn that Aeronautics Executive Vice President Michele Evans passed away on New Year's Day. Throughout her career, Michele led some of the most important programs that ensure the security of our nation and its allies and help make our world a safer place. She embodied our company's values in spirit and action every day  to do what's right, respect others, and perform with excellence. Her example was an inspiration to those of us fortunate enough to have worked with her closely, and her leadership in the aerospace and defense industry will have a lasting impact for years to come. Our deepest sympathies go out to her family, the entire Lockheed Martin team, and everyone she touched in her remarkable life and career." About Michele Evans

With more than 34 years of experience in the defense and aerospace industry, Evans led a significant number of programs in support of the U.S. Air Force, Army, Marine Corps and Navy; as well as for commercial and international military customes. She most recently served as executive vice president of the Aeronautics business area for Lockheed Martin. She also was actively involved in Lockheed Martin's diversity and inclusion initiatives, serving as the executive sponsor for the Women's Impact Network.



Evans held positions of increasing responsibility during her career at Lockheed Martin. At the corporation's Rotary and Mission Systems (RMS) business area, she served as vice president and general manager of the Integrated Warfare Systems and Sensors line of business. While at RMS, she also served as vice president for C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) and worked in the Undersea line of business. In addition, Michele was vice president for Business Development and Strategy for the Mission Systems and Training organization. Throughout her career, she was responsible for multiple platform programs including the A-10 weapons system as well as avionics programs on the C-130 and F-35. And she was the executive manager for multiple domestic and international campaign wins for Lockheed Martin. Evans graduated magna cum laude from Clarkson University with a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering. She served on the boards of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and Girls Inc., and was a member of Clarkson's Coulter School of Engineering Advisory Board.

She is survived by her husband David and two sons, Clark and Parker. About Lockheed Martin Aeronautics

Aeronautics is a more than $20 billion enterprise employing approximately 25,000 people. The Aeronautics portfolio features fifth-generation tactical aircraft, air mobility, unmanned and intelligence/surveillance/reconnaissance platforms, including the F-35, F-22, F-16, C-130; as well as Advanced Development Programs at Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works. About Lockheed Martin

Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin Corporation 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. Please follow @LMNews on Twitter for the latest announcements and news across the corporation. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lockheed-martin-statement-on-the-passing-of-aeronautics-executive-vice-president-michele-evans-301199895.html SOURCE Lockheed Martin

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Rachael Finch revealed the devastating news that she suffered a miscarriage in 2016, in an emotional Instagram post on Saturday.

The 32-year-old model, who shares daughter Violet, seven, and son Dominic, three, with husband Michael Miziner, said she had been 'trying for Dom for many months'.

Rachael shared the heartbreaking news alongside a photo of herself at the Australian Open in 2016, after being asked by a fan to share when she was at her lowest point and 'everyone thought she was fine'.

Devastating: Model Rachael Finch (pictured), 32, revealed she suffered a miscarriage in 2016 in an emotional Instagram post on Saturday

'Working on the Australian Open in 2016 with Channel Seven and finding out I miscarried,' the TV presenter wrote alongside the photo.

In the picture, Rachael posed in front of the media wall at the Australian Open as part of her promotional duties for the network.

'We were trying for Dom for many months. It was one of the hardest times I've had to endure emotionally and my heart always goes out to all couples who are trying,' she continued.

Candid revelation online: Rachael shared the heartbreaking news alongside a photo of herself at the Australian Open in 2016 (pictured), after being asked by a fan to share when she was at her lowest point and 'everyone thought she was fine'

Rachael met her husband Michael on the 2010 season of Dancing With The Stars.

The couple, who married in 2013, now balance parenthood with a burgeoning fitness empire.

Rachael previously told 9Honey that time management is at the centre of their success.

Family: Rachael is a TV presenter, brand ambassador and fitness guru. She is married to Michael Miziner, and they share daughter Violet, seven, and son Dominic, three (all pictured)

'It's the hardest, best job,' she said of parenthood. 'I just need to be smart when I choose to do things and what I choose to do.'

Rachael also said it's important for the couple to prioritise date nights.

She explained: 'Because there is less time to dedicate to our relationship, we need to ensure we are planning date nights and time alone.'
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Every Black Life Matters Drafts an Open Letter of Correction to Raphael Warnock

Dr. Alveda King joins the rally and march at MLK Park



NEWS PROVIDED BY

Every Black Life Matters

Jan. 2, 2021



ATLANTA, Jan. 2, 2021 /Standard Newswire/ -- Earlier today, Co-Founder Kevin McGary of Every Black Life Matters(EBLM), a Christian alternative organization to BLM, along with special Guest Dr. Alveda King of Civil Rights for the Unborn held a prayer rally at MLK Park. The purpose was to voice concerns over Raphael Warnock's support of abortion as well as to pray for peaceful voting for the upcoming Senate election. After the prayer there was a peaceful walk to Warnock's campaign office where McGary would hand deliver an open letter EBLM had written which has over 300 names of citizens from across the nation.



The letter was first posted on EBLM's website earlier this week. Supporters were encouraged to add their name to the letter. The general content of the open letter calls for Warnock to repent and reconsider his position as a man of God who supports abortion.

Dear Reverend Warnock,



As an American with the desire to represent the people of Georgia in the U.S. Senate, you declare yourself an advocate and defender of Civil Rights, a protector against racism and a man called by God to Shepherd others; you must realize that great responsibilities come with those declarations!



As a defender of Civil Rights, you have failed to recognize and embrace that they (civil rights) are undergirded by fundamental tenets to be extended to all Americans. Fundamentally, ALL are created equal and must be provided the right to "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" (see Declaration of Independence), for justice to prevail. It is hypocritical and "anti-civil rights" to reject the right to life for a specific subset of humanity (those in the womb) while you relish and partake in all the fruits of life; this is an ultimate injustice! It is a dishonor to assert being a defender of civil rights while endorsing the cultural forces that withhold the right to life from Blacks as they are disproportionally targeted for "extermination" via abortion. You have fundamentally failed in this regard.



Please correct your ways. ...

The entire letter, along with the 300+ names can be found at https://everyblm.com/open-letter-to-warnock/.



Every Black Life Matters is a pro-life, pro-capitalist, pro-nuclear family organization who boldly stands in direct opposition to BLM. Their mission is to protect black life from conception to death by confronting injustice and deconstructing barriers inside and outside the black community through a national platform of training, networked resources, community organizing and faith building.



If you would like more information about this topic, please call Kevin McGary at 510-886-7319, or email info@everyBLM.com.



Open Letter to Warnock

https://everyblm.com/open-letter-to-warnock/



Facebook Page of EBLM

https://facebook.com/everyblm



Website

https://everyblm.com



SOURCE Every Black Life Matters



CONTACT: Kevin McGary, 510-886-7319, info@EveryBLM.com


Echoing his father P Chidambarams open support for Congress dissenters, Karti said on January 2 that these huge committees -- such as the recently formed Tamil Nadu Congress Committee  serve no purpose and the big numbers only end up diminishing accountability.

On a day the Congress party appointed hundreds of members to the Congress Committee in poll-bound Tamil Nadu, party leader Karti Chidambaram attacked it saying the jumbo committees serve no purpose.

Echoing his father P Chidambarams open support for Congress dissenters, Karti said on January 2 that these huge committees -- such as the recently formed Tamil Nadu Congress Committee  serve no purpose and the big numbers only end up diminishing accountability.

The Sivaganga MP tweeted: "These jumbo committees serve no purpose. 32 VP, 57 GS, 104 Secretaries. None will have any authority which means no accountability."

Karti Chidambaram was commenting on the massive panel formed by the Congress party for its Tamil Nadu unit months before the state went to polls sometime between April and May this year.

The Congress has appointed 32 vice-presidents, 57 general secretaries, 104 secretaries, 56 executive committee members, 32 ex-officio members, and 200 other members holding various ranks in the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee.
Once the shining city on a hill that the rest of the world looked to for leadership and guidance, Americas moral high ground has steadily eroded in recent decades  and rapidly accelerated since Trumps corrupt, self-dealing tenure in the White House began. Our corporations, and the technologies they develop, are certainly no better. Amazon treats its workers like indentured servants at best, Facebook algorithms actively promotes genocide overseas and fascism here in the States, and Google doesnt even try to live up to its own maxim of dont be evil anymore.

In her upcoming book, The Power of Ethics: How to Make Good Choices in a Complicated World, Susan Liautaud, Chair of Council of the London School of Economics and Political Science, lays out an ambitious four-step plan to recalibrate our skewed moral compass illustrating how effective ethical decision making can be used to counter damage done by those in power and create a better, fairer and more equitable world for everyone. In the excerpt below, Liautaud explores the blurring boundaries of human-AI relations and how we can ensure that this emerging technology is used for humanitys benefit rather than just becoming another Microsoft Tay.

Simon & Schuster

Excerpt from THE POWER OF ETHICS by Susan Liautaud. Copyright  2021 by Susan Liautaud. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc, NY.

Blurred boundariesthe increasingly smudged juncture where machines cross over into purely human realmsstretch the very definition of the edge. They diminish the visibility of the ethical questions at stake while multiplying the power of the other forces driving ethics today. Two core questions demonstrate why we need to continually reverify that our framing prioritizes humans and humanity in artificial intelligence.

First, as robots become more lifelike, humans (and possibly machines) must update regulations, societal norms, and standards of organizational and individual behavior. How can we avoid leaving control of ethical risks in the hands of those who control the innovations or prevent letting machines decide on their own? A non-binary, nuanced assessment of robots and AI, with attention to who is programming them, does not mean tolerating a distortion of how we define what is human. Instead, it requires assuring that our ethical decision-making integrates the nuances of the blur and that decisions that follow prioritize humanity. And it means proactively representing the broad diversity across humanity  ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, geography and culture, socioeconomic status, and beyond.

Second, a critical recurring question in an Algorithmic Society is: Who gets to decide? For example, if we use AI to plan traffic routes for driverless cars, assuming we care about efficiency and safety as principles, then who gets to decide when one principle is prioritized over another, and how? Does the developer of the algorithm decide? The management of the company manufacturing the car? The regulators? The passengers? The algorithm making decisions for the car? We have not come close to sorting out the extent of the decision power and responsibility we will or should grant robots and other types of AIor the power and responsibility they may one day assume with or without our consent.

One of the main principles guiding the development of AI among many governmental, corporate, and nonprofit bodies is human engagement. For example, the artificial intelligence principles of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development emphasize the human ability to challenge AI-based outcomes. The principles state that AI systems should include appropriate safeguardsfor example, enabling human intervention where necessaryto ensure a fair and just society. Similarly, Microsoft, Google, research lab OpenAI, and many other organizations include the capacity for human intervention in their set of principles. Yet its still unclear when and how this works in practice. In particular, how do these controllers of innovation prevent harmwhether from car accidents or from gender and racial discrimination due to artificial intelligence algorithms trained on non-representative data. In addition, certain consumer technologies are being developed that eliminate human intervention altogether. For example, Eugenia Kuyda, the founder of a company manufacturing a bot companion and confidante called Replika, believes that consumers will trust the confidentiality of the app more because there is no human intervention.

We desperately need an off  switch for all AI and robotics in my opinion. I In some cases, we need to plant a stake in the ground with respect to outlier, clearly unacceptable robot and AI powers. For example, giving robots the ability to indiscriminately kill innocent civilians with no human supervision or deploying facial recognition to target minorities is unacceptable. What we should not do is quash the opportunities AI offers, such as locating a lost child or a terrorist or dramatically increasing the accuracy of medical diagnoses. We can equip ourselves to get in the arena. We can influence the choices of others (including companies and regulators, but also friends and co-citizens), and make more (not just better) choices for ourselves, with a greater awareness for when a choice is being taken away from us. Companies and regulators have a responsibility to help make our choices clearer, easier, and informed: Think first about who gets to (and should get to) decide and how you can help others be in a position to decide.

Now turning to the aspects of the framework uniquely targeting blurred boundaries:

Blurred boundaries fundamentally require us to step back and reconsider whether our principles define the identity we want in this blurry world. Do the most fundamental principlesthe classics about treating each other with respect or being accountablehold up in a world in which what we mean by each other is blurry? Do our principles focus sufficiently on how innovation impacts human life and the protection of humanity as a whole? And do we need a separate set of principles for robots? My answer to the latter is no. But we do need to ensure that our principles prioritize humans over machines.

Then, application: Do we apply our principles in the same way in a world of blurred boundaries? Thinking of consequences to humans will help. What happens when our human-based principles are applied to robots? If our principle is honesty, is it acceptable to lie to a bot receptionist? And do we distinguish among different kinds of robots and lies? If you lie about your medical history to a diagnostic algorithm, it would seem that you have little chance of receiving an accurate diagnosis. Do we care whether robots trust us? If the algorithm needs some form of codable trust in order to assure the off switch works, then yes. And while it may be easy to dismiss the emotional side of trust given that robots dont yet experience emotion, here again we ask what the impact could be on us. Would behaving in an untrustworthy manner with machines negatively affect our emotional state or spread mistrust among humans?

Blurred boundaries increase the challenge of obtaining and understanding information. Its hard to imagine what we need to knowand thats before we even get to whether we can know it. Artificial intelligence is often invisible to us; companies dont disclose how their algorithms work; and we lack the technological expertise to assess the information.

But some key points are clear. Speaking about robots as if they are human is inaccurate. For example, many of Sophias functionsa lifelike humanoid robotare invisible to the average person. But thanks to the Hanson Robotics team, which aims for transparency, I learned that Sophia tweets @RealSophiaRobot with the help of the companys marketing department, whose character writers compose some of the language and extract the rest directly from Sophias machine learning content. And yet, the invisibility of many of Sophias functions is essential to the illusion of her seeming alive to us.

Also, we can demand transparency about what really matters to us from companies. Maybe we dont need to know how the bot fast-food employee is coded, but we need to know that it will accurately process our food allergy information and confirm that the burger conforms to health and safety requirements.

Finally, when we look closer, some blur isnt as blurry as it might first seem. Lilly, a creator of a male romantic robotic companion called inMoovator, doesnt consider her robot to be a human. The concept of a romance between a human and a machine is blurry, but she openly acknowledges that her fiance is a machine.

For the time being, responsibility lies with the humans creating, programming, selling, and deploying robots and other types of AIwhether its David Hanson, a doctor who uses AI to diagnose cancer, or a programmer who develops the AI that helps make immigration decisions. Responsibility also lies with all of us as we make the choices we can about how we engage with machines and as we express our views to try to shape both regulation and societys tolerance levels for the blurriness. (And it bears emphasizing that holding responsibility as a stakeholder does not make robots any more human, nor does it give them the same priority as a human when principles conflict.)

We also must take care to consider how robots might be more important for those who are vulnerable. So many people are in difficult situations where human assistance is not safe or available, whether due to cost, being in an isolated or conflict zone, inadequate human re-sources, or other reasons. We can be more proactive in considering stakeholders. Support the technology leaders who shine a light on the importance of the diversity of data and perspectives in building and regulating the technologynot just sorting out the harm. Ensure that non-experts from a wide variety of backgrounds, political perspectives, and ages are lending their views, reducing the risk that blur-creating technologies contribute to inequality.

Blurred boundaries also compromise our ability to see potential consequences over time, leading to blurred visibility. We dont yet have enough research or insight into potential mutations. For example, we dont know the long-term psychological or economic impact of robot caregivers, or the impact on children growing up with AI in social media and digital devices. And just as weve seen social media platforms improve connections and give people a voice, weve also seen that they can be addictive, a mental health concern, and weaponized to spread compromised truth and even violence.

I would urge companies and innovators creating seemingly friendly AI to go one step further: Build in technology breaksoff switches more often. Consider where the benefits of their products and services might not be useful enough to society to warrant the additional risks they create. And we all need to push ourselves harder to use the control we have. We can insist on truly informed consent. If our doctor uses AI to diagnose, we should be told that, including the risks and benefits. (Easier said than done, as doctors cannot be expected to be AI experts.) We can limit what we say to robots and AI devices such as Alexa, or even whether we use them at all. We can redouble our efforts to model good behavior to children around these technologies, humanoid or not. And we can urgently support political efforts to prioritize and improve regulation, education, and research.
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A concerned mother has issued a desperate plea to parents after her nine-year-old son was stung by a venomous fish while frolicking in shallow water.

Kylie Stapleton and her son were at Golden Beach, on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, at 2.30pm on Christmas Day.

The duo had been at the beach for mere moments when her son waded into the water and stepped on a stonefish that was lurking in the sand.

Kylie Stapleton and her son (pictured together) were at Golden Beach, on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, at 2.30pm on Christmas Day

Stonefish are considered one of the most venomous fish in the ocean.

Instantly, Ms Stapleton's son started screaming out for help.

He had two of the stonefish's 12 spikes pierced into his foot, which leaked venom.

'He is tough,' Ms Stapleton told Daily Mail Australia.

'He was screaming to me that he loved me and he thought he was going to die.'

Ms Stapleton's friend Becky rushed over to a nearby resort to get hot water, an antidote for the poison, and an ambulance was called.

Ms Stapleton's son was told to keep his foot submerged in hot water to draw out the venom.

He has now recovered, but was unable to walk for two days.

The duo had been at the beach for mere moments when her son waded into the water and stepped on a stonefish that was lurking in the sand

Ms Stapleton said it was difficult to watch her son go through the incredibly painful and horrifying ordeal.

'If this happens you must submerge the sting in hot water to draw the venom out immediately, as hot as you can stand it,' she wrote on Facebook.

'You must also call the ambulance immediately.'

'I'm well aware we must share our water with the creatures that inhabit the ocean, this is a post to warn parents.

'These are dirty mongrel fish that can take a fully grown man down in pain. Just be cautious please.'
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The woman dubbed 'Soho Karen' - Miya Ponsetto - has been seen for the first time since being named as the person who assaulted a 14-year-old black boy at a New York City hotel in a row over a phone.

Seen in exclusive DailyMail.com photos, the 22-year-old made a quick trip to a McDonald's in Fillmore, California  her first outing since being unmasked as the woman who accosted Keyon Harrold Jr at the Arlo Hotel last weekend.

The 22-year-old has been laying low at her family's $389,000 home in the small town of Piru, a small farming town approximately 30 miles north of LA.

Yesterday, her mother Nicole, 42, became angry when asked about her daughter and ordered a DailyMail.com reporter off the property while insisting she was not there.

But earlier today, a black-clad Ponsetto was seen leaving the home and heading to McDonald's in a black Range Rover SUV.

And despite facing potential assault and attempted robbery charges in New York, the 22-year-old appeared relaxed and was smiling broadly as she grabbed her order.

Ponsetto's reappearance comes a day after DailyMail.com revealed that she is also facing court proceedings in LA after being arrested for being intoxicated in public by Beverly Hills PD in February.

Just a week after the alleged attack at a Manhattan hotel, Miya Taylor Ponsetto was back home in Sun Valley where she was seen grabbing a bit of fast food, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal

Ponsetto, 22, is wanted by the New York City police for tackling a 14-year-old black boy who she falsely accused of stealing her iPhone at a Manhattan hotel last weekend

Ponsetto, who is said to have checked out of the Arlo Hotel three days prior to the alleged attack, was far from home at the time of the alleged attack. It's not clear when she departed New York City for her hometown

Ponsetto shot to infamy after Keyon Jr's father, Grammy-winning jazz artist Keyon Harrold, posted a video of the 22-year-old grabbing at the child while repeatedly accusing him of snatching her phone

Ponsetto has denied assaulting Keyon and on Thursday, provided a rambling 20-minute phone interview to CNN. In it, she claimed she was assaulted during the altercation with Keyon Sr. and his son, though failed to provide further details, including who allegedly assaulted her. She was spotted grabbing McDonald's in Fillmore, California

Her mother Nicole was also collared along with her on the same charge and hit with an additional count of assaulting a police officer.

Both women are due in court for a hearing on the case on January 28.

Ponsetto was arrested for a second time in May and charged with four counts of DUI. Court records show she pled guilty in September and faces a sentencing hearing on January 14.

The 22-year-old's legal problems now look set to increase, with the NYPD considering bringing charges against her over the December 26 incident.

Cops confirmed on Tuesday that they are looking at a variety of options, including assault, grand larceny and attempted robbery.

Ponsetto shot to infamy after Keyon Jr's father, Grammy-winning jazz artist Keyon Harrold, posted a video of the 22-year-old grabbing at the child while repeatedly accusing him of snatching her phone.

He captioned it: 'On Saturday, December 26, the woman in this video falsely accused an innocent 14-year-old teenager of stealing her cellphone,' Harrison tweeted.

'She then proceeded to physically attack him and fled the location before police officers arrived on scene.'

A second video released by the NYPD shows Ponsetto, who was swiftly dubbed Soho Karen, running at the child and grabbing at his waist.

Moments after the video ended, an Uber driver arrived with Ponsetto's phone, which she had left in the vehicle.

Harrold, along with Keyon's mother Kat Rodriguez and civil rights attorney Ben Crump are now urging officials to bring charges against her over the incident.

Ponsetto has denied assaulting Keyon and on Thursday, provided a rambling 20-minute phone interview to CNN.

In it, she claimed she was assaulted during the altercation with Keyon Sr. and his son, though failed to provide further details, including who allegedly assaulted her.

Her allegation has not been corroborated by investigators or any witnesses to the December 26 incident.

The woman dubbed SoHo Karen has been identified as 22-year-old Miya Ponsetto. Police reports and court records bearing her name show that she was arrested twice in the last year - once for public intoxication and another time for driving under the influence of alcohol

On Tuesday, NYPD confirmed they had identified the woman and may charge her with assault, grand larceny or attempted robbery.

The boy's famous father, mother Kat Rodriguez and civil rights attorney Ben Crump are urging officials to bring charges against her over the incident.

The NYPD has released new surveillance footage of the woman dubbed 'SoHo Karen' tackling the 14-year-old son of a black musician to the ground in a New York City hotel while accusing him of stealing her phone

The video, shared on social media Wednesday night by NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison, shows the woman suddenly run at Keyon Harrold Jr. and grab him by the waist in the Arlo Hotel on Saturday

The new footagereleased by NYPD casts new light on Saturday's events in the lobby of the Arlo Hotel in Manhattan.

It shows four people - the woman identified as Ponsetto, Keyon, Keyon Jr. and another individual standing at the bottom of the stairs in the lobby.

Keyon Jr. starts to walk away in the direction of the hotel doors.

At this point, the woman runs and grabs the 14-year-old around the waist, latching onto him as the boy's father runs after them.

They pass through the automatic doors in the lobby as the boy tries to shake her off, turning around as she appears to tackle him to the ground.

A close-up of the woman's face is shown with 'wanted' emblazoned across it as the police urge anyone with information about the woman's whereabouts to contact the NYPD.

'On Saturday, December 26, the woman in this video falsely accused an innocent 14-year-old teenager of stealing her cellphone,' Harrison tweeted.

'She then proceeded to physically attack him and fled the location before police officers arrived on scene.'

The new footage casts new light on Saturday's events in the lobby of the Arlo Hotel in Manhattan. It shows four people - identified as the woman, Keyon, Keyon Jr. and another individual standing at the bottom of the stairs in the lobby

Keyon Jr. starts to walk away in the direction of the hotel doors. At this point, the woman runs and grabs the 14-year-old around the waist, latching on to him as the boy's father runs after them. They pass through the automatic doors in the lobby as the boy tries to shake her off

The woman appears to tackle the boy to the ground in the altercation. Its release comes just hours after the 22-year-old woman gave a rambling interview to CNN where she denied racially profiling the boy and claimed it was her who was assaulted in the dispute

After she eventually agreed to provide evidence to the network to support the claim, the woman, who lives out of state, reportedly stopped replying to CNN's messages and calls.

According to the woman - whose name was withheld by the network - the incident was spurred when she first demanded to see the hotel's surveillance footage to try to pinpoint who may have taken her phone.

After the request was denied, she reportedly then cornered someone else in the lobby to 'empty their pockets', before turning her attention to Keyon Jr.

'That's when everything got a little more serious,' she said.

It's currently unclear when the alleged assault was purported to take place. The woman also provided additional information of events preceding and unrelated to the incident, which CNN said it has so far been unable to verify.

Speaking out about her concerns over the possibility of facing charges, she said: 'Of course I worry. That's not who I am. I actually ... try very hard to make sure that I am always doing the right thing.'

The woman added she is willing to cooperate with any police investigation, but says she has not yet been contacted by investigators, nor has she reached out herself.

The woman's claims she was assaulted are so far unfounded. She reportedly stopped replying to CNN's messages after agreeing to provide evidence

Harrold Sr. and Keyon Jr.'s mother, Kat Rodriguez, held a rally in Manhattan for their son on Wednesday, alongside civil rights attorney Ben Crump (right) and Rev. Al Sharpton (left)

Harrold and Keyon Jr.'s mother, Kat Rodriguez, staged a rally in Manhattan on Wednesday alongside their attorney Ben Crump and Reverend Al Sharpton.

'When I saw this story, I thought about how I was one of those kids whose father never took him anywhere for Christmas, never had brunch with my father,' Sharpton said.

'And for this black man to take his black son, put him in a hotel during a pandemic, and spend Christmas with him, raising him, and to be assaulted because of the color of their skin, I wanted to stand with this man and this woman who provided for their son, and they're being criminalized for it. The arrogance and audacity of this woman.'

Harrold added that had he not come down into the lobby with his son when he did, something 'could have gone very wrong.'

'The idea of trauma goes above any charge that we may have...I bring my son places where he shouldn't have to deal with injustices and shouldn't have to be profiled,' he said.

An emotional Rodriguez also spoke during the rally, taking her opportunity to let it be known she is unhappy with the way the hotel handled the situation, and also called on 'SoHo Karen' to be charged with assault.

'All that we are asking is for the police to do the right thing, for the DA to do the right thing, to charge this woman with assault of a minor,' she said.

'To the hotel, which I'm equally angry at, you are trained to use those tools. I called the hotel right after it happened, and I gave them a chance to make it right, and they didn't. You know when they made it right? When my tribe, my community spoke up.

'It breaks my heart that this is happening to our son. This incident could have been avoided in so many ways,' she said.

Crump, meanwhile, called the incident an example of 'racial injustice' - an all-too common narrative that 'needs to change'.

'Can you imagine what the narrative would have been if Keyon Harrold had not videoed the incident on his cellphone?' Crump asked the crowd.

Keyon Harrold Sr. then played a trumpet rendition of 'America the Beautiful' and 'We Shall Overcome,' drawing applause and a few tears, according to ABC7.

At one point in the video the woman is shown on the floor. It's unclear where this has anything to do with her claims of assault

Kat Rodriguez, center, mother of Keyon Harrold Jr. speaks as attorney Ben Crump, right, Rev. Al Sharpton, left, and Keyon Harrold Sr. listen during a news conference on Wednesday

SoHo hotel racial profiling: Rev. Al Sharpton calls on NYPD to publicly identify and charge a woman who falsely accused a Black teen of stealing her phone. Posted by PIX 11 on Wednesday, December 30, 2020

No decision has yet been made by either the Manhattan District Attorney's Office or the NYPD as to whether the woman will be charged.

Keyon Sr first shared footage of the incident on Instagram, writing that he and his son had left their room to get breakfast when they came into contact with the woman in the lobby. He said the woman had been staying at the hotel but had checked out three days earlier.

It's unclear what happened in the moments before he started filming, but in the video, the woman can be heard screaming at Keyon Jr., telling him to show her his phone.

The one-minute-long video shows the woman and the hotel manager in the lobby with Harrold recording on his cell phone.

'This is my phone,' Harrold's son, who is not seen in the footage, is heard telling the woman and the manager.

'You don't have to explain nothing to her,' Harrold tells his son.

The woman then points to the phone and tells the manager that the case is the same one that she has.

'That's mine,' she tells the manager. She then tells the manager: 'Get it back.'

Harrold responds to the woman, saying: 'Are you kidding me? You feel like there's only one iPhone made in the world?'

When the woman asks Harrold to see the phone, he replies: 'No, get a life.'

Harrold then tells the woman that she should use the Find My app, which helps locate missing Apple devices.

The woman then tells Harrold that the Find My app can only be accessed through the phone.

The video then shows the manager approach Harrold's son asking him to see the phone.

'No, you can't,' Harrold tells the manager.

'I'm the manager of the hotel,' the manager tells Harrold, who replies: 'I don't care!'

The incident happened in the lobby of the boutique Arlo Hotel last Saturday

Arlo Hotels apologized for the 'recent incident of baseless accusation, prejudice, assault against an innocent guest of Arlo hotel' on Instagram saying: 'No Arlo guest  or any person  should be subject to this kind of behavior. We want to apologize to Mr. Harrold and his son for this inexcuseable experience, and have reached out to them directly to express our sincere regret and to offer help in dealing with the traumatic event'

During the exchange, the woman continues to encourage the manager to retrieve what she believes is her iPhone.

Harrold tries to plead his case, saying it wasn't plausible that his son would have someone else's phone since he just got to the lobby from the elevator.

'Didn't you see me just come downstairs out of the f***ing elevator?' Harrold tells the manager.

The manager protests, saying: 'I'm trying to help.'

Harrold replies: 'My son has nothing to do with her.'

The woman once again repeats her demand to see the phone, saying: 'No, he's not leaving. Show me the proof.'

Harrold refuses and begins to walk away from the lobby toward what appear to be the elevators.

'You better get on,' Harrold tells the woman.

The woman, who appears to be highly distressed, walks toward Harrold and his son, saying: 'No, I'm not letting him walk away with my phone.'

While the video is not clear, the woman appears to lunge toward Harrold and his son.

In the next frame, she is seen on the ground as the manager helps her back to her feet.

'No, please get my phone back,' the woman begs the manager.

The video clip ends with the woman once again approaching Harrold in an attempt to get the phone.

In one frame, she is seen on the ground as the manager helps her back to her feet

Keyon Harrold Sr. played the trumpet during the news conference, which was held as officials weigh charging the woman

The Trumpeter said he suffered slight injuries in the incident though his son was not harmed.

Keyon Jr. spoke alongside his father to ABC on Tuesday, telling the network he's still 'shell shocked' over what happened.

'I don't know what would have happened if my dad wasn't there. These past few days, still kind of shell-shocked, but I'm hanging in there.

'For me I was confused because I had never seen that lady ever and I didn't know what to do in the moment. That's why I was happy to have my dad here to help me,' he said.

Earlier this week, New York City Mayor De Blasio on Twitter called the incident 'racism. Plain and simple.'

'It would be horrific at any age, but it's especially offensive that it happened to a child,' he wrote. 'To Keyon Harrold Jr. and his family: I am so sorry this happened to you.'

Amid the fallout, Arlo Hotels has also apologized for its role in the incident, saying its workers could have done better to 'de-escalate the dispute.'

'We're deeply disheartened about the recent incident of baseless accusation, prejudice and assault against an innocent guest of Arlo hotel,' a company statement said.

'In investigating the incident further, we've learned that the manager on duty promptly called the police regarding the woman's conduct and that hotel security intervened to prevent further violence .... No Arlo guest - or any person - should be subject to this kind of behavior.'

Famed civil rights attorney Ben Crump is leading the charge of outrage against the woman's actions, and also called out the hotel for 'empowering' her accusations by asking Harrold's son to prove his innocence.

'As this year of racial awareness is drawing to a close, it's deeply troubling that incidents like this one, in which a Black child is viewed as and treated like a criminal, continue to happen,' Crump said in a statement.

'We strongly urge Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. to bring assault and battery charges against this woman to send the message that hateful, racially motivated behavior is unacceptable,' Crump added. 'This is what it will take to drive change. We also call for a civil rights investigation into the Arlo Hotel for its implicit bias in its treatment of Keyon.'
MBABANE - I will plead not guilty to all the charges against me as I had no intention to kill anyone.

These submissions were made by former Minister of Public Works and Transport Ntuthuko Dlamini in his bail application filed by his lawyer on Thursday.

He argued that at all material times he was acting in self defence

The former minister, who is facing two charges of murder, attempted murder and violating the Arms and Ammunition Act has been in custody since September 9, 2020.

Dlamini has spent three months in custody after allegedly shooting and killing Andreas Tsabedze and former police officer Sikhulu Shongwe in cold blood at Mhlabubovu.

He also stands accused of attempting to end the life of Simon Dlamini by shooting him three times with a pistol.

The incident occurred at Mhlabubovu Traffic Circle, which leads to Bhunya and Mankayane, near the former minister of Public Works and Transports shopping complex.

Mhlabubovu is the land under dispute between LaMgabhi and Luyengweni chiefdoms, whose traditional leaders are the late Chief Ndzimanye Dlamini and Chief Lembelele Dlamini respectively.

Both of the men who were shot dead allegedly by the former minister were reportedly from Luyengweni and were part of a group that was travelling with the chiefdoms inner council (bandlancane) that was reportedly going about allocating land at Mhlabubovu to certain individuals.

In his bail application, which has been filed under a certificate of urgency, Dlamini averred that he was innocent of the charges against him as he never committed them.

I shall plead not guilty at trial as I have a bona fide defence to the charges, submitted Dlamini.

Narrating events leading to his arrest, the former minister stated that on September 7, 2020, while at LaMgabhi area, he received information from Derrick Maziya and Sipho Matsenjwa that there was a ceremony being held wherein an unknown person was being allocated a piece of land at Mehlabovu by the authorities of Luyengweni Chiefdom.

I must state that the piece of land that was being allocated belonged to LaMgabhi Chiefdom and there had previously been a ruling issued confirming that indeed the land at Mehlabovu belonged to the LaMgabhi Chiefdom and not the Luyengweni Chiefdom.

He went to inform the court that he was a member of the LaMgabhi Royal Kraal hence the information being relayed to him about the allocation of the land.

i called cops prior

to shooting

According to Dlamini, at the time, he was at his business premises at LaMgabhi and he immediately went to Mehlabovu to ascertain whether what he was being told was the truth.

He claimed that knowing the volatility of the situation regarding the land dispute, he called the Bhunya Station Commander to alert him of the alleged illegal ceremony that was taking place.

Dlamini said he also told the station commander that he was on his way to verify if indeed it was true that there was such a ceremony. Upon my arrival at Mhlabubovu, indeed, I found a large group of people having gathered there for the ceremony and it seemed that same had been concluded. I enquired as to what was going on and the response I received was aggressive, alleged the accused.

Dlamini went on to allege that some unkind words were exchanged between the two factions to an extent that some of them manhandled him and he retreated.

ntuhtukos side of

the story

The former minister recounted that while they were still arguing, the complainant in the third count, Simon Dlamini, allegedly stood up carrying a knobkerrie and charged towards me. I tried to retreat, but he tried to hit me on the head with the knobkerrie, alleged the former minister.

He said that was when he fired a shot which unfortunately hit Simon.

It was further his submission that after having fired at Simon, Sikhulu Shongwe, the deceased, in count two fired a shot behind him and he (Dlamini) swiftly turned back and fired back twice and he fell.

According to Dlamini, the deceased in count one, Andreas Themba Tsabedze, allegedly stood up charging at him and during the midst of all the chaos, he again fired a shot which unfortunately caused Tsabedzes death.

I must state that when I went to Mehlabovu, I had no intention to kill anyone. My firearm was in my possession simply because I carried it whenever I went, especially at my business premises as there had recently been a spate of robberies at the shops in my complex, contended Dlamini.

He claimed that on August 2, 2020, there was a robbery at a hardware store near his business.

He said that again on August 13 and 14, 2020, a group of three young women committed robberies at his shopping complex and when he tried to chase them, they outran him and got away in their motor vehicle.

The only reason I was carrying my firearm was to protect my business otherwise same had not been used for a long time hence the charge of being in possession of a firearm with an expired licence. Otherwise, I do have a permit for my firearm, contended the accused.

The bail application is still pending in court and appearing for the accused is Noncedo Ndlangamandla while Sibusiso Gama from the chamber of the director of the public prosecutions is appearing for the Crown.






Amid the ongoing controversy over renaming of Aurangabad as Sambhajinagar, activists of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) on Saturday staged an agitation in Nashik city by changing the destination board of a state transport bus. The party's city president Ankush Pawar and other activists entered Thakkar Bazaar bus stand and changed the destination board of an Aurangabad-bound bus to Sambhajinagar.

Protestors demanded that the three-party MVA government should change the city's name to Sambhajinagar by January 26. The MNS also criticised the Shiv Sena for softening its stand on the issue due to its alliance with the Congress.

Earlier this week, Maharashtra Congress chief Balasaheb Thorat had said that his party would strongly oppose any proposal to rename the city, citing that changing the names of places was not part of the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) of the three ruling parties - the Sena, NCP and Congress. It was the Shiv Sena, which had first made the demand to rename Aurangabad as Sambhajinagar over two decades ago.

A proposal to that effect had been passed in the general body meeting of the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) in June 1995, which was challenged by a Congress corporator in the high court and later in the Supreme Court.
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City approves first reading of temporary medical marijuana ordinance

With state officials still putting together the oversight rules for medical marijuana establishments, local governments need temporary ordinances.
omg these stories



i need to know that blind item lol im thinking a marvel/dc movie?

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I'm thinking something like star wars

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So ... Ian McDiarmid? From the 'older' as in age and career he is the only one that has a name one could possibly mispronounce.

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omg these fucking stories

what was that roundtable of six actors?!

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that amount of actors for a large franchise makes me think Marvel. Maybe it was Brolin?

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Im thinking the six actors were the Avengers and the actor who threw the fit was Jeremy Renner.

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How do you even pronounce Renner incorrectly

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hmm i think jeremy renner is an obvious dick but his name isn't hard to pronounce and idk if i feel like he's necessarily that much older than the rest of the cast, considering RDJ and Ruffalo are there.

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I would also think Avengers with that many cast but there weren't many interviews where more than like 2 or three of them were actually together were there? They split them up into smaller groups. What movies have actually had six actors together at once doing a press junket besides them though? DC ones, do they do big groups?

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I was thinking Michael Rooker for GotG since he's older and lesser known - and Rooker seems like an easy name to get wrong, like maybe she pronounced it "Roker" or something

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I'm thinking Frank Grillo during Cap 2 or 3, because I think he was older than the other cast members and definitely not as well known. Plus, I got the vibe during that one Chelsea Handler interview where they had dinner at her house that no one really liked him.



Edited at 2021-01-02 10:24 pm (UTC)

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Could be Fast & Furious (known cast tension) / The Expendables (lots of old guys and big egos) / X-Men (just another popular franchise)?

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...I need more info re: that Reese/Sofia interview.



Omg :( at the Tom Sizemore one.

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right? Kevin Smith's disdain for her is so funny. Greasy Reesey!!

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OMG I would have screamed my ass off if I saw a rat. It reminds me when the first time I saw a rat and it was in my grandmother's garage. It was at night (in Chicago) and after I turn on the light I saw the most massive rat I've seen ever. I screamed so loud, I'm shocked no one came out of the houses and see who was screaming. I can laugh about it now but man just thinking about it gives me chills lol.

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the first time i saw one was when i was in the middle of a mental breakdown so i thought i was having psychosis lmao, another time i was in a farmhouse and i didn't see it but i knew it existed and it had bitten me while i was asleep. my foot was fucked for years after that. terrible creatures.

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i knew it existed and it had bitten me while i was asleep. my foot was fucked for years after that



OMG WHAT!!!! So sorry bb, I don't think I could recover if something like that happened to me.

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omg thats my worst fucking nightmare

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The first time I saw a rat was on the tracks of the RER in Paris. That's all I could think of when everyone was talking about the idealised city portrayed in Emily in Paris 

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the rats in Baltimore just glare at you aggressively and park their fat asses in place.

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I saw a rat use the crosswalk while I was waiting to turn left. Little guy looked both ways!

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Omg Chicago rats are gigantic and have absolutely no fear

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the rats in dc have formed gangs

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I'm in Maryland in the suburbs of dc (and Baltimore!) and have honestly never seen a rat until covid! Don't get me wrong, I'd hear them all the time, but never saw one!



Now I see them every night when I get home, as I pass by the dumpsters outside my building. (Hell, first month of covid they actually came INTO the BUILDING! ) CHILE so glad 2020 is OVA

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Wow @ the last one. How scary.

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I've loved all these stories. Giving me my celeb gossip fix with DeuxMoi having gone way downhill

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Its like a fan club now. Nothing juicy and people just saying how kind so and so was when they met them 10 years ago on the street.

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yeah i began following deuxmoi to see what the hype was about but it's just so boring these days



btw is that hector bellerin in your icon? 

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it sure is! my fave

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i stopped reading their shit

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Deux Moi blind items lack any type of spice, like at least give us some hints.

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Maybe sharing someones PTSD triggers and reactions isn't the way to get retweets and attention.

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Was about to comment this. And calling him 'crazed'..... jfc

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still, the dude grabbed someone and locked them in a hotel room.

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tom sizemore is a drug addict with a history of abusing his romantic partners + there have been allegations of him sexually abusing a child costar. i really doubt this was a PTSD episode; it's more likely this was a result of a drug binge or long-term drug use (meth fucks you up). that said, as a person with PTSD, i do think it's classless of somebody to reference it as PTSD-related for clout

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not saying who because i adore this person, but a star needed to use the loo before my junket slot & didnt realize they still had a hot mic on when they went



were all waiting to start & all of a sudden fart noises start coming out through the headphones in our room  Laura Kramer (@Laura_Kramer) January 2, 2021



Oh man, so many but Chris Pine once had a pizza delivered to the room, halfway through my junket slot for the first Star Trek. He then shared it with me and Zachary Quinto.  Andy Gibbons (@andyffgibbons) January 2, 2021

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Nightmare scenario with the first one omg

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I could see the first scenario happening to me

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Chris Pine is a solid dude

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No at the first one D:

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The pizza one sounds...tame compared to some of the others lol

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HOMG The first one.



The second one would be surprising if the person was Chris Pine tbh. He's known to be hungry all the time.

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first one is terribly reminiscent of the story Greg Davies told on Graham Norton about working as a teacher for hearing impaired students and wearing a hot mic that he forgot to turn off when he went to the bathroom to uh.... relieve himself post-night-of-drinking-and-curry

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AHAHHA yes! And Ryan Gosling LOST IT over that story.

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i watched the video lmao this is so funny! 

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That Chris Pine one is cute lol

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haha Id be positively chuffed if a celeb I was interviewing shared their pizza with me. pine seems like a solid dude.

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During one of the daily covid updates in the maritimes (Canada), a politician was taking a phoned-in question from a reporter ... who was clearly in the washroom. lol It was all live and hilarious.

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During a performance at Ragtime at my local theater, apparently one of my costars went to the restroom during the show and the toilet flush was heard on stage. I forget what scene it was but I think it was a loud scene anyway so maybe only the manager and a few others realized. lol

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love chris pine

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Glad James continues to not disappoint me.

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alright ONTD, get your investigative hats on. Who is the person who is pissed about their last name?

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I'm guessing it's a DC movie, I think it might be Jeremy Irons because he is miserable as sin, and I could see someone maybe saying his surname as Iron.



The movie would be for Justice League.



Apart from Michael Caine I can't think of many other older actors that have been in DC movies.

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yeah the part that is getting me is older (so older than the rest of the cast) but lesser known... i cant think of an older actor who would have done the rounds with Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Twilight, etc. So maybe that narrows it down to a comic movie. But i also feel like the older actors are the well known ones.

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Ooo irons is a good guess. I could see him pulling an I HAVE an OSCAR you uncultured pissants rant super easily.

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My guess above was Michael Rooker (Yondu) on GotG

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Also, actors NEED to get a sense of humour. Affleck all pissy about that GIF? Could be so much worse dude, just laugh.

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I cant think of an Affleck performance thats given me as much entertainment as that gif, so he needs to get over it.

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He needs to seek a nomination for his stellar performance as Gob Bluth in this gif

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Honestly can you imagine being famous and gif-able enough that all your saved reaction images are of you? Id love that.

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I knew he was a sore loser with no sense of humor when he refused to accept a Razzie award for his work in Gigli. This is no surprise. He doesn't realize is that if he just rolled with the punches and took it all in stride he'd come off way more likeable and have the goodwill of the audience and would be less of a joke. At least he'd be in on the joke.



Edited at 2021-01-03 01:49 am (UTC)

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honestly it would probably be good for Bens public persona/career to lean into the sadffleck jokes/memes. people loved keanu even more for not being bothered by it when the same thing (more or less) happened to him.



I totally get why itd be annoying to be painted that way (even and especially if you are genuinely struggling mentally) but unfortunately that is part of the deal of being a public figure that no one will ever escape so the best way to play it off is to at least pretend like you have a sense of humor about it.

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I've said this before but Good Day Sacramento ALWAYS has weird ass interviews w celebrities.

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That show is a travesty. I don't know why anyone would ever want to be interviewed on it.

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lol they had the awful one with cara delevigne right?

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> I can tell you that Affleck has refused to talk to us ever since this video went viral...



So Rodrigo was not his first victim yesterday 



I always remember that weird one with Eisenberg for Now You see Me I think.

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James McAvoy is sexy as fuck.

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I dont want to know what it says about me but the first time I saw him (or noticed him) in a movie was in Split, and I found him so fucking hot

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haha if it makes you feel better, I first noticed him as Mr. Tumnus in Narnia and my friends rightfully gave me shit for it \_()_/

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I've never seen the appeal tbh

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I didn't really see it until his dark materials, I didn't even like it that much but his appeal really came through in that context lol

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Marvel usually splits up their actors for press dont they? I dont think Ive seen six of them together for promo unless its a premiere.



That PTSD one sounds scary all around.



I want to know more about Reese and Sofia because that movie really came and went without much fanfare



Affleck got so much publicity over sad Affleck, he really doesnt understand how going viral works

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It says a roundtable interview during a set visit. Marvel allows set visits but idt theyve ever done a sit down interviews as a group during them but I cant be too sure

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i remember seeing them all together for Endgame (where they were literally at a round table) but who would be the older but less known one out of that bunch? makes me want to rule them out.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECdQ6OV-rkU



Six Avenger actors - one roundtable.



Can't find anything like this for JL but between "older actor with not super-easy last name" the choice is basically between Renner, Ruffalo and Momoa. Six Avenger actors - one roundtable.Can't find anything like this for JL but between "older actor with not super-easy last name" the choice is basically between Renner, Ruffalo and Momoa.

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I can see it being Renner. Renner strikes me as one of those tiny men who walks around with a "bigger and better than you" attitude. Ruffalo was already famous and I'm sure not that bothered by a mispronunciation of his name. And Momoa doesn't strike me as a diva. That superbowl commercial solidified my love for him when he removed his hair and fake abs. lol.

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A young New South Wales couple who allegedly fled Melbourne Airport after being told they'd have to quarantine have said they were confused about the rules.

Terry and Debbie Elford arrived at Tullamarine Airport on the morning of New Year's Day on a flight from Canberra.

Police accused the pair of running from an officer who told them to go into quarantine and then fleeing the airport in a van.

The couple from Goulburn in NSW apologised on Saturday for leaving the airport on Friday without going into mandatory quarantine.

A New South Wales couple allegedly flew into Victoria and fled the airport in a van after they were told they would need to quarantine for 14 days (pictured, police are looking for this 24-year-old woman)

But the pair said officials at the airport couldn't tell them whether or not they needed to quarantine and they were confused about the rules.

The Victorian border had closed to people from NSW coronavirus 'red zone' hotspots, but until midnight of New Year's Day Victorian residents returning from the rest of New South Wales had the option of self-isolation.

As of January 2, anybody entering Victoria including returning residents, from anywhere in NSW has to go into mandatory 14-day hotel quarantine.

The young couple were not Victorian residents but said they were caught up in the confusion surrounding the changing regulations.

They said they had a permit to enter Victoria and because Goulburn was not a coronavirus hotspot they were confused and thought they could self-isolate.

Mr Elford, 26, apologised in a statement sent to media on Saturday.

'We had a permit, live in a green zone in NSW, were flying from Canberra airport which is allowed, and after we arrived in Tullamarine, we were stopped by DHS officers who were not able to tell us whether or not we needed to quarantine, so after about an hour or so we walked away.'

A 26-year-old man (pictured) and 24-year-old woman caught a flight from Canberra before landing at Melbourne Airport just before 11am on Friday

The couple apologised and said they were caught up in the confusion when the rules changed.

'We really are very sorry for the mess that this has caused,' Mr Elford told news.com.au in a statement.

The couple had gone to a family barbecue and flown into Canberra so Debbie could go to an obstetrics appointment on Tuesday.

Mr Elford said the young couple had told Victoria's Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) about their plans before travelling.

'We were really shocked when we woke this morning to this media story, and following that have proactively contacted our local police in Goulburn to sort this out,' Mr Elford said.

Thousands of Victorians cut short their NSW holidays and joined a mad rush to get home ahead of the coronavirus border shutdown (pictured, a border checkpoint in Mallacoota)

NSW Police told Daily Mail Australia the pair had handed themselves into Goulburn Police Station, in regional New South Wales, at 10am on Saturday.

The couple said they had 'pro-actively' taken coronavirus tests and were self-isolating.

Victoria Police told Daily Mail Australia on Saturday that the couple would be prosecuted.

'Victoria Police and DHHS will jointly investigate all circumstances surrounding the incident and enforcement actions will be taken,' a police spokesperson said.

Police say the pair from New South Wales ran from the authorised officer and fled the airport in a van

Victoria's DHHS said people travelling from or through "red zones" and "hot zones" from NSW were not permitted to enter Victoria on January 1.

However anyone else who entered from NSW on January 1 was required to get tested and self-quarantine for 14 days.

'Victoria Police and DHHS are investigating this matter,' a DHHS spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia.

Victorian Minister for Health Martin Foley previously said the couple were facing fines of at least $19,000 each.

'I did want to make particular mention of two people who absconded from discussions with authorised officers yesterday who have now apparently returned to Goulburn in New South Wales,' Mr Foley said.

COVID TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS FOR NEW SOUTH WALES: Western Australia - All NSW residents are banned from entering WA. Anyone who enters the state will be 'sent back', according to Premier Mark McGowan. In reality, all arrivals from NSW must have a special exemption and then have to quarantine for 14 days, either at home or in a hotel.

- All NSW residents are banned from entering WA. Anyone who enters the state will be 'sent back', according to Premier Mark McGowan. In reality, all arrivals from NSW must have a special exemption and then have to quarantine for 14 days, either at home or in a hotel. Victoria - Regional NSW was declared an 'orange zone' on January 11, and locals will be allowed into Victoria from 6pm with a permit. On January 18, Greater Sydney was also deemed an orange zone. People from ten Sydney LGAs, including Blacktown and Liverpool, which are deemed red zones are still banned.

- Regional NSW was declared an 'orange zone' on January 11, and locals will be allowed into Victoria from 6pm with a permit. On January 18, Greater Sydney was also deemed an orange zone. People from ten Sydney LGAs, including Blacktown and Liverpool, which are deemed red zones are still banned. Northern Territory - The state has declared greater metropolitan Sydney as a Covid-19 hotspot, and travellers will need to undergo 14 days of supervised quarantine.

- The state has declared greater metropolitan Sydney as a Covid-19 hotspot, and travellers will need to undergo 14 days of supervised quarantine. South Australia - Harder border closure to all NSW residents from midnight on New Year's Eve. Returning South Australians must quarantine for 14 days. A 100km border buffer zone, including Broken Hill and Wentworth, will be exempt.

- Harder border closure to all NSW residents from midnight on New Year's Eve. Returning South Australians must quarantine for 14 days. A 100km border buffer zone, including Broken Hill and Wentworth, will be exempt. Queensland - Queensland has shut its borders to Greater Sydney, Wollongong and the Central Coast. Locals returning to the Sunshine State from a hotspot must isolate.

- Queensland has shut its borders to Greater Sydney, Wollongong and the Central Coast. Locals returning to the Sunshine State from a hotspot must isolate. ACT - Anyone travelling to the ACT from a Covid-19 hotspot in NSW will now require an exemption. People from Sydney's Northern Beaches, Greater Sydney, the Central Coast and Wollongong will not be legally permitted to enter the ACT without a valid pass from midday on Saturday January 2.

- Anyone travelling to the ACT from a Covid-19 hotspot in NSW will now require an exemption. People from Sydney's Northern Beaches, Greater Sydney, the Central Coast and Wollongong will not be legally permitted to enter the ACT without a valid pass from midday on Saturday January 2. Tasmania - Northern Beaches residents banned. All people from Greater Sydney must also quarantine upon entry. Advertisement

'Upon the advice of the public health team, those people have breached numerous orders of the public-health state of emergency in Victoria and they will each be fined at least $19,000 for their breaching of those arrangements.

'This is a very serious matter.'

The couple arrived just before Victoria introduced its hard border closure to NSW at 11.59pm on New Years Day, requiring returning Victorians to go into 14 days of mandatory hotel quarantine.

Before that, the DHHS had announced on its website that the borders were closed after 31 December to anyone from the Blue Mountains, Wollongong, Greater Sydney, Northern Beaches or the NSW Central Coast.

However 'Green Zone' permits had been issued for areas outside these red zones, and exemptions were available to people travelling for medical reasons.

The rules were fast-changing and confusing, however, with people from all of New South Wales barred from entering after January 1, unless they had an exemption or were returning Victorian residents.
MIAMI - Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido had the recognition of the United States and the support of millions in the streets.

But with Nicolas Maduro still occupying the presidential palace and commanding Venezuela's security forces, Guaido's so-called interim government needed cash to project power abroad and undermine the president at home.

Now two Miami entrepreneurs were offering a plan to get it.

Jorge Reyes and Pedro Antar said they had identified up to $40 billion in Venezuelan government assets across the Caribbean. The holdings, including shares in companies, luxury cars, lavish homes and uncollected debts, were linked to Venezuela's state-controlled oil company.

Guaido, Reyes told The Washington Post, called the men himself in April 2019 to express interest. That led to more than a dozen meetings with senior members of Guaido's U.S.-backed opposition and their agents.

But during a meeting last December in the Miami suburb of Doral, Reyes said he and Antar received a handwritten letter, a photograph of which was supplied to The Post, with a list of what he described as "shocking" demands.

Those demands included an upfront payment of $750,000 to a Florida company that state records show is co-owned by Magin Blasi, brother of a senior official at the Guaido-controlled Venezuelan Embassy in Washington. That company would also become their partner, the letter stipulated, sharing in the 18% commission the men had negotiated with Guaido's officials.

"I was astonished," Reyes said. "I asked myself, 'Does President Guaido know about this?' I mean, these guys were clearly trying to do something illegal. You can't even talk about something like this on U.S. soil. It was extortion . . . Either pay, or we didn't get the contract."

After Maduro claimed victory in elections widely viewed as fraudulent, the Trump administration last year recognized Guaido, the president of Venezuela's democratically elected National Assembly, as the country's legitimate leader. U.S. officials described the authoritarian Maduro as the head of a corrupt criminal empire engaged in drug trafficking and other illegal activities; the Justice Department indicted Maduro and several members of his inner circle last year on charges of narcoterrorism. Maduro and others charged have denied wrongdoing.

The embrace of Guaido as interim president carried an implicit promise: His government would be held to a higher standard than its predecessors; corruption would not be tolerated.

The two Guaido government officials with whom Reyes and Antar discussed the Miami deal - Javier Troconis and Fernando Blasi - both deny wrongdoing. They say the belated discovery of a previous fraud case involving Reyes led them to reject the deal. (Reyes is appealing the charges in that case.)

When the allegations by Reyes and Antar were first reported by the Miami-based website Factores de Poder, the interim government issued a statement in September dismissing them as unfounded. But in recent weeks, officials pushed for an internal investigation, conducted by a committee of legislators from the opposition-controlled National Assembly.

(Guaido and his allies boycotted a legislative election held by Maduro in December, saying it would be fraudulent; the winners of that election will be sworn into the National Assembly on Tuesday. Three of the four major opposition parties have voted to extend the term of the Guaido-led assembly and keep him as interim leader, but with new limits on his power. The Trump administration has said it will continue to recognize Guaido, and advisers to President-elect Joe Biden have said he will do the same, as long as he maintains the backing of the increasingly divided opposition.)

In a preliminary report, the committee raised questions about "administrative irregularities" in Troconis's dealings with Reyes and Antar, but found no evidence of corruption, according to a person familiar with the investigation. The committee is recommending a further probe by the interim government's comptroller's office.

Guaido's ambassador to the United States, Carlos Vecchio, has asked the U.S. government to conduct its own investigation into the case.

"I don't put my hands in fire for anyone," Vecchio said. "I believe that if there is evidence, we have to investigate."

Antar said the FBI interviewed him in October. The State Department and FBI did not respond to requests for comment.

A Post investigation, including more than 20 interviews and a review of documents including prospective contracts, uncovered multiple proposed deals involving Troconis that would have required what some opposition members have characterized as large and unusual payments. They include a prospective contract with the government of Paraguay with a $26 million commission to be paid to third parties that raised alarms within Guaido's own legal team. Another proposed deal, to recover assets in a British bank, would have involved a contract that opposition officials say Troconis wasn't authorized to sign.

Troconis, a former oil executive backed by powerful opposition figures, still serves as Guaido's special commissioner for asset recovery, working from exile largely in Miami, Bogota, Columbia, and Washington. In an extensive interview, he denied any wrongdoing. In a recent committee hearing, he seemed to blame Guaido's enemies for the allegations.

"This is an attack against all of us," he said. He insisted that all evidence produced by Reyes and Antar was "false."

"I am the most interested in having the truth come out because I am the one telling the truth," he said.

But inside the Venezuelan opposition, consternation is building over the interim government's decision to keep Troconis in his job.

"Morally, it doesn't make sense that he is still holding his position," said Elimar Diaz, a member of the National Assembly committee that is investigating Troconis.

Current and former officials within the interim government have raised concerns about at least two other proposed deals negotiated by Troconis.

Jose Ignacio Hernandez, Guaido's former attorney general, said he warned senior officials in Guaido's government "repeatedly" that Troconis was acting beyond his authority - he was meant to identify government assets, but not personally seek their recovery - when he tried to negotiate the deal with Paraguay last year.

According to two drafts of the unexecuted contract obtained by The Post, the deal would have forgiven half of the $269 million debt that Paraguay agrees it owes Venezuela (Venezuela puts the figure at $290 million). Hernandez said it was negotiated without the knowledge of the oil industry overseers appointed by Guaido. It would have paid out what Hernandez called a "disproportionate" commission to an Argentine lawyer named Sebastian Vidal. In the second draft of the contract, Vidal would have received 20% of the settlement, or more than $26 million.

Vidal told The Post he had been hired by Troconis without receiving any retainer in the hope of sealing a deal. He said the proposed commission was "lower" than he normally charges, and said Troconis never asked him for a portion of it.

Troconis told the National Assembly that the Paraguayans had approached him with the deal. He denied hiring Vidal.

Paraguayan officials dispute those claims. Juan Ernesto Villamayor, chief of staff to Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benitez, said Vidal introduced himself as "a representative of PDVSA," Venezuela's state-owned oil company, to which Guaido has named a new board. In October, Villamayor said, Vidal asked for a meeting between Paraguayan officials and Troconis. The following month, he said, Vidal and Troconis presented the proposed deal.

Troconis told The Post he had been put in contact with Vidal by members of the Venezuelan opposition whose names he could not recall. He said Vidal called him to suggest he become a mediator, and he agreed. He challenged Hernandez's assertion that his job did not give him the legal right to negotiate deals and produced a letter from Guaido that he said authorized his involvement in the Paraguay talks.

Troconis said he sent a letter to Vidal in January ending the negotiations because he had concluded "it was not a good deal." But Villamayor said Guaido asked the Paraguayan government in March to send the proposal to Hernandez for review. Hernandez said he received the contract in March and told the Paraguayans it was not legally valid and would not be accepted. Hernandez resigned as Guaido's attorney general that month.

Guaido, through a spokesman, declined to answer questions for this story.

The National Assembly committee also investigated a contract Troconis signed with a South Florida law firm to recover an account in Britain containing nearly $1.7 billion from the Venezuelan Food Ministry. Both Troconis and the firm said he signed the contract with the firm on behalf of Guaido's government. The committee did not comment on the deal in its preliminary report. But Guaido's current attorney general, Enrique Sanchez Falcon, said Troconis did not have authority to sign it.

"The only one authorized to sign contracts with law firms or recovery companies, on behalf of the Republic or state companies, is the General Attorney of the Republic," Falcon wrote in an email to The Post. "Any contract signed by people other than those mentioned in the previous answer will be illegal and therefore invalid."

Troconis said he was introduced to Reyes and Antar by National Assembly member Carlos Prosperi, head of one of the four main opposition parties that back Guaido, in December 2019. He said Magin Blasi was also present at the meeting. Blasi is the brother of Fernando Blasi, the commercial section chief of the Guaido-controlled Venezuelan Embassy in Washington. Troconis said he had hired Magin Blasi as an "adviser" for the deal: "It was my decision. He had experience."

Magin Blasi, through his brother, Fernando Blasi, declined to comment. He did not respond to direct messages.

Troconis said the deal seemed attractive. In early January, he gave Antar and Reyes a letter of agreement, meant to be a bridge to a formal contract. But then due diligence turned up a legal action in which Reyes was fined nearly $4 million by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and barred from association with any Finra member for allegedly defrauding investors between 2013 and 2016. Finra is an independent organization that governs registered brokers in the United States. Reyes is appealing the charges.

"When we start to review their paperwork, is when we realize that there were fraud issues," Troconis said. "When I reviewed the proposal I never imagined they had those kind of intentions."

Reyes and Antar said they disclosed the fraud allegations to the interim government before they received the letter of agreement.

According to both Reyes and Antar, the deal fell apart after they refused to pay a $50,000 advance on the requested $750,000. Reyes and Antar produced an invoice for $50,000 from Energica Power, a company that Florida records show was owned by Magin Blasi until September, when it was dissolved.

The request was made through a WhatsApp number allegedly belonging to Magin Blasi, they said.

Troconis, asked about the invoice, said, "I suppose that is not true."

"I think Magin is a serious person," he said. "But I don't know."

Fernando Blasi confirmed that his brother owned Energica Power but denied that any extraordinary payments were demanded. He suggested that both the invoice and WhatsApp messages shown by Reyes and Antar had been doctored.

"None of this can be believed," Blasi said.
The government will install 62 new mobile towers as part of its telecommunication policy to increase network connectivity in the state, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said on Saturday.

In a media statement, Sawant said as many as 138 mobile towers will be set up in the second phase of the plan.

"Glad to announce that our government under the Telecom Infrastructure Policy 2020, has proposed setting up of mobile towers at 62 locations in the first phase," the chief minister said.

This will greatly improve connectivity and benefit all sections of the society including students, IT professionals, tech start-ups etc, he added.

In August last year, the state government had notified the Telecom Infrastructure Policy 2020, which aims to encourage establishment of modern telecommunication infrastructure and ensure good quality internet network across the state, especially in remote and hilly areas.
Assam river cruises: Assam Bengal Navigation, Indias long-distance river cruises, is designed to champion the local. For every cabin or room booked, the cruise company contributes 5 percent to environmental, education and local community development efforts in Assam and Bengal. A private cruise aboard Assam Bengal Navigations M.V. Rudra Singha is an ode to luxury: premium accommodation in an air-conditioned wooden houseboat that navigates the mighty Brahmaputra River. There is a private butler onboard and a guide or naturalist on hand. Expect to enjoy sundowners with an alluring sunset as the backdrop and halts on deserted sandbanks. If ABN Charaidew, a 12-cabin boat, navigates the Brahmaputra, ABN Sukapha cruises up the Hooghly River, a tributary of the Ganga River. This journey can be booked through RAREIndia. rareindia.com; assambengalnavigation.com

Stargazing with Ecosphere, Spiti: Traditional homestays across Spiti have been spiffed out by Ecosphere, a social organisation that helps create sustainable employment for the local communities. If the love of stargazing ever took you to a Nordic country, here is an Indian destination that can match up to any pristine star-gazing experience. Often enough, Ecosphere stays have huge wooden windows with a front-seat view to the theatre in the star-spangled night sky and the Milky Way. Stay awake late into the night armed with a warm cup of Spitian butter tea. spitiecosphere.com

Maheshwar and Bhedaghat, Madhya Pradesh: So, you have done the Ganga journey, but have you experienced the beauty of the soulful Narmada that flows past the ancient town of Maheshwar? It is said that of the five holy rivers in India, Narmada is the holiest.

Stay at the Ahilya Fort Hotel, an 18th-century palace set in the 4,000-year-old town, once the private home of the royal family of Holkars. A Narmada sojourn organised by the fort-hotel takes you down the river in wooden boats that float amidst a flank of flickering candles on the water. The Ahilya Fort looms over the landscape like a colossus. Close to Maheshwar are the sublime ruins of the abandoned 13th-century city of Mandu.

One of your stops on Madhya Pradeshs Narmada journey should be at the marble rocks in Bhedaghat, a few kilometres from Jabalpur. The river has, over centuries, tunnelled its way through the hard rocks. The white marble rocks, entwined with black and green volcanic ones, stand 100 feet tall, occupying what looks like a parallel universe. Geologists have discovered dinosaur eggs on the ghats that are now in possession of the ancient temples around. For an other-worldly experience, set on the river journey on a full moon night when Narmada shimmers like a lustrous piece of mercury. ahilyafort.com

Kabini with Shaaz Jung: Shaaz Jungwildlife photographer, big cat-tracker and descendent of the erstwhile Pataudi family of Bhopalhas been photographing the wild inhabitants of Kabini for years. Home to elusive species such as the leopard, tiger and panther, Kabini was once the hunting ground of the Maharaja of Mysore. Jung runs The Bison Resort in its deciduous forests and often takes people on fun and insightful tours of the jungle. He has spent the last three years photographing and filming the sole black panther who inhabits the Nagarhole forests close by, for National Geographic and his stories are riveting. thebisonresort.com

Cruise through the ancient Muziris port town: The next time you find yourself in Kochi, take a journey to the lost city of Muziris. It is being restored, bit by a little bit, by the Muziris Heritage Foundation (MHF). In the first century BC, Muziris was an important trading post and traded black pepper and textiles with other countries. The city appears prominently on the Tabula Peutingeriana, a fifth-century map of the world as seen from Rome. Excavations in 2004 near the village of Pattanam threw up Roman amphorae, a wharf-like structure, a dug-out canoe that is approximately 2,000 years old, and foundations, tools and gold ornaments. A river cruise to experience the golden age of spice trade winds its way to Kottappuram Fort, built by the Portuguese in 1523, which played a significant role in the wars between the Zamorins of Kozhikode and the rulers of Kochi, and to ancient markets, old churches and temples. muzirisheritage.org

Khonoma, Indias first green village: In 2019, the 700-year-old village in Nagaland welcomed 4,000 guests, considered quite an achievement for a secluded region on the Indo-Myanmar border. Most were drawn to Khonomas rich biodiversity and conservation success. Thepfulhouvi Angami, the former principal chief conservator of forests in Nagaland and Niketu Iralu, a community leader of the local tribe, spearheaded a campaign for the creation of a protected sanctuary and a ban on hunting and logging. It wasnt easy convincing the villagers whose ancestors have been hunting on these lands for generations. International aid of US$5,000 from the Gerald Durrell Memorial Fund helped them to recruit the hunters to serve as forest wardens and pay them a good salary. The sanctuary is now a haven for several vulnerable species such as the clouded leopard and the Asiatic black bear. The local communities use traditional agriculture methods to grow organic vegetables at the foot of the mountains, under the shade of ancient trees. northeasttourism.gov.in

Cherry blossoms in Shillong: You do not have to wait for flights to open to Japan. Every year, till about March, Shillong is swathed in powder-pink. Usually, the east and west Khasi hills are home to ancient cherry blossom trees. Every November, the city hosts an annual cherry blossom festival, packed with cultural and music events and walks to discover the extensive network of Shillongs cherry blossom trees. 2020 put a spanner in the works but plan early for the 2021 festival. megforest.gov.in

Rhino orphanage in Kaziranga: The Center for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation in Assam offers a saving hand to the orphaned rhinos. Annually, dozens of rhinos perish in the raging monsoon floods that cause the Brahmaputra waters to swell and submerges nearly 80 percent of the Kaziranga National Park. The Centre hand-raised its first female calf during the 2002 flood and reintroduced her to the wild in 2006. Since then, they have rehabilitated 14 such hand-raised rhinos and welcome volunteers and travellers keen to experience their good work. wti.org.in

Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park, Tamil Nadu: The murky waters in and around India may not seem ideal for a marine park, but there are stretches of pristine beauty that hosts some of the countrys best-preserved marine sanctuaries. Among them is Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park that floats between Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. Its 21 islands and coral reefs have earned it the moniker of an underwater rainforest. You can take a glass-bottomed boat from Rameswaram on a tour to spot pearl oysters, sea horse and blue whales. tamilnadutourism.org

Coffee in Araku Valley: Deep within the lofty Anantagiri Hills lies the picturesque Araku Valley, home to ancient coffee plantations. The tribal communities were once caught in a vice-like grip between the Naxals and the Indian state. This was until Naandi Foundation, a not-for-profit venture, set up coffee and organic farming livelihood projects. Today, they produce one of the worlds finest coffee. The Naandi-helmed foundation produces around 75 tonnes of Araku coffee every year which is sold in European cities and is said to be among the top five gourmet coffee brands in Paris. The speciality coffee is due to the regions unique climatic conditions, bio-dynamic agriculture and the involvement of the worlds top coffee experts in every stage of production. Araku welcomes travellers to stay with them and experience the magic of the coffee estates run by a co-operative of tribals. Rockefeller Foundation selected Naandi Foundation as one of the Top 10 Visionaries in the world for the Food Vision 2050. naandi.org

And tea at the worlds highest tea estate, Kolukkumalai: Close to Munnar is the Kolukkumalai Tea Estate which cultivates and processes tea at an altitude of over 7,130 metres using old-school equipment that was set up in the 1930s. The tea leaves are handpicked, weighed, graded and dried indoors to ensure that they dont crumble. The plantation eagle-spreads across 1000 acres and produces 12 tons of tea per month on an average. This is the region where, from August to October, blooms the purple Neelakurinji flowers. Kolukkumalai.com

Meghalayas living root bridges: Deep within the rainforests of Meghalaya, a tangle of massive vines and roots stretch across tumultuous rivers to form latticework bridges that are used by people to cross from one bank to another. Called engineering marvels by the National Geographic magazine and recognised as the worlds tangible heritage by UNESCO, these living crossings are not made, they are grown. The roots of the native rubber tree can grow up to 100 feet long and a bridge can support the weight of over 60 people at the same time.

People from the Khasi tribe, who inhabit the lush rainforests, have developed intricate techniques that allow them to manipulate the secondary roots of the rubber tree to grow horizontally, through the tunnels of hollowed betel nut trunks across fast-flowing rivers. Most of Meghalaya, and particularly Cherrapunjee, receives very heavy rainfall and wooden bridges tend to rust and collapse under monsoon fury. These bioengineering wonders can survive for 500 years and are at the centre of travel experience in this north-eastern state. meghalayatourism.in

Johri Bazaar, Jaipur: Deep within Jaipur is the Johri Bazaar, home to Rajasthans famed jewellers, whose families have run jewellery businesses here for centuries. Many of them even designed and hand-crafted jewellery for the states various royal families. Even today there are workshops, studios and stores dedicated to the art of jewellery making. Browse through the shops and buy yourself a piece of the states jewellery heritage. Stay at The Johri at Lal Haveli, an intimate luxury hotel set in a 19th-century limestone building with a terracotta-coloured facade. It has reopened after eight months and is run by the ninth-generation jeweller and entrepreneur Siddharth Kasliwal and hospitality entrepreneur Abhishek Honawar. Each of the five suites is modelled after different gemstones  the manak (ruby) room is a shade of dusty pink, the neelam (sapphire) has blue colour walls and the rooftop moti (pearl) room boasts a private veranda that opens to views of the old city and the 18th-century Nahargarh Fort in the distance. thejohrijaipur.com

Meena Bagh Ratnari, Shimla: Sustainability isnt just another word at Meena Bagh. I have tracked photographer Sanjay Austa construct Meena Bagh, brick by brick, over months, as he experimented with sustainable construction methods. Meena Bagh, sequestered deep within the Himalayas, is a luxury eco-stay. It stands in the middle of an apple orchard and has its own forest farm, from which Austa and his team harvests some of the fresh fruits and vegetables they serve. The architecture mimics a chalet crafted from reclaimed wood, local stone and mud. There is a fireplace, beautiful furniture and the other residents of the home: a dog, a cat, a few sheep, some ducks and anyone who chooses to make the luxury farm stay their home. meenabaghhomes.com

Glamping with The Ultimate Travelling Camp: Indias only nomadic luxury camp sets up base in Ladakhs picturesque alpine terrain, Dudhwas lush forest, Chambas snow-swathed mountains and Hampis melancholic ruins every year. The Ultimate Travelling Camp offers pristine suite tents made of triple-layered camps set on raised wooden decks, which also serves as a patio. Inside the tents is king-size four-poster beds, complete with soft sheets and wispy curtains, and even a bejewelled chandelier. They offer personalised experiences of the destinations they are in. tutc.com

Private camping and hotels with RARE India: The advocates of small, private, concept hotels and journeys, showcase a vibrant network of boutique hotels and experiences that straddle virgin destinations and sustainable travel. Among their offerings are some amazing private luxury camps.

Camp Kooncha, an experiential and bespoke camping experience in the wilderness on the fringes of Jaipur and the Sariska sanctuary, is the future of travel. They peg it as Your Own Safari Camp, which you pitch in magnificent settingsa re-wilded private estate, nestled between rolling wooded hills in Sariska National Tiger Park.

So, this is what you get to do when you book: For one, you name your tents. None of the tents has names and you can call them what you likename them Forest Den or Tiger View or even Outdoor Outlanders if you please! Then, depending on the size of your group, choose from a minimum of two tents to a maximum of 10 in any sort of arrangement you wantin a circle, a horseshoe, a pentagonyou get the drift. The tents mimic the royal shikar (hunting) camps of Jodhpur of yore and are completely kitted out for luxury. There is no permanent structure around, just a series of shape-shifting luxury tents that can be pitched as you please.

Then there is Manvar Luxury Camp, a small campsite on a high dune, private and pristine miles and miles of undulating Thar Desert. Built from local stone with thatched roofs in the style of a village settlement, it offers tented luxury for intrepid glampers. Each camp is fitted out with jute rugs, teak furniture and patios. Experiences include camel treks and jeep safaris through the desert to spot gazelles and a visit to the homes of the ancient communities of Bishnois, Rajputs and Meghwals.

Part of RARE Indias network is Chanoud Garh, afamily-operated small 300-year-old fort-palace hotel at the edge of the Thar Desert, which accepts only private bookings. This means, your family or tight-knit circle of friends will be the only guests when you are staying at the property. Chanoud Garh is as luxuriously private as it gets: 10 rooms that spell imperial splendour. The group is personally hosted by the 13th-generation descendent of the royal family.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-01 15:54:45|Editor: huaxia

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by Deng Kaiyin

ISLAMABAD, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- As night fell, 30-year-old Aisar Uddin called on his families in Hunza as usual. This time though, he was making sure whether his sister had received the money he had sent back home for her school fees.

Unlike some of his friends who lost their jobs due to the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic and have been suffering till now, a stable income Uddin earns from the job in Port Qasim power plant in the southern port city of Karachi enables him to support his families and survive this hard time.

In a year when the world was hit by the pandemic, factories have stopped roaring, people stayed at home, fearing of contracting the virus. However, projects of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) have kept proceeding, offering a beacon of hope for Pakistan that has been longing for a recovery from the pandemic and a take-off of its economy.

From Rashakai special economic zone in the country's northernmost province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to southern Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea, CPEC has delivered on promise to benefit local people.

Muhammad Dawood Khan joined the Suki Kinari (S K) Hydropower Project in Naran Kaghan valley of District Mansehra this November when the second wave of the pandemic started sweeping through the South Asian country.

"The company offered me very handsome package and attractive allowances. Why should I turn down a job with competent working environment, professional behavior of staff and learning opportunities?"

On the other hand, said Khan, S K hydro has been striving for betterment and achieve its targets even during this pandemic situation. All of these makes him feel proud to choose the company.

For Uddin, a virus-free working environment is also what he needs besides a stable income. The zero-affected rate of the contagious virus among workers of CPEC projects gives employees like Uddin and their families consolation.

Chairman of the CPEC Authority Asim Saleem Bajwa said earlier that CPEC projects have achieved major progress despite grave economic and health challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring economic stability and well-being of the people of Pakistan.

On Oct. 25, Pakistan's first ever metro train service, the Orange Line, started its commercial operation in the country's historical city of Lahore, opening a new stage for the South Asian country in the public transportation sector.

During the five years of construction, the Orange Line created over 7,000 jobs for locals, and in the operation and maintenance period it will create 2,000 employment for locals.

The eco-friendly mass transit project is believed to be helpful in addressing the congestion problem of the capital city of Punjab province.

It will lead to green GDP growth, further promote urban development and modernity of the Pakistani eastern megacity and increase economic activities, said the Chief Minister of Punjab Sardar Usman Buzdar during the inauguration ceremony of the metro's commercial operation.

"The number-one group this train will benefit is women - they don't usually have their own vehicles," says a Pakistani politician Kiran Imran Dar quoted by media.

Research shows that women in Pakistan are much more dependent on public transport than their male counterparts are, because they have less access to other travel modes such as motorbikes.

In fact, an increasing number of women are joining the CPEC projects, strengthening the "she power" in the sub-continent country.

"Being a woman, I am well respected and appreciated for my contribution to the project," said Saima Nawaz, an advisor of legal and commercial department at S K Hydro (Private) Limited.

"It is an opportunity to be part of CPEC project which feel like being part of history in making which will change the face of sub-continent," Nawaz noted.

This is echoed by Altaf Shahid, a Karachiite who works as a design and project engineer in Port Qasim power plant. "It is pride for me as I'm directly involved for the development of my people and for my country," said Shahid.

This pride and honor will continue when benefits are relayed to the next generation. By providing a better education, the fate of the nation will be changed.

Vocational training is being provided to enable local population to participate and get fully benefited from the development projects under CPEC, noted the CPEC Authority chairman during a webinar convened by Pakistan-based think tank the Sustainable Development Policy Institute.

After chatting with his elder brother on phone, Shahid has a clearer plan for the future. "I will save the money into bank for the education of my children. By receiving better education, I am sure they will have a brighter future," said Shahid. Enditem
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DENVER  A day after Colorado Gov. Jared Polis announced restrictions for places like restaurants and gyms will be eased in much of the state starting next week, some local public health officials said they were concerned about the move.

The governor cited improving statewide COVID-19 metrics in lifting certain restrictions in 33 counties, including Denver and the entire Front Range, but his announcement on Wednesday came as not all of those counties meet the individual requirements to downgrade restrictions, the Denver Post reported.

It appears that if theres enough pressure from the business and economic forces in the state that we will change the dial to meet those demands and thats kind of frustrating, said Mark Johnson, executive director of Jefferson County Public Health.

The announcement came a day after Colorado said it had confirmed the United States first case of a new and apparently more contagious variant of the coronavirus.

We dont believe that it in any way reflects the spread of the disease or how dangerous the disease is or our concern about what is going to happen with Christmas, New Years or the new variant that is more infectious, Johnson added. We are sort of plowing into a wider, open area on the dial even though we have some deep concerns about it.

Polis told the Denver Post that he posted on social media his announcement on moving all level red counties to the level orange designation because he wanted to give restaurants as much notice as possible to adjust to the changes before they go into effect Monday.

Were trying to tell everybody at the same time, Polis said when asked why local public health officials werent informed sooner.

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Polis directive comes even though many of the level red counties do not meet the threshold to move to a lower level. Under the current framework, a county is assigned a level based on new cases, the percentage of tests that are positive and how hospitalizations are trending.

Level red, Colorados second-highest level of restrictions, limits public gatherings and bans indoor dining. In counties rated as orange, restaurants can have in-person dining limited to 25% capacity or 50 people and gyms can increase their capacity to 25% or 25 people. Gatherings of up to 10 people from no more than two households are also allowed.

Only five of the 33 counties at level red on the dial system Thursday morning had case counts low enough to move to the less restrictive level orange, if the state followed its guidelines. Nine of the counties have case rates double the maximum for level orange, and one had six times the cases needed to move down a level.

Some local officials, such as in Denver, said they agree with the plan to move into level orange.

Our hospitals are doing all right, but still in an area of concern, so its good were not going lower than orange, said Cali Zimmerman, spokeswoman for the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment. We still need people wearing masks and physically distancing as much as possible.
The Week

After publicly expressing "grave concerns" over Arizona's audit of the 2020 election results, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) was "stripped" of her ability to "defend election lawsuits" by the state's Republican-led House Appropriations Committee, reported Arizona's ABC 15 on Tuesday. The duty was transferred "exclusively" to Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) through the end of the 2023 fiscal year. Democrats say the move is retaliation against Hobbs' defense of Arizona voters in "lawsuits filed by the State Republican Party and others challenging Arizona's election results," per ABC 15. "It can't be just a coincidence" that Republicans are blocking a "vocal critic of the audit," writes Elvia Diaz for azcentral.com. Democratic State Rep. Randy Friese reportedly called the move "troubling," "disturbing," and "quite nefarious." Furthermore, the Appropriations Committee removed Hobb's "oversight of the Capitol Museum," ABC 15 reports, after Hobbs angered state lawmakers when she "flew a gay pride flag from the building's balcony" in 2019. Katie Hobbs has conscientiously supervised elections in Arizona. Republicans there just stripped her of some powers -- including her ability to litigate election lawsuits. They gave control of that process to the state AG, a Republican. This is how democracy gets dismantled. https://t.co/VamVgXfxgR  Tim O'Brien (@TimOBrien) May 25, 2021 In an article for azfamily.com, Hobbs labeled the entire audit "a political stunt," adding that it is "dangerous to people's safety and to the integrity of our democracy." She later tweeted a photo on Tuesday of a fruit basket sent by Stacey Abrams and Fair Fight, saying that's how "you know you're doing it right." When @staceyabrams, @gwlauren, and their crew at @fairfightaction send you a fruit basket, you know you're doing it right. pic.twitter.com/yQ11UdmXso  Katie Hobbs (@katiehobbs) May 25, 2021 Read more at azfamily.com. More stories from theweek.comBiden says he underestimated Trump's ability to spread 'the big lie'Biden needs some braggadocioReport: D.A. convenes grand jury expected to hear Trump investigation evidence
Rescue workers on Saturday recovered a second body and continued searching for another eight people still missing days after a landslide buried homes in a Norwegian village

Gjerdrum, Norway, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Jan, 2021 ) :Rescue workers on Saturday recovered a second body and continued searching for another eight people still missing days after a landslide buried homes in a Norwegian village.

"We still have hope of finding survivors," rescue operations chief Roy Alkvist told reporters.

A whole hillside collapsed in the village of Ask, 25 kilometres (15 miles) northeast of the capital Oslo, in the early hours of Wednesday morning, injuring 10 people, one of them seriously.

Homes were buried under mud, others cut in two and some houses left teetering over a crater caused by the mudslide, with several subsequently falling over the edge.

The landslide destroyed several houses and shifted others hundreds of metres.

Earlier Saturday, local police chief Ida Melbo Oystese said authorities hoped some people might have survived thanks to pockets of air inside partially intact buildings.

No details have been released about the identity of the second body, which was found by sniffer dogs. There have been no details released on the first body, which was recovered on Friday.

But police have released a list of the Names of 10 missing people: eight adults, a two-year-old and a 13-year-old child.

Police have also said 10 people were injured, including one seriously who was transferred to Oslo for treatment shortly after the disaster.

About a thousand people have had to be evacuated from Ask, which has 5,000 people, because of fears about the safety of their homes. There was more movement of the land there overnight Friday to Saturday.

"We are at a hotel," two of the evacuees, Olav Gjerdingen and Sissel Meyer Gjerdingen, told AFP. "It is a completely surreal and terrible situation." The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) said the disaster was a "quick clay slide" of approximately 300 by 800 metres (yards).

Quick clay is a sort of clay found in Norway and Sweden that can collapse and turn to fluid when overstressed.

The authorities have banned all aircraft from the disaster area until 3:00 pm Monday as they conduct aerial searches.

Norwegian rescue workers are being helped by colleagues from Sweden.

Visiting the site last week, Prime Minister Erna Solberg described it as one of the biggest landslides the country had ever experienced.
Home > 2021 > What Happened in the American Elections? | Archishman Raju

Joe Biden has been confirmed as the Presidential-Elect by the Electoral College of the United States even as Donald Trump is yet to concede the election. This American election, taking place as it did during a pandemic, large protests and a historic political and economic crisis has been very misunderstood. Many are celebrating the election of Joe Biden as a historic victory against fascism. This is not only highly misleading but completely false. Commentators have put excessive attention on Trumps personality painting him as a liar, fool and racist and this has completely precluded any objective analysis. Two questions must be answered before any objective analysis can be done

1) Does one recognize that America is in a historic crisis? This crisis has political, economic and psychological dimensions. Politically, there is a crisis of legitimacy where the instruments of rule are no longer accepted as legitimate. Economically, America has never really recovered from the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Partial recovery was stalled when it was thrown into a deep depression following the pandemic. Psychologically, there is a crisis of meaning with increasing drug overdoses and depression in a society where many people see no future for themselves.

2) Does one approach this crisis from the standpoint of revolutionary and systemic change in opposition to imperialism or from the standpoint of liberal democratic reform? The answer to this question is key so not to be caught into questions of piecemeal reform of the economy, environmental policy or any other such policy issue.

If one answers yes to both of these questions then one can turn the focus away from personalities and try to scientifically analyze the past 4 years of American society under the Trump presidency looking closely at the social forces involved in this historic transitory moment. If one recognizes that American society is in a crisis, then one has to realize that new ideas are needed to find a path to a more human future. Old ideas of left and right no longer capture the social and political forces at play. One can no longer believe self-definitions, instead one must see the objective nature of the relationship of different forces with world imperialism.

The American left which now refers to a small and disparate configuration of NGOs, small and sectarian political parties and organizations dominated ideologically by liberalism, social imperialism and Trotskyism has completely capitulated after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and even more after the election of the war-mongering Barack Obama and now serves merely as a B-team for the democratic party. It has thus done little to make clear the nature of this moment in American society instead participating for the past 4 years in the anti-Trump movement.

Who was the Anti-Trump movement?

The anti-Trump movement started as soon as Trump was elected and its principal goal was to remove Trump from office. Some may remember the historic Womens march organized the day after the inauguration of Donald Trump in 2017. From the very outset, it was unclear who was leading this anti-Trump movement and though it was heavily promoted and celebrated by the corporate media. This gradually became clear as the movement progressed. In 2018, the New York Times published an op-ed by Anonymous later revealed to be Miles Taylor, chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security who said that many officials were working diligently to subvert President Trumps agenda and were part of the resistance against Trump. Though the American media today is lambasting Trump for destroying democracy by calling the election into question, their short memory has allowed them to forget how they attempted to de-legitimize the election by saying Russia had hacked it, and Vladimir Putin had declared the winner for which no evidence was ever produced. The CIA and the FBI thus joined into the efforts to remove Trump from office leading eventually to a failed attempt at impeachment. All throughout this process, there was demonization of Russia and Putin in the American media. Many Trump supporters and Trump himself did not join into this demonization with some Trump supporters wearing this t-shirt Id rather be Russian than a democrat capturing much of the dynamics.

This attack on Russia should be seen in the context of the American backed 2014 coup in Ukraine with NATO reaching the borders of Russia and hence threatening the possibility of war with Russia. The anti-Trump resistance which became this conglomerate of disparate forces including big capitalists, corporate media, the FBI, the CIA, NGOs and the left thus put itself squarely into the camp of war.

The election of 2020 clarified the forces at play in a way nothing else could have. Nearly 500 former national security officials endorsed Biden. As New York Times reported, the wallets of Wall Street are with Joe Biden. Similarly, Silicon Valley overwhelmingly was in support of the Democrats. The intelligence establishment, Big Tech and Big Finance were all openly in support of the democratic party. These forces are particularly important because they form the most advanced section of the capitalist economy. They are key players in what the World Economic Forum calls the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its founder Klaus Schwab, a key player in the global elite, calls the Great (capitalist) Reset. Some have actually considered this resistance of the establishment to Trump to be a sign of the functioning nature of Americas democracy. It is very strange that those who speak about democracy openly call for unelected unaccountable forces to keep a democratically elected president accountable. Fascism has classically been defined as the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital. How can Trump be a fascist when the most imperialist elements of finance capital all sided with Biden? Indeed, one must turn the whole narrative on its head to make sense of American society.

To understand why all of these forces united against Trump, one must understand not his individual personality but the social forces that he represents. Trump came into the republican party as a political outsider. Trumps election in 2016 and his subsequent presidency can only be seen as a rebellion of the white working class in the U.S. A similar rebellion took place in the Democratic party in 2016 through Bernie Sanders but it was quickly stopped and co-opted. Real wages have declined in the U.S. for poor and working people. Life expectancy has been declining for white Americans. The toll of the changing economy which has de-industrialized combined with that of the financial crisis has become particularly visible in rural America. Trumps campaign in 2016 centred around two issues, the question of bringing jobs back to America and the question of ending endless wars. In doing so he was challenging the basis of American empire which has both engaged in such wars and globalized the economy. Whether he made good on those promises is up for debate. However, it cannot be said that he did nothing. He cancelled TPP, an economic deal which seeked to isolate China in the Asian region. He tried to make peace with North Korea and was a force for detente with Russia. He also did not, unlike Obama, start any new war.

In any case, as D. D. Kosambi once said The issue of peace or war does not depend upon a single individual who is ostensibly at the helm of a nation, but upon the dominant class which really holds the power. This is precisely the point, Trump as an individual is not capable of making peace but he represents a social force which wants to end endless wars and the warlike ruling class of the United States has almost united completely against him. His own party establishment only supports him in a very luke-warm manner so far as he represents a political reality that they can not ignore. Furthermore, the CIA much preferred Obama and hates Trump as Glenn Greenwald reported citing a Wikileaks document.

Who is the real racist?

Another claim of the anti-Trump movement, which the media has worked overtime to push is that Trump is a racist. To examine this claim, it is important that we agree on whether racism is an objective force shaping social and economic relations in American society and the world, which can hence be judged by the relationship of an action to white supremacy or whether it is a mere subjective matter that is judged by someones speech. If white supremacy is an objective force, then one must work to uncover its basis and ability to sustain and reproduce itself.

Let us again move away from the individual and speak of the social force who they brand a racist, the white worker in America. W.E.B Du Bois in his magnum opus, Black Reconstruction in America saw the evolution of American society through the triad of the black worker, white worker and the capitalist. The white worker historically in American society has always played an ambiguous role but the great possibility of transformation in America has been the possibility of unity between the white worker and the black worker against the capitalist. The most racist part of America has always been its ruling elite which has always advantageously used white supremacy to its benefit.

Trump was called a racist first for his attack on immigrants and his building of a border wall. That some of this rhetoric has faded from the media might be because Trump ended up deporting less immigrants than Obama and for all the talk of putting children in cages, it was Obama who built the cages and was the first to oversee them.

More recently, the media narrative has shifted to the question of black lives and the Black Lives Matter movement. This movement began first in Ferguson as a genuine upsurge. However, it was very quickly taken over and converted into something else. The Ford Foundation poured money into the movement and NGOs were set up to channel the money.

The latest iteration of the Black Lives Matter movement had very little to do with black people or with challenging racism. The massive protests which happened after the police murder of George Floyd very quickly became a continuation of the anti-Trump movement. Though this was called a new civil rights movement, this movement can not be compared with civil rights at all. This was a leaderless movement with its demand to defund or abolish the police not a demand with significant mass support among the black community. In fact, the demand that had come historically from the black movement was for community control over the police. Everybody joined into this Black Lives Matter movement with companies like Amazon advertising it and every university academic endorsing it. There were massive protests in the US but also in many other places like Germany with thousands of people coming out in support of Black Lives Matter. While these protests were described as multi-racial, the fact was that there was very little Black presence at these protests and they were dominated by young white people. This came out openly in places like Detroit but was equally visible in Philadelphia both of which have large percentages of black people. The few surveys bore this out with the New York Times reporting nearly 95 percent of counties that had a protest recently are majority white, and nearly three-quarters of the counties are more than 75 percent white. Furthermore it reported The age group with the largest share of protesters was people under 35 and the income group with the largest share of protesters was those earning more than $150,000. It should be noted that this income puts you in the top 8% of the American population.

These protests soon started looking much less like a genuine civil rights movement and more and more like a color revolution. In fact, Pepe Escobar called this election the mother of all color revolutions. Those who find this claim absurd need only glance at the Transition Integrity Project, a bipartisan group that met before the election to play out scenarios or The Democracy Playbook. Let us not forget what enforcement of democracy by the American ruling class has meant abroad.

The three women who now are in the leadership of Black Lives Matter are doing very well for themselves. Patrice Cullors, now the executive director of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, rolled out funds of $6.5 million recently for chapters and believes that white supremacy was voted out in this election. She has signed a deal with Warner Bros to produce original content for the network.

There may have been many genuine people in the Black Lives Matter movement who wanted to fight racism but the movement was outside of their control. A Financial Times review found that US companies had spent more than $450 million to groups focused on social and racial justice. In short, Black Lives Matter quickly became a self-congratulatory movement of the global cosmopolitan elite with very little concern for black people in general and certainly no concern for the black poor and working class.

It means very little for corporations which exploit black labor or universities which gentrify black communities to proclaim that they support Black Lives Matter. Their self-definition as anti-racists cannot be accepted. These forces must be contested for any genuine fight against racism in the United States. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, American society suffers from the triple evils of racism, militarism and poverty.

Whither the Opportunity?

Extraordinarily, despite being painted as a racist and white supremacist, Trump made gains with black and brown voters this election, particularly with those who did not have a college degree. In fact exit polls suggest he made gains with all minority groups. The polls which predicted an easy Biden victory were very wrong, even more wrong than they had been in 2016 showing in part the unpredictability of the outcome.

The Guardian reported that the republicans were on their way to becoming the party of the working class. They gave the example of a particular county in Texas, where Biden beat Trump by five points down from Hillary Clintons 60  a 55-point swing in a border town thats 95% Hispanic and which has a median income of only $17,000. This raises an interesting question. Who is at the forefront of white supremacy? Is it a dean of diversity and inclusion who goes to a Black Lives Matter Protest and lives in a neighbourhood which is gentrifying black people, and has an income of $150,000 or the Hispanic voter in Texas with an income of $17,000 who decides to vote for Trump?

Before the election, the New York Times reported on the Two Americans financing the Biden and Trump campaign, showing how In ZIP codes with a median household income of at least $100,000, Mr. Biden smashed Mr. Trump in fund-raising, $486 million to only $167 million  accounting for almost his entire financial edge. Bidens support was skewed towards the more wealthy section of America. Trumps great crime was to alienate white college-educated voters.

Trump has scarcely been able to make one tweet after the election without being censored (some fascist being censored by a single private company!). Even as Biden has been declared the president-elect, many Trump supporters still do not believe in the legitimacy of this election or the legitimacy of the American state itself. The political crisis in the United States will continue and may even intensity when Biden takes office.

Any such analysis immediately meets with an accusation: How can you support Trump. What about all the lies, all the character flaws, all the mismanagement? This accusation does not help much. I do not want the American empire to be efficiently managed, and I certainly dont believe that the CIA or the FBI or the American mainstream media are guardians of the truth. They not only lie continuously, they furthermore moralize about their lies. I dont think Joe Biden, the person responsible for the crime bill which put millions in prison unnecessarily in America and who is already appointing a cabinet of diverse war-mongers is better for the American people or people around the world. It is not so much a matter of supporting Trump as of truthfully judging the historical processes in which he became a representative of certain social forces. Such analysis may be uncomfortable and not conform to our expectations but it must be pursued. The fact is that the most vicious and predatory forces of finance capital and imperialism were aligned behind Joe Biden in this election and not behind Donald Trump.

There are many lessons to be learnt from these past four years. The left both inside the United States and outside must see the political crisis in the U.S. as an opportunity to hasten the end of imperialism. We are already seeing the advent of a multi-polar world. The western alliance has been thrown into chaos. We must think in new ways for our times as this moment of crisis throws fresh challenges. The time calls for the establishment of a new international economic order, comprehensive reforms in the UN and a world campaign against American sanctions and military bases.

But more than ever, we must believe and have faith in people. We must remember that people are capable of changing the conditions and that it is ultimately people who make history. If one believes in revolutionary change, then the agents of such change are going to be poor and working people and no politics which brands such people as racist and fascist can hope to succeed.

We are operating in very dangerous conditions where movements are no longer crushed, they are simply bought out. Ideologies are no longer countered, they are simply manufactured by universities. In such conditions, what Fidel called the battle of ideas becomes paramount. We must battle for those ideas that are for peace and for a just social order and a human future. These ideas cannot come unless they draw from and are based in the people.

These ideas must be fresh but they must draw from the old. They must abandon the cultural academic woke left which has fixated on language and identity, and opposes everything but empire and instead learn from the legacy of the old left, the one based in working people, which led a world peace movement, the one which led the Black Freedom Movement or freedom struggles around the world. Ironically it was this left that truly fought fascism in history and made great sacrifices in that struggle.

As has been oft-repeated, a great crisis is also a great opportunity. We have the opportunity of offering a positive vision but we can only do so once we identify who the enemy is and not become foot-soldiers for a neoliberal agenda.
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France's government cast a favorable light Friday on a reported bid by the father of Britain's prime minister to take up French nationality, saying it shows how attached Britons are to the European Union that they're no longer part of.

Reports that Stanley Johnson, the father of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, is seeking to keep a foot in Europe by taking up French citizenship made headlines just as his son lead Britain's split Thursday from the EU. Britain left the European blocs vast single market for people, goods and services at 11 p.m. London time on New Years Eve.

Visiting Calais on Friday to inspect how the French port is adjusting post-Brexit, France's minister for European Affairs, Clment Beaune, described the citizenship application as emblematic of enduring British sentiment for Europe.

"If Mr. Johnson's father has a right to French nationality, wants to remain a European citizen and become a French citizen, then we will examine that, he said. To me, this is a wink, or a sign, that lots of British people, in different ways, still love Europe."

There are many people in the United Kingdom for whom this is also a sad day, Beaune added.

The elder Johnson, 80, is a former member of the European Parliament who backed remaining in the EU in Britains 2016 membership referendum. He has since expressed support for his son as the prime minister led the U.K. out of the bloc.

French nationality would give the elder Johnson the automatic rights that other Britons have now lost, including being able to travel and live freely in all of the 27 EU countries.

Stanley Johnson told broadcaster RTL on Thursday that he was in the process of reclaiming his French identity.

It is not a question of becoming French. If I understand correctly, I am French. My mother was born in France. Her mother was completely French, as was her grandfather, he told RTL. So for me it is a question of reclaiming what I already have.

I will always be European. That is certain, Stanley Johnson said. You cannot tell the English: You are not European. Europe is always more than the common market, more than the European Union.''
MIAMI  The U.S. Coast Guard suspended its search on Friday for an overdue boat that was headed to Florida from the Bahamas with 20 people aboard, after the authorities said they had exhausted their efforts to find it.

The boat, a blue-and-white 29-foot Mako Cuddy Cabin, departed from Bimini, the Bahamas, on Monday, the Coast Guard said.

The boat did not arrive as expected in Lake Worth Beach, Fla., which is about 10 miles south of Palm Beach.

The Coast Guard said it and other agencies, including the authorities from the Bahamas, searched about 17,000 square miles for more than three days.
As part of the governments Keep Well campaign, which aims to support people and communities to mind their physical and mental health over the coming months, Leitrim Library Service partnered with five schools around the county, in a Christmas Post initiative.

Children from St Clare's NS Manorhamilton, Drumlease NS Dromahair, Cloone NS, The Hunt NS Mohill, Scoil Mhuire NS Carrick-on-Shannon and Scoil Chlann Naofa Ballinamore wrote letters to residents of Lough Erril Nursing Home, St Phelims Nursing Home, Ballinamore Community Nursing Unit, Arus Carolan Community Nursing Unit, Arus Breffni Nursing Home and St Patrick's Community Hospital.

These letters, together with a book for each resident, were delivered by library staff on Friday, December 18.

County Librarian, Pauline Brennan, said that Leitrim Library staff were very keen to engage with the care home residents, particularly this year which has been so challenging for so many.

Staff felt that a hand written letter is such a tangible engaging thing that involves that personal touch and the initiative provided the opportunity to engage in a caring and special way.

Each resident was also gifted a book which hopefully brought some joy over the Christmas period.

Library staff were also keen to thank the Care Home staff who take such wonderful care of the residents and who are such important people in their lives.
Indias trade deficit last month increased 26% from a year earlier as imports rose. The preliminary data released by the commerce ministry on Saturday revealed, in December, the trade deficit widened by 25.78% at $15.71 billion, as compared to the trade deficit of $12.49 billion.

The data also revealed India's exports declined by .8%, as the country records trade of $26.89 billion as of December 2020 as compared to $27.11 billion in December 2019. The fall occurred due to contraction in sectors like petroleum, leather and marine products, as per preliminary data released by the commerce ministry on Saturday.

Exports in December 2019 was $27.11 billion, while imports stood at $39.5 billion. In November 2020, the exports were down by 8.74%. In April-December 2020-21, the country's merchandise exports contracted by 15.8% to $200.55 billion, as compared to $238.27 billion in the same period of 2019-20.

Imports during the nine months of the current fiscal declined by 29.08% to $258.29 billion, as against $364.18 billion in April-December 2019-20.

"India is thus a net importer in December 2020, with a trade deficit of $15.71 billion, as compared to a trade deficit of USD 12.49 billion, widened by 25.78%," the ministry said in a statement.

In December 2020, oil imports declined by 10.37 per cent to USD 9.61 billion. During April-December this fiscal, the imports dipped by 44.46 per cent to USD 53.71 billion.

Gold imports surged by about $2 billion, an 82% jump from the previous year, while petroleum products saw the biggest decrease for any commodity group in trade into and out of the country, the government said. Shipments overseas of drugs and pharmaceutical products increased in value the most among Indias exports, rising 17% from a year earlier.

(With input from agencies)

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A number of people held up placards and chanted "justice for George," "black lives matter," and "all blacks matter", in Drogheda, county Louth on Saturday.

They stood on the steps of St. Peters Church on West Street and held placards, some which said, "Justice for George."

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One of the women taking part, who did not want to give her name, said, "there is no death penalty in Ireland, so nobody deserves to be shot on the streets, right in front of your house, nobody deserves that."

Expand Close They stood on the steps of St. Peters Church on West Street and held placards, some which said, Justice for George. / Facebook

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Whatsapp They stood on the steps of St. Peters Church on West Street and held placards, some which said, Justice for George.

Another woman said it was a protest on behalf of the black community in Drogheda.

It lasted less than five minutes.

Gardai were in the vicinity and on patrol in and around the town centre.

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A dry run for covid-19 vaccination is being conducted by all state and union territory administrations today to test the linkages between planning and implementation and to identify the challenges

The activity is being conducted in all state capitals in at least 3 session sites.

Here are the highlights on the dry run for covid-19 vaccination program:

Bhopal: Dry run for the administration of Covid-19 vaccine is being held at Primary Hospital in Govindpur. "After being vaccinated, we have been asked to wait in the observation room for 30 minutes to make sure there are no side-effects," says an ASHA worker.

View Full Image ANI





Feedbacks received after the dry run in 4 states were included in guidelines for vaccination & today's dry run in all states/UTs is being conducted as per new guidelines. Except for giving actual vaccine, every procedure is being followed during the drill: Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan

Kerala: State Health Minister KK Shailaja reviews dry run for COVID-19 administration at Government Hospital, Peroorkada in Thiruvananthapuram. She says, "The mock drill is over here. Everything went smoothly. The exercise is being conducted in 4 districts".





View Full Image Health Minister KK Shailaja

View Full Image Bengaluru: COVID19 vaccination dry run underway at Primary Health Center in Kamakshipalya

More than 1,65,000 healthcare workers have been identified. This dry run will help us plan vaccination process: Spl Commissioner, Health, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike

Maharashtra: Dry run for covid-19 vaccine administration underway at District Hospital, Pune

Vaccination drill is being conducted in all States/UTs today in 116 districts across 259 sites.

Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan visits GTB Hospital to review the dry run drill for administering COVID-19 vaccine.

View Full Image ANI

Hyderabad: Preparations underway for dry run of administering the COVID19 vaccine at Area Hospital, Nampally

Preparations underway for COVID19 vaccination dry run to be conducted at Hyderabad's Gandhi Hospital today

View Full Image ANI

Covid-19 vaccination drill to be conducted at Government Multispeciality Hospital in Chandigarh today

View Full Image ANI

West Bengal is all set to go for the COVID vaccination mock drill on Saturday as a part of the Centre's decision to test across the country the preparedness of the authorities before launching the actual vaccination programme, a health department official said.

The dry run will be held at Urban Primary Health Centres at Duttabad and Madhyagram and at Amdanga Rural Hospital in North 24 Parganas district. In each centre, 25 health workers will participate in the dry run.

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COLUMBIA  Under one proposed law a South Carolina Republican plans to introduce next month, any local politician who votes to take down a historic monument would be immediately charged with a misdemeanor and suspended from office.

Another bill would fine that same city or county councilman $25 million.

Meanwhile, S.C. Democrats are preparing their own series of proposals to take down certain controversial statues and begin studying what to do about others.

Those are the kinds of bills that are filed at the Statehouse after the racial unrest seen last year.

Statues of historic figures have been removed by local authorities or forcibly toppled by protesters in cities across the country in the months since a Minnesota Black man, George Floyd, died at the hands of police in May, sparking a national reckoning over racial injustice.

The movement bled into South Carolina, where the city of Charleston in June removed the 123-year-old bronze statue of former Vice President John C. Calhoun, an ardent defender of slavery, from its perch atop Marion Square. That same month, the capital city of Columbia cited fears of vandalism in removing a statue of Christopher Columbus, the Italian explorer whose four Spanish-funded voyages to the Americas preceded centuries of slavery and the extermination of native populations, though he never set foot in the continental United States.

Now, as the General Assembly prepares to return next month for a new two-year legislative session, lawmakers from both parties are filing at least nine bills that seek to dictate the future of historic monuments across South Carolina.

None of them stand a great chance of passing in the face of intense disagreement over how South Carolina should recognize its history of slavery, Jim Crow laws and racial inequities.

Many Democrats see monuments to certain S.C. figures as celebrating notorious racists. Many Republicans view them as reminders of the great achievements of imperfect men who lived at a time when the unacceptable was the norm.

Some members of each party share concerns about where the slippery slope of removing monuments might lead, especially as statues of former Presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt were torn down in cities over the summer.

Another wrench in the debate is the Heritage Act, the 2000 law that makes such monuments almost impossible to remove.

The state Supreme Court has been asked to re-evaluate whether that law is even legal. It blocks the removal of historic markers that honor wars, war heroes, Native Americans and African Americans without the approval of a supermajority of the General Assembly.

Thats a high hurdle that has rarely been cleared  most recently in 2015 when the Legislature voted to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds after the racially motivated massacre of nine Black parishioners at Charlestons Emanuel AME Church.

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One of the bills planned by S.C. Democrats would remove a monument to Pitchfork Ben Tillman, a former governor who advocated the killing of Black people, from its place on the Statehouse grounds, where it overlooked protesters over the summer.

In light of everything that has occurred around our country, we need to be more cognizant of those we are honoring, said state Rep. Seth Rose, D-Columbia, the bills chief author.

Republicans, meanwhile, say removing statues is unproductive and erases a history that should not be forgotten.

State Rep. Bill Taylor, R-Aiken, filed a proposal that would expand already robust protections for monuments.

H. 3249 would make it a crime for local politicians to remove public statues and cut off critical state funding for cities and counties that do so.

I simply believe it is important to protect our history, to learn from history, good and bad, Taylor said.

If that's the case, Rose said, more statues need to be affixed with plaques acknowledging the subject's role in owning slaves or perpetrating racial violence.

GOP Rep. Stewart Jones of Laurens has proposed legislation that mirrors Taylor's. But Jones bill also carries a $25 million fine for anyone who votes in favor of taking down a monument.

Both proposals carry questions of constitutionality.

Jones acknowledges his proposal has almost no chance of passage. But the eighth-generation South Carolinian said the bill sends a message that South Carolina is serious about protecting its heritage.

I think many bills are conversation starters, he said.
Lord Heseltine has called for pro-Europeans to battle to rejoin the EU (Yui Mok/PA)

Tory grandee Lord Heseltine has called for pro-Europeans to fight back and battle to rejoin the EU.

The former deputy prime minister cited the stance of the SNP in pushing for another referendum on Scottish independence as the way forward for Remainers, despite the UK formally leaving the Brexit transition arrangements on New Years Eve.

Lord Heseltine insisted that as the 52%-48% decision to quit the EU was so close, pro-Europeans must not lie down, but follow the example of the SNP.

Expand Close Prime Minister Boris Johnson signs the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement at 10 Downing Street(Leon Neal/PA) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Prime Minister Boris Johnson signs the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement at 10 Downing Street(Leon Neal/PA)

The ex-Cabinet minister told Times Radio: You have got a country which is deeply divided and it is very important to give hope and keep alive the aspirations of the younger generation.

Of course we must fight back.

There are millions of people who feel just as strongly as I do, and we are not going to lie down.

Lord Heseltine derided the last-minute post-Brexit trade deal with Brussels, and branded Prime Minister Boris Johnsons comments on the UKs exit from the bloc as ludicrous.

He said: We have got a deal which is an ongoing battleground for dissention, and disruption, thats all we have got.

Our self-interest is to be at the heart of Europe. It has been that way for a thousand years Lord Heseltine

And, the idea that thats going to be static and set in stone  well, just take the Scots Nats, they lost the referendum. Show me one speech by one Scots Nat who said Its over. Oh, yes, we lost. Lets be good boys and girls and lets accept it.

Of course they didnt. They immediately said we nearly won  we must have another go.

And I take very much the same view about British self-interest.

Our self-interest is to be at the heart of Europe. It has been that way for a thousand years.

Lord Heseltine, a firm unionist, also said the post-Brexit trade deal would work as a recruiting sergeant for Scottish nationalism, as the SNP pushes for another referendum on independence.

The comments came after Mr Johnson said the UK quitting the single market and customs union meant the country has taken back control of our money, our laws and our waters.

PA
It follows days of confusion at the NSW border, with conflicting health advice given to those who returned home to Victoria about the need to quarantine for 14 days. Others who did not make it back across the state line before the Friday cut-off now face being stranded in NSW for weeks. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video Victorias testing capacity increased by 20 to 50 per cent on Friday, according to the state's COVID-19 response commander, Jeroen Weimar. He apologised for the extended delays and asked people to isolate if they were not able to get through queues at a testing centre. Health Minister Martin Foley thanked the more than 18,000 people who had been tested on Friday and said he appreciated the "significant frustrations" others had encountered. He said on many occasions the advice from Victoria Police had been to cap the number of people waiting due to "traffic management and other issues".

Loading "I would ask people to still come forward but please be patient," he said. Readers who contacted The Age said they had waited for one to six hours at testing clinics on Friday and Saturday. Moorabbin resident Susie Wheatley said when she arrived at the walk-in clinic at Sandringham Hospital 20 minutes before it was due to open at 8.30am on Saturday, there was already a line snaking around the car park and down the street. She said she queued for about an hour, armed with books and water, before being told it would be faster to join the drive-in queue, as there was an anticipated further 2-hour wait.

It took her another 1 hours in the drive-in line. Ms Wheatley said she had since seen a callout in the local community Facebook group urging people to drop off water and sunscreen to those waiting. Another reader called Anne, who did not want to use her last name because of her public profile, said her family had to rush home from regional NSW to beat the border closure, before being turned away from two testing sites on Friday and on Saturday. At 6.30pm on Saturday, she was still waiting in line at the Melbourne Showgrounds COVID-19 testing site with her husband and teenage children, more than six hours after they joined the queue. "I feel sorry for the lady who has been walking around with a little baby," she said.

Professor Catherine Bennett, chair of epidemiology at Deakin University, said there was a risk people with coronavirus would be missed because they would not return to testing centres. She said extended hours and extra staff were required as soon as the public health team expanded its call for testing. "They're doing it [now], it's just a pity if it's 24 hours late, because you end up possibly having people who get turned away who won't come back. And thats a risk we can't afford." Professor Bennett said she was also concerned that Victorians in NSW were given too little notice about the border closure to remaining parts of NSW on Thursday and Friday. She said long queues at the border could have resulted in people from danger zones of Sydney coming into Victoria. "We actually created a window where there was sudden surge of people crossing the border, which meant the [more thorough checking] on permits wasnt happening."

Genomic testing has confirmed the Victorian outbreak originated in NSW, but investigations were ongoing to establish patient zero. Loading On Saturday NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced masks would be mandatory in Sydney and surrounds from Sunday in certain indoor locations and there would be a reduction in the number of people allowed at weddings and gyms. Senior sources in the Andrews government, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the governments internal position, said Victoria was frustrated by NSWs refusal to mandate mask-wearing until Saturday. The government has been reluctant to publicly criticise Ms Berejiklians approach, but the mask delay and the inability to identify the index case for NSWs Avalon outbreak through genomic sequencing has caused irritation inside the Andrews government.

"Weve done our genomic sequencing to link our cases to NSW in three days. It shouldnt take 21 days for their testing to find their index case," a government source said. All 18 cases in the Victorian cluster are linked to a suspected transmission event at the Smile Buffalo Thai restaurant in Melbournes Black Rock on the night of December 21. Epidemiologists have so far expressed confidence in the efforts of Victorias contact tracers and public health team, who have worked since the first cases were detected on Wednesday to identify 220 close contacts now in isolation. "Thats been impressive," Professor Bennett said. "This is what we have come to expect from NSW Health and its great to see thats actually how they are operating in Victoria." With Paul Sakkal and Tom Cowie.
The number of people vaccinated against the killer virus in Israel has reached over 950,000, the state's Ministry of Health has confirmed.

With this, Israel has vaccinated over 10.2% of its population of about 9.3 million in less than two weeks, since the vaccination campaign began on 20 December last year.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "its important for me that the Arab public in Israel will get vaccinated quickly," because "its saving lives."

Our World in Data, a collaboration between researchers at the University of Oxford and the non-profit group Global Change Data Lab, shows Israel leading the world in per capita vaccinations.

Israel has advantages. How?

Israel is a relatively small country in terms of geography and population too. A robust pre-pandemic digitalised healthcare system clubbed with the geographical advantages were factors in Israel's success initially .

Apart from the digitalised healthcare system, manpower too played an important role in Israel's successful inoculation drive. Everyone over the age of 18 is obliged to register with government-linked insurance agencies and army medics have been called in to help.

Also, 'green passports' have been issued to encourage citizens to get vaccinated. These are documents that would allow vaccinated people to eat in restaurants, travel freely and be exempted from quarantine.

Israel is currently in its third nationwide lockdown to contain the outbreak. It has reported more than 426,000 cases since the pandemic began.

The virus death toll in Israel increased to 3,325 with seven new fatalities, while the number of patients in serious condition rose from 661 to 679, out of 1,089 hospitalised patients.

The total recoveries rose to 376,322 after 2,184 new recovered cases were added, while active cases stand at 43,615.

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Editors note: This is the first in a two-part series that examines the impact on criminal defendants, victims, their advocates and the criminal justice system itself of the ongoing hold on state jury trials because of the pandemic.

BENNINGTON  Around early August, as Josh Boyer approached his 28th month in jail, he became sick with COVID-19. He contracted the coronavirus from a group of out-of-state prisoners whod recently been moved to his detention facility in Rutland.

Boyer, 34, who has a pre-existing respiratory condition, reported developing symptoms of the virus. I have asthma, and could have died, he wrote to the Banner in November. He was self-isolated in jail as he continued to wait for a new trial on child sexual assault charges in Bennington County.

Boyer is among 289 defendants being held in correctional facilities around Vermont while facing state charges, according to Vermont Department of Corrections data as of Dec. 16.

Some of these pretrial inmates are working to settle their cases with the state. But others have been in limbo since March  when the Vermont Supreme Court suspended jury trials to maintain social distancing during the pandemic.

The DOC data, obtained by the Banner through a public records request, shows that the majority of pretrial inmates were detained this year. Some 20 percent, however, were booked sometime between 2010 and 2018.

This is equivalent to 37 men and women who have been locked up for at least 750 days while waiting for their cases to be resolved. They include inmates waiting to be retried after their original convictions and sentences were overturned, as well as those whose first trial ended in either a deadlocked jury or a mistrial. They are people considered innocent until they can be proven guilty.

The longer trials are on hold, the more frustrated some jailed defendants are getting. Besides feeling anxious about the outcome of their case, these inmates also are stressed out about possibly getting the coronavirus or needing to quarantine in jail if they decide to personally appear in court, said Fred Bragdon, supervising attorney at Bennington Countys Office of the Defender General.

While in pretrial detention, some have apparently lost parents, homes and jobs, and miss their children. People who are accused of crimes are people too, Bragdon said.

The jury trial freeze is also contributing to the court backlog, which means longer wait times to resolve criminal cases.

The Vermont Judiciary has said counties can restart jury trials after Jan. 1, 2021, with permission from state court officials. But because the actual restart dates remain elusive  court officials have already changed the target date four times  defendants who wont settle for anything but a trial are trying to come up with ways to get out of this limbo.

ASSERTING RIGHT TO SPEEDY TRIAL

Boyer has been held without bail at the Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility since April 2018 on three felony charges. As of mid-December, he was the No. 21 longest-detained pretrial inmate in Vermont. (At the top of the list was James Menize, booked in March of 2010 on child sexual assault charges out of Lamoille County, and whose conviction and sentence in 2011 were overturned in 2018.)

Boyer is accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting a teenage girl at a Bennington home sometime between 2017 and 2018. In one incident, he allegedly strangled the girl when she threatened to tell on him.

He went on trial in November 2019, but it ended in a mistrial because of juror misconduct. The state wants to retry him  and Boyer cannot wait.

About two weeks after being struck with COVID-19, Boyer asked the Bennington County Superior Court to dismiss his case if he cant immediately be granted his constitutional right to a speedy trial. His lawyers arguments included the nearly three years Boyer has been detained and his becoming infected with a potentially deadly virus while in jail.

At what point is it a speedy trial violation that we are not able to have jury trials in Bennington County, specifically in Mr. Boyers case? public defender Kate Lamson said during a November hearing.

The same government that is holding Mr. Boyer without bail must also be held to account for the untenable delay in scheduling his jury trial, she wrote in a related court document.

CHALLENGING EMERGENCY DECLARATIONS

Boyer also asked the Superior Court to invalidate the Vermont Supreme Courts administrative orders issued during the pandemic. Administrative orders 48 and 49 declared a judicial emergency and changed court procedures, including suspending jury trials.

Lamson told the court that the administrative orders, first issued in March, have overridden peoples constitutional rights. Besides violating defendants right to a speedy trial, she said the orders also violate the right to due process by curtailing inmates personal appearance in court, which in turn endangers their right to personally confront accusers.

These administrative orders have exceeded any authority granted to any portion of the Government of Vermont, Lamson wrote in a court filing.

Vermont Defender General Matt Valerio echoed this position in an interview. He questioned whether theres a constitutional basis for the Supreme Courts administrative orders. He said theres been some deference to the courts emergency declarations because everyones striving to adapt to the disruptions brought by the pandemic. But he doesnt expect the status quo to remain indefinitely, saying defense attorneys regularly discuss how to resolve these constitutional rights issues.

The judiciary has a right to govern itself, but its primary job is to enforce the constitutional rights of the people who come before it, Valerio said. The constitution doesnt stop in the middle of a pandemic; if anything else, it becomes more important.

Bennington Superior Judge Cortland Corsones declined to dismiss Boyers case, saying in part that trial delays due to the pandemic were neither intentional nor unjustified. He also affirmed the state Supreme Courts authority to manage the judiciary, including suspending jury trials.

The judge told Boyer that he is first in line once jury trials are greenlighted in Bennington County.

The Office of Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan declined to comment on the jury trial suspension, saying they handle very few cases that go to trial.

SEEKING UNCONVENTIONAL VENUE

As of Dec. 16, Bennington County had 31 pretrial inmates  the county with the third largest number, alongside Windsor County. Orleans County had the most, with 57, followed by Chittenden County, which had 51.

One of Benningtons incarcerated defendants, Robert Billington, no longer wants to wait for the local courthouses to be declared ready for jury trials. Trial authorization will depend on various factors, including whether the courthouse will enable trial participants to maintain social distance and if theres enough fresh air circulating through the building.

Billington told the Superior Court in December that he is willing to be tried in an unconventional venue, such as a school gymnasium or church. The prosecutor didnt object to the plan, so his attorneys are now preparing a list of proposed trial locations for the judiciarys approval.

Billington, 36, has been held without bail at Marble Valley since December 2018. He is facing felony charges of sexual assault as well as lewd and lascivious conduct against a local woman. He went to trial in August 2019, but the jury couldnt agree on a verdict.

He is intent on getting another trial, though it could mean sitting in jail for hundreds of days more. He knows a plea deal with the state would fast-track his being reunited with his children, but said a settlement doesnt hold much appeal to him.

I want to go home, but I want my trial, he wrote to this reporter on Dec. 16. I guess I hold my ground against the State and stay in jail until I do get my trial, even if it wont be until July 2021.

GROWING COURT BACKLOG

This weekend, the jury trial freeze shall officially be lifted. But how many courthouses have received the go-signal to hold jury trials? So far, none.

The earliest a jury trial could happen is February in Windham County, but court officials said it would hinge on the COVID-19 situation at that time. We have tentatively identified early February as the next trial date, dependent on what we hope is an anticipated reduction in the number of cases, positivity rate, etc., Chief Superior Judge Brian Grearson said in an email.

The Windham County Superior criminal court was earlier chosen to lead the restart in jury trials, but the plan was canceled because of the post-Halloween coronavirus spike. Grearson, along with State Court Administrator Patricia Gabel, will approve the courthouse by courthouse resumption of jury trials.

Grearson said theyre also reviewing the jury trial restart plans from three other counties: Bennington, Windsor and Orange. At the same time, theyre waiting for the results of airflow evaluations on state courthouses, which were conducted by a separate state agency.

The lack of jury trials since March, Grearson said, has led to an increase in the court backlog. In recent years, since fiscal year 2016, courts have been taking in more new felony cases than they were clearing, according to the judiciarys annual statistical reports. Among misdemeanor cases, the backlog began growing in fiscal year 2015.

It has been our experience that the prospect of an upcoming jury trial resolves many cases, Grearson said. Without that possibility, the backlog of cases will increase.

To help unclog court dockets, he said the judiciary plans to add jury trial days in each county once trials resume. And if necessary, retired judges will be called on to work through the backlog.

Valerio, the defender general, doesnt think jury trials will start back up this winter  unless the COVID-19 vaccine becomes universally available. He believes jury trials will more likely be held once the weather warms up, when trials could be set up outdoors, as was done during the 1918 influenza pandemic. Trial participants back then wore masks and maintained social distance on top of being in a well-ventilated space.

In the meantime, Valerio is urging members of the public to follow state health advisories that would limit the spread of the coronavirus. It is by controlling the outbreak, he said, that regular court work can resume.

Until then, he said the criminal justice system should consider how pretrial inmates who have been held for a very long time can be released. We cant just be holding people indefinitely, he said.

Read Part 2 of the series:
Celebrity mystic Uri Geller joined Israels drive to vaccinate its elderly population against COVID-19 on Thursday, performing his trademark spoon-bending trick for medical staff as he got injected.

I did it! Geller, 75, said after the spoon broke in his hand while the needle went into the other arm, to applause from onlookers.

Everybody who is over 60 should get it immediately, said Geller, who has a second home in Britain. This is very, very important for the whole planet.

Israel launched its vaccination campaign on Dec. 19 and hopes to have administered first and booster shots to the most vulnerable 25% of its population by late January.

In the early days of the pandemic, a panicked Israel began using a mass surveillance tool on its civilians, tracking peoples cellphones in hopes of stopping the spread of the coronavirus.

The government touted the technology, normally used to catch wanted Palestinian militants, as a breakthrough against the virus. But months later, the tools effectiveness is being called into question and critics say its use has come at an immeasurable cost to the countrys democratic principles.

The idea of a government watching its own citizens this closely should ring the alarm, said Maya Fried, a spokeswoman for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, which has repeatedly challenged the use of the tool in court. This is against the foundations of democracy. You cant just give up on democracy during a crisis.

Little is known about the technology. According to the Yediot Ahronot daily, the Shin Bet internal security service has used the tool for two decades, sweeping up metadata from anyone who uses telecom services in Israel. Information collected includes the cellular devices location, web browsing history and calls and texts received and made, but not their content. That has reportedly helped the agency track militants and halt attacks, although its unclear what happens to all of the data.

Israel first brought the Shin Bet into its virus outbreak battle in March. By tracking the movements of people infected with the coronavirus, it could determine who had come into contact with them and was at risk of infection, and order them into quarantine.

With the contact tracing capabilities of Israels Health Ministry limited, the Shin Bet was seen as the best option to pick up the slack, even though its own leaders were reluctant to deploy the tool. The Shin Bet declined to comment.

Officials say the technology has been a critical tool in keeping track of the outbreak and insist they have struck a balance between protecting individual rights and public health.

( with inputs from agencies )
Suri Cruise is growing up fast.

The 14-year-old was spotted out enjoying a day of shopping in the swanky SoHo area of New York City with her 42-year-old mother Katie Holmes on Friday.

To ward off the coronavirus, both Katie and Suri made sure they were protected by wearing matching white disposable facemasks.

Mom and daughter day: Suri Cruise was spotted out enjoying a day of shopping in the swanky SoHo area of New York City with her 42-year-old mother Katie Holmes on Friday

The mother-daughter duo rang in 2021 with a shopping trip on a chilly Manhattan day.

Suri stepped out in jeans, Ugg boots and a denim jacket and is nearly as tall as her five foot nine mom.

The teenager accessorized her casual ensemble with a trendy black pageboy cap over her long chestnut locks.

Meanwhile, Katie opted for sophisticated layers in a plaid skirt, a long wool coat, and black boots.

All grown up: Suri stepped out in jeans, Ugg boots and a denim jacket and is nearly as tall as her five foot nine mom who wore heeled boots and a long wool skirt

Her fluffy brown locks, the same shade as her mini me daughter, were left down to cascade over her shoulders.

Katie shares Suri with her ex-husband Tom Cruise but she parents the teen on her own as it has been reported that the actor hasn't seen his daughter in years.

The Batman Begins actress initially began dating Tom in 2005, and seven weeks into the relationship, they were engaged.

Their Scientologist wedding was held at the Castello Orsini-Odescalchi in Bracciano in November 2006, seven months after their daughter Suri was born.

Way back when: Katie shares Suri with her ex-husband Tom Cruise but she parents the teen on her own as it has been reported that the actor hasn't seen his daughter in years (Pictured in 2010)

Recently, Katie has been spotted out more and more with her new love, 33-year-old Emilio Vitolo Jr.

She and he restaurateur boyfriend seem to be getting more serious these days and even spent Christmas Eve together last week.

The duo was seen walking arm-in-arm through Washington Square Park, where they stopped to take pictures of a Christmas tree, and later enjoyed dinner at French restaurant Claudette on Fifth Avenue.

On December 18, Holmess birthday, Emilio uploaded an adorable black-and-white photo of the new couple laughing with one another to Instagram.

Love birds: Recently, Katie has been spotted out more and more with her new love, 33-year-old Emilio Vitolo Jr

In the caption, he wrote, 'The most amazing ,kindest, beautiful person . Every time I see your face it makes me smile . Happy Birthday !!! I love you !!'

And Katie responded in the comments section of the post in kind, with 'Thank you so much my Love I love u too!!!!!'

Since the couple got together in 2020, the Dawson's Creek star has been a frequent guest at her chef-boyfriend's popular, family owned, Italian restaurant, Emilio's Ballato.

Katie and Emilio reportedly met for the first time last year, though it wasn't until September that they launched their romance.

L word: On December 18, Holmess birthday, Emilio uploaded an adorable black-and-white photo of the new couple laughing with one another to Instagram and dropped an 'I love you' in the caption

DailyMail.com confirmed exclusively on September 10 that Emilio broke off his previous engagement with his live-in fiancee Rachel Emmons, 24, via text when handsy photos of him and Holmes were first published.

Prior to being romantically linked with Vitolo, Katie spent years dating Jamie Foxx, whom she split from in 2019.

Katie and Jamie only went public as a couple in late 2017, though there had been speculation they were an item since 2013.

There was a swirl of rumors that Katie's divorce agreement prohibited her from publicly dating anyone for five years after her 2012 split with Tom Cruise.

Dawson's Creek is available to stream on Stan in Australia
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Bismarck Rewane, a renowned economist, banker and financial analyst, has resigned from the board of Guinness Nigeria Plc as a non-executive director.

A disclosure notice sent to the Nigeria Stock Exchange on Thursday said the resignation took effect from December 31, 2020.

The notice, signed by the company secretary, Rotimi Odusola, read in parts:

This is to inform the Nigerian Stock Exchange, the investing public, and other stakeholders of the resignation of Mr. Bismarck Jemide Rewane from the Board of Guinness Nigeria Plc with effect from 31st December 2020.

Mr. Bismarck Jemide Rewane, who until his resignation served as the Chairman of the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee of the Board, was appointed to the Board of Guinness Nigeria Plc as a Non-Executive Director in 2008.

The Board of Guinness Nigeria would like to express its appreciation to Mr. Bismarck Jemide Rewane for his leadership, focus and commitment to the success of the Company and wish him the best in his future endeavors.

No reason was given for Mr Rewanes resignation.

Mr. Rewane has worked at several blue-chip financial institutions within Nigeria and abroad, and has held various senior management positions.

Between 1981 and 1989, he was with International Merchant Bank Nigeria Limited and held positions as General Manager, Assistant General Manager, Head of Development Finance Manager, and Divisional and Credit Manager.

He was also with the First National Bank of Chicago, Barclays Bank of Nigeria, and Barclays Bank International Plc, United Kingdom. An Associate of the Institute of Bankers, England, and Wales, Mr. Rewane has served on the Board of several organizations, including Navgas (a Vitol Group subsidiary), NLNG Prize Award Foundation, UNIC Insurance Plc, Nigeria

Economic Summit Group, UBA Custodian Limited, Virgin Nigeria Airways Limited, Fidelity Bank Plc, First City Monument Bank Plc and Top Feeds Nigeria Limited.

He joined the Board of Guinness Nigeria as a Non- Executive Director in 2008.
COLUMBIA  South Carolina's schools are getting a pile of cash this year.

No, not from the state Legislature, which is expected to debate in the coming weeks whether the state can afford to give teachers even a modest boost in pay amid the COVID-19 pandemic that continues to surge through the state. How much, or little, state lawmakers will send schools from state coffers won't be known for months.

What educators can bank on is coming from the federal government. The massive $2.3 trillion COVID-19 aid and federal spending package that Congress passed Dec. 21 includes several pots of money for schools.

One of them will likely provide roughly $900 million to South Carolina's K-12 public schools. That's the Palmetto State's estimated share of $54.3 billion going directly to states' education agencies, bypassing legislators altogether.

The state Department of Education can keep 10 percent of that for programs benefiting schools statewide. The rest will be allotted to the state's 81 school districts, based on their population and poverty rating.

The breakdown has yet to be determined. But whatever size chunk each district receives could go a long way toward reopening classrooms to more in-person learning, and keeping them open, which was Congress' goal. It will be up to local school boards to decide how to spend it, and  unlike other federal COVID-19 aid for specific expenses  the list of possibilities is long.

Those include protective equipment, teacher bonuses, technology and maintenance  expanding on what districts could do with their much smaller share of $195 million provided through the federal CARES aid package Congress passed back in March. Those amounts ranged in South Carolina from a low of $253,000 for tiny Clarendon 3 in Turbeville to $19.3 million for Greenville County.

Of that collective $195 million, $65.5 million, or one third, had been spent as of Wednesday, according to the state Department of Education.

Some district officials have said they were saving the money, in case they needed it later to fill budget holes and prevent layoffs. And that's allowed. Unlike other CARES money that came with a Dec. 30 deadline, districts have two years to spend that money.

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The additional aid, roughly four times more than their spring allotment, could entice school boards to go ahead and spend what they've been holding onto.

More could flow from other federal aid.

Gov. Henry McMaster is getting a $61 million chunk to allocate to schools on his own. And Congress made clear this time around that governors can't use their share for vouchers or tax credits for private school tuition.

McMaster tried to put $32 million at his discretion from the CARES law into private K-12 tuition grants of up to $6,500 per student. But the state Supreme Court blocked him, ruling the state constitution bars public money from directly helping private schools.

The Republican governor has yet to announce how he'll redirect that aid since the state's high court gave a final "no" on Dec. 9.

At a news conference later that day, McMaster said he was working on a contingency plan.

"We dont have the details of that plan but we want it to go to education and were looking for ways to do that now," he said.

South Carolina's colleges will benefit, too. They're estimated to split $300 million from the latest round of aid.

One thing that is certain amid all of the uncertainty of 2020: K-12 education, subpar in South Carolina even before the pandemic hit, has gone backward. How far students' learning has backslid may not be fully calculated for years.
Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt kicked off the New Year by exploring the Ranthambore forest with her mother Soni Razdan and sister Shaheen Bhatt. A picture from their jungle safari was shared online by a paparazzo.

In the photo, Ranbir and Alia were seen engaged in conversation as they sat at the back of an open jeep, while Soni and Shaheen sat in front of them. The Bhatt sisters wore matching camouflage jackets.

Ranbir and Alia flew to Rajasthan earlier this week to celebrate New Year. Apart from her mother and sister, they were also accompanied by his mother Neetu Kapoor, sister Riddhima Kapoor Sahni, brother-in-law Bharat Sahni and niece Samara. Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone also joined them in Ranthambore.

It was speculated that Ranbir and Alia were going to get engaged in Rajasthan. However, his uncle, Randhir Kapoor, dismissed the reports and said that it was nothing more than a family vacation to ring in 2021.

Talking to The Indian Express about the rumoured engagement, Randhir said, It is not true. If Ranbir and Alia were to get engaged today, my family and I would have also been there with them. Ranbir, Alia and Neetu have gone there for holidays and to bring in the new year. The news of their engagement is incorrect. Notably, Alias father Mahesh Bhatt is in Mumbai and not on the family trip.

Also read | Happy birthday Ali Fazal: When actor took a 10-minute nap after proposing to Richa Chadha

Alia, Shaheen, Neetu and Riddhima have been sharing glimpses of their vacation on Instagram. Fans were excited when they spotted Ranbir in Alias New Year post. She shared a picture of herself, drink in hand, and wrote, And to whatever lies ahead of us.. Cheers! He could be seen sitting next to her, though his face was partially cropped out.

Ranbir and Alia will soon be seen in Ayan Mukerjis supernatural drama Brahmastra, which is their first film together. The film, also starring Amitabh Bachchan, Mouni Roy, Nagarjuna Akkineni and Dimple Kapadia, is the first instalment of a proposed fantasy trilogy.

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Faith organizations in the region have contributed substantially to our collective well-being and resilience during times of crisis. During the first weeks of the ongoing pandemic for example, faith communities banded together and provided a spiritual, financial and community-level support that could not have possibly come from anywhere else as early and with as much compassion at the grass-roots level.

These communities at synagogues, churches, mosques & temples organized food pantries, early support for households struck by COVID-19 and/or by loss of income, provided valuable medical guidance on COVID-19, used kits to make masks early and in volume for health care providers and worked to drive a genuine outreach across boundaries of faith, ethnicity, language and culture. Historically, faith-based community organizations across the country have also served federal and state agencies (FEMA, CDC, DHHS to name a few) by providing community resources that generally help them prepare for and manage disasters and hazards at a local level.

To us, this spectacular display of brotherhood between faiths - for a common purpose driven by similar values of compassion and altruism is evidence our faith organizations can do much more - during times of crisis and during calmer times of normalcy. We can help by walking the bridges our faith organizations have already built and do not need a crisis to warrant their use.

Growing up in the region, three example experiences of faith organizations engaging with the community at large come to mind - reinforcing our optimism in the outcomes this partnership could bring.

Our first such experience, when we were 9, was at an Interfaith Peace Camp of the Association of Religious Communities (ARC) in Danbury. The camp included a very diverse group of children ages 8 to 11 and taught us what peace means in different world religions through multiple class room activities. We were thrilled at being given Peacekeeper awards (and free brightly colored T-shirts) by ARC. What struck us and stayed with us for a long time was that it was so easy to convince and show us then the commonality across the diversity of our beliefs. If this exercise were repeated at scale, were convinced - the world would be much more at peace.

A different experience during our middle school years was one when we received early career guidance and support from volunteer professionals in our community. These parents zealously started a Math & Science Club and a Coding Club inviting youth across the region from different faiths and backgrounds to join in the clubs at our Mosque - The Hedaya Center, to prepare for and compete in Math and Science competitions at the local and national levels. The program had more youth from outside of our community than within over a period of 2 years creating a dynamic that built bridges and lasting relationships between students and between their parents. The positive energy in and around these career building exercises in Math, Science and Coding energized several of us enough to overcome together an otherwise intimidating prospect of learning Java, Python, Algorithms & Data structures. While this experience helped us prepare for and refine career choices, it also convinced us that Faith organizations have the integrity, commitment and wherewithal to deliver substantial benefits to the community at large in domains unrelated to expressions of faith.

A third experience was nothing like either of the above. In the words of the community at Bnai Israel and The Hedaya Center: We create peace by doing it... at the Kids Kingdom playground in the Brookfield Municipal Park - a joint-community picnic between families at the Hedaya Center and Bnai Israel where Playing, reading, making a craft and eating together was all we did! Charity begins at home, we were taught. World peace begins in your backyard when ordinary people reveal extraordinary opportunities, we learned.

Faith organizations are necessary for the things they do for their congregations. From our experiences, when they come together, they can accomplish a lot more for the communities outside and make the world a better place.

Adam & Ibrahim Bhavnagarwala are seniors at Danbury High School in Danbury, Connecticut. They co-founded Exasense Technologies - a startup that commercializes their invention of detecting toxic/flammable emissions using Machine Learning.
Hacker Claims His Team Got Access to Polling Systems

Jovan Hutton Pulitzer, an Internet guru and inventor, said on Wednesday that his hacker team got access to polling systems in Georgia through a poll pad.

Pulitzer told the senators that his team was able to hack into the voting system and has documented evidence to prove it. He alleged the machines were connected to the Internet and two-way communications were occurring in real-time during a hearing on election and voter fraud held by the Georgia Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Dec. 30.

At this very moment at a polling location in the county, not only do we now have access through the devices to the poll padthe systembut we are in. Jovan Pulitzer told the senate committee.

Its receiving data and sending data, should never happen, shouldnt be WiFi, Pulitzer said.

Georgias secretary of state did not respond to a request for comment, but released a fact-check statement on their official page, calling Pulitzer a failed treasure hunter who provided no evidence during the Senate hearing for his claim.

Fake news is hard enough to combat when mainstream media outlets push it out, but when a small cadre of Georgia legislators do it, its a whole different story, said Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Pulitzer further alleged during a live-streamed video posted on Thursday, that a cheap Chinese smart TV with WiFi that sits next to the voting machine is basically sucking up all that data that it can take out this place and pumping that data back and forth all the time.

So if [legal votes are] supposed to be there and its supposed to be counted, and its supposed to be secured, and its supposed to be real, why in the hell is [the TV] in a two-way current dialog with China? Pulitzer asked.

The Secretary of State of Georgia admitted in their statement, that poll pads are connected to the Internet so the poll workers can download updated voter lists, but they are the only piece hooked up to the Internet or connected to devices that are hooked up to the Internet, and the Wifi capability is disabled before the poll pads are put in to use at the polling place.

Georgia secretary of states office also said that printers and tabulating scanners are air-gapped with the poll pad so they cant be connected to the Internet.

Pulitzer did not detail the brand or manufacturer of the poll pad in his testimony.

The statement from the secretary of state linked to a statement from poll pad creator Knowink that read: The assertions made about unauthorized access to our systems are patently false. The man claiming that someone got into our systems did not happen according to our forensic analysis. There was no hack, there was no back door entry, there was no pump and dump, and there was no access through a thermostat located hundreds of miles away in Savannah.

However, an evaluation report released by the Pennsylvania Department of State on Sept. 16, 2020, stated that the Knowink poll pad EPB[Electronic Poll Book, a version of Knowink] system is vulnerable to hacking attempts, possibly compromising the integrity of check-in data and/or allowing unauthorized access to voter data if a networked environment is activated.

Knowink did not respond to a request for comment.
LAGOS, Nigeria  Christopher Johnson was known for two things. His enthusiastic dancing in the street, which made everyone laugh. And his habit of hurling insults at strangers, which constantly got him into trouble.

So when Mr. Johnson died in late September, probably of sepsis after a leg injury, according to friends, everyone in Oluti, his lively neighborhood in Nigerias biggest city, heard.

Everyone, that is, except the government registrar responsible for recording deaths.

As the coronavirus pandemic swept across the world in 2020, it became increasingly evident that in the vast majority of countries on the African continent, most deaths are never formally registered. Reliable data on a countrys deaths and their causes are hard to come by, which means governments can miss emerging health threats  whether Ebola or the coronavirus  and often have to formulate health policy blindly.

Covid-19 is often said to have largely bypassed Africa. Some epidemiologists posit that its youthful population is less at risk; others that prior exposure to other coronaviruses give some protection. But like other diseases, its true toll here will probably never be known, partly because elevated mortality rates cannot be used as a measure, as they are elsewhere.
HUDSON  Warren Street is home to a unique strip of clothing stores, home antiques and cafes that bring visitors from all across the state to the small city of Hudson. In the last ten years, the street, which was always known for its antiques, has grown to include high-fashion and luxury boutique clothing stores.

The pandemic didnt stall Warren Streets growth this year. Nikki Chasin, Breadfolks Bakery, Intentionally Blank, and WYLDE market (coming April) are four stores that didnt let the outbreaks scare them away from opening. Theyve seen surprising success, and they are humbled by it. Instead of tourists just coming for a day or a weekend, they are spending more time and more money, merchants say.

In our busiest month here, we made more in one month than my L.A. store had ever done (in one month), said Ty McBride, the founder and creative director of Intentionally Blank, a shoe and lifestyle store which opened in June.

We just struck the right chord at the right time, said Norman Jean Roy, the owner of Breadfolks Bakery, which also opened this summer and has consistently seen a line of people outside their door.

As awful as this pandemic has been it is kind of almost like people needed this, he said. Buying a croissant and a coffee is a kind of pampering that is accessible right now and not expensive, and it provides a sense of normalcy, Roy added.

Many merchants on Warren Street similarly said they had one of their most successful seasons. But the citys treasurer, Heather Campbell, warns that so far lodging tax revenues for 2020 are nowhere close to those of years prior. A lodging tax is the tax property owners and managers must pay to the city and can be a good indicator of the amount of visitors a city sees in a year.

Anecdotally, it does seem like the number of visitors has increased over the past few months, but we will have to wait until the final returns are in to gauge how much, Campbell wrote in an email.

Nikki Chasin, the designer and owner of a clothing store that opened in September, sold a lot of her clothing to wholesalers all over the country, but when the pandemic hit, big orders got canceled fast.

Chasin decided to close down her shop in New York City and open a shop on Warren Street instead. She is open four to five days a week, as opposed to the seven days a week she was open in the city, and now is making more money some months than she did in New York City.

I love physical retail and I really wanted to find a way to open safely, and being in Hudson has allowed me to do that, Chasin said. Her store on Warren Street is much bigger than her 10-foot wide by 25-foot deep shop in New York.

When you feel safe and comfortable you are more open to trying on clothes and spending money Chasin said. I never really wanted to do curb side pickup. I dont think that really works for expensive clothing. You want to try it on, you want to feel it, you want to ask the person working there about it.

Stores like Chasins are following others like Minna, a home goods store, which moved from Brooklyn in 2016 to Hudson, and Loup, a clothing shop, that opened permanently in Hudson in 2019 after previously hosting pop ups in Brooklyn.

Hudson is really a shopping destination, Chasin said. In New York City, she saw people stopping in on their way to brunch or dinner but not planning to really shop. The amount of people that actually walk in and buy something is much higher here. And people come from upstate too, who want that type of shopping experience, Chasin said.

Hudson is an old whaling center that touts itself as the first city incorporated after the 13 colonies became the United States.

The tourists, though welcomed, did not arrive without creating some pandemic concerns for business owners.

There was a lot of anxiety in town. There was a concern that we were in isolation and all of a sudden there was a pretty significant influx of people from other places coming, said Jonathan Osofsky, the director of the clothing store Kasuri.

As the months have stretched along, many store owners were impressed by how well customers adapted to the social distancing protocols and still enjoyed the retail experience they had missed. Others felt more cautious and adapted their business models as the second wave of the pandemic set in.

As it got busier and busier, I got more and more nervous, and so did our staff, said Suzzane Werner, the owner of Fluff Alpaca, a clothing store which decided to transition to curbside pickup at the start of December.

claire.bryan@timesunion.com
The Samyukt Kisan Morcha, a joint bloc of around 40 farmers unions, on Saturday said that farmers protesting on Delhi borders for a month now will march into the national capital with their tractors on January 26 if the central government does not agree to their demand to repeal the recent agri-marketing reforms by then. India will celebrate Republic Day on January 26 with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson scheduled to attend the Rajpath parade as chief guest.

Addressing a press conference, farmer leader Darshan Pal Singh said their proposed parade will be called "Kisan Parade" and it will be held after the Republic Day parade. The next round of talks between the government and protesting farmer unions is scheduled to be held on January 4. On Friday, the unions had announced that they would have to take firm steps if the meeting fails to resolve the deadlock. Swaraj India leader Yogendra Yadav said it is a "plain lie" that the government had accepted 50 per cent of the farmers' demands. "We have got nothing on paper yet," he said.

After the sixth round of formal negotiations on Wednesday, the government and farm unions reached some common ground to resolve protesting farmers' concerns over rise in power tariff and penalties for stubble burning, but the two sides remained deadlocked over the main contentious issues of the repeal of three farm laws and a legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP). Farmer leader Gurnam Singh Choduni said, "In our last meeting, we posed a question to the government that will you buy 23 crops on MSP. They said 'no'. Then why are you misinforming the people of the country?" So far, over 50 farmers have been "martyred" during our agitation, he said.

Braving the cold, thousands of farmers, mainly from Punjab and Haryana, are protesting at various borders of the national capital for more than a month against these three new laws. The government has presented these laws as major agriculture reforms aimed at helping farmers and increasing their income, but the protesting unions fear that the new legislations have left them at the mercy of big corporates by weakening the MSP and mandi systems.
New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the country through monthly radio programme Mann Ki Baat at 11 AM on Sunday. This was the 32nd episode of the monthly radio programme.

Mann Ki Baat is aired on the All India Radio (AIR) and Doordarshan (DD). Immediately after the Hindi broadcast, Akashvani will broadcast the programme in regional languages.

Updates from PM Modi's "Mann Ki Baat":

# Mann Ki Baat ends on a monsoon note, of hope, renewal and nurturing of nature

# PM thanks Honble President, Vice President and Lok Sabha Speaker for attending Mann Ki Baat Book Launch

# Mann Ki Baat gives me the impression of sitting with my family and conversing with family members

# Those working on the Mann Ki Baat book released day before yesterday interacted with me

# Two days ago, there was a book on Mann Ki Baat that was launched at Rashtrapati Bhavan

# Mann Ki Baat has connected me with every Indian, in a very special way

# ODF campaign in Reasi Block spearheaded by women who organized rallies and awareness drives

# Reasi Block in J&K declared Open Defecation Free. PM congratulates public and public servants

# Constructive criticism strengthens democracy

# Afroz Shah FIRST Indian to receive Champion of the Earth Award from UN Environment for leading Versova Beach transformation

# PM lauds inspiring example of Versova Beach transformation on Mann Ki Baat

# The Versova beach in Mumbai which was considered dirty earlier is now clean and beautiful beach

# We should learn to discriminate between liquid waste and dry waste. We should use different dustbins for it

# Massive waste management campaign to be launched across the country on World Environment Day

# We should not look ar waste as garbage, it should be considered as wealth and resource. We should start waste management campaign

# People follow me closely

# PM exhorts all to mobilize Yoga into a movement of preventive healthcare

# I want people to send me pictures of 3 generations doing Yoga

# I urge people from different generations to practice Yoga together

# I got a very interesting suggestion - since its 3rd Yoga Day, why not 3 generations of a family come together and practice Yoga

# Yoga is not only an exercise but it is a guarantee of wellness and fitness as well

# 21st June, International Day of Yoga, successful in making a world connect.

# We have connected world through Yoga

# Let us all contribute towards enhancing the mass tree plantation drives around the country

# PM urges everyone to make the Global campaign of Connecting with Nature their personal campaign too

# June 5 to be celebrated as #WorldEnvironmentDay. Theme of the Year - Connecting People to Nature

# Nature always refreshes us

# Connecting with nature is nothing but connecting with ourselves

# Connecting with nature to nurture a better planet

# PM Narendra Modi pays tributes to Veer Savarkar

# People from all over India were imprisoned in the cellular jail

# Today we remember Veer Savarkar on his Jayanti. He spent time at the 'Kaala Pani' and there he wrote a lot

# I am happy to see youngsters are taking interest in lives of our freedom fighters, who spent their lives in jail

# I said that during the holidays get out of your comfort zone, do something new. I am glad lot of people shared their experiences with me

# I am delighted that youth is taking interest in knowing about our history and people who sacrificed their lives for the country

# PM Narendra Modi expresses happiness at overwhelming feedback received from youth on his exhortation for new experiences during vacations

# We are fortunate that people of different communities peacefully co-exist in India

# Prayer, spirituality and charity are accorded the highest priority during Ramzan

# PM appreciates different faiths of India

# PM greets nation on the occasion of Ramadan

# PM talks about versatility of India and people belonging to different religion in country

In the 31st address on April 30, PM Modi touched upon on a series of critical issues, including climate change and the VIP culture in India.

In his 27-minute long address, PM Modi said the Centres decision to ban the use of red beacon was a first step towards cleansing the VIP system in India. On climate change, he said the rising temperatures in India is proof of the nature changing the laws.

Also read: Mann ki Baat Full Text: PM Narendra Modi says red beacons ban first step towards cleaning VIP system

Also read: PM Modi's 'Mann Ki Baat': In 'New India' VIP culture will be replaced with EPI culture - Every Person is Important | Highlights



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New Delhi, Jan 02: The government is planning to provide vaccine to 30 crore people in India against the novel coronavirus disease in the next six to eight months, starting with the frontline workers. It can be seen that a dry run for the COVID-19 vaccine is underway across the country on Saturday to test the preparedness of the authorities before launching the actual vaccination programme.

The inoculation drive will start anytime soon after the regulator Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) approves a vaccine. The DCGI head, V G Somani, recently hinted that India is likely to have a COVID-19 vaccine "in the New Year".

In pictures: India witnesses COVID vaccine dry run across all state and UTs

He also talked about the efforts made by the Department of Biotechnology and said, "probably we will have a very happy New Year with something in hand. That's what I can hint at."

Who will get the COVID-19 vaccine first?

According to reports, the vaccine will first be given to around one crore healthcare workers working in both government and private hospitals, according to the recommendation by the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAC).

It is also said that these healthcare workers have further been divided into sub-categories - frontline health and Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) workers, nurses and supervisors, medical officers, paramedical staff, support staff and students.

All passengers from UK to be tested for COVID-19 on arrival: Health ministry

Frontline and municipal workers associated with the state and central Police department, armed forces, home guard, disaster management and civil defense organisation, prison staff, municipal workers and revenue officials engaged in COVID-19 containment, surveillance and associated activities are next in line to get the vaccine.

Vaccines to be provided for free across India, says health min | Oneindia News

After these groups get their vaccine, population above 50 years of age will get their dose. This group is divided into two sub-categories: Above 60 and 50-60 years of age.

States and Union Territories will have the generic flexibility to do priority phasing of the rollout for the identified priority groups (as decided by the NEGVAC) in identified geographical areas where the COVID-19 infection prevalence is high.

After these people, who are on priority list gets their vaccine, the remaining population will be inoculated. The vaccination will depend on the disease epidemiology and vaccine availability.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Saturday, January 2, 2021, 15:11 [IST]
A San Francisco home belonging to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was vandalized with graffiti and a pig's head in the early morning hours of New Year's Day.

It was vandalized with messages alluding to Pelosi's failed push for $2,000 stimulus checks, which was repeatedly shot down by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Photos of Pelosi's home could be seen on social media, as posted by filmmaker Maggie VandenBerghe on Friday.

It showed Pelosi's vandalized garage door with messages reading: "$2k Cancel RENT! We want everything!" reported Daily Mail. The pig's head was seen surrounded by what appeared to be a pool of fake blood in front of the garage door.

BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: @SpeakerPelosis house VANDALIZED with red paint, PIGS HEAD & spray-painted message $2K (crossed out)... CANCEL RENT... WE WANT EVERYTHING. City called to clean up at 3am & police attempting to stop photos of scene. Media SILENT. pic.twitter.com/LD1jfZIvco  Maggie VandenBerghe (@FogCityMidge) January 1, 2021

There were also spray-painted symbols showing two-letter A's enclosed in circles, a known symbol for anarchism.

Read also: California Extends Stay-at-Home Order Amid Sustained Virus Surge

These were disturbing messages, but all seem to tie into Americans' ongoing financial struggles amid the pandemic.

Pelosi Not Home When Vandalism Happened

According to CBS Bay Area, San Francisco police said the House speaker was not home during the time of the vandalism since she was still in Washington, D.C.

San Francisco Police Department told Fox News they first received calls on the incident around 2 a.m. that day. Officers arrived at the scene around an hour later and documented the incident.

At the time, they only said the incident happened in the 2600 block of Broadway, but they did not confirm if there was anyone at the time or who owned the home.

KRON 4 also said the fake blood was removed, and the spray-painted messages have been covered up.

Read also: House Moves To Override Trump's Veto of Defense Bill

Frustrated, VandenBerghe saw this as the police's way of "covering up" the incident.

"City called to clean up at 3am & police attempting to stop photos of scene. Media SILENT," she tweeted.

No Suspects Turned Up to Police

The residence was said to be just one of Pelosi's several California homes. It is located in the neighborhood of Pacific Heights.

According to property records, it has four bedrooms and three bathrooms and is estimated to be worth at least $5 million.

Authorities said the suspects have not yet been identified, and no one has turned up to admit what they did it.

But some of the graffiti mentioned UBI (universal basic income) and "cancel rent," the police will be working with the assumption that the culprit was associated with these movements.

They urged anyone with information on the case to call their tip line at 415-575-4444 or text a tip to TIP411, beginning the message with "SFPD," reported San Francisco Chronicle.

Neighbors Frustrated With Vandalism on Pelosi Home

Pelosi's neighbors told CBS that they understand the frustration over the stimulus checks and politics in Capitol Hill.

However, they said this type of response from the public would likely not resolve anything.

"I don't think that this is a useful way to go about it and it's a terrible start to this new year," Pelosi's neighbor Audrey Carlson said.

Carlson added that she hoped for "less anger and hatred" for the year ahead than the last year. Various news outlets have also reached out to Pelosi's office, but no comments have been released as of posting.
The Vice President, Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has called on all Ghanaians, irrespective of religious or political beliefs, to cherish the peace Ghana enjoys and work together for the collective good.



Dr Bawumia, who gave the admonition when he joined the congregation of the Power Chapel Worldwide Church in Kumasi, for the 31st December Watch Night Service, said God has been good and faithful to Ghana, and we can only show our appreciation by working together in peace and harmony to develop the nation.



The year 2020 like many others came with its own fortunes and misfortunes but as the Apostle Paul reminds us in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, we should rejoice always, pray continually, and give thanks in all circumstances, for this is Gods will for us in Christ Jesus. The deadly coronavirus could not kill us and neither the snares nor arrows of the devil targeted at us in 2021 shall locate us or hurt us, he indicated.



Vice President Bawumia urged Ghanaians to cherish and protect the peace Ghana enjoys, pointing out that trans-religious harmony has been the glue holding the nation together.



We have a country in which the Chief Imam (belonging to the Islamic faith) celebrates his birthday in a church. And today, like in many instances, we have the Vice President who is a Muslim worshiping with Christians to mark the end of the year. Two years ago also, during my Ramadan tour of the Ahafo region some pastors in the region joined me in the Kukuom Mosque to pray.



These are a few of the many instances of such religious tolerance and co-existence we enjoy in Ghana. Today, because of this trait of religious acceptance and tolerance Ghana is ranked as the most peaceful country in West Africa. This is credit to all of us but most importantly to the Almighty God.



Alluding to the just ended elections, Dr Bawumia emphasised that Ghanaians had proven their peace-loving nature once again, and it is time to move on.



The 2020 elections was just another furnace to test the robustness of the Ghanaian democracy and thankfully we sailed through peacefully and successfully. To President Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP the battle was the Lords and continues to be that of the Lords. We thank God and all Ghanaians for that victory but I must say it is a victory to God and all of us.



In the year 2021 there is a country to be run and managed well. It is an exercise that cannot be taken by one person or only a certain group of people. We all have a responsibility to ensure that the country Ghana is made a haven for our collective settlement and not a select few.



There is no doubt that some significant amount of foundation has already been laid for an accelerated development. And we are confident that, He who has begun the good works will help us to bring it to a perfect completion.



Speaking earlier at the St Cyprians Anglican Church and the Bantama Assemblies of God Church, Vice President Bawumia thanked God for his special favour on Ghana, saying there were times I feared the nation would go up in flames, but God was in control. The devil is indeed a liar. Let us give thanks and praise to the Lord. May his grace continue to be on this nation.



Dr Bawumia was accompanied by the Second Lady, Hajia Mrs Samira Bawumia; the Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei Mensah; Mr Fred Oware, CEO of Bui Power Authority; Francis Asenso Boakye, Deputy Chief of Staff and MP-elect for Bantama; a number of Ashanti Region MPs and MPs-elect including Hon Eugene Boakye Antwi (Subin), Hon Emmanuel Marfo (Oforikrom), Hon Kennedy Kankam (Nhyiaeso), Vincent Ekow Assifuah (Tafo Pankrono), Dr Kingsley Nyarko (Kwadaso) as well as regional executives of the NPP.

Source: Graphiconline.com









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Featured Video
Sidney Powell: Definitely Possible Trump Retains Presidency

Attorney Sidney Powell told FlashPoint host Gene Bailey in a Dec. 29 interview that she believes it is definitely possible that President Donald Trump retains the presidency for a second term, even after the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 or beyond.

Powell was responding to a question by Bailey about the viable paths that remain to a second Trump term.

There are multiple cases pending in the Supreme Court, Powell said. We have four states in play in our petitions for emergency mandamus to ask the court to decertify Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia because of all the massive fraud there, she said. A mandamus is a type of court order that compels action, in this case decertification of Electoral College votes in the states in question, which were cast on Dec. 14 for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Powell invited viewers of the program to examine the filings and associated exhibits in the cases, which she said document the various allegations of fraud in the 2020 election.

In the Arizona petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, the petitioners note their core claim is that the 2020 General Election was tainted by constitutional election fraud on a scale that has never been seen before in America, where hundreds of thousands if not millions of illegal, fraudulent, ineligible or purely fictitious ballots were cast for Biden (along with hundreds of thousands of Trump votes that were intentionally destroyed, lost or switched to Biden), and this massive fraud changed the outcome from a Biden loss to a Biden win.'

State election officials, the Department of Justice, and others have pushed back against claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, while the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has called the Nov. 3 election the most secure in American history.

However, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe reportedly confirmed in early December that there was foreign interference in the 2020 election.

Well DNI Ratcliffe leads the 17 intelligence agencies and he has access to the most highly classified information that is held by the U.S. government. And he told CBS News that there was foreign interference by China, Iran, and Russia in November of this year and he is anticipating a public report on those findings in January, CBS correspondent Catherine Herridge said on Dec. 3.

Bailey then asked Powell whether the Jan. 6 joint session or even, the Jan. 20 inauguration, is the end of the path or whether, if more evidence of fraud comes to light, it is still possible that there would be a second Trump term.

Its definitely possible because the Supreme Court can do what it wants to do, Powell said, adding, but it gets more difficult the longer it takes.

She did not provide further details regarding the judicial process that the high court could undertake following the Jan. 6 joint session nor what moves the Supreme Court might have the power to make post-inauguration. To date, the Supreme Court has twice refused to consider Trump-endorsed lawsuits that sought to challenge the results of the 2020 election. Federal and state courts have also dismissed dozens of contest-of-election lawsuits claims brought by Trumps legal team, and others.

Trump attorney Jenna Ellis appeared to address the issue in a thread on Twitter initiated by artist Scott Adams, who asked who would be president in the hypothetical scenario that Biden is inaugurated and a month later the 2020 election is proven to be stolen BEYOND ANY REASONABLE DOUBT, to which Ellis replied: Under the Constitution, the only way to remove a sitting President is via the impeachment process.

Some Republican lawmakers have said they plan to object to the Congressional certification of the electoral votes on Jan. 6. For the move to succeed, it would require both the Democrat-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate to agree to discard the electoral votes and, if neither candidate receives the 270 votes needed for victory, to potentially force a contingent election under the 12th Amendment.
German vaccine maker BioNTech, whose COVID-19 vaccine with partner Pfizer has received approvals in multiple countries, has warned of gaps in supply until other vaccine candidates are rolled out.

BioNTech CEO and co-founder Ugur Sahin said the company is working with Pfizer to boost production of its vaccine after it was slow to arrive in Europe, Reuters reported.

The vaccine approval was delayed by the European Union (EU), which after approval placed small orders for the doses. For perspective, the United States had ordered 600 million doses till November, while the EU order is half that size, the news report suggests.

Eyebrows have been raised in Germany where inoculation drives had to be halted due to the late rollout  despite the vaccine being indigenously developed, it added.

Follow our LIVE Updates on the coronavirus pandemic here

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

Sahin told local weekly Spiegel that the situation does not look good and that a lack of other approved vaccines has caused a gap which has to be filled by the startup. Further, Sahin and BioNTechs co-founder and chief medical officer Oezlem Tuereci also faulted the EUs small order size in anticipation of other vaccines as a reason for the gaps.

At some point it became clear that it would not be possible to deliver so quickly. By then it was already too late to place follow-on orders, Tuereci added.

A spokesperson for the company later said it is in talks with the EU to boost output. We are in productive discussions with the European Commission on how to make more of our vaccine in Europe, for Europe, the spokesperson said.

Check here for the latest updates on all COVID-19 vaccines

For this, the company is looking to push ahead launch of a new production line in Marburg in Germany to February and Health Minister Jens Spahn also said authorities would do everything to expedite the process.

The facility will produce 250 million doses in H1FY21, as per Sahin and talks are also on with contract manufacturers, clarity on which will be available by January-end, he added.

Meanwhile, Modernas COVID-19 vaccine candidate is expected to get EU approval on January 6, and Spahn is pushing for quick approval of AstraZenecas candidate.
Via a Twitter post, Floridas Health Department reported a new case of the COVID-19 variant that was first reported in the United Kingdom.

The FHD said the case was reported in Martin County and is a male in his 20s with no history of travel.

According to the CDC, the new variant emerged in the UK (United Kingdom) with an unusually large number of mutations. The CDC said the variant seems to spread more easily and quickly, but there is no evidence that it causes more severe illness or increased risk of death.

A report in the BBC, said the new COVID-19 is "hugely" more transmissible than the virus's previous version.

The BBC quotes Professor Axel Gandy of London's Imperial College as saying, "There is a huge difference in how easily the variant virus spreads," adding that the new mutation is the most serious change in the virus since the epidemic began."

The new mutation was first detected in September 2020 and the CDC says it is now prevalent in London and southeast England, as well as other countries including the US, with cases reported in Colorado, California and now Florida.

Citing exerts, the health department said that the report of the new mutation in Florida should have little to no impact on the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine.
President-elect Joe Bidens goal of distributing 100 million coronavirus vaccine shots in his first 100 days in office is both bold and dangerous.

Its bold because 100 million shots would inoculate 50 million people against the virus. That would turn the tide against the spread of COVID-19 and would be a giant first step in regaining the publics trust in government.

Its dangerous because Biden has publicly committed to a specific number of vaccines by a specific date.

A million vaccines a day. That is quite a task even under optimum conditions. Its one thing to have the vaccines ready, but it remains to be seen whether the states will have enough people trained to give the shots or get a system up and running in time.

Its also Bidens first major promise, even if hes calling it only a goal. If he falls short, our new president will have to live with the failure for the rest of his term.

I know. I made just such a mistake when, after first being elected mayor of San Francisco, I said I would fix Muni in 100 days.

The press never let me live down that failed promise. And unlike Biden, I didnt even say which 100 days I was talking about.

Harris rising: The biggest winner in the two U.S. Senate runoff races in Georgia on Tuesday could be Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

If the Democrats manage to win both seats, they would be in a 50-50 deadlock with Republicans, and Harris, as president of the Senate, would have the tie-breaking vote.

It would instantly elevate Harris beyond the vice presidents usual role of attending state funerals and other light lifting. She would be the second most important person in Washington.

No wonder the Biden transition team had her at the front of the line to get the vaccine shot the other day. It was carried live on national TV as a way to assure the public that the vaccine is safe.

Pelosi challenge: The fallout of the Democrats narrowed majority in the House is starting to be felt in Washington, where Rep. Nancy Pelosi has little margin for error in her bid Sunday to be re-elected as speaker.

Shes likely to win, but its not a sure thing. Strange as it may sound, there might be a collection of more conservative Democrats willing to make a deal with Republicans to elect a more moderate Democrat.

Granted, any Democrat who was elected in such a deal would be an instant pariah within the party and roundly denounced ... for about a minute.

Everyone would snap back in line when the first committee assignments went out. Thats what happened when Republicans helped oust one of my fellow Democrats and elect me Assembly speaker for the first time in 1980.

Bad idea: There are hundreds of parklets in our city, all under the Shared Spaces program for restaurants. Some advocates for homeless people want them to be used as makeshift homeless shelters when people arent eating there.

Only in San Francisco would anyone even think this way.

Lets hope that thought process does not have legs. After all, parklets like one at the Gold Mirror on Taraval Street in the Sunset District cost more than $30,000 to build. So you advocates, if you want homeless people to use the parklets as shelters, then offer up some rent.

TV time: I just saw Netflixs Ma Raineys Black Bottom. Its a play well worth watching that takes you back to the Black world of the 20s and 30s in Chicago.

Great cast and acting headlined by Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman. So check it out. But beware, the language is rather salty.

Not yet: I said Happy new year to a friend the other day.

He said, Oh no. Its too early for that.

What do you mean? New Years Day is Friday.

He said, Happy new year doesnt come until the 20th, when Joe Biden is sworn in as president and Donald Trump is finally gone. Thats the happy new year.

Want to sound off? Email wbrown@sfchronicle.com
Nigerian authorities have arrested five activists who were organising a an anti-government protest, severely beating the most prominent of them Omoyele Sowore, his lawyer said Saturday.

Sowore's lawyer Femi Falana demanded his client's immediate release following the arrests in the capital Abuja overnight December 31, adding that he had been placed in a dangerous section of a notorious prison.

The police officers who arrested Sowore, who is also a journalist, "subjected him to severe beating and left him with bruises all over his body," Falana told AFP.

"As if that was not enough he has been locked up in the midst of armed robbery suspects at a notorious detention facility called 'abattoir'," the lawyer said.

Several hours before his arrest, the opposition leader issued a tweet calling on Nigerians to march in the street to denounce bad governance in Nigeria.

Contacted by AFP, the police confirmed the arrests took place just after the New Year began.

The FCT police command arrested the five activists at 12:30 am on January 1 in a "swift response to a distress call received from some tensed residents" over "an unusual gathering and movement," the police said.

The five suspects were arrested for "unlawfully gathering at very odd hours, thereby causing palpable tension amongst the residents of Gudu and Lokogoma areas of the FCT," regional police spokeswoman Mariam Yusuf told AFP.

A candidate for president in February 2019, Sowore, 49, was arrested on August 1, 2019 for having called for a mass demonstration, "Revolution Now."

A harsh critic of president Muhammadu Buhari, he is also the founder of the online newspaper Sahara Reporters, which touts itself as an independent investigative media outlet.

He was released in December 2019, but remained accused of treason, money laundering, and cyber harassment of the head of state.

At the time, civil society, some media organisations and the opposition denounced a tilt toward heavy-handed security that they said recalled the years of military dictatorship the country experienced before the advent of democracy in 1999.

Story continues

In October Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, experienced an unprecedented youth movement against police violence and state authority.

The protests were crushed, spilling blood, according to several human rights group. They degenerated into a week of riots and looting in several major cities of the country.

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President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, vowed on Thursday to promote cooperation between China and Russia in the new year to reach new achievements in bilateral ties and inject more positive energy into a changing world.

The two presidents made the pledge in their exchange of New Year's messages.

Xi, calling 2020 an extraordinary year, said the two peoples supported each other in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

The two countries jointly promote steady trade and economic cooperation while working to prevent and control the pandemic. They also have boosted the alignment of the Belt and Road Initiative with the Eurasian Economic Union to create new achievements, he said.

They jointly commemorated the 75th anniversary of victory of the World Anti-Facist War and the founding of the United Nations, demonstrating their firm resolve to safeguard international fairness and justice, Xi said.

Xi mentioned phone conversations with Putin and the multilateral meetings they both took part in via video link in 2020, and expressed great appreciation for the consensuses they reached on bilateral ties and major international issues during the year.

Xi said 2021 will be of special significance for China and Russia, adding that the two countries will use the opportunity of the 20th anniversary of the signing of the China-Russia Good-Neighborly Friendship and Cooperation Treaty to carry forward their friendship for generations and map out the new vision for Sino-Russian ties in the new era.

He said he stands ready to maintain close contact with Putin in various ways to guide the two nations in deepening comprehensive strategic coordination and pragmatic cooperation in various fields to benefit the two peoples.

Putin recalled the bilateral communication and cooperation between Russia and China in 2020 as well as their close coordination in regional and international issues as well as within the multilateral framework.

Putin said he thinks the two countries will make new achievements in the development of their ties in the new year.

Also on Thursday, Premier Li Keqiang and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin exchanged New Year's greetings.
More Left-wing councils were last night joining the revolt against Government plans to keep schools open.

Brighton and Hove City Council followed eight authorities in London in demanding primaries teach remotely amid rising Covid cases.

Most primaries in England are expected to open their doors tomorrow, while secondary schools will reopen on a staggered basis later this month with plans to test every student weekly.

Yesterday, however, the UKs largest teaching union advised members it was not safe to return to the classroom and called for a move to online teaching.

CLASS WAR: The Government is keen to get children back to schools however, left-wing councils have joined revolt against Government plans as UKs largest teaching union advised members it was not safe to return

The National Education Union, which has 450,000 members, said the Government was failing to protect children, their families and our communities, adding that their members had a legal right to refuse to work.

The move has put them on a collision course with Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, who said it was imperative that the nations children were back in class to stop them falling behind.

Writing in The Mail on Sunday, the father-of-two has urged teachers and parents to move heaven and earth, adding the young must not bear the heaviest cost of the pandemic.

He said: Both of my daughters, one of whom is in an exam year, have had to self-isolate. I know how difficult the last year has been, because I have seen them miss being in the classroom, where they want to be. So I want my children, and all children, to be able to get back to school and stay in class  we will continue to prioritise making this happen where we can.

The start of the new academic term has been mired in confusion as Covid rates continue to rise, driven by the new variant.

Recent notes from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) revealed scientists have warned that schools may need to be closed to bring down transmission.

But Childrens Minister Vicky Ford yesterday told MPs there was no evidence that the new strain caused more serious illness in either adults or children.

Senior Government sources said that Mr Williamson had tried to keep schools open but has been overruled by Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Michael Gove.

The pair have pushed for tighter measures until more people have been vaccinated, but critics accused them of natural authoritarianism.

The National Education Union tweeted earlier today: 'Our Executive is meeting this morning and we will announce new guidance shortly afterwards'

A tweet from the National Education Union today, saying: 'We have thousands of reps from all the country on our briefing right now. We must #MakeSchoolsSafe to #ProtectCommunities'

Childrens Minister Vicky Ford yesterday told MPs there was no evidence that the new strain caused more serious illness in either adults or children

Last week, Mr Williamson announced all primaries would return on Monday. Ten London boroughs were told to open their schools but after a revolt by eight Labour-led councils, Mr Williamson was forced into a U-turn. Now all schools in the capital will operate remote learning for the first two weeks.

The rebellion was led initially by Haringey, once dubbed the first Corbyn council because of its large number of Left-wing Momentum councillors. Council leader Joseph Ejiofor said he would back head teachers who wanted to defy the Government and he was later followed by Harrow Council.

Brighton and Hove has now advised all primary schools to teach remotely until January 18.

Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, has accused the Left of politicising the issue saying: This is about knocking the Tories. Keeping schools open should be non-negotiable. More than one million four to 11-year-olds will now start the academic term with lessons online.

In advising members to work from home, Dr Mary Bousted, the NEUs joint general secretary, said: If Government does not act to follow the science, we must.

Her views were echoed by the NASUWT union.

Ministers are considering proposals to make teachers a higher priority in the vaccine roll-out as a way to keep physical classrooms open.

Plans for schools reopening differ across the four nations of the UK.In Scotland, most pupils will have online learning for the week of January 11. In Wales, schools are expected to provide face-to-face learning for the majority of their pupils by January 11.

And in Northern Ireland, secondary school years eight to 11 will be taught via remote learning throughout January while primary pupils will return to the classroom on January 11.

Social distancing signs displayed at Coldfall Primary School in Muswell Hill, London, today as Covid cases across the capital city have been putting rising pressure on the NHS

GAVIN WILLIAMSON: We must all move heaven and earth to get children back into the classroom

By Gavin Williamson, Secretary of State for Education

I remain optimistic that with the roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccine, 2021 will be the year we overcome coronavirus. At the same time, as a dad, it is clear to me that while this takes place, I want my children to be at school.

Keeping our kids out of classrooms is damaging. We know that as parents and we know it from the data. It is for this reason that keeping schools open has been a national priority.

Naturally, as parents would expect, this includes taking a proportionate response and considering the clear damage that we know is caused to young peoples education and wellbeing by closing education.

With the new variant, the goal posts have shifted as we fight this horrible virus, but I want to assure parents that we have been working throughout the holidays to make the return as safe as possible.

This means pushing back the staggered start date for all secondary schools by one week.

Writing in The Mail on Sunday, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, said it was imperative that the nations children were back in class to stop them falling behind. He urged teachers and parents to move heaven and earth, adding the young must not bear the heaviest cost of the pandemic

It also means triggering our contingency plans, so that in some areas where there are high transmission rates of the virus or those rates are rising quickly, schools should offer face-to-face education to exam year groups, vulnerable and critical-worker children, and remote education to all other students  so no child misses out on education.

We have identified the areas where primary schools must move to this system from tomorrow and will do the same for secondary schools before pupils are due to return on the 18th.

Our fantastic teachers have already worked tirelessly to make schools Covid-secure, and it remains the case that schools are safe.

For secondary schools and colleges, we are also rolling out mass testing to make schools, the pupils attending them, and the wider community even safer. I want to be clear what this means: all secondary school students and staff will be offered tests before they go back to school  whether their school is open to all pupils or to some.

This kind of mass testing will help protect not just children and young people, it will benefit everyone in the community because it will break the chains of transmission that are making infection rates shoot up.

This in turn will make it safer for more children to physically return to school.

Teachers are not expected to carry out the tests themselves, and 1,500 members of the armed forces will provide support to schools and colleges in this important mission.

While this takes place, schools and colleges will stagger the return of their students.

Those in exam years will be educated remotely during the first week of term, and face-to-face beginning on January 11, with other secondary schools and college students returning full time on January 18, in areas where we have not had to apply the contingency framework.

Vulnerable children and the children of key workers should be educated face-to-face from the start of term in all circumstances.

For now, given how prevalent the virus is in London and after engagement with London leaders, primary schools in our capital will only open for vulnerable and critical worker children tomorrow.

We will continually review the data and allow more pupils to return as soon as possible.

During this time we are taking unprecedented action to ensure remote education is delivered to all children.

We will deliver over 50,000 laptops and tablets to schools across the country tomorrow, and over 100,000 in total during the first week of term. In total, weve delivered over 500,000 and are on our way to our target of nearly one million.

We are taking these measures because it is what we need to do to overcome and suppress the transmission of the virus in communities.

These decisions are not political calculations, they are concrete steps to support our childrens education, futures and dreams  which must not be put on hold.

The safety of teachers and pupils will always be paramount, but we must all move heaven and earth to get children back to the classroom where they best thrive.

Both of my daughters, one of whom is in an exam year, have had to self-isolate. I know how difficult the last year has been, because I have seen them miss being in the classroom, where they want to be.

So I want my children, and all children, to be able to get back to school and stay in class  we will continue to prioritise making this happen where we can.

In all of this, we must all face up to the fact that, unfortunately, there is a new variant of Covid and that this is spreading across the country.

But it remains our duty to provide a future for our children that is full of hope and opportunity.

This year, my admiration for teachers and all that they do has reached an even higher level, and it gives me faith in how we will continue to fight this virus.

The fight has already been a long one, and many have lost so much, but we must remain steadfast in our final push. As a nation we are in this together and we will overcome it together, as our country always does.

During this time, I remain determined to do all I can to protect our children, protect education and ensure the youngest in our society do not bear the heaviest cost while beating this virus.
Reporter

Heather Bellow, a member of the investigations team, joined The Eagle in 2017. She is based in the South Berkshire County bureau in Great Barrington. Her work has appeared in newspapers across the U.S.
The Senate wrapped up a rare New Year's Day session with Republicans rejecting President Donald Trump s demand for $2,000 COVID-19 aid checks and overriding his veto of a sweeping defense bill, an unusual one-two rebuke at the end of a chaotic Congress

Democrats tried a final time to push forward a House-passed bill that would boost the $600 direct aid payments just approved by Congress to $2,000 as Trump demanded for millions of Americans. Republicans blocked a vote, arguing in favor of a more targeted approach.

The rejection of Trump's top priorities, along with the first veto override of his presidency, offered an unusual willingness by the president's party to confront Trump, now in his final days in the White House after losing the November election to President-elect Joe Biden.

Trump lashed out at GOP leadership on Twitter. Pathetic!!!" he wrote.

But Trump appeared more focused on his next battle to overturn the results of the election during next week's session tallying the Electoral College votes.

Congress is ending a dizzying session, a two-year political firestorm that started with the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history, was riven by impeachment and a pandemic, and now closes with the GOP's rare rebuke of the president.

Democrats vowed to swiftly revive the plan for $2,000 checks after the new Congress is sworn in Sunday.

President-elect Joe Biden has made clear that the pandemic relief bill that Congress passed is simply a down payment on the work that needs to continue, said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., the chair of the House Democratic caucus. Were going to continue to fight for a $2,000 direct payment check.

Tensions ran high as senators sniped over slogging through the holiday season at the Capitol.

Trump's demands for additional aid upended the year-end COVID-19 relief and federal funding package, forcing his Republican allies to stand alone as Democrats embraced his push for more direct payments to struggling American households

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer tried, as he has all week, to push the proposal for a vote.

This is it  the last chance, Schumer said.

The New York senator said the only thing standing in the way" is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republican senators.

The second-ranking Republican, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, rose to object, saying the proposal was not an effective way to meet the needs of Americans.

That drew an angry tweet from Trump.

Trump said the states Republican Gov. Kristi Noem, an ally, should pose a primary challenge to Thune, who faces reelection. Noem has previously said she intends to run again for governor.

But presidential tweets that once sparked fear in Republicans may be losing their punch.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told reporters at the Capitol that she found it very dispiriting at this time, New Years Day, that the president would be working to pit Republicans against Republicans.

Trump's last-minute demands threw Congress into a tumultuous year-end session that deepened the divide within the party between the GOP's new wing of Trump-styled populists wary of defying the president and what had been mainstay conservative views.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who has pledged to lead Trump's challenge to overturn the election during next week's session, was among those senators who also supported Trump's push for COVID-19 aid.

Hawley found himself in common cause with Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, who argued Friday for a vote.

Bring the bill to the floor, Sanders said.

Hawley agreed. He said with the president and the House supporting more aid, only the GOP-led Senate stood alone.

This seems to be the Senate versus the United States of America, Hawley said.

McConnell has shown little interest in Trump's push to bolster the $600 relief checks just approved in a sweeping year-end package, declaring Congress has provided enough pandemic aid, for now.

He dismissed the proposal, as passed by the House, as socialism for rich people who dont need the federal help.

McConnell proposed his own bill, loaded up with Trumps other priorities to rein in big tech companies and investigate the 2020 presidential election. But it was not a serious effort, and he did not push it forward for a vote.

The refusal to act on the checks, along with the veto of the defense bill, could very well be among McConnell's final acts as majority leader as two GOP senators in Georgia are in the fights of their political lives in runoff elections next week that will determine which party controls the Senate.

At one point Friday, the Senate's presiding officer mistakenly called Schumer the majority leader.

Someday soon, Schumer quipped.

Trump and Biden are poised to campaign in Georgia ahead of Tuesday's election as GOP Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler face Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.

It's a chaotic end to a session of Congress that resembles few others for the sheer number of crises and political standoffs as Trump's presidency defined and changed the legislative branch.

Congress opened in 2019 with the federal government shutdown over Trump's demands for money to build the border wall with Mexico. Nancy Pelosi regained the speaker's gavel after Democrats swept to the House majority in the midterm election.

The Democratic-led House went on to impeach the president over his request to the Ukrainian president to do us a favor against Biden ahead of the presidential election. The Republican-led Senate acquitted Trump in 2020 of the charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

When the pandemic struck, Congress rallied with unusual speed and agreement to pass a $2 trillion relief package, the largest federal intervention of its kind in U.S. history.

The usually bustling halls of Congress became eerily silent most days. Many members tested positive for the virus.

The Congress had few other notable legislative accomplishes and could not agree on how to respond to the racial injustice reckoning that erupted after the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black Americans at the hands of law enforcement.

Instead, the Senate was primarily focused on filling the courts with Trump's conservative judicial nominees, including confirming his third Supreme Court justice, Amy Coney Barrett.

For now, the smaller $600 checks are being sent to households. Americans earning up to $75,000 qualify for the full payments, which are phased out at higher income levels, and theres an additional $600 payment per dependent child.
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The founder of The Synagogue Church Of All Nations, Temitope Joshua, has released anointing water and sticker tagged Not Mine But Gods Own to fight coronavirus and other ailments.

Popularly known as TB Joshua, the SCOAN founder said he was mandated to release the faith tools after a long period at the prayer mountain where he went to seek Gods face on the cure for the afflictions facing the world.

Mr Joshua returned from the prayer mountain on December 28, according to the churchs social media platforms.

Let us talk about cure because of what is in this prophetic message for this year, 2021  cure of affliction, Mr Joshua said in a message posted on the churchs official Facebook page.

This so-called monster, COVID-19, generally known as affliction has three stages. We are getting to the end of the first stage. The second stage will be tougher than the first stage but it will not affect all countries. Some countries will be affected while others will not be affected. The third stage will be tougher than the second stage. The two last stages will not be widespread like the first stage. This is why the Lord gave me these faith tools  the new anointing water and the new anointing sticker, tagged Not Mine But Gods Own.

Mr Joshua said the world has deteriorated to a level that neighbours no longer trust each other.

We need a sign to show that this new anointing water and anointing sticker came from God. In Judges 6:17, Gideon said to the Lord, Give me a sign to show that You are the One talking to me. In like manner, we need a sign today because the world is full of confusion and disbelief. As you receive this anointing water, set aside a day to ask for mercy and forgiveness.

Mr Joshua assured that the faith tools will rescue users from the curse of affliction, financial crisis, business failure, career failure among others.

The new anointing water  never a sickness it cannot heal, never an affliction it cannot cure, never a problem it cannot solve, in Jesus name!

There is no cure yet for coronavirus, but at least three vaccines have been developed for use against the virus. The first batch of the vaccines will likely arrive Nigeria this January, according to Osagie Ehanire, the health minister.

Nigeria has recorded 1,294 deaths and 88,587 infections from coronavirus, according to the NCDC.

Globally, 1.8 million people have died from the virus out of 84 million infections.
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2 January 2021

Now that coronavirus vaccines are starting to roll out in the US and abroad, many people may be dreaming of the day when they can travel, shop and go to the movies again. But in order to do those activities, you may eventually need something in addition to the vaccine: a vaccine passport application.

Several companies and technologygroups have begun developing smartphone apps or systems for individuals to upload details of their Covid-19 tests and vaccinations, creating digital credentials that could be shown in order to enter concert venues, stadiums, movie theaters, offices, or even countries.The Common Trust Network, an initiative by Geneva-based nonprofit The Commons Project and the World Economic Forum, has partnered with several airlines including Cathay Pacific, JetBlue, Lufthansa, Swiss Airlines, United Airlines and Virgin Atlantic, as well as hundreds of health systems across the United States and the government of Aruba.

The CommonPass app created by the group allows users to upload medical data such as a Covid-19 test result or, eventually, a proof of vaccination by a hospital or medical professional,generating a health certificate or pass in the form of a QR code that can be shown to authorities without revealing sensitive information. For travel, the app lists health pass requirements at the points of departure and arrival based on your itinerary."You can be tested every time you cross a border. You cannot be vaccinated every time you cross a border," Thomas Crampton, chief marketing and communications officer for The Commons Project, told CNN Business. He stressed the need for a simple and easily transferable set of credentials, or a "digital yellow card," referring to the paper document generally issued as proof of vaccination.
WASHINGTON  It began with a pair of firsts, one hopeful and one grim: The most diverse Congress in the nations history was sworn in two years ago during the longest government shutdown.

And on Sunday, the 116th Congress will end much as it began  filled with anticipation yet bitterly divided  having lurched through a cycle of once-in-a-generation moments packed into two years under President Trump. The shuttering of the government for more than a month. The impeachment and trial of a president. The deadliest pandemic in a century and a multitrillion-dollar federal response. A Supreme Court confirmation rushed through in the final weeks of the election.

We have kind of gone from crisis to crisis, havent we? said Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, who is participating in a coronavirus vaccine trial in part to signal to his constituents that it would be safe to receive one. Obviously, Covid is the biggest issue.

Even with a few legislative accomplishments  among them, an overhaul of the North American trade agreement, enactment of landmark land conservation legislation and trillions of dollars in emergency economic aid to address the pandemic  partisan gridlock forced lawmakers to punt on their hopes that this Congress could be the one to do difficult things. The one that could alter a broken immigration system, overhaul policing and address gun violence and expand health care access and make it affordable.
Damage: Mitch McConnell said the party should accept the election result

Republicans faced a deepening split last night over whether to back Donald Trumps last-ditch attempt to overturn the US presidential election result.

More than 140 Republicans in the House of Representatives may be ready to back a move not to certify the outcome of the election at a joint session of Congress on Jan 6.

But senior Republicans have tried to rein in colleagues, arguing that they are playing with fire and would only further undermine public faith in the electoral system.

Even with the suggested level of support, the attempt to block the result has no chance of success in Congress.

And Mitch McConnell, leader of the Republican majority in the Senate, has privately urged his party colleagues to accept the election result.

Meanwhile, it emerged that staffing changes are to be made to the secret services presidential detail when Joe Biden takes office on Jan 20.

Mr Bidens camp was said to have expressed concerns that current agents might be politically supportive of Mr Trump. Instead, senior agents who guarded Mr Biden when he was vice- president will be brought back.

The move to block the election result was ignited by Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri. He will object to certification, forcing a two-hour debate, followed by a vote in the Senate and House of Representatives.

In an open letter, Ben Sasse, the Republican senator from Nebraska, called it a dangerous ploy.

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He said: The president and his allies are playing with fire. Lets be clear what is happening here. We have a bunch of ambitious politicians who think theres a quick way to tap into the presidents populist base without doing any real, long-term damage.

But theyre wrong. This issue is bigger than anyones personal ambitions. Adults dont point a loaded gun at the heart of legitimate self-government.

In a conference call with Republican senators, Mr McConnell said it was a conscience vote. He asked Mr Hawley to explain himself, but it then emerged Mr Hawley was not even on the call.

Mr Hawley claims Republican voters are frustrated with Congress for taking no action. He said: If youve been speaking to folks at home, Im sure you know how deeply angry and disillusioned many, many people are.

But Adam Kinziger, a Republican congressman from Illinois who has been critical of Mr Trump, said: Im just over the undermining of democracy and the frankly massive damage thats being done with this.

The session in Congress takes place a day after two run-off races in Georgia which will determine whether Republicans or Democrats control the Senate.

David Perdue, one of the two Republican candidates, has announced he will spend the final days of the campaign in quarantine after possible exposure to the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump issued a New Year video message hailing historic victories on the economy and fighting the pandemic.

He said: We have to be remembered for whats been done.

In the final weeks of his term, the president was also facing ongoing battles with Congress after he vetoed the annual defence bill and called for stimulus cheques to Americans to be increased. He also faces growing friction with Iran. (Daily Telegraph, London)

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Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]
The ties between the world superpowers the US and China have reached a new crossroads and can improve in the future following a period of unprecedented difficulty, a senior Chinese diplomat commented during an interview.

Wang Yi, China's state councilor and foreign minister, in a joint interview with Xinhua news agency and other state media outlets, which was later published in English said, our U.S. policy will maintain continuity and stability and we are willing to develop China-U.S. relations in a coordinated, cooperative and stable manner with the American side.

The foreign minister said the U.S.s completely wrong policies on China were to blame for unprecedented difficulties between the two countries in recent years. He mentioned, recent U.S. policies towards China had harmed the interests of both countries and brought huge dangers to the world.

On Thursday, The New York Stock Exchange started the process of delisting securities of three Chinese telecom companies, China Telecom Corporation Limited, China Mobile Limited and China Unicom (Hong Kong) Limited.

The move comes after President Donald Trump in November unveiled an executive order barring U.S. investments in Chinese companies that Washington says are owned or controlled by the Chinese military, which could impact some of China's biggest companies.

Relations between the two countries have deteriorated under U.S. President Donald Trump, with growing differences in issues ranging from trade and technology to Hong Kong and the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, there is now an opportunity for the two sides to "open a new window of hope" and begin a new round of dialogue, he said.

Urging Americans to respect China's social system and development path, Wang said, "We know some people in the United States are apprehensive about China's rapid development, but the most sustainable leadership is to constantly move forward yourself, rather than block the development of other countries."

Politicians in the United States have accused China of covering up the outbreak of COVID-19 during its early stages, delaying its response and allowing the disease to spread much further and faster.

But Wang said China had done its utmost to combat the virus's spread, "sounding the alarm" for the rest of the world.

"We raced against time, and were the earliest to report the epidemic to the world," he said. "More and more studies show that the epidemic very probably emerged in many places throughout the world."

Joe Biden sets the tone for US-China ties

Earlier this week, to set the tone concerning the relationship between the two nations, President-elect Joe Biden said that Washington needs to build a coalition of like-minded nations to confront Beijing.

"As we compete with China to hold China's government accountable for its trade abuses, technology, human rights and other fronts, our position would be much stronger when we build coalitions of like-minded partners and allies that make common cause with us in defence of our shared interests and our shared values," Biden said following his briefing with national security and foreign policy agency review team members.

Biden said partnering with other democracies on China would "more than double" the US economic leverage over the country.

"We are almost 25 per cent of the global economy on our own, but together with our democratic partners, we more than double our economic leverage," he said.

On any issue that matters to the US-China relationship, Biden said, "We are stronger and more effective when we are flanked by nations that share our vision for the future of our world."





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Twenty Indian Army personnel including a colonel were killed in a fierce clash with Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh on June 15 night, the biggest military confrontation in over five decades that has significantly escalated the already volatile border standoff in the region. Indian security forces said neither side fired any shots, instead throwing rocks and trading blows. This happened during the de-escalation process in Ladakh's Galwan Valley. Indians light candles to pay tributes to Indian soldiers killed during the confrontation with Chinese soldiers. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)

Flying the flags of Grand-Admiral Zheng He, 48 great ships of the line rounded the coast of Ceylon in February 1411. The 30,000 soldiers they bore had come to deliver the wrath of Zhu-Di, the third emperor of the Ming, who Ceylons king, Vira Alagakkonara, had refused to acknowledge as the son of heaven. Their dens and hideouts we ravaged, the scholar Timothy Brook records Zhu-Dis advisor Yang Rong having written, and made captive that entire country, bringing back to our August capital their women, children, families and retainers.

Zhu-Di left behind a stele introducing himself to the Buddha, the Vishnu of Tenamram and Allah, bearing the date 15 November, 1409: he was, it said, The King of Great China, supreme overlord of kings, full-orbed moon in splendour. He made generous offerings to the deities: A thousand qian of gold, 5,000 qian of silver, silk , scented oil and incense.

Fei Xin, a soldier on the expedition, noted the outcome: Now, the barbarians are respectful.

This New Year, that ancient war will seem strangely familiar to Indias strategic establishment. Even as Indian troops remain locked in a high-altitude standoff with the Peoples Liberation Army in Ladakh, Beijing has expanded its influence across the region. In Nepal, where Indias status as regional hegemon was once unchallenged, Beijing has acquired not just economic influence, but real political heft. Bangladeshs military relationship with the PLA Navy has expanded. President Mahinda Rajapaksas regime has sought to contain Indian influence in Sri Lanka.

Although Beijing has slowed the pace of its investments in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, leaving Islamabad deeply dependent on Western aid, the deep strategic alliance between the two countries remains robust. Even in Bhutan, arguably Indias closest regional ally, many voices are arguing for a greater opening to China.

The problems arent confined to Indias near-neighbourhood alone. Though angry words from European capitals on Chinas human rights record enthused some in India, the reality is somewhat different. Brussels COVID-19-battered economies and Beijing have signed a new Free Trade Agreement that, in the view of many experts, gives the dragon far too many concessions. Even Indias closest allies in East Asiaamong them, Japan and Australiahave signed on to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership treaty, which will, inexorably, bind their economic destinies to those of China.

In New Delhis foreign policy community, some hope President-elect Joseph Biden will move to contain China, delivering on the largely empty threats of his predecessor. They havent been listening, though, to the plain words of Bidens closest advisors. Trying to fully decouple, as some have suggested, from China, incoming Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a recent speech, is unrealistic and ultimately counter-productive. It would be a mistake.

For Biden, growing racial tensions at homecoupled with the rage of the first youth cohort since the Great Depression to face the prospect of being poorer than its parentsare the principal issues he must confront as President. American greatness may be a warmth-inducing idea; it involves cold cash, though, that the United States is not going to be willing to bring to the table.

President Bidens administration may thus use punitive economic measures to dismantle unfair trade practices, or to signal displeasure at Chinese military aggression on its peripheries, but it is profoundly unlikely to enmesh itself in strategic conflict. Even in the event of the military coercion of Taiwan, extending to an actual invasion, few believe Biden would go to war.

Lawrence Freedman, the great scholar of war, defined strategy thus: identifying objectives; and about the resources and methods for meeting such objectives. Faced with this bleak geopolitical landscapeand a strategic adversary whose economy, by some estimates, will overtake that of the United States by 2028Indias China strategy has for the most been forged from hot words. Iron will, indomitable courage, and the will not to concede an inch of sovereign territory are all rousing ideas: Without a coherent strategy, though, they mean nothing.

Three cold facts now ought to guide Indian thinking. First, fantasies that the dragon will be tied down by an alliance of the West need to be abandoned. The China-EU Agreement should make clear that, while the Western powers may deny access to some high-technology sectors, they are not considering a wider decoupling of their economies from China. The world is simply unwilling to follow India down the path of cutting itself off from Chinas wealth.

Secondly, this: Indias own military means are under severe strain. It is no secret that, for many years now, Indias defence budgets, as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, have been the lowest since the war of 1962. The large bulk of that spending goes into meeting fixed liabilities like salaries, leaving little for modernisation and thus widening the asymmetry with the PLA. There is little doubt the crippling impact of COVID-19 will increase these pressures: The Indian Navy, for example, has already deferred its hopes of building a 200-ship fleet, and slashed its acquisitions of a number of weapons systems.

Illusions that Indias own weakness might be mitigated by alliances, thirdly, need to be abandoned. Even though regional states concerned at the existential threats they face might act to protect their own interestsit is even conceivable that Japan, South Korea and Australia seek independent nuclear deterrentsthey will not take the risk of confronting the PLA on Indias behalf.

New Delhi can reasonably hope its allies will assist with technology and weapons systems, as they have Taiwan; access to and absorption of those technologies will, however, be limited by Indias economic resources. In the long term, growing Indias economy will mitigate these problemsbut the long term does nothing to solve Indias strategic problems today.

Fighting back against Chinas emergence as Asias preeminent power will, instead, require genuine strategic innovation. Instead of match the PLAs gargantuan spendingan un-winnable competition even Taiwans cutting-edge military has long ago abandonedIndian military strategists will need to ask themselves some hard questions. For example, its work questioning if the resources pumped into armoured formations set up to penetrate deep into Pakistan are still being spent wisely in times where nuclear weapons make such wars profoundly unlikely.

Indian strategists need, moreover, to avoid being drawn into the kind of conflict the PLA might wish them to fight. Defending every inch of Indian territory is an idea that has acquired almost theological authority in Indian military minds. Yet, it has led, in the ongoing Ladakh standoff, to resources being committed to territory of no conceivable strategic value.

The PLA, with its vastly superior logistical resources, can rapidly move in more troops along the middle sector this coming springtying down even more Indian soldiers, and bleeding the Armys resources.

Given these realities, it may also be worth carefully considering what a genuinely defensible line on Indias eastern borders might beand preparing to wage short, sharp wars of attrition should it be violated. Liu Mingfu, a scholar at Chinas National Defence University, estimated in a 2012 report that 70 percent of the PLAs troops were only sonsa number rising to 80 percent among combat troops. Facing an adversary growing cohort of aged people, with ancient cultural norms against sending only sons to war, such a strategy might offer India greater deterrent heft at lower cost.

Pitted against Megara in 161CE stood the mighty army of Antigonus II, his elephants lined up for the final, crushing assault on its walls. Then, the historian Polyaenus, the Megarians daubed some swine with pitch, set fire to it, and let them loose among the elephants. The pigs grunted and shrieked under the torture of the fire, and sprang forwards as hard as they could among the elephants, who broke their ranks in confusion and fright, and ran off in different directions.

In war, victory doesnt go to the strong, but the smart. For India to be able to live in the dragons shadow will need open-mind strategic reflection and creativity of the highest order.
All London primary schools will remain shut next week, the Education Secretary has confirmed, as the capital battles with high levels of coronavirus infections.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan welcomed the U-turn after previously expressing dismay at the ridiculous Government decision to order some pupils in the capital to return to their classrooms next week despite the city being in the grip of a fresh wave of Covid transmissions.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said the decision to close all London primary schools had been a last resort.

Mr Khan said: It is good news that the Government has finally seen sense and announced this U-turn.

Moving further parts of London to remote education really is a last resort and a temporary solution Education Secretary Gavin Williamson

The Governments original decision was ridiculous and has been causing immense confusion for parents, teachers and staff across the capital.

It is right that all schools in London are treated the same, and that no primary schools in London will be forced to open on Monday.

I would like to thank Nick Gibb, the education minister, for engaging with me in constructive conversations over the past two days.

No one wants our children out of schools longer than necessary. Everybody must now focus on bearing down on the virus so that our schools can reopen safely as soon as possible.

From Monday January 4, London primary schools will be required to provide remote learning for two weeks to all children except vulnerable and critical worker children, who will be permitted to continue to attend.

Under the Governments initial plan, secondary schools and colleges were set to be closed to most pupils for the first two weeks of January, while primary schools within 50 local authorities in London and the south of England were also told to keep their doors shut until January 18.

Expand Close Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has welcomed the decision to keep schools shut (Stefan Rousseau/PA) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has welcomed the decision to keep schools shut (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

But in a reversal of those primary school proposals, Cabinet minister Mr Williamson said: Moving further parts of London to remote education really is a last resort and a temporary solution.

As infection rates rise across the country, and particularly in London, we must make this move to protect our country and the NHS.

We will continue keep the list of local authorities under review, and reopen classrooms as soon as we possibly can.

Leaders of eight London boroughs had written to the Education Secretary formally asking him to reverse the decision to reopen primary schools in selected areas.

They pointed out that some local authority areas on the closure list had lower infection rates than those where schools had been told to reopen.

The Leaders of the London boroughs where primary schools have been asked to return on Monday have written to Gavin Williamson formally asking him to reverse this decision, which isnat supported by the evidence. pic.twitter.com/2Ek7lLlwtQ  Richard Watts (@RichardWatts01) December 31, 2020

According to Covid rates compiled by the PA news agency, Greenwich  which was not on the closure list  had 2,176 new cases recorded in the seven days to December 26 compared to list-featuring Kensington and Chelseas 768 new cases in the same period.

The leaders of the boroughs of Islington, Camden, Hackney, Lambeth, Lewisham, Greenwich, Haringey and Harrow all signed the letter.

On December 15, Greenwich was forced to withdraw advice asking schools to switch to online learning amid rising coronavirus rates following threats of legal action by the Education Secretary.

Labours shadow education secretary Kate Green said the last-minute nature of the London schools decision had caused huge stress for pupils, families and staff, with only a matter of days to go before the new term was due to commence.

Councillor Richard Watts, leader of Islington Council  which was threatened with legal action by the Government last month after it proposed switching to online teaching  said it was unacceptable that the decision had been taken so late.

Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said the announcement affecting London should also apply to the rest of the country.

What is right for London is right for the rest of the country, she said.

It is time for the Government to protect its citizens, and in particular its children, by shutting all primary schools for two weeks in order for the situation to be properly assessed, schools made much safer and children and their families protected.

PA
Moderna's single-dose COVID-19 vaccine in India likely next year; Pfizer ready with 5 crore doses for 2021

Coronavirus cases: Three test positive for COVID-19 who returned to Kolkata from UK

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

Kolkata, Jan 02: As many as three more people, who returned to Kolkata from London on December 20, have been detected with COVID-19, prompting authorities to send their samples for genome sequencing to ascertain whether they were infected with the new and more contagious strain of the disease found in the UK.

"All three have been kept in isolation in a state-run hospital in Kolkata," said a health department official.

Parts of north India sees rainfall amid shivering temperatures

Earlier two people, who had returned on the same flight on December 20, were detected with COVID-19. One of them was later found to be carrying the new strain.

The five were among the 222 passengers, who arrived in Kolkata from London on December 20. That was the last flight to have arrived from London before the government suspended all flights from the UK from December 23.

A dry run for COVID-19 vaccination was separately scheduled to be launched in West Bengal on Saturday. Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, and Gujarat earlier conducted dry runs.

Vaccines to be provided for free across India, says health min | Oneindia News

"Three areas in North 24 Parganas district - Amdanga, Duttabad, and Madhyamgram -- have been selected for the dry run in West Bengal," said a second official.

Out of the 5,53,000 COVID-19 cases in West Bengal, at least 11,60,00 cases have been registered in North 24 Parganas followed by 12,30,00 in Kolkata.
When Mark Andrews signed up to the police force when he was just 18, he had no idea of what he was in for or the unimaginable situations which would go on to haunt him.

Now 51, the former New South Wales police sergeant spent over two decades responding to horrific car crashes, extreme violence, bloody crime scenes - and he also witnessed autopsies of dead babies.

While he was quietly battling un-diagnosed PTSD and afraid of going to bed at night, four of his mates ended their lives - and it was a wake up call that prompted the stoic officer to reach out and get help.

When Mark Andrews signed up to the police force when he was just 18 (pictured), he had no idea of what he was in for or the unimaginable situations which would go on to haunt him

'You feel so alone with your thoughts and feelings and think something is wrong with you. We just dealt with the emotions by drinking a carton of beer and going home - there was no debrief,' Mr Andrews told the Daily Telegraph.

He recalled his first day on the job when he was taken to Westmead morgue in Sydney and watched on as an autopsy was carried out on a baby.

It was his first experience with a dead body and it was something he was not prepared for.

The father-of-three said at that time asking for help would have been seen as a 'sign of weakness' so he just continued on with his career going from one traumatic event to the next.

'I had a lady die on me... her partner was behind me dead and she was telling me: "Please don't let me die",' Mr Andrews said.

Although he had witnessed the stomach-turning aftermath of car accidents for about 10 years, one double fatal crash 'broke' him shortly after he became a new parent.

On average police officers are almost four times more likely to experience PTSD compared to the rest of the population, according to Beyond Blue (pictured, a suspect is bundled into a police vehicle in Sydney on drug charges)

A forensic police officer examines the scene of a drive-by shooting in Condell Park, Sydney, October, 19, 2020

Police interview witnesses after an alleged knife attack at a pizza shop in Sydney's Merrylands

Horror as a body is found inside a burning car in Sydney's west on October 31, 2020

He likened the tragic incident to a full glass of water that finally overflows with just one more drop.

When four of his mates killed themselves in 2013 it was the last straw.

'I feel like I've been given a life sentence and I just have to carry and manage my PTSD until I die. There's no support whatsoever. I'm a grown man scared of going to sleep it's just not normal,' Mr Andrews said.

On average police officers are almost four times more likely to experience PTSD compared to the rest of the population, according to Beyond Blue.

Mr Andrews is now calling for police officers to be better supported in the wake of PTSD and wants to see less 'red-tape' when it comes to asking for help.

His pleas come just one month after a Sydney police officer took his own life while on duty.

Sergeant Matthew Theoklis was a father of three-year-old twins and was found dead in an office of a police station in Sydney

Sergeant Matthew Theoklis was a father of three-year-old twins and was found dead in an office of a police station on Goulburn Street in Surry Hills at 7.30am on November 30.

His fiancee Rebekah, is also a member of the NSW Police Force.

The father had worked as a policeman for the past 15 years and was stationed with the Eastern Beaches Police Area Command.

If you or anyone you know is in need of mental health support you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.
On the FactCheck page, The Associated Press tracks down some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals that were shared widely on social media. The AP takes those untrue stories, checks them out and sets the records straight in this weekly series of news articles.


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WASHINGTON  While the coronavirus pandemic raged this year, congressional offices received a barrage of calls, emails and tweets from desperate constituents.

When constituents didn't receive their stimulus check, the phones rang. When they were stuck abroad as borders closed and flights were canceled, the phones rang. When small businesses struggled to get Paycheck Protection Program loans, the phones rang.

Many congressional offices saw constituent casework dramatically spike this year compared to previous years as more people sought help with issues involving federal agencies. The office of U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, told the Times Union it opened 1,972 constituent cases in 2020, up from 857 in 2019.

"My office has seen casework nearly double this year," said U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. "The frequency of cases regarding food and housing insecurity, health care and unemployment insurance have increased while we have worked to solve new issues for constituents that were trapped abroad or need help navigating (Paycheck Protection Program) loans, economic impact payments, and more. Its clear that this pandemic has put many New Yorkers in need of help and my staff is working hard to deliver it.

At the start of the pandemic, when the U.S. issued travel bans and many commercial flights were canceled, New York congressional offices helped hundreds of travelers - who were stranded in countries like Morocco, Argentina, Ukraine, Honduras, Guatemala, Sierra Leone, Spain, France, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Austria, Peru, Thailand, the Philippines, Columbia, and Zimbabwe - get access to repatriation flights through the U.S. Department of State. Some constituents were also stuck on cruise ships in various locations.

The staff of Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., helped New York hospitals expedite visas for health care workers from foreign countries so more doctors could begin their medical residencies in New York or return to work after they traveled outside the U.S. prior to travel restrictions.

"This year, there was a torrent of cases due to the pandemic including an overwhelming number of cases related to being stranded overseas, processing aid through the SBA for countless restaurants and small businesses throughout the state, tracking down answers from the IRS on desperately needed stimulus checks that were never delivered and much more," said Allison Biasotti, a spokeswoman for Schumer. "A small staff worked around the clock to respond to the urgent needs of many thousands of constituents, and more often than not, secured positive results."

When a Sullivan County facility specializing in treating behavioral disorders received about $13,000 in pandemic relief funds, Gillibrand's office intervened with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, helped them expedite an application for second-round funding and get over $1 million for the center, an aide said.

Caseworkers put in extra hours to keep up with the giant influx, as they worked remotely and tried to contact agencies that were also working remotely or sometimes, partially closed. At the start of the pandemic, the office of U.S. Rep. Antonio Delgado, D-Rhinebeck, had staff working every weekend to respond to constituent calls, an aide said.

They dealt with glitches and loopholes amid brand new relief programs Congress had invented and agency delays caused by staff shortages, mail delays and other issues. In addition to working on legislation, they tackled constituent issues big to small  one congressional office in Connecticut said it helped a frantic mother of three get toilet paper during the early quarantine shortage.

Congressional offices also saw a great spike in communications from constituents waiting to get their stimulus check or experiencing delays getting their 2019 tax refund.

Although over 9.8 million New Yorkers have received their checks, the Times Union found hundreds of residents are still waiting for that help to arrive, even with the assistance of congressional offices.

Congress approved another round of smaller, $600 economic payments in the stimulus bill passed the night of Dec. 27, so caseworkers forecast theyll be helping more people with these payments in 2021.

Similarly, a dash to access the popular and forgivable Paycheck Protection Program loans for small businesses also prompted many constituents to reach out for help.

There, too, congressional staff believe the phones will keep ringing. Congress has also approved a second round of Paycheck Protection Program loans for businesses with fewer than 300 employees who could demonstrate revenue declines, and they broadened the forgivable uses for first round loans.

U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, did not respond to requests for comment on her casework.
An Indian expatriate in the UAE has entered the Guinness World Records for the 19th time, after he unveiled a 8.2 square metre giant pop-up greeting card, commemorating the 15th Accession Day of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, according to a media report on Saturday. Ramkumar Sarangapani, a Dubai resident, now holds the most number of world records by an individual in the UAE and India, the Gulf News reported.

Sarangapanis pop up greetings card is 100 times larger than the regular pop-up cards. Inside, it has a collage of Sheikh Mohammeds paintings created by Dubai-based artist Akbar Saheb, the newspaper said. While the pop-up card dedicated to Sheikh Mohammed has a closed surface area of 8.20 square metres, the previous record, which was set in Hong Kong, was of 6.729 square metres.

Sarangapanis card has dimensions of 4 metres in length and 2.05 metres in width. The cards outer cover is the winning bid of Expo 2020, the daily reported. Speaking to Gulf News, Sarangapani said, I had been working on this for the last six months and was waiting for the most opportune time to break this record to make it very special for the nation. And there couldnt have been a more auspicious occasion than the 15th Accession Day of Sheikh Mohammed while I also dedicate this to the 50th anniversary year of the UAEs formation. The card will be exhibited at Doha centre here from January 4 to 18, as part of the UAEs National Day celebrations. COVID-19 precautionary measures will be in place at the exhibition centre, officials said.

The other records held by Sarangapani include the largest sentence made using magnets, largest word using magnets, largest electronic greeting card, smallest pack of playing cards, among others. Sarangapani, who shifted from Chennai to Dubai 17 years ago, specially thanked artist Saheb for his contributions to the pop-up greeting card.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 2)  A graduating Philippine National Police Academy cadet is facing administrative charges after allegedly mauling his fellow senior cadet on Thursday, the PNP said on Friday.

In a statement, the PNP said PGen Debold Sinas directed the academy's Directorate for Human Resource and Doctrine Development to place all cadets involved in the incident under restriction while termination and dismissal proceedings are underway.

The PNP has no tolerance for wrongdoing of erring personnel, and will never tolerate any misconduct, abuse or breach of discipline, Sinas was quoted as saying.

According to initial investigation, Cadet 1st Class Denvert Dulansi allegedly mauled Cadet 1st Class Joab Nacnasat at the roof deck of a school building in Camp Castaneda, Silang, Cavite at around 11 p.m.

Nacnasat reportedly cautioned Dulansi and two other cadets when he found them drinking alcoholic beverages at the roof deck. Authorities said there was a heated argument.

The PNP said Nacnasat was rushed to nearby Qualimed Hospital and was declared in stable condition.

The Silang Municipal Police Station is conducting an investigation.
Steven Keith is a food writer for the Charleston Gazette-Mail and www.WVFoodGuy.com. He can be reached at 304-380-6096 or wvfoodguy@aol.com. You can also follow him on Facebook as WV Food Guy and on Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest as WVFoodGuy.
Union home minister Amit Shah on Saturday released the inaugural issue of National Police K-9 Journal.

The publication of the Police K9 Journal is another step in creating an ecosystem in the country to train and learn on augmenting this vital resource. The journal comprises different sections in Hindi and English, the Home Ministry said in a release.

This is a unique initiative which will further enrich the subjects related to Police Service Canine (K-9) (PSK) teams in the country, Amit Shah said while inaugurating the book.

The Union home minister further said, National security is paramount and our government is making sincere efforts to give equal attention to all aspects related to security. The police dog squad can act as a force multiplier to ensure the safety of society, much like the way drones or satellites are being used in the country.

Amit Shah added, They can be used effectively to detect drugs and in the fight against terrorism.

The event was attended by Union home secretary Ajay Bhalla, Director General of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) and senior ranking police officers of the Forces, while CAPF personnel from all over the country attended through a virtual conference.

A special Police K9 Cell was established in November 2019 under the Police Modernisation Division of the ministry of home affairs with the mandate of Mainstreaming and Augmentation of Police Service K9s in the country.

Apart from security personnel, a few eminent foreign experts have also contributed their articles in the inaugural issue. It is a biannual journal which will be released in April and October every year, home ministry said.
The chilling vantage point a fly-in-fly-out sniper may have used to take out a bikie kingpin has emerged - as the Perth racetrack where he was gunned down welcomed back crowds for the first time since the shooting.

Former Rebels bikie boss Nick Martin, 51, was shot in the back at the Outlaw Nitro Challenge drag racing event at the Perth Motorplex, Kwinana Beach at 8.30pm on Saturday, December 12.

He died at the scene in front of horrified families and children including his own wife and step-daughter.

Martin told his wife Amanda: 'babe, I've been shot' as she tried to give him CPR while he died in her arms.

The spot on the racecourse where the sniper may have laid in wait for Martin is only metres away from the one police are investigating as the gunman's possible position.

Crowds meanwhile returned to the popular Perth Motorplex on Saturday for the first time since the public shooting that shocked the nation.

Revealed: The possible position where the sniper who executed Rebels bikie boss Nick Martin may have been shooting from. The spot is located not far from where police are investigating

Nick Martin (pictured) was shot in the back at the Perth Motorplex on December 12 in front of horrified families who were trying to watch the nitro cars high-octane drag racing

The chaos at the racetrack on December 12 in Perth after Martin was executed is pictured

More than 150 teams participated in the 2021 Nitro Slam including Nitro Funny Cars and Burning Dragsters, bringing high-octane excitement back to Kwinana Beach.

Security was tight with entrants randomly scanned with metal detectors.

Police and security guards patrolled the crowds but no violence was reported.

WA Police have not revealed any new leads since the public execution despite several arrests and raids immediately following the shooting.

Police have posted a $1 million reward for information but have not yet said if they have identified any suspects in the gangland killing.

A photograph taken on the opposite side of the racing lanes from where Martin was sitting with his family, on the edge of a grandstand, shows a clear line of sight to the target.

One of the possible shooter locations previously identified at the Perth Motorplex. A long shot would indicate a sniper, experts say

Another man, convicted drug dealer Ricky Chapman, was injured in the shooting at the Kwinana raceway, south of Perth.

Police said the same bullet that killed Martin had passed through to hurt Chapman - and a bullet fragment was recovered from his arm.

Queensland University of Technology associate professor of criminology Mark Lauchs, an expert on outlaw motorcycle gangs said if the shot was taken from a distance then it was likely by a professional sniper as bikies don't typically have great marksmanship skills.

Martin (pictured) died in the arms of his wife Amanda as she tried to give him CPR. His last words were: 'babe, I've been shot'

'If it's from a long way away, I would assume it's not bikie related as that's not how bikies do things,' he told Daily Mail Australia last month.

'It may be associated with things other than a bikie war.'

Professor Lauchs said a deliberate execution of this type would be more likely to do with organised crime than an inter-club bikie war or an internal club dispute.

Police are so far tight-lipped about whether they have identified any suspects in the public execution of Nick Martin (pictured)

WA Police are reportedly trying to work out whether the sniper shot the bikie from an area close to bushland on the edge of the motor complex.

It is thought that surveillance cameras at the complex might yield some clues to the public killing that shocked the nation, with a toilet block 20 metres from where Martin was sitting thought to be the most valuable.

Media speculation has offered up many possible theories such as that a fly-in foreign professional might have been used for the hit, or that the killer may have used a spotter close to Nick Martin to keep him informed of his target's movements.

Mr Lauchs told Daily Mail Australia that bikies were more direct, preferring brute force and open violence such as drive-by shootings and bashings to settle inter-club bikie war or internal club disputes.

He said a deliberate execution of this type would be more likely to do with organised crime.

Rebels bikie Nick Martin was riden in to Pinnaroo Cemetery in a coffin covered in pictures of $100 bills (pictured) at his extravagant bikie funeral on December 23

Pictured: Rebels bikies embrace at the funeral of Nick Martin in Perth on December 23

A $1 million reward has been offered for information leading to the arrest of the shooter who killed Nick Martin, 51, (pictured with wife Amanda)

Big outlaw motorcycle clubs often had individuals within them involved with organised crime even when the club itself was not an organised criminal group, he said.

Hundreds of mourners gathered on December 23 to farewell the former Rebels president at his Pinnaroo Valley Memorial Park funeral - the majority turning up in patched Rebels colours.

Martin's coffin was covered in pictures of $100 bills and Bob Dylan's All Along the Watchtower played as bikies took turns to walk up and touch it as it was brought in under a marquee for the service.

The public were shocked by the brazen execution which happened right in front of families. Pictured: the scene on the night of the shooting

More than 200 bikies from the Rebels and other clubs attended Martin's funeral

The public execution sparked fears of an bikie war, and WA Police launched Taskforce Ravello to find the killer.

Bikie compounds and properties were raided across Perth in December but no leads have been made public.

A five-year-old child also suffered a minor injury in the shooting.

WA Police Assistant Commissioner Brad Royce said in December there had been a 'fantastic response' to a Crime Stoppers appeal for information about the murder with anonymity guaranteed.

'Whilst you might think at this stage you're in the clear, there's a lot of people who know what you've done,' he said.

'They'll be close to you, they'll be looking at the reward, they'll be looking at the pressure on their lives, they'll be looking at the threat to their families and what may happen, and it's highly likely they will talk.'
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Sony has had a pretty good year, all things considered, and had a number of TVs out in 2020. The company implemented a few design changes to their A8H and X90 series of TVs, giving people more options when it comes to placing their TVs on a table-top. It gave users two different positions to place the TV. The company also launched the much-awaited PS5 internationally with an India release date set for February 2. But, thats not all as a YouTube teaser posted by Sony seems to suggest that the company is looking at launching a BRAVIA TV at CES 2021 on January 7.

Apart from the teaser there seems to be no other info about the TV as yet, so its likely that Sony is holding its cards close to its chest. With that in mind, we can, at the very least, speculate on what features we can expect in the new TVs. With only one HDMI 2.1 port on the X90, it is possible that we see maybe more than one more HDMI 2.1 port on the new TV? Who knows. Considering LG has a large portfolio of HDMI 2.1 enabled TVs, it is likely that Sony has something planned as far as multiple HDMI 2.1 ports a re concerned.

LG, on the other hand, are betting big on Micro LED with its QNED TV, which seems to be the next step in the companys display tech. So, until CES officially starts, all we can really do is speculate on what the new BRAVIA TV will look like and what features will it come with.
New Delhi, Jan 2 : Lockdown measures in some of the key export markets subdued India's merchandise exports in December 2020, preliminary data showed on Saturday.

Accordingly, the country's merchandise exports during the month under review receded by 0.80 per cent to $26.89 billion from $27.11 billion in December 2019.

"India's merchandise exports in December 2020 was $26.89 billion, as compared to $27.11 billion in December 2019, a marginal fall of 0.80 per cent," a Ministry of Commerce and Industry statement said on the basis of preliminary data.

"Exports during April-December 2020-21 were $200.55 billion, as compared to $238.27 billion during the same period last year, exhibiting a negative growth of 15.8 per cent."
Footage posted by the president's eldest son showed dozens of revelers packed in on the dancefloor as Ice performed his hit song 'Ice, Ice Baby' at the president's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida

The partygoers did not appear to be wearing masks and were not social distancing

Trump Jr. wrote that the star gave him a 'birthday shoutout' as he turned 43 on New Year's Eve

Rudy Giuliani was spotted in separate footage slow dancing with a woman to Sinatra's 'New York, New York'

This comes after Giuliani was hospitalized with COVID-19 in early December

The president's Palm Beach social club played host to the huge New Year's Eve gala despite the pandemic

It disregarded local Palm Beach County guidelines that masks must be worn inside all businesses

Trump was absent from the celebrations as he returned to Washington DC at the last minute

Hundreds of partygoers packed inside the private club where tickets cost $1,000 per person

Footage from inside Mar-a-Lago's New Year's Eve bash showed Vanilla Ice performing to a crowd of hundreds of maskless partygoers as Don Trump Jr. boasted on social media that the rapper gave him a birthday shoutout.

Smartphone video posted online by the president's eldest son showed dozens of revelers packed in on the dancefloor - not social distancing or wearing masks - as Ice performed his hit song 'Ice, Ice Baby' and Wild Cherrys 'Play That Funky Music'.

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Trump Jr. told the camera 'that was pretty awesome' and wrote that the star gave him a 'birthday shoutout' as he turned 43 on New Year's Eve.

'Ok this is amazing. Vanilla Ice is playing the Mar-a-Lago New Years Eve party. As a child of the 90s you can't fathom how awesome that is. Beyond that I got the birthday shoutout so that's pretty amazing,' he wrote.

Also at the event was Trump's personal attorney and the man who spearheaded much of his election legal battle Rudy Giuliani who was spotted in separate footage slow dancing up close with a woman to Frank Sinatra's 'New York, New York'.

This comes after Giuliani was hospitalized with COVID-19 in early December and given a cocktail of drugs, sparking outrage that Trump's friend - who repeatedly shunned masks - skipped the line to get treatment that is in short supply.

The president's Palm Beach social club played host to the huge New Year's Eve gala which disregarded coronavirus safety guidelines but in place by his own administration as cases, deaths and hospitalizations soar to record levels across America.

Footage from inside Mar-a-Lago's New Year's Eve bash showed Vanilla Ice performing to a crowd of hundreds of maskless partygoers a

Don Trump Jr. boasted on social media that the rapper gave him a birthday shoutout

Smartphone video posted online showed dozens of revelers packed in on the dancefloor - not social distancing or wearing masks - as Ice performed his hit song 'Ice, Ice Baby' and Wild Cherrys 'Play That Funky Music'

'Ok this is amazing. Vanilla Ice is playing the Mar-a-Lago New Years Eve party. As a child of the 90s you can't fathom how awesome that is. Beyond that I got the birthday shoutout so that's pretty amazing,' Trump's eldest son wrote

Guests also appeared to flout local Palm Beach County guidelines that masks must be worn inside all businesses and establishments.

Absent from the celebrations was President Donald Trump who, in a last-minute change of plans, returned to Washington DC with First Lady Melania to try to resolve the highly-anticipated COVID relief bill.

But the party went on without him and hundreds of partygoers packed inside the private club where tickets cost $1,000 per person.

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As well as the president's eldest son, many of his family members turned out for the shindig including Trump Jr's girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle, Eric Trump and his wife Lara, Tiffany Trump, Representative Matt Gaetz and vocal Trump ally and businessman Mike Lindell.

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Guests danced to performances from Vanilla Ice, two members of the Beach Boys and Teri Nunn from the band Berlin while dining on a menu that included 'Mr. Trump's Wedge Salad,' cheese tortellini and a Wagyu beef entree.

It is not clear how many people attended exactly but more than 500 people had made reservations, according to the Palm Beach Post.

Also at the event was Trump's personal attorney and the man who spearheaded much of his election legal battle Rudy Giuliani who was spotted in separate footage slow dancing up close with a woman to Frank Sinatra's 'New York, New York'

Hundreds of partygoers packed inside the private club where tickets cost $1,000 per person

Giuliani shakes hands with a guest. Giuliani was hospitalized with COVID-19 in early December and given a cocktail of drugs, sparking outrage that Trump's friend - who repeatedly shunned masks - skipped the line to get treatment that is in short supply

Inside the huge function room before the revelers arrived for the glittering Palm Beach bash

Guests dined on a menu that included 'Mr. Trump's Wedge Salad,' cheese tortellini and a Wagyu beef entree

The Trumps: The president's children gathered at his Mar-a-Lago estate for his annual New Year's Eve gala on Thursday

Donald Trump Jr, who turned 43 today, and girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle shared a video message on Facebook wishing his supporters a happy new year from Mar-a-Lago

Hundreds of people typically attend the bash. The main ballroom can hold 700 people and there are smaller ballrooms available to add to the crowd size.

Tickets to the event were going for $1,000 each, one person attending the gala told DailyMail.com. A person has to be a member of Mar-a-Lago or a guest of a member in order to attend.

Earlier in the evening, the president's eldest son Donald Trump Jr and his girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle shared a video message wishing everyone a happy new year from the venue.

'We just wanted to wish you guys an incredible new year. Obviously 2020 has been a little bit nuts and rather crazy, I don't think anyone's going to be upset about moving on from this one,' Don Jr, said.

Eric Trump, 36, shared a photo alongside wife Lara as they celebrated the end of 2020 at the Palm Beach resort

Lara Trump, who shares a son and daughter with Eric, put the kids to bed before heading off to the celebration

The New Year's Eve gala is an annual tradition that pre-dates Trump's time in the White House. Last year, Trump walked the red carpet with his wife Melania and their son Barron.

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner also attended with their children. Donald Trump Jr. was accompanied by one of his sons and girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle. Eric Trump and Lara Trump were also there as were Tiffany Trump and her boyfriend Michael Boulos.

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Prominent Trump friends like Rudy Giuliani have also made an appearance.

As the president returned to White House Thursday, he released a New Year's video message claiming that 'everyone is calling' to thank him for the vaccine.

Trump and first lady Melania Trump held hands as they walked from Marine One toward the White House with the president splitting off from his wife to go to the Oval Office.

Trump also touted his accomplishments with Operation Warp Speed in a bizarre video he shared on Twitter Thursday afternoon.

Rep Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican who recently proposed to girlfriend Ginger Luckey (not pictured) at the resort, was among the guests on Thursday night

Gaetz, who was pictured with two guests, was seen dressed to the nines ahead of the new year, but neglected to wear a mask

The New Year's Eve gala held at the president's second home (pictured) is an annual tradition that pre-dates Trump's time in the White House

'Over and over again, we were told it would be impossible to deliver a vaccine by the end of the year,' Trump said in the five-minute clip.

'All of the experts said, 'Absolutely unthinkable. Trump is exaggerating. It can't happen.' And we did it,' the president said. 'Years from now, they'll be talking about it. They'll be talking about this great, great thing that we did with the vaccines.'

'The world will benefit. We'll benefit. And everybody's calling to thank me,' Trump added.

'To defeat the China virus we launched the largest mobilization since World War II. We transformed our factories to build tens of thousands of ventilators and millions and millions of masks virtually overnight,' Trump said.

'Nobody thought it could be done. We ignored the experts who demanded open borders and we shut down travel from China and Europe to protect our citizens and we built the wall,' Trump said before claiming that his administration's pioneering of new therapies and treatments 'saved millions of American lives'.

Trump said his administration has 'to be remembered for what's been done'.

The video was released the same day Trump returned to the White House.

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Officials at the White House did not give a reason for the return but it coincided with Trump's fight with Congress over his veto of a major defense bill, his demand for increased COVID stimulus checks, and the January 6th electoral college certification, which Republicans plan to object. It also came amid increased tensions with Iran.

2019: President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump are pictured at last year's New Year's Eve party at Mar-a-Lago

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump walk from Marine One toward the White House after returning to Washington D.C. from Florida a day earlier than planned
As India prepares for the world's largest immunisation exercise, the much sought after Covid-19 vaccine will be made available to various groups in order of priority. The vaccine will, however, be voluntary.

The government is currently sifting through the latest electoral roll for the Lok Sabha and legislative assemblies to identify the population aged 50 years or more. While this group is among the first in line for the vaccine, after health care and frontline workers, the government may give priority to those above 60 years of age based on the availability of the vaccine. The ...
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My dear Cheerio Sirisena,

I am not sure whether writing to you is the best thing to do first in the New Year, but I am doing so not only to wish you a very happy 2021 but also because you had made some interesting comments a few days ago, saying you want to go it alone with the Blue party if you are not given your due place.

You were referring to the ill-treatment you and the Blue party you lead suffer at the hands of Gota maama and the pohottuwa chaps. You said that it happened at the general election last year and you were worried that it would happen again if provincial council elections are held this year.

Now, no one would argue with you about what you are saying, Cheerio Sirisena. That ill-treatment continued well after the election when the Cabinet and state ministers were chosen. Only two chaps from the Blue party, the senior Nimal and Mahinda Amarey were accommodated in the Cabinet.

Others from the Blue party were simply ignored or demoted. That is why we have a situation where relative newcomers such as Sabry and Sarath are in the Cabinet while seniors such as Susil, Dayasiri and Duminda, all of them previous party secretaries, have been demoted to being just state ministers.

The biggest omission was you. There was speculation that you will be given a special post, to keep you happy- and silent. There was also a rumour that you will be the new Speaker. That didnt happen either. Some say you didnt take up what you were given because you werent happy with that post.

As a result, you are now only a parliamentarian, just as Mahinda maama was after he lost the election to you. While we readily agree with you that the Blues are being given step-motherly treatment and you have every right to speak up about that, we dont see any reason why you should be surprised.

Isnt that what you did too, after your election victory almost six years ago? You marginalised those who were close to Mahinda maama, demoted them and ignored them. Why, didnt you even make an address to the nation saying that you would never make Mahinda maama PM ever again?

In fact, I think you should be thankful about where you are today. You were the very person who said while contesting the big election against Mahinda maama that you feared you would be six feet under if you lost. For all intents and purposes, you are lost now but at least you are very much alive!

I dont need to tell you, Cheerio Sirisena, that Mahinda maamas greatest strength- and greatest weakness too-is that he protects those loyal to him at all cost. At the same time, if that loyalty is betrayed, he will ensure that the reverse is true. If you have any doubts, just ask the Field Marshall.

Of course, there are many who wonder why former leaders cant just be happy with the time they have had at the top and retire gracefully. Recently, only JR did so though many dont remember him fondly. Mahinda maama, you and even the Green Man seem to have trouble in giving up the reins.

To get back to your original issue- of being ill-treated by Gota maama and the pohottuwa chaps and wanting to go it alone- we must remind you that you did have all the opportunities to go it alone for the best part of five years after the people endorsed you over the tried and tested Mahinda maama.

You began reasonably well, keeping your promises and enacting the 19th Amendment that reduced your powers. As your relationship with the Green Man soured, you took matters in to your own hands and sacked him only to be reprimanded by the courts who said that what you did was unconstitutional.

You didnt cover yourself with glory during the Easter attacks and well before the end of five years, those who wanted a maithree paalanaya were saying Aiyo Sirisena and wanted to get rid of you. I dont think anything has happened since then to convince them that you should return to lead them.

As for going it alone at the provincial polls, isnt that what you did at the last local government elections nearly three years ago. That time too, the pohottuwa chaps swept the board, the Greens finished runners-up and your Blue party came a distant third. Do you want history to repeat itself?

If you are thinking of your place in history, you dont need to worry about it, it is certainly assured. Who else in our entire modern history can claim the distinction of single-handedly destroying the two most powerful political parties which ruled the country for seven decades, Cheerio Sirisena?

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS- In the postscript to your biography, Janaadhipathi Thaaththa, your daughter has written that her proudest moment will be when she writes about how her father gives up all the powers he enjoyed and leaves with clean hands. She would be disappointed now, wouldnt she, Cheerio Sirisena?
It has been a year since Covid-19 began to spread. Which countries did the best job of responding to the pandemic in 2020, and what can we learn from them?

A successful response to Covid-19 turned out to depend on more than a countrys wealth, scientific prowess and history of public health successes. The U.S. enjoys all of these advantages but mounted one of the worst responses to the pandemic: 1 in every 990 Americans has died from Covid-19 since the pandemic began. Bad politics, quite simply, can trump good public health.

Other developed countries that did well initially, such as Canada and some European nations, have faltered during the second or third surge of infections, because their governments and people grew tired of implementing effective strategies. In many Asian countries, it has long been common for people to wear masks when feeling ill, so they adopted masks early and widely.

Best at early action: Taiwan

1 reported Covid-19 death per 3,366,140 people

The worlds first awareness of Covid-19 came from cases among travelers arriving in Taiwan from Wuhan, China. The country quickly halted flights from much of China, quarantined travelers from other areas, stopped cruise ships from docking, implemented widespread testing and quadrupled production of face masks within a month.

Taiwan also provided intensive support, including stipends, to patients with Covid-19 and people with whom they had come into contact, helping to increase adherence to public health recommendations. These early actions were pivotal in keeping Taiwan to under 800 cases all year, while avoiding lockdowns. The U.S. now has more cases and deaths every 5 minutes than Taiwan has had all year.

Best at learning from recent epidemics: Liberia

1 reported Covid-19 death per 55,040 people

Liberia, hard hit by the Ebola epidemic in 2014, was one of the first countries to start screening for Covid-19 at airports and to adopt other control measures, such as rapid testing, complete contact tracing and quarantine. Many other countries in Africa, including Senegal and Uganda, also used their experiences from past disease outbreaks to implement swift, expert, comprehensive responses.

Best at crushing the curve: New Zealand

1 reported Covid-19 death per 204,360 people

Like Taiwan, New Zealand is an island, which makes it far easier to enforce travel bans. Initial models showed that community spread of Covid-19 in New Zealand could potentially overwhelm the health care system. The country began implementing its pandemic influenza plan in February, including preparing hospitals and instituting border control policies. Because New Zealand lacked sufficient testing and contact tracing capacity, national leadership implemented a countrywide lockdown in late March with the goal of eliminating Covid-19 entirely.

By June, the pandemic was declared over in New Zealand, with the country reporting one of the lowest coronavirus-related mortality rates among all 37 OECD nations. Later cases were all from international travelers, who were kept in isolation for two weeks post-arrival, and not from community spread.

Prime Minister Jacinda Arden has exemplified empathetic, clear communication, which greatly increased New Zealanders willingness to cooperate and was essential to the countrys success.

Best location in the U.S.: American Samoa

Deaths from Covid-19: Zero

American Samoa remains the only territory in the U.S. without any Covid-19 cases, in part because health authorities were already on high alert following a measles outbreak in late 2019. In an effort to stave off the virus early, the territory of 55,000 people halted all incoming passenger flights. As a result of this near-total isolation, American Samoa has not had to implement widespread closures, distancing or testing. Similar actions 100 years ago allowed the territory to avoid any deaths from the 1918 influenza pandemic.

Best at testing: South Korea

1 reported Covid-19 death per 63,290 people

When it became clear that people without symptoms could spread Covid-19, South Korea tested early and aggressively, conducting more than twice as many tests per capita as other countries in the pandemics first weeks. Along with other measures, including extensive and highly effective contact tracing and quarantine, this kept cases from increasing rapidly.

Best at quarantining: Hong Kong

1 reported Covid-19 death per 54,810 people

Hong Kong has one of the highest population densities in the world, yet it kept cases low by establishing mandatory isolation protocols and quarantine centers for people with Covid-19 and those who came in close contact with them.

Best economic protection: Denmark

1 reported Covid-19 death per 4,970 people

Some countries excelled at protecting people economically and socially. In Denmark, the government has covered a portion of employees salaries in private companies to avoid large-scale layoffs. Notable mentions go to India, the European Union and Australia, which quickly provided income supplements to lower-income people using electronic cash transfers. Colombia went out of its way to protect vulnerable Venezuelan migrants, who werent eligible for cash transfers, by establishing shelters and food centers.

Best at public communication: Finland

1 reported Covid-19 death per 10,510 people

A few countries have fought rumors and distrust by sharing information with the public widely and openly. Finland, helped by its high media literacy, was able to build on a 2014 initiative that educated people about how to counter false information. One Finnish project partners with social-media influencers to spread accurate information on digital platforms.

South Africa has also excelled at clear communication, including strategic use of an alert-level system that empowers people to understand their risk and helps the government make transparent and balanced decisions about closures. Germanys leaders have also been models of clarity and effective communication, with Chancellor Angela Merkel calling for citizens to exhibit patience, discipline and solidarity"three essential aspects of an effective pandemic response.

Most people, including many health professionals, never imagined the toll that Covid-19 would take. The countries that performed best have learned from their mistakes and used data to continuously improve public health, primary care, emergency response and health communication. Even as we begin to roll out vaccines, we need to keep learning from experience what works in fighting Covid-19.

This isnt the last disease threat our world will face, and the past year has shown that we are all connected: Until every country is safer, all of us are at risk. When the next pandemic strikes, the whole world needs to implement best practices to save lives and protect livelihoods. Now is our opportunity to improve global preparedness; if we dont apply the lessons of 2020 in 2021, we never will.

Dr. Frieden was the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2009 to 2017. He is the president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of the public-health organization Vital Strategies, and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

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The sops for Assam where Assembly election is due in March-April this year were announced by state Congress president Ripun Bora at an interaction with mediapersons

Guwahati: The Congress on Friday sounded the poll bugle in Assam by announcing waiver of farm debts and microfinance loans for women, implementation of minimum income guarantee scheme ''Nyay'', free electricity up to 120 units for the poor and middle class and ensure at least one job for each family.

The sops for Assam where assembly election is due in March-April this year were announced by state Congress president Ripun Bora at an interaction with mediapersons.

"The condition of farmers in the state is deplorable as the cost of production is very high and, without getting the Minimum Support Price (MSP), they are forced to go for distress sale. If the Congress comes to power in the state, it will waive the farmers' debt like it has been done by the party's governments in Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, Punjab and also in Madhya Pradesh earlier under Kamal Nath", Bora said.

People in villages, particularly women, take loans from microfinance organisations and face immense harassment, he said.

A Bill has been unanimously passed in the just concluded assembly session to protect economically vulnerable people, particularly women, from micro finance institutions and money lenders.

"We do not have any issue with it (the Bill), but women empowerment is a priority for the party and when we come to power, all types of micro-finance loans for women will be waived", he said.

Bora said that the Congress will also implement the minimum income guarantee scheme ''Nyuntam Aay Yojana'' (Nyay) which was included in the party''s manifesto in the last Lok Sabha polls.

Nobel laureate economist Abhijit Banerjee helped the party conceptualise the scheme which was implemented by the Congress government in Chattisgarh, he said. The Congress during its earlier term in power had introduced the Rajiv Gandhi Gramya Bidyutikaran Scheme whereby 30 units of free power were given to 13.55 lakh families which the present BJP government is continuing.

"Power supply is a major issue in the state and its price has increased though the income of people has not. If the Congress comes to power, it will provide relief to maximum people with 120 units of free electricity to nearly 60 lakh poor and middle class families," Bora said.

Unemployment is a major problem in the state and though the BJP had promised 25 lakh jobs to the youth, this has turned out to be an "election jumla" as nearly one lakh posts are now lying vacant, he claimed.

The Congress will adopt the policy of ''One Family, One Job'' and though there will be a proper recruitment policy according to merit, "we will ensure that we can provide jobs," the state Congress president said.

Experts are examining this in detail and the operational part will be highlighted in the election manifesto, he added.

Nobody should doubt that these announcements are "mere election promises but everyone should rest assured that the Congress knows how to manage the economy", he said.

The Congress had assumed power at a time when the state treasury was empty and employees were not receiving salaries but on assuming power, then chief minister Tarun Gogoi took initiatives that transformed the state''s economy, Bora said.

The Congress is also committed to protect communal harmony which is a part of the exceptional social fabric of the state, and not divide people on the basis of religion, community and language as the BJP is doing since assuming power, Bora said.

"The BJP's prime agenda is to emotionally exploit people and assume power by dividing people like the British did. Our sole objective is not to capture power but ensure welfare of all people," he said.

He, however, said that he did not want to attack the BJP and talk about negative things on the first day of the new year and decided to highlight the positive steps that the Congress would take for the people of the state.
In the early days of the pandemic, more than 800 distilleries stopped making their usual whiskey, gin, vodka, and other alcoholic beverages. They instead started making hand sanitizer, which at the time was in short supply. This often required retrofitting their equipment and halting production of their core products, but they said they were happy to help their communities.

Now theyre getting an unpleasant reward for their trouble: The FDA is charging them a fee of $14,060 or more.

This has been a nasty surprise for our community of small distillers, says Becky Harris, co-owner of Catoctin Creek Distilling in Virginia, and president of the American Craft Spirits Association.

The fee is the result of these distilleries being temporarily classified as a non-prescription drug manufacturer. In normal times, the FDA charges this fee to offset the cost of inspecting and regulating over-the-counter drug manufacturers, in order to ensure public health and safety. But it has blindsided many of the small, often family-owned distilleries that are already struggling to manage the economic impact of 2020.

When distilleries began producing hand sanitizer in the spring, their effort was highly organized. As the head of her industrys association, Harris held near-daily meetings for weeks to ensure that distilleries sanitizers met strict guidelines for safety and efficacy.

This also meant working with the federal government, because many of the laws regulating the beverage alcohol industry had to be temporarily set aside. Prior to the pandemic, it would have been illegal for these facilities to manufacture sanitizers. We worked with the FDA to get companies registered and to make the rules clear to them, Harris says. At no point was the specter of an upcoming fee highlighted in their guidance, especially one of the scale announced.

Now the industry is asking the FDA to waive the fees.

This unexpected fee serves to punish already struggling distilleries who jumped in at a time of need to do the right thing, says Chris Swonger, president and CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, who released a statement on December 31st, 2020. While this fee may be a rounding error to a large pharmaceutical company, this will be disastrous to small distilleries who stepped up to help produce this critical product.

Meanwhile, the recipients of that hand sanitizer are showing their appreciation. Back in March and April, as many distilleries shifted their production, medical facilities were running dangerously low of the life-saving gel.

When our hospital ran out of hand sanitizer, we were thankful to the distilleries, says a nurse in Southern Indiana, who spoke to Entrepreneur but asked to remain anonymous because her hospital hadnt authorized her to speak to the press. Starlight [Distillery] donated individual bottles to us as well and even set up a station where we could bring our own container from home and fill it up. We were so thankful.

But it wasnt just hospitals who benefitted from the efforts of distilleries. Businesses were also required to have hand sanitizer and other cleaning solutions on hand as a condition of reopening their businesses.

When we were told we could finally reopen during phase one, we were given new cleaning and sanitizing guidelines and had to come up with PPE and supplies to ensure the safety of both staff and our patients, says Dr. Andrew Harvey, owner of Harvey Eye Optometry in Kentucky. We actually spent an extra week closed because masks, thermometers, and cleaning supplies were sold out everywhere at that time. The one thing we were able to find easily, and in ample supply, was sanitizer made by the local distilleries. I feel very fortunate to live in an area with so many wonderful distilleries, like Jeptha Creed, who really stepped up to meet the pandemic's new demand.

Now that distilleries know about the fees, they must act fast. Distilleries had to register with the FDA to make the hand sanitizer, and if they dont rescind their registration with the FDA by the end of 2020, they are told theyll be on the hook for this fee again in 2021.

I am sure that the FDA is inundated with pleas from small companies right now with tons of questions, says Harris. We would love to help them by working with them to create a solution to this issue, and then working to get this information out into the community.

Related:

Distilleries Made Hand Sanitizer To Help. Now They're Hit With $14,000 Fees

3 Popular Nighttime Calming Habits that Secretly Sabotage Productivity

Comedy Legend Dan Aykroyd Doesn't Mess Around When It Comes to Vodka



Copyright 2021 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
LOS ANGELES (AP) - California started the new year by reporting a record 585 coronavirus deaths in a single day.

The state Department of Public Health said Friday there were more than than 47,000 new confirmed cases reported, bringing the total to more than 2.29 million.

Gov. Gavin Newsom's office says California will begin collaborating with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to evaluate and upgrade outdated oxygen delivery systems at six Los Angeles area hospitals.

The deployment comes at a time when hospitals across the L.A. region are treating an unprecedented number of Covid-19 patients and the internal oxygen delivery systems build into many older hospitals are being overtaxed by the volume of oxygen flow required to treat patients with respiratory issues that arise from Covid-19.

Action News Now asked a spokesperson from the state Office of Emergency Services (CAL OES) if any of this type of work on oxygen delivery systems needs to happen in Northern California as well.

We were told that CAL OES is not currently aware of any similar issues in the north of the state. The issue, they confirmed, is aging pipes and issues with mechanical infrastructure.

Brian Ferguson from CAL OES said, "Should it become an issue elsewhere the state could use this same tactic in other locations."

California this week became the third state to exceed 25,000 COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Most of California remains under stay-at-home orders as the state keeps assessing current ICU bed availability. The numbers for Friday show that there are still no ICU beds available in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley.

6.3% of the ICU beds in the Bay Area are still available.

In the North State, Great Sacramento is now showing the availability of 11.1% of their ICU beds. In the Northern California Region 33.3% of their ICU beds are available.

(Copyright 2021 The Associated Press)
Android 11 update for Galaxy Z Flip rolling out - Android 11 update comes with One UI 3.0

New Delhi, Sat, 02 Jan 2021 Sangita Roy

The Android 11 update for Galaxy Z Flip smartphone is being rolled out for a number of countries including Asia, Europe, and Africa. This Android 11 update brings One UI 3.0 versions with this update. Users of Galaxy Z Flip will find update notification on their smartphone once it is available for their phone.

The Android 11-based One UI 3.0 update for Samsung Galaxy Z Flip is big in size and measures around 2GB in size and it is recommended to update phone in fast Wi-Fi network. According to the reports this update carries with the firmware version F700FxXx3CTLx. The users of Galaxy Z Flip will find latest features on Android 11 once they update their smartphone.

Earlier Samsung rolled out updates for Galaxy Note20, S20 and Note 10 series, now the company is rolling out update for the smartphone Galaxy Z Flip.

The Android 11 update for Galaxy Z Flip is stable update and it will bring latest features of Android operating system for the users of Galaxy Z Flip smartphone.

The users of Galaxy Z Flip smartphone across Asia, Europe, and Africa will see the software update notification on their smartphone. They can use the WiFi network to update their smartphone with the latest Android 11 operating system. It is good part that this update also brings One UI 3.0 to Galaxy Z Flip smartphone. Samsung is rolling out update for this smartphone on broad-scale.

The users of Galaxy Z Flip may browse to Settings > System updates > Check for system updates to manually start the update. Many of the users will see the system update notification on their smartphone.

The Android 11 update brings both Android-11 and One UI 3.0 to the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, which is a good update for the users of this smartphone. With this update users will find refresh in UI design, better animations, chat bubbles and many more on their smartphone. Other important updates are stock apps, lock-screen widgets, and improved security and performance. So, this update brings new life to the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip smartphone.

There is also new update for the users of Galaxy A51 and Galaxy M31 smartphones from Samsung. Samsung started rolling out One UI 3.0 updates for low cost phones like Galaxy A51 and Galaxy M31.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 2)  The National Bureau of Investigations Special Action Unit has been assigned to look into the use of unregistered COVID-19 vaccines in the country.

This is the same unit that investigated the pastillas bribery scheme in the Bureau of Immigration, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra noted in a statement on Saturday. More than 80 Immigration personnel have been suspended, many of them now facing complaints before the Office of the Ombudsman.

Guevarra earlier said the probe will zero in on the "reported unauthorized distribution and administration of unregistered anti-COVID 19 vaccines" and see what laws were violated. He however clarified that it does not mean to single out the controversial vaccination of members of the Presidential Security Group.

The NBI investigation is rolling, the Justice chief said.

Two agencies, the Food and Drug Administration and the Bureau of Customs, are investigating the entry into the country of the vaccines that were administered to President Rodrigo Dutertes security personnel. The vaccination apparently happened as early as September, but was made known to the public only on December 26 when the President himself announced that China-made Sinopharm was used on members of the military. This was later clarified as referring only to PSG members.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana has called the vaccines "smuggled" since no coronavirus vaccine has been authorized by the FDA yet. PSG head Jesus Durante III said it was a matter of "national security" as his group had to protect the President's health.

Under the FDA Act, those who import, sell, or distribute any unregistered health products may face imprisonment or monetary fines. The law does not penalize the person who was injected with the unregistered vaccines, but charges await those who import, sell, distribute, and dispense the drugs.
Christian Romo wasn't planning to be glued to his television Wednesday as a typically procedural process to certify the results of the Elector
John Wilfred Outterbridge was born to John Ivery and Olivia Northern Outterbridge on March 12, 1933, in Greenville, N.C. He was the second of eight children and is survived by four siblings: Freddie, Marvin and Robert Outterbridge and Jackie Outterbridge Parks.

He liked to say that his parents were the first artists he knew. His mother played piano, made drawings and wrote poetry, while his father scraped together a living by hauling and scavenging junk, which he often stored in the familys backyard. Johns uncle Buddy was a concert pianist with no concert stage because he was Black, Mr. Outterbridge told the historian Richard Candida Smith in 1989 for an oral history project at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The family home was covered with paintings by the children  even some window shades were hand-painted. And he was surrounded by the beauty of homemade things: his grandmothers soap bars, stacked like buildings; wood floors bleached bone-white by all the lye; tall poles outside decorated with gourds that rattled and scared away the birds.

He enrolled at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in 1951 but left after a year to join the Army, to take advantage of the G.I. Bill. He trained as a munitions specialist and was stationed in southern Germany for two years during the Korean War.

Even his military years proved creative. He made small paintings of sights foreign to him, like villages with old cathedrals and cemeteries. During a barracks inspection one day his commanding office was rummaging through Mr. Outterbridges locker when a stash of paintings fell out. The officer confronted him: Where did you get these paintings?

I did these, Mr. Outterbridge said, having to repeat it several times before he was believed.

The officer, who collected art, was impressed. He created a studio space for Mr. Outterbridge and gave him commissions to decorate officers clubs.
Denton, TX (76205)

Today

Partly cloudy skies early with heavy thunderstorms developing overnight. Low 68F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early with heavy thunderstorms developing overnight. Low 68F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
Teen Who Was a Victim of Bullying Enters Miss England Contest in Hopes of Helping Others

A teen who rose above the bullying of her school years has got an opportunity to show the world how far shes come by taking to the stage as a contestant in the Miss England beauty pageant.

Seventeen-year-old model Rheanna Cartier, of Kingham in Oxfordshire, England, won the spot of the wildcard round of the Miss England finals, which is slated to happen in July 2021. She hopes to use the platform to advocate against bullying and help others traverse the suffering she once experienced.

Seventeen-year-old Rheanna Cartier, from England. (Courtesy of Rheanna Cartier)

I changed schools almost every year because we moved house a lot, Rheanna told South West News Service (SWNS), according to Fox News. I moved back to one school at 13, and I just remember my first day this group of girls in the year above just started calling me names.

I had been talking to a boy in the year above who was quite popular and I think it was just jealously, she explained. I remember on one occasion one of them saying, Why dont you just kill yourself? It was quite extreme.

Rheanna found herself ostracized, without friends, as nobody wanted to be friends with someone who got called names.

Rheanna as a child (Courtesy of Rheanna Cartier)

As time went by, the situation only worsened. [F]or a long time I ignored it, but after a few months I couldnt help reacting, Rheanna explained to the Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard. I started getting in lots of trouble because it caused me to act out.

Not long after, Rheanna hated attending school, and her mother was called for meetings, as she wasnt completing her work.

When she was 14, Rheannas parents took a recommendation from a friend, sending their daughter to Skals Efterskole, an international boarding school in Denmark, to complete her GCSE exams. For Rheanna, the experience was transformational.

Rheanna during her earlier school years. (Courtesy of Rheanna Cartier)

I started eating healthy and working on myself and doing a lot of self-care, the teen recalled to SWNS. Without that, I dont know what I would have done. I would never have recovered and I think it would have got worse.

Back in Oxfordshire, Rheanna is now currently completing a diploma in real estate. However, with renewed confidence and the wish to push herself into new experiences, she entered the Miss England beauty pageant.

Rheanna told Oxford Mail that when she was a child, she always wanted to take part in the pageant and considered it something fun to do. However, the desire to really participate came through when she saw an advert. She then applied and submitted some photos and a biography of hers.

She has now become one of 19 contestants selected for the wildcard round.

It would be nice to win, Rheanna said, but the real appeal is simply being able to be herself.

Im not going to let [the bullies] stop me doing what I want to do, she claimed. I want to help others who might not have the opportunity I did to escape their bullies. It affects so many people and I think this competition could give me that platform I need to help other people.

The current reigning Miss England, Dr. Bhasha Mukherjee, has carried the title since August 2019; the 2020 pageant was delayed owing to the pandemic. Mukherjee, a medical doctor, returned to her job at the Pilgrim Hospital in Boston, eastern England, to fight the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, from the front lines.

Also a multi-talented contestant, Rheanna, a Miss England hopeful, has a piece of advice to others looking to rebuild their lives, which is to seek support, stay healthy, and practice self-care.

I want to show other victims that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and the difficult times we go through can give us strength and motivation for the future, she said.

Share your stories with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com, and continue to get your daily dose of inspiration by signing up for the Epoch Inspired newsletter at TheEpochTimes.com/newsletter
Kabul, Jan 2 : A chief negotiator of the Afghan government has said that the issue of targeted killings will be discussed when the next phase of the peace talks with the Taliban will resume on January 5.

"This (targeted killings) is one of the serious issues that we need to raise and follow," TOLO News quoted chief negotiator Masoom Stanekzai as saying on Friday.

The remarks come as six journalists have been killed in various incidents of targeted attacks across Afghanistan in the last two months.

On Friday, Bismillah Adil Aimaq, a journalist and civil society activist in Ghor province, was killed in an attack by unidentified armed men in the city of Feroz Koh.

On Thursday evening, Abdi Jahid, a civil society activist from Baghlan was killed in an attack in Kabul's PD17 area, police said.

"We witnessed the killing of several journalists here in Kabul and in the provinces. This issue has raised concerns among the Afghan media community," TOLO News quoted Reza Shaheer, a journalist based in the Afghan capital, as saying.

Since January 2020, 11 Afghan journalists and media workers have been killed, making this one of the deadliest years.
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Unity is no longer a thing I can influence. Look out the window: the Rhine flows by there. You cant stop it. I cant stop it. It will reach the sea no matter what we do. That is the flow towards unity.

Those vivid words belong to former German chancellor Helmut Kohl. He was speaking to Charlie Haughey, his Irish counterpart, as the German momentum towards reunification accelerated  a stance supported by Ireland, despite unease from some European leaders including Margaret Thatcher.

Their interaction finally became public knowledge last Sunday following the release of the 1990 State papers. Later that year, the post-World War II separation of West and East Germany was overturned.

The surge towards unity is something many of us recognise here in Ireland. In this coming year, the irrefutable logic of ending Irish partition will be widely accepted.

No one expects a Border poll in 2021, or even 2022. But neither can anybody reasonably expect the status quo to hold, with Brexit and Covid-19 coalescing to emphasise the limitations of division.

Yet, while dual Border polls are on the horizon, their timing is out of our hands. Voting on this question is one of the most far-reaching choices ever to be made by the people who share this island, yet Ireland has no say on when it will happen.

The right to arrange such a plebiscite in the North lies entirely with Britains secretary of state for Northern Ireland.

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In effect, this means Border poll powers rest entirely with that officeholder, because an Irish administration could never decline to hold a parallel one if Britain called a referendum.

So, this is a decision voters in Ireland could be asked to make without much advance notice. Everything is shifting and Ireland needs to be ready  matters could come to the crunch quickly. Britains uncoupling from the North has begun already with a new border in the Irish Sea.

Unionism recognises this shift: last week, John Taylor, a former UUP minister in Stormont, now sitting in the House of Lords, posted the following tweet: Both the English Labour and English Lib(eral) Democrats are non-supportive of unionists in Northern Ireland and, whilst a proportion of English Tories are strongly supportive, the majority of Tories only support unionists when it is to their advantage. This should make unionists think!

Expand Close Leadership: The Norths First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill. Photo: Liam McBurney/PA Wire / Facebook

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Whatsapp Leadership: The Norths First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill. Photo: Liam McBurney/PA Wire

Never has there been a more favourable time for unionism to engage with an Irish administration and negotiate an accommodation.

This could be positive for Ireland, just as it was for Germany, which went from strength to strength after 1990. Union between the two traditions sharing this island promises to invigorate all of us. Hybridity is healthy, as Charles Darwin understood: it produces what he called hybrid vigour.

But first, we must have an opportunity to vote on our future. And we cant keep being fobbed off with not now, its divisive by Government parties in the Dail. A date for those twin Border polls should be set, so planning and preparation can happen. Both Sinn Fein and the SDLP believe it ought to take place within the next decade, while Bertie Ahern suggests 2028. Civic nationalist group Irelands Future (of which I am a member) favours 2023. Sooner the better, say unionist voices such as Peter Robinsons. Negotiation can take place around the date, but an alignment in thinking is emerging, and denial about change to the Norths constitutional status looks increasingly blinkered.

The Good Friday Agreement specifies that a British secretary of state can call a referendum when it appears likely the majority in the North will vote for Irish unity. Thats as hazy as a sea mist.

Yet come what may, the Irish Government must be ready when London pushes the button. What factors to assess the situation does the secretary of state take into account? It could be election results, census returns, opinion polls, a request from a majority of parties in Stormont, or a combination of the above  we simply dont know. What we do know is that Brandon Lewis or his replacement is obliged to be neutral about the outcome, while the Irish Government is entitled to advocate for unity.

Lets consider those metrics. Polls vary, but in the Republic they always come down on the side of unity, while a LucidTalk poll in the North last February showed opinion running at roughly 50-50: some 46.8pc wanted to remain in the UK, 45.4pc preferred unity with Ireland, and the remainder were unsure.

Election results can be an indicator and its notable that unionism is no longer the dominant ideology in either the Assembly, the Norths 11 local councils, or among MPs sent to Westminster. The current breakdown is as follows: Westminster has nine pro-united Ireland MPs, eight pro-union MPs and one neutral; the Assembly has 40 pro-united Ireland MLAs, 40 pro-union MLAs and 10 neutrals; the council districts have five with a majority of pro-united Ireland councillors and five with a pro-UK majority, while the eleventh  Belfast City Council  has no clear majority but does have 27 pro-united Ireland councillors, along with 19 pro-UK and 14 neutrals.

Meanwhile, this years Northern Ireland census is likely to mark the first time in its centenary when a Catholic majority exists. The state, engineered specifically with a Protestant majority, will never be unionist-dominated again.

That doesnt mean a nationalist majority, however  the non-aligned in the middle ground hold Northern Irelands future in their hands. Given facts and reassurances, particularly about healthcare, they will vote to leave. It must surely be instructive that third-level students from Northern Ireland colleges would be disbarred from study exchanges under the Erasmus programme, if the Westminster administration had its way. (Britain is making noises about an alternative.) However, the Republic is funding Erasmus study in Europe for people from Northern Ireland at a cost of 2.1m a year. No need to be an Irish passport holder  British passport holders qualify.

The Republic has also committed to ensuring that Northern Irish residents will be able to recover EU medical expenses in the absence of a European Health Insurance Card. And in the event of unity, the North automatically re-enters the EU  no relegation to the back of the accession queue.

Recently, loyalist leader Billy Hutchinson said there would be no loyalist backlash if the region voted for unity. Former Alliance chair, now an Independent MLA, Trevor Lunn has spoken to this newspaper urging the Irish Government to set out its unity stall.

This flow towards unity, as described so evocatively by Chancellor Kohl, isnt predicated on any denigration of Northern Ireland  many unionists naturally feel an emotional attachment to their state and this should be acknowledged. Rather, its founded on the shifting tides of British politics diluting the once special relationship between Britain and Northern Ireland. But opportunities exist elsewhere. Ni neart go cur le cheile  stronger together.
by Vladimir Rozanskij

More and more Kazakhs flee Xinjiang and forced labour camps, and are welcomed by Nur-Sultan as refugees. The crossroads between "nationalism" and "cultural expansionism". Enthusiasm cools for the Belt and Road Initiative, the New Silk Road.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - Kazakhstan has decided to assign refugee status to four Chinese of Kazakh origin, fleeing Xinjiang to avoid persecution. The decision taken on 24 December last has been welcomed by national public opinion, revealing the discontent of the Kazakhs towards China (see photo), accused by many parties of oppressing Xinjiang Muslims in forced labour camps, which Beijing defines "vocational training centres".

According to Tristan Kenderdine, director of Future Risk interviewed by the local Radio Azattyk, the choice does not depend on the opposition to China, but on social processes within Kazakhstan. Instead of a policy based on random reactions, a strategy is emerging to redefine relations with China, and control the exodus of the Kazakhs from Xinjiang. The latter were until now called oralmany, the "returning". A recent official decision has instead changed the term to kandasy, the "blood relatives", to indicate a community less linked to the conditions of foreign countries where more than 4 million people of Kazakh ethnicity live.

The Kandasy will have the opportunity to obtain Kazakh citizenship according to jus sanguinis rather than jus fuguee, re-establishing the ideal of "great Kazakhstan" beyond the borders. Moreover, not all Kazakhs abroad wish to return to their homeland, often considering it as a fictional territory created by the Soviets. Many of them feel at home whether in Xinjiang, Mongolia or Uzbekistan, although local policies do not fail to challenge them with various forms of limitation and oppression.

The population is at the crossroads between a "nationalist" choice, which proposes the state of Kazakhstan as the only "safe house" for all Kazakhs, and one of "cultural expansionism", which somehow wants to appropriate the Kazakh ethnic diaspora wherever it is. This alternative, which the country has been discussing since the end of the Soviet Union, has to deal with the new Chinese policy of "homogenization" of all nationalities within the "Sinicized" empire. On both sides, the reference model remains the Soviet one, with the Russification of all local ethnic groups by virtue of the Russian "historical mission": 30 years after the end of the USSR, the winds of restoration of the imperial mentality socialist blow from various directions.

However, a decisive factor is the economic condition, which is currently much more solid in China than in Kazakhstan. The capital Nur-Sultan, despite its claims, is still underdeveloped: in 2019, when its name changed from Astana, it was decided to make it the showcase of the "new Kazakhstan" post-Soviet, and the further name in honour of the "president eternal Nazarbaev relaunches this project, which however does not go beyond some ultramodern palace of power. Other historic cities such as Almaty or Karaganda are still seen by Kazakhs abroad as "Russian cities" with a Soviet footprint, grey and unattractive.

The Kandasy also come up against a cultural difficulty linked to the lack of knowledge of the Russian language, which is still largely that spoken by the local population, especially in smaller towns, despite all the policies to promote the Kazakh national language. Abroad, the Kazakhs often obtain an education much higher than that which they could receive by returning to their historic homeland. Much will also depend on the development of the new Silk Road (the Belt and Road Initiative), which in addition to infrastructure provides, especially in Central Asia and Kazakhstan itself, the implementation of new industrial production lines. China needs to close many of the too many factories inside it, and to open them in less developed countries, linked to its projects.

In the last two years, however, the Silk Road has lost a lot of proactive force, due to the significant downsizing of investments planned by China. This leaves the government of Kazakhstan and the other countries involved in uncertainty, between orientations towards the East or the West, towards Russia or the European Union. Not just some kandasy, but the whole of Kazakhstan has to decide which direction to take.
After a week that saw Covid-19 cases reach their highest level in Northern Ireland, the Belfast Telegraph examines five reasons why the infection rate remains so high despite all our efforts to keep the virus at bay.

The new Covid variant

Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced that a new variant of Covid-19 may be linked to a faster spread of the virus in the south of England on December 14.

Nine days later, the Department of Health confirmed a case of the new variant in Northern Ireland.

It is believed the variant is likely to have been present in Northern Ireland for some time.

In response, Health Minister Robin Swann encouraged everyone to "redouble" their efforts to stop the spread of the virus.

Dr Tom Black, chair of the British Medical Association in Northern Ireland, said it was safe to assume there is an increase in transmission based on the fast-rising figures, which hit 2,000 cases one day this week.

"We don't have the evidence yet in Northern Ireland but there's certainly evidence in the south of England and there seems to be a bigger spike now than before," he stated.

Complacency

The public has been encouraged to stick to the health advice throughout the pandemic but, understandably, complacency has set in.

Young people wishing to see their friends have been holding house parties or small get-togethers and some families have been meeting indoors.

Mr Swann urged the public not to hold potential "super-spreader" New Year's Eve parties, warning they could cost lives.

It remains to be seen if that message was taken onboard as confirmed cases rising from these events could take several weeks before they are announced.

Dr Black felt a big factor in the surge in cases is the result of complacency, particularly in younger people.

"They just didn't seem to engage with the population and the need for controls," he said. "We see that repeatedly.

"The young people could get the virus first and go home and visit their granny, despite being advised not to."

Reopening of retail and hospitality sectors

In the build-up to Christmas, the Executive ended the two-week circuit-breaker restrictions on December 11.

Shops and much of the hospitality sector reopened following the strict measures to curb the spread of the virus until the latest six-week lockdown came into force on December 26.

Consumers flooded the high streets to get ready for the festive period, while many visited a restaurant for some much-needed catch-ups with their loved ones.

While retail, hospitality and the public in general welcomed the move, the virus spread rapidly amongst the population as the latest figures indicate.

A record 2,143 positive cases were announced on December 30 - the highest since testing began.

Dr Black felt the Executive was too slow in introducing tough guidelines in response to the rising virus cases.

"Everything that was done in terms of controlling the spread of the virus was too little too late," he said.

Health message has been lost

Both the Executive and the media have been pushing the public health advice since the outbreak of the pandemic in March.

Simple things such as washing your hands, wearing a face mask, keeping your distance and staying indoors are happening less frequently.

The daily case and death toll numbers may have resulted in the public becoming immune to the dangers of Covid-19 and resulted in a weariness across the country.

"People are fed up with it and they just want us to fix this and get it to go away because it's been nearly a year now," said Dr Black.

"To some extent you can't blame people when they become complacent but at the same time, complacency leads to failure and failure and leads to deaths, especially in our older people.

"We just have to stay the course, keep our heads down and keep doing the hard work."

Breakdown of infection in your area

The breakdown of infection rates in Northern Ireland's 11 council areas may have resulted in residents developing a false sense of security.

For example, figures in the Derry and Strabane area remained steadily low up until the end of August but then reached over 500 per 100,000 of the population.

Dr Black believes that some people may be looking at the figures in their area and believing it is safe when the infection rate remains low.

However, that inevitably results in an increase in cases when people begin to mix.

"In Derry and Strabane, they knew the levels were low and then they went through the roof," he said.

"People were very careful and the area got to about less than 200 per 100,000.

"Now they have gone up to over 500 per 100,000 which is very high.

"People do look at their local rates and become complacent when they're low and get scared when they're high again."
The last three male Yangtze giant softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei), also known as Hoan Kiem turtle, are no longer the last living survivors of its species after discovering another in Vietnam. The most exciting part is that the recently found Hoan Kiem happened to be a female.

In April of 2020, the former last known female Yangtze giant softshell turtle died in captivity at the Suzhou Shangfangshan Forest Zoo in China. Her death marked the beginning of the end for her species as the remaining living survivors are all males. Chances of any reproduction, be it natural or artificial, were gone.

However, that may no longer be the case. In Dong Mo lake, in Hanoi Vietnam's Son Tay district, a Hoan Kiem was found. After running some tests, the turtle conservation organization discovered that the turtle is a female. Also, there are reports of sighting another one, a male, in the same area.

How did they become endangered?

Before they were given legal protection in Vietnam and other places in Asia, these softshell turtles were hunted for their meats. Aside from being turned into a delicacy, their eggs are also sought after by Chinese traditional medicine practitioners. These are soaked in salt for some time and used to help cure diarrhea and other intestinal ailments.

Nonregulated hunting, which soon turned into illegal poaching, drove these defenseless turtle's number down the drain until it was fully recognized as an endangered, and soon critically endangered in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s Red List of Threatened Species.

The drastic drop in numbers alarmed international conservation groups, WCS and TSA. They relocated the turtles in a desperate and drastic move, hoping that they would mate with each other. In a few years, they did mate, but the eggs they produced were not healthy enough to develop.

Turtle Conservation

This fantastic news lit the beacon of hope for all turtle conservationists around the world. As said by Andrew Walde, a member of the Turtle Survival Alliance, "This is the best news of the year and quite possibly of the last decade for global turtle conservation."

"In a year full of bad news and sadness across the globe, the discovery of this female can offer all some hope that this species will be given another chance to survive," said Hoang Bich Thuy, Vietnam's Wildlife Conservation Society director said.

In a related article: 2020: When Lions, Tigers, Wolves, and Other Large Carnivores Were Rescued





Attempts for artificial reproduction through insemination were also tried but no to avail. Conservation groups tried their best to repopulate and reproduce these turtles, but the shots were futile. All the previous attempts were then brought to an eventual halt when the female died of natural causes.

With the discovery of a younger and healthier female, WCS and TSA are now hoping for the best. Maybe, what they needed for successful reproduction was a healthier and younger female. One that still has enough reproductive drive for repopulation.

It's not time to finally declare their safety and ensure the chances of multiplying this turtle species, but there is still hope. And for these Yangtze giant softshell turtles, hope is more than enough.

READ NEXT: Exotic Animal Cafe Raises Concerns!

Check out for more news and information updates about endangered animals on Nature World News
President Donald Trump recalled 2020's "historic victories" in his year-end message while President-elect Joe Biden looked forward to 2021.

Trump highlighted his administration's work after weeks of vowing to fight for his White House spot. "We have to be remembered for what's been done," he said.

Trump returned early from vacation on Thursday before delivering the year-end message, reported CBS 7.

On the other hand, Biden appeared with his wife Jill Biden from their home on ABC's Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest.

When asked what he was looking forward to in 2021, Biden said America would "come back stronger than we were before," reported Deadline.

Trump Misses NYE Party at Palm Beach Club

The White House did not provide a reason for Trump's early return to Washington, but it only meant the president wouldn't be of attendance to the glitzy New Year's Eve party held at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida yearly.

Trump's change in schedule came amid a fight with Congress over a defense bill and stimulus checks, reported Reuters.

It also came as tensions escalate between the U.S. and Iran during the final weeks of his administration.

In his message, Trump further noted that he correctly predicted that the country had produced a COVID-19 vaccine in record time with his predictions that it would be done by the end of 2020.

Trump in Tension with Republicans Over Spending Bills

Throughout his turbulent term, Trump has not had many disagreements with his Republican allies. But when it came to the relief bill and his claims of election fraud, he reached a point of lashing out at them for not giving their full support.

Apart from his demand for bigger stimulus checks, they also showed little support in his veto on the defense bill.

Related Story: Congress Overrides Trump's Veto for the First Time on Defense Bill

One of the players that issued a major blow to Trump's stimulus check push was Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the chamber.

McConnell declined to schedule a vote on a bill that would raise the relief checks from $600 to $2,000 as part of the nearly $900 billion coronavirus relief package passed by Congress.

McConnell rejected a standalone bill that would increase stimulus checks. He believed the bill was a form of "socialism for rich people" and was a "terrible way to get help to families who actually need it."

On New Year's Day, Congress voted to override Trump's veto on a defense policy bill. McConnell said for almost six decades, Congress has enacted the annual defense bill.

So whether it's through "the easy way or the hard way," he noted that Congress would do the same thing again.

"This body will fulfill our responsibility to the men and women who protect our country," he said.

Bidens Thank Frontline Workers in Year-End Message

During the year-end interview, the Bidens thanked the frontline and essential workers for keeping the country together and urged Americans to get vaccinated against COVID-19 when it becomes available.

Related Story: Operation Warp Speed Behind Schedule: Vaccinating Americans Could Take 10 Years at Current Pace

The incoming president also called for a better way to distribute the vaccines since it has been moving slower than expected so far.

The U.S. has been one of the worst-hit countries when it came to the pandemic, leading in the world's death toll at more than 300,000 deaths reported to be linked to the virus.
Police are trying to identify a 'reckless' rave host whose unlicensed New Year's Eve party saw hundreds of revellers trash a 500-year-old church in Essex.

Members of the conservation group that supports All Saints Church in East Horndon - a Grade II-listed building - said they are 'devastated' by the damage caused and estimate repairs could cost more than 1,000.

Organisers of the event set up a bar and DJ decks inside the church and hired Portaloos for partygoers.

Officers had objects thrown at them and were threatened as they dealt with the incident at the disused church - which led to three people being arrested on suspicion of drugs and public order offences.

It came as police in Essex alone issued 18,000 worth of fines over New Year celebrations, breaking up events that included a house party with 100 people attending and a fire dancer performing for crowds.

Police are trying to identify a 'reckless' rave host whose unlicensed New Year's Eve party saw hundreds of revellers trash a 500-year-old church in Essex (the aftermath pictured)

Members of the conservation group that supports All Saints Church in East Horndon - a Grade II-listed building - said they are 'devastated' by the damage caused (rubbish pictured in the church) and estimate repairs could cost more than 1,000

Another new year celebration which had to be shut down saw police break up a crowd that had gathered at an industrial building in Wates Way, Brentwood.

Two people were arrested on suspicion of drink-driving and for failing to provide details.

Officers are trying to track down the organisers of both events, and chief inspector Richard Melton said they would receive the maximum penalty for these 'blatant breaches' of coronavirus regulations.

Penalty notices were issued to 27 people who attended. Music equipment was seized from all three sites where a total of 37 fixed penalty notices were handed out.

Chief inspector Melton said: 'It is the reckless minority of people who organise and attend unauthorised events of this kind that risk spreading Covid-19 and jeopardising the efforts of the majority of people who are doing the right thing.

Organisers of the event set up a bar and DJ decks inside the church (pictured) and hired Portaloos for partygoers

Assistant Chief Constable Andy Prophet criticised those who 'decided to blatantly flout the coronavirus rules and regulations and, ultimately, they decided that partying was more important than protecting other people,' after police in Essex broke up an illegal gathering at an abandoned church in Thorndon Park (pictured)

'Tragically there are people dying or becoming seriously ill because of this awful virus and we all have a responsibility for doing all we can to protect each other.'

Arrests made at the church included a 27-year-old man from Harlow, on suspicion of possession with intent to supply Class A drugs and a public order offence.

He has been released under investigation while inquiries continue and was given a fixed penalty notice for breaching coronavirus regulations.

A 22-year-old man from Harlow was released without charge for an alleged public order offence and given a conditional caution for possession of cannabis.

He will be given a fixed penalty notice for breaching coronavirus regulations. A 35-year-old man from Southwark, who was arrested on suspicion of possession of drugs, was given a community resolution for possession of cannabis.

Police in Essex broke up house parties and raves, including one in an abandoned warehouse in Brentwood on Thursday night

Astrid Gillespie, a volunteer for the Friends of All Saints, said she was 'just trying to get her head round the news', having found out via a Facebook post on New Year's Day.

'I went up there and the police were still there packing up the equipment that they seized,' she told the PA news agency.

'There were hundreds of people there, it sounded like it was a ticketed event. It was a professional set-up, they'd hired Portaloos - they're still there.

'They had a bar area where you had to exchange tokens, so they must have been selling drinks tokens.

'There was loads of evidence of drugs and they've done damage to the church, obviously it's a mess and needs to be completely cleaned out.

'The ground has been all churned up because they must have had vans dropping off all the equipment.'

A woman has been fined 10,000 for organising a house party - complete with a fire dancer as an entertainer - at her home in Sewardstonebury, Essex, on New Year's Eve

Ms Gillespie, 48, said a small window had been smashed to put in an extractor fan unit and the sound equipment had been wired into the church's fuse box.

She added that because of the building's age and heritage status, the damage was 'not going to be cheap' to fix, and that the locks would have to be replaced.

'The vicar is going to organise a preliminary clean-up but it's a huge task and we're estimating 1,000 but it could well be more,' she said.

'I love the place, it's such a beautiful church, and to find out it's been damaged is devastating, I'm just trying to get my head around it.

'You wake up in the new year and think 'new year, new me' and then you've got to deal with all this.'

A top police officer has slammed New Year's Eve revellers who ignored Covid lockdown rules and 'decided partying was more important than protecting other people'.

Despite strict orders to stay at home, crowds gathered along London's Southbank to watch the fireworks display. While others attended a nearby protest against lockdown rules

Met Police officers on horseback were dispatched on the banks of the River Thames in order to disperse crowds from London

A woman who organised an event in Sewardstonebury involving a fire dancer and an entertainer was fined 10,000.

Assistant Chief Constable Andy Prophet criticised those who 'decided to blatantly flout the coronavirus rules and regulations and, ultimately, they decided that partying was more important than protecting other people'.

He added: 'We've seized their equipment, arrested five people, and issued a large number of fines to those who think this behaviour is acceptable.

'We need you to keep yourselves, other people, and the NHS, safe. Thank you again to everyone who spent their New Year's Eve in a responsible, legal, way. 'Stay safe, Essex.'

Met Police issued 217 people with fixed penalty fines and five people could receive 10,000 fines for organising large gatherings across London.

Two men were stabbed and a woman hit around the head with a bottle as violence broke out when up to 70 people squared up to one another in Edgware Road, London, just minutes after midnight.

There were similar raves across the country, as Greater Manchester Police issued 105 fines, compared to 66 in Brighton and Hove.

Despite police attempts to disperse crowds, revellers were seen laughing and joking as they ushered in the New Year

Police in Newham, East London, were called out to break-up a rave at an abandoned warehouse in London's Royal Docks on New Year's Eve. Empty bottles and sound systems were left at the scene after police arrived

Revellers could be seen dancing at a house party in Sewardstonebury, Essex, yesterday, with more than 100 people in attendance before police were called

Balloons - potentially used for inhaling nitrous oxide - littered the floor of the abandoned warehouse in East London today

In the aftermath of the disturbances on Edgware Road, a photographer working for MailOnline was knocked unconscious while taking pictures near police officers yards from the homes of the rich and famous including Tony Blair and Claudia Winkleman.

As he recovered, he told MailOnline: 'We got there and there were lots of armed police. Big armed police cars were zooming past us  we counted 11. There must be 100-and-something police there at least, a lot of them heavily armed.'

He said as he worked, a man approached him and punched him.

'As I hit the floor, six or seven officers rushed to me and then apparently six or seven more caught the guy who did it,' he said. 'He was arrested on the scene.'

The experienced photojournalist said he counted around 60 or 70 suspected gang members present on the street after the initial stabbings had taken place.

Police said they were called by colleagues in the London Fire Brigade to reports of a stabbing on Edgware Road.

A spokesman said: 'Officers attended the scene, with the London Ambulance Service and [the air ambulance]. Two males were identified with stab injuries. Both men were taken to hospital.

'A woman was also located at the scene suffering with a head injury, she has been taken to hospital.' He added: 'One woman has been arrested for GBH and taken to a police station.'
Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Rain showers early will evolve into a more steady rain overnight. Low around 65F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch..

Tonight

Rain showers early will evolve into a more steady rain overnight. Low around 65F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch.
The leadership of a faction of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) at the Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo, has written a letter of complaint to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu over what it described as non-transparent, the ongoing selection process for the institutions 9th substantive vice-chancellor.

The letter, dated January 1, 2021, and signed by both the secretary and his assistant, Tony Dansu and Adeolu Oyekan, respectively, also passed a vote of no confidence on the chairman of the universitys governing council, Adebayo Ninalowo.

The union also kicked against Mr Ninalowos chairmanship of the selection committee, and urged the governor, who doubles as the Visitor to the institution, to cancel the selection process if the allegations that the selected candidates are unqualified for the job are found to be true.

But speaking on behalf of the governor, the special adviser on education, Tokunbo Wahab, said the signatories to the letter lack legal status to make such a comment. He said they have since ceased to be employees of the university.

PREMIUM TIMES had exclusively reported that the trio of Olumuyiwa Odusanya, Senapon Bakre and Kabir Akinyemi had been nominated to the governor as the best in that order to take over from the outgoing VC, Olanrewaju Fagbohun.

Mr Fagbohun is billed to complete his five-year single term of office on January 11.

But ASUU is insisting that both Mr Fagbohun and some of the nominees for his replacement are unqualified to be LASUs vice-chancellor based on some of the requirements it said were listed in the advertisement for the job in 2015 and 2020.

The union also alleged that the selection criteria for the 9th vice-chancellor were not presented to the universitys then newly appointed 11th governing council for debate before they were made public.

The letter reads in part; Signs that the process would be marred by irregularities emerged after the advertisement for the position of the Vice-Chancellor was made, a few days after the inauguration of the 11th Governing Council, and before its first meeting. The belief of many is that not bringing the criteria for selection before the new Council for deliberation is a calculated attempt to present the Selection Committee with a fait acompli.

For instance, an advert that purported to improve on the 2015 exercise (in which possession of PhD was compulsory) by demanding 10 years of post-professorial experience from all applicants failed to state explicitly that PhD is a compulsory requirement, though subsequent parts of it made PhD supervision and examination additional requirements, meaning implicitly that those who do not possess PhD degrees are ineligible (Nemo dat quod non habet).

The omission is inexplicable, given that the University recently began to disengage longstanding academic staff without PhD. Note also, that the LASU PG School Regulations 13 and 14 on eligibility to teach, examine and supervise postgraduate theses make a PhD compulsory for PhD courses and thesis supervision.

The union also alleged that the selection committee flouted its own rules by reportedly screening candidates who fell short of its set criteria.

To make matters worse, it would appear that the selection committee was unable to abide by the conditions stipulated in the advertisement for the position of Vice-Chancellor, as candidates who did not meet some of the clearly stated criteria (i.e., possessing 10 year-post-professorial experience and having supervised PhD theses), scaled the shortlisting stage and even made it to the three-person list reportedly submitted to the Visitor.

The union added that in a situation where where none of the reportedly sent names meets any of the requirements, we recommend a review of the selection process. Since the university law stipulates a recommendation of at least three names to the Visitor, we believe he may have to request from the committee the full list of all the applicants, and review the process to determine whether any of them meets the advertised conditions.

Failure to find any applicant that can be appointed from the full pool of applicants, we request a cancellation of the entire process, with a fresh one commenced and concluded within the shortest possible time, preferably not exceeding a period of 60 days.

It added that in the event a new process will be commenced afresh, the governing council chairman should recuse himself, accusing him of being involved in some scandals in the university, which the union noted had included the appointment of Mr Fagbohun as the universitys 8th substantive VC and the alleged controversies surrounding the date of his appointment as a professor.

Government reacts

While both Messrs Ninalowo and Fagbohun refused to speak on the matter, Mr Wahab said the petition deserves no response due to the status of the petitioners as former staffers of the university.

Though the letter is not addressed to me but to the governor, the signatories have no legal justification for their position. They have been sacked from the university for misconduct, and their matter is in court. So, there is no basis for engaging them to avoid sub judice, Mr Wahab said.

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PhD for professorship qualification

Meanwhile, speaking on the phone with our reporter, an official of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Nigerias regulatory body for the universities, who does not want to be quoted, to avoid interference in the selection process, said PhD qualification for clinical teachers can be by fellowship of the postgraduate medical college.

The source also condemned the requirements that indicate that applicants into the office of a vice-chancellor must be a professor, saying there is nowhere such is stated in any law governing the university system in Nigeria.

The source said; There is no law that says vice-chancellors must be professors. It is a convention that is already turning to a law. We must first note that vice-chancellorship is an administrative position and we have had in this country a PhD holder appointed a vice-chancellor at the University of Abuja. He was already a VC before he became a professor.

There are those who argue that since a vice-chancellor is statutorily the chairman of the senate of the universities, it is ideal that a vice-chancellor must be a professor. But that is still debatable. No sections in any university establishment acts state that.

Meanwhile, documents obtained by PREMIUM TIMES, including memos addressed to the university vice-chancellors by NUC, has said that the fellowship of postgraduate medical college could serve as alternative to doctorate degrees for career progression to the professorial position.

For instance, a letter addressed to the vice-chancellors and dated July 24, 2012 with reference, NUC/ES/138/Vol.59/93, advised the vice-chancellors to adhere strictly to the rule guiding career progression of lecturers.

The letter, which was signed by the then NUC executive secretary, Julius Okojie, is titled; Doctorate Degree (Ph.D) as a Prerequisite for Progression to Professorial Position.

It reads in part; The National Universities Commission hereby reiterates that the acquisition of Doctorate degree (PhD) is a prerequisite for progression to the professorial position. Vice-chancellors should note that the Ph.D must not only be from a recognised university but must be cognate to the specific discipline.

However, in the interim, only the fellowship of the National Postgraduate Medical College (or its equivalent), as it relates to medical and dental clinical teachers is accepted by the National Universities Commission as a suitable alternative to the Ph.D until the framework for Ph.D for clinical medical and dental doctors has been finalised.

Meanwhile, PREMIUM TIMES learnt from a credible source that a moratorium signed with the institutions by the NUC is that the PhD framework for clinical teachers will only take effect in 2025.
The first crisis came with the imposition of internal Emergency on the 25th of June 1975

As India heads into the third decade of the twenty first century what does the future hold for it? Does it stare into the abyss of an institutional collapse or will its state and non-state instrumentalities be able to ride out the contemporaneous reality?

To answer these enigmas, a peep into the past is thereby imperative. When the founders of the modern Indian state, most of them British educated lawyers, set out to build a new republic, at a point in time when the world was emerging from the ashes of a Second World War, they crafted an institutional design with a written Constitution at its very heart.

Inspired by the democracies of the West and liberal ideals, they drew on the experiences of those nations, but primarily settled on the Westminster model that was predicated on the cardinal principal of checks and balances, namely, an independent legislature, an autonomous judiciary, a free media and an accountable executive, that incorporated within itself the steel frame called the bureaucracy, often referred to as the permanent executive.

For the first two-and-a-half decades, since Independence, the system functioned well. The legislature was fearless, the judiciary autonomous and the media fiercely combative. A substantial number of the initial amendments to the Constitution were legislated to overturn the conservative and often textual view taken by the judges of the apex court.

The Supreme Court in 1973, in Re: Kesvananda Bharti, even laid down the basic structure doctrine, thereby declaring that certain features of the Constitution were beyond even the amending powers of the Parliament, thereby freezing the scheme, structure and construct of the Constitution into perpetuity.

The first crisis came with the imposition of internal Emergency on the 25th of June 1975. With the political Opposition in incarceration, the institution just keeled over. Those parliamentarians not behind bars lost both their courage and conscience, the judiciary crumbled with ADM Jabalpur (now overruled in Re: K.S. Puttaswamy v. UOI 2017) becoming the lowest point of institutional capitulation. The media acquitted itself no better. As the information and broadcasting minister in the post-Emergency period, L.K. Advani famously quipped about the Indian media: You were asked only to bend, but you crawled.

The key takeaway from this episode of our history is, when the political pushback is neutered, institutions or the people who populate them more than willingly fall in line.

From 1977 to 1989, chastened by the experience of the Emergency and despite governments with huge majorities in office between 1980 and 1989, both at the Centre and omnipresent in the state legislatures as well, other institutions were able to claw their way back to both independence and respectability.

Unfortunately, legislative institutions became a collateral casualty during this period. The 10th Schedule of the Constitution, also called the Anti-Defection Act, enacted in 1985 with the correct intent of curbing the menace of horse-trading in our legislatures, ending up sucking democracy out of these august bodies. They became platforms of whip-driven tyranny, whereby elected representatives became proscribed from acting according to their common sense, conscience or constituency interests.

The judiciarys finest hour came when India entered a phase of coalition politics from 1991 onwards. Though P.V. Narasimha Rao ran a single party government between 1991 and 1996, it did not have the muscle of earlier such governments, because it was not a majority government in the strict sense of the word. It was during this period that the Supreme Court in 1993 took away from the government the right to appoint judges to the higher judiciary by interpreting consultation to mean concurrence.

A brief glimpse of how the position with regard to appointment of judges evolved from a majority to a non-majority and then a coalition government situation is instructive; the First Judges Case (1981) held that consultation with the Chief Justice of India (CJI) in the matter of appointments must be full and effective. Nonetheless, it spurned the notion that the CJIs opinion, though carrying great weight, should be preeminent. The Second Judges Case (1993) introduced the collegium system. It held that consultation really meant concurrence. It further stated that it was not the CJIs personal opinion, but an institutional opinion arrived at in consultation with the two senior-most judges of the Supreme Court. On a Presidential Reference for its view, the Supreme Court, in the Third Judges Case (1998) enlarged the collegium to a five-member body, comprising the CJI and four of his senior-most colleagues.

For over two decades between 1993 and 2014, the higher judiciary expanded the frontiers of jurisprudence earning itself the sobriquet of an activist judiciary. It was also the golden period for the media. The liberalisation of the broadcast space saw a proliferation of news and current affairs TV channels, investigative journalism also flowered and the innovation of the Internet added a digital dimension to journalism.

All this started changing in 2014. With a majority government at the helm after 25 years and not really in thrall of either the idea or centrality of dissent in a democracy, institutions that virtually had an autonomous run for over two-and-a-half decades started experiencing a sharp, systematic and sustained pushback.

The first to crumble was the media. The transition from watchdogs to lap dogs was swift. The judiciary also had its last hurrah when they struck down the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act and the consequential constitutional amendments in 2015.

Even the Election Commission that had evolved into a fair arbiter of Indian democracy, especially from the stewardship of T.N. Seshan onwards in the 1990s has taken a hit and today is not perceived as impartial umpire, primarily due to its rather inexplicable defence of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) that are perceived as riggable by a substantial chunk of the populace.

The institutional collapse only exacerbated further after the 2019 general elections that led to the further weakening of an already enfeebled Opposition.

The key takeaway, therefore, is that the Indian constitutional and institutional structure has not evolved in the past 70 odd years to a point where it can withstand the might of a majority if not ruthless government in the absence of a strong political bulwark unlike some of the older democracies, the United States and the institutional fightback against Donald Trump being the latest example.

It is, therefore, time that the Indian Opposition gets its act together. For, only a political pushback stands between the constitutional idea of India and a one-party majoritarian situation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said students of Indian Institutes of Managements (IIM) across the nation should work towards turning local into global. He was speaking after laying the foundation stone of the permanent campus of IIM Sambalpur in Odisha.

To turn local into global, students of IIM need to come up with new ways. The country has 20 IIMs and this huge talent pool will help the vision for a self-reliant India, PM said.

Stressing on the need for inclusive development, PM Modi said that students should focus on brand India while ensuring that their vision incorporates the less privileged sections of society.

This decade will be devoted to the development of new Multinational corporations (MNCs) in India. Todays startups are tomorrows MNCs. These are largely growing in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. These startups need able managers and those passing out of these institutions will lead the way, PM Modi said.

It is our responsibility to get a global recognition for brand India. Those who will be a part of this institution need to encourage development and focus on inclusivity of all, he added.

Odisha governor Ganeshi Lal and state chief minister Naveen Patnaik, Union ministers Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Dharmendra Pradhan and Pratap Chandra Sarangi were also present on the occasion.
Wed made the necessary psychological pivot.

The online grocery order was lodged, as was the bottle shop order. A family member would drop off jigsaw puzzles to our doorstep. We'd started devising creative ways to keep our 16-month-old son occupied in our apartment. In short, we were resigned to a 14-day home quarantine.

A day earlier, like thousands of other Victorians visiting family in NSW, wed raced back to our home state after the Andrews government announced it was shutting the border to halt the spread of coronavirus from our northern neighbours.

The conditions of our return were spelt out on the travel permits we applied for as we trundled down the Hume on New Years Eve with a restless toddler in the back seat.
People's Artist of the USSR Vasily Lanovoy tested positive for Covid-19, director of the Vakhtangov Theater Kirill Krok informed.

According to him, the actor feels rather well, however, due to his age, he was hospitalized.

Krok said that the actor's wife, People's Artist of the RSFSR Irina Kupchenko, also in the hospital as she tested positive for coronavirus. "She hopes to go home by the evening," RIA Novosti quotes Krok as saying.
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According to the IMARC Group, A smart container is a shipping container that offers real-time tracking and monitoring of the cargo. It primarily uses the global positioning system (GPS), Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRa WAN) and cellular technologies to track the consignment throughout the journey and find misrouted or lost containers. These smart containers are equipped with a unique identification code that is scanned at every entry and exit point of the depot by the transportation management system. Additionally, the sensors installed in the containers also provide real-time information regarding the temperature, humidity, and pressure in the containers.

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Significant growth in the logistics industry, along with the increasing demand for efficient and secured shipping containers from the pharmaceutical, oil and gas, and chemical sectors, is primarily driving the market growth. Furthermore, the rapid expansion of e-commerce facilities and increasing cross-border trade activities across the globe are also propelling the demand for smart containers. Moreover, the rising integration of several advanced technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, and Big Data, that enable constant monitoring of the container's internal environment and minimize the risk of spoilage of perishable goods are further catalyzing the market growth.

Key Market Segmentation:

IMARC Group provides an analysis of the key trends in each sub-segment of the global smart container market report, along with forecasts for growth at the global, regional and country-level from 2020-2025. Our report has categorized the market based on region, offering, technology and vertical.



Read more information about global mobile payment market report: https://www.imarcgroup.com/smart-container-market

Breakup by Offering:

Hardware

Software

Services

Breakup by Technology:

GPS (Global Positioning System)

Cellular

LoRa WAN (Long Range Wide Area Network)

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)

Others

Breakup by Vertical:

Food and Beverages

Pharmaceuticals

Oil and Gas

Chemicals

Others

Breakup by Region:

North America United States Canada

Asia-Pacific China Japan India South Korea Australia Indonesia Others

Europe Germany France United Kingdom Italy Spain Russia Others

Latin America Brazil Mexico Others

Middle East and Africa

Competitive Landscape:

The competitive landscape of the industry has also been examined along with the profiles of the key players being Ambrosus, Globe Tracker, ApS., Nexiot AG, Orbcomm Inc., Phillips Connect Technologies LLC (R. A. Phillips Industries Inc.), Robert Bosch Manufacturing Solutions GmbH, Smart Containers Group AG, SeaLand (Maersk Group), Traxens and Zillionsource Technologies Co. Ltd.

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Tens of thousands of protesting farmers will enter the national capital on Jan 26, Republic Day, and carry out a tractor parade if their demands for a repeal of three farm laws and a law guaranteeing minimum prices for crops are not met by then, leaders of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha, a platform of farm unions, said on Saturday.

Addressing a press conference in the capital, a seven-member team that is coordinating the over one month-long protests, spelt out a fresh agitation agenda spanning 15 days from Jan 6, which includes picketing Raj Bhavans, onward marches from six blockade sites on Delhis borders and a rehearsal for the Jan 26 tractor parade.

The farm leaders said they would wait for the outcome of January 4 talks with the government and the Supreme Courts hearing on January 5 on a clutch of petitions related to the three farm laws.

This is our ultimatum. If all issues are not resolved and our demands are not met by Republic Day, then we will start entering Delhi. The government is saying that 50% of the demands have been met. But the government has shown no signs of meeting our biggest demands, said Yogendra Yadav, a leader of the platform leading the protests.

Farm unions have launched one of the largest strikes in recent years to demand that the Centre revokes the three contentious laws approved by Parliament in September last year.

The laws essentially change the way Indias farmers do business by creating free markets as opposed to a network of decades-old, government marketplaces, allowing traders to stockpile essential commodities for future sales and laying down a national framework for contract farming.

These laws are The Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act 2020.

Also Read: Confident ongoing farm stir will end: MoS Kailash Choudhary ahead of Jan 4 meeting

Together, the laws will allow big corporations and global supermarket chains to buy directly from farmers, bypassing decades-old regulations.

Farmers say the reforms will make them vulnerable to exploitation by big corporations, erode their bargaining power and weaken the governments procurement system, whereby the government buys staples, such as wheat and rice, at guaranteed rates.

Tractors from all neighbouring states will begin rolling into Delhi if matters are not resolved. Contingents from all current blockade sites will start moving. We will continue with our blockade of goods and services of Ambani (Reliance group) and Adani (group), including their products, malls and petrol pumps, Darshan Pal, a senior farm union leader said.

The leaders were addressing their first press conference in the national capital since their agitation began.

The leaders slammed what they called the governments propaganda. The government doesnt want to withdraw the laws because it has become an ego issue for them. They have tried to tarnish our agitation in countless ways, sometimes calling us Maoists and Khalistani (a reference to Sikh separatists), Balbir Singh Rajewal said.

Asked what the farm unions would do if the Supreme Court were to uphold the validity of the laws, he said: We are not a party to the case. But we will make a decision when the appropriate time comes.
The Brandon Fire and Emergency Services team is heading into the new year with some big boots to fill, since three of their seasoned veterans recently retired within a short period of time.

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The Brandon Fire and Emergency Services team is heading into the new year with some big boots to fill, since three of their seasoned veterans recently retired within a short period of time.

While Capt. Bob Smits last shift took place on Dec. 4, his colleagues Capt. Kevin Holder and senior pump operator Mike Ketcheson said goodbye to their fellow firefighters/paramedics last week, leaving behind a big void within the department.

Senior pump operator Mike Ketcheson receives a retirement gift from his fellow Brandon Fire and Emergency Services members this past week, capping off his 41-year run with the department. (Submitted)

Not only did this trio serve as high-ranking members of BFES, but they also brought over 100 years worth of combined work experience to the table.

"Youre sad to see them go," fire Chief Scott McDonald told the Sun on Tuesday. "These are gentlemen that Ive worked with throughout almost their whole careers  so you build friendships with these people and its more than just about work."

Talking to the Sun on Monday, Smit, Holder and Ketcheson all said that walking away from a multi-decade career with the department is bittersweet.

Brandon Fire and Emergency Services Capt. Kevin Holder poses for a photo on Dec. 26, which served as his final day on the job before retirement. Holder has been working for the department since 1991. (Submitted)

While Ketcheson revealed that he is happy to get the time to schedule some much-needed knee surgery, he admits that his ambition to work is still there even after four decades on the job.

"I maybe should have retired earlier than 41 years, but you kind of like the job, you kind of like the guys, you like the action and the unknown," the 67-year-old said. "Its not for everybody, but for me it was a real good career, so thats why I held on as long as I did."

Meanwhile, Holders drive to help people has already manifested in his new home of Taylor, B.C., where he will serve as the deputy fire chief of the small communitys volunteer fire department for at least the next couple years.

"The annual call volume is more equivalent to what a monthly call volume was for me (in Brandon)," he said. "That will serve as my transition into full retirement."

And even though Smit is technically employed by BFES until the middle of January, he had no qualms about using up his remaining vacation time to retire to his Minnedosa home a couple weeks early, especially after dedicating his life to the department since 1989.

"I have no regrets leaving when Im leaving," he said. "I felt like I did my due diligence and now its time to enjoy life and I have a great spot out here at the lake, and its still just a short drive to Brandon to see (the guys) once in a while  once COVID is over, obviously."

Capt. Bob Smit showcases a retirement gift at Brandon Fire and Emergency Services headquarters during his final shift on Dec. 4. Smit originally started working for the department back in 1989. (Submitted)

In terms of what theyre going to miss the most about this job, the trio said the fire halls collegial atmosphere will be the hardest thing to replicate.

After all, Holder said working at the department as a rookie was more like being adopted into a second family, since the senior leadership members went out their way to help him with his professional development.

"They will teach you just like a parent will  all the ins and outs of how the operations work and then you transition into being the parent," he said.

While replacing these three men specifically would be an impossible task, McDonald said the wheels are already in motion to fill the vacant senior leadership positions at BFES starting in the new year.

"We have a wide range of experience levels in the department and we have people that are ready to step up and fill their roles," he said. "So we have an influx of new people coming in, which is always exciting for all of our staff."

For any local firefighters/paramedics who are looking to carve out a lengthy career for themselves in Brandon, the three recently-retired BFES members all offered a parting piece of advice.

Ketcheson believes that maintaining ones physical and mental well-being is the key to success in this field, especially since the job requires you to respond to various crises at a moments notice.

"Its easier if you can accept that going to work every day something bad is going to happen, so that when stuff happens and youre required to respond its a little easier on the constitution," he said.

However, Smit maintains that younger members dont have to bear this psychological burden alone and shouldnt be afraid to consult with their fellow firefighters/paramedics if they are encountering some challenges on the job.

"You definitely have to realize that there is going to be a lot of good days in spite of the bad ones and everybody is going through the same thing you are," he said. "Just keep talking about it. Talk to your senior people, your management people, your supervisors so you dont leave it bottled up."

Finally, Holder urges these up-and-coming BFES members to try and have some fun along the way, even if this position sometimes requires an extra level of commitment.

"It is the best job in the world," he said. "We help people on their worst days. Thats what kept me going, that and the crew members. It was not work for me. It was something that I just enjoyed."

 kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @KyleDarbyson
In the first day of 2021, Russian occupation forces in Donbas opened fire on Ukrainian positions nine times using small arms, machine guns and grenade launchers, there are no casualties among the Armed Forces of Ukraine servicemen, the press center of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) headquarters has said.

"Over the past day, on January 1, nine violations of the ceasefire were recorded in the area of the Joint Forces Operation ... There are no military casualties or injuries among the Ukrainian military," the headquarters said in a morning report on its Facebook page on Saturday.
As one of the most tumultuous years in oils history ends, a delicate task now confronts OPEC+.

The alliance of producers led by Saudi Arabia and Russia must decide whether it can continue to restore crude supplies without capsizing the price recovery they spent most of 2020 working to achieve.

Moscow believes that the group -- which slashed output during the pandemic -- can revive another 500,000 barrels a day of idle capacity in February, on top of an increase scheduled for this month. Riyadh, which has favored greater caution, is keeping its own views under wraps.

It feels like OPEC+ is trying to steer a giant oil tanker through a narrow straight," said Giovanni Staunovo, an analyst at UBS Group AG in Zurich.

Whatever they ultimately decide, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners are leaving nothing to chance.

With its Jan. 4 gathering, the coalition is switching to meeting every month -- rather than just a few times a year -- in order to fine-tune production levels more precisely.

After the brutal lessons delivered over the past 12 months, the impulse to micro-manage is understandable.

Crudes Crash

Last years challenges for OPEC+ began in February, when oil demand in China collapsed 20% as the worlds biggest importer locked down to beat the emerging coronavirus.

Riyadh and Moscow then clashed over how to respond to the demand shock, a dispute that shattered the 23-nation alliance and ushered in a vicious price war. By April, the world was so awash in crude that U.S. futures traded below zero for the first time in history.

Relations were only mended after the intervention of U.S. President Donald Trump. An unlikely mediator, having lambasted the cartel for years, Trump nonetheless brokered a peace deal that resulted in OPECs biggest-ever output cuts.

Phasing out those curbs is provoking new controversies.

Last month, OPEC+ talks ran into a five-day stalemate as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- for years stalwart allies in both political and energy spheres -- disagreed over how quickly to revive the idled barrels.

Allies Split

While the kingdom wanted to delay any increases for three months, its neighbor -- eager to monetize investments in capacity, and promote a new regional oil benchmark -- pushed for a speedier timetable.

Though a compromise was reached, the brief rupture in their longstanding partnership -- which at one point saw Abu Dhabi hint at eventually leaving OPEC -- has left an ominous shadow.

The pace of restoring output will occupy the producers on Monday. Currently idling 7.2 million barrels a day, or about 7% of world supplies, they have resolved to return a further 1.5 million barrels a day in carefully calibrated installments.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak has signaled his readiness to proceed, saying last month that prices are in an optimal range of $45 to $55 a barrel. If OPEC+ refrains from bolstering exports, its competitors will simply fill the gap, he said.

The market needs the oil," said Jan Stuart, a global energy economist at Cornerstone Macro LLC. The prevailing view in OPEC+ seems to be that you have to go for market share. You cannot subsidize the return of U.S. shale."

Novaks Saudi counterpart, Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, hasnt publicly expressed a preference beyond his intention to keep speculators on their toes."

There is a solid case for going ahead with the production increase.

Oil prices have stabilized above $50 barrel in London despite OPECs pledge of extra supply, bolstered by vaccine developments and robust fuel use in Asia. Supply and demand should remain broadly balanced in the first half of the year, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency.

The market has underlying support and as such should shrug off a modest increase in OPEC+ supply," said Doug King, chief investment officer of the Merchant Commodity Fund, which manages $170 million.

Its a choice that might also come as a relief to OPEC+ members like Iraq. Baghdad is engulfed in a mounting economic crisis that is only exacerbated by limits on oil sales, and is struggling to get through a backlog of overdue output cuts from 2020.

Uncertain Demand

But theres also an argument for holding back the extra barrels.

Oil refiners havent yet had a chance to absorb this months supply hike, and a more infectious virus strain is clouding the outlook for demand.

While the IEA anticipates no fresh surplus, it warned that the existing inventory overhang will linger to the end of the year if OPEC+ opens the taps. Despite the markets rebound, crude prices remain far below the levels most OPEC members need to cover government spending.

Finally, OPEC+ must navigate the impact of incoming U.S. President Joe Biden, who has signaled readiness to revive a nuclear pact with Iran that could release more than 1 million barrels a day of oil exports currently under U.S. sanctions.

OPEC+ can likely pull off another production increase in February," said Bob McNally, president of consultant Rapidan Energy Group and a former White House official. But in terms of vanquishing last years Covid glut, theyre far from out of the woods."

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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Many countries have implemented travel restrictions on the United Kingdom following reports of a new, possibly more infectious COVID-19 variant circulating the nation. At least 33 nations have recorded cases of the new variant.

The Spread of New Coronavirus Variant From UK

Reports of the new novel coronavirus variant that was first detected in the United Kingdom has taken the world by storm. According to British evaluation, it is reportedly more contagious, 70 percent more transmissible than the original variant.

France, Canada, Spain, Japan, and Norway have detected small numbers of cases of the new coronavirus variant most associated with travel from the UK.

The rapid prevalence of the variant led to London and southern England's quarantine, prompted a temporary French blockade of the English Channel, and resulted in nations across the globe prohibiting travelers from Britain, reported The Straits Times.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there is inadequate information to determine whether the variants could undermine vaccines being disseminated throughout the world.

The United States recorded its first case of the variant B.1.1.7 in Colorado -- a man in his 20s with no latest travel history who is currently isolated, reported Reuters.

India officials confirmed that six people who just arrived in the country from Britain have tested positive for the virus' new variant. All of the patients have been kept in isolation, according to the health ministry. Their fellow travelers were being traced, and their close contacts were imposed quarantine, reported The Guardian.

Since November, the new COVID-19 variant ravaging Britain has been detected in Germany, according to health officials on Tuesday, following the detection of the variant in a patient who died in the country's north.

Also Read: New Year 2021: Muted Celebrations Around the World

Researchers were able to sequence the variant in a person who contracted it in November 2020, according to the health ministry of Lower Saxony in a statement.

Singapore has confirmed one case of infection, with 11 others in quarantine returning preliminarily positive results.

Denmark has detected 33 cases with the new strain.

France health authorities have confirmed the nation's first case of the COVID-19 variant that imposed rigid new lockdown measures in the UK and global travel restrictions. A French man residing in England arrived in France on December 19 and tested positive for the new variant, stated the French public health agency.

Due to the fact that few countries have the level of genomic surveillance that the UK does, there is concern that the variant could have been traveling across the globe undetected for a while.

According to a recent study by British scientists, there is no evidence that the variant is fatal than others but surmised that it is 56 percent more infectious.

The UK was the first country to record the new variant of COVID-19 in September 2020. The nation's health minister Matt Hancock stated the new variant was becoming out of control and prompted the government to impose more stringent lockdown measures and a host of countries to bar travel from the UK.

Singapore confirmed its new variant case on December 23. The patient was identified as a 17-year-old female who had returned from the UK after studying there since August.

Related Article: Dr. Fauci: Life Will Return to Normal by Autumn of 2021

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43 patients being cared for at Wrexham Maelor Hospital due to healthcare acquired coronavirus

This article is old - Published: Saturday, Jan 2nd, 2021

More data has been released regarding the coronavirus situation in the local area, with Wrexhams seven day rolling benchmark figure now 581.8 per 100k

In an update with data valid to the morning of New Years Eve, Debra Hickman the Acting Executive Director of Nursing and Midwifery, said: We are providing care to 43 patients at Wrexham Maelor Hospital and community hospitals in the East area who currently have, or have had healthcare acquired COVID-19 infection. This does not include an update on the number of people being treated for non-healthcare acquired coronavirus.

The latest outbreak was first declared on the 6th of November affecting a small number, which had increased to 20 people by the 13th and then 49 by the 20th of November, and 80 to 90 people in the by the end of November. It is the second outbreak to have been declared at the hospital, which saw a large increase in the number of patients with coronavirus over the summer. At its height in July there were almost 80 confirmed cases of the virus in the hospital, with the first outbreak declared over in September, with over 33 people reported as having died,

Debra Hickman added, Since declaring this outbreak in late October, we have provided care to 125 patients with healthcare acquired COVID-19 infection.





We continue to review our infection prevention practices as we learn more about the virus and national guidance is updated.

Today has also seen the regular update from Public Health Wales showing +268 new cases on the day on day reporting of new cases for Wrexham, with 34.4% positive proportion  with the seven day rolling figure now 581.8 per 100k.

There was no reporting of data yesterday, but raw data has 243 cases on 29th of December out of 688 tests, with a note that tomorrows data will cover a two day period, so is expected to be higher.

PHW explained, Due Bank Holiday arrangements, the data released today is as at 31 December at 9am. Data released tomorrow will cover a 48 hour period from 9am on 31 December to 9am on 2 January instead of the usual 24 hour period and so should be interpreted with caution, as it is likely to be around double the usual 24 hour value.

Todays data has also seen a two weekly local authority based update report giving more detailed figures for each council area around Wales, the top image shows the positive proportion of tests.

Local authority breakdowns for age have also been updated:

Other data includes the sample source information, showing the split Wales-wide of confirmed testing episodes in the community or in hospital, with the data sorted by age.

The confirmed cases for the rolling seven day period is also graphed for the six North Wales council areas, with it explained that the location is of where the person is resident not where they are treated.

Dr Chris Williams, Incident Director for the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak response at Public Health Wales, said: We wish everyone a Happy New Year, and hope that 2021 will be a better year for us all. With vaccinations for COVID-19 progressing, we welcome the announcement by the Welsh Government of the roll-out of the second Coronavirus vaccine (from Oxford/AstraZeneca) in Wales.

Vaccinating the adult population of Wales, to protect people from severe disease, is a significant task, and the vaccine will take time to reach everyone.

Please do not to phone your GP, pharmacy or hospital asking when you will get a vaccine. When someone is in one of the groups eligible for the vaccine, they will be invited to attend a dedicated clinic which will have been set up to ensure patient safety and that of the healthcare professionals.

The effects of the vaccines may not be seen nationally for some time, and with Wales at alert level four we must continue to follow the advice on keeping Wales safe. Stay at home, meet only the people you live with, maintain social distancing, wash your hands regularly, and work from home if you can.

As indicated by the Welsh Government, the new restrictions were brought forward due to the identification of a new more transmissible variant of Coronavirus. Public Health Wales has been working with UK partners to investigate and respond to this variant.

It is normal for viruses to undergo mutations, and we expect this to happen. Although the variant is easier to transmit, there is currently no evidence that it is more severe.

We are reminding people that all current guidance relating to Coronavirus continues to apply to the new variant, including advice relating to symptoms, social distancing, self-isolation, and vaccination.

The new variant shows up as positive in Public Health Wales existing Coronavirus tests, and people must continue to seek a test in the usual way if they develop Coronavirus symptoms.

Public Health Wales urges everyone to follow the rules, to avoid transmission of Coronavirus and to protect everyone in our communities, including the most vulnerable.
As people bid adieu to the toughest year of mounting hardships and challenges, Netflixs footage of the Indian actress Sanya Malhotra welcoming 2021 in all fervour with a new vision for 2021 uplifted the internet. The Dangal actress packed it in rollicking on top of her terrace as she spread the message of love and good vibes and cherished making it through the year everyone so patiently desired to wave goodbye. In the encouraging footage, the actress rang in the new year hopping excitedly, frolicking, dancing, and hooting as 2020 was finally over. You got this, youve made it, read the subtitles to Sanyas high spirited video.

As the clip opens, Malhotra grooves and dances standing in the open amid the breezy winds and foot-tapping tunes as she shakes a leg to the incoming year full of hope. @sanyamalhotra_ has really got the 2021 vision, Netflix wrote in the caption of the footage as the Bollywood actor spreads positivity with the hashtags #2021 and #Motivation. As the video plays, encouraging one-liners appear to motivate people to enter the year with fresh goals and resilience. You made it, the actress conveys with her awe-inspiring dance. In her simple, yet moving celebration, the Bollywood actress reminded people that the year 2020 was finally over, and despite insurmountable issues and adversity, the new year brought in new hopes.

Read: Natasa Stankovic, Hardik Pandya Celebrate As Agastya Turns Five Months Old; See Pics

Read: Kangana Ranaut Hosts New Year Party In Mumbai, Shares Glimpses

Internet admires performance

The Internet applauded and adored the actress spirit as they dropped virtual hearts on her lively performance. Malhotra was revered by her fans and well-wishers for the portrayal of joy and a jubilant performance to kick start a new year. Calling the footage admirable, fans wished the star a happy new year. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the new year celebrations were restricted in the public premises and like the Bollywood actress, many simply rejoiced to enter the new year without the lavish celebrations amid health safety protocols and fear of the new UK strain of the coronavirus. Several countries worldwide issued stay at home orders and cancelled the traditional fireworks due to the infections surge.

Read: Did Vicky Kaushal-Katrina Kaif Ring In New Year At Alibaug? Fans React On Posts

Read: Ananya Panday And Ishaan Khatter Welcome 2021 In Maldives; Rumoured Couple Share Pictures

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.
Trump signs executive order to provide scholarships for in-person education options during pandemic

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As many schools remain shut due to COVID-19, President Donald Trump has signed an executive order providing scholarship funding to students for in-person learning through homeschooling and learning pods, among other such alternative means, amid the pandemic.

The order states that the scholarships are for affected disadvantaged families to cover the cost of private or parochial schools, homeschooling, learning pods, special education, and related services including therapies, or tutoring, or remedial education, according to The Epoch Times.

The funds will be made available through an existing Community Service Block Grant program under the Health and Human Services Department.

Many schools closed their doors and turned to virtual learning in February and March to curb the spread of the coronavirus and have remained closed for months. Churches and faith organizations have stepped in to provide spaces for students to learn as parents are unable to stay home or internet access is unavailable.

The prolonged deprivation of in-person learning opportunities has produced undeniably dire consequences for the children of this country, Trump says in the order. States have seen substantial declines in reports of child maltreatment while school buildings have been closed, indicating that allegations are going unreported. These reductions are driven in part by social isolation from the schoolteachers and support staff with whom students typically interact and who have an obligation to report suspected child maltreatment.

The President adds, Unfortunately, more than 50 percent of all public-school students in the United States began school remotely this fall. These children, including those with special needs, are being underserved due to the public education systems failure to provide in-person learning options.

In November, research on student grades conducted in one of the United States largest school districts in Virginia showed that the number of students getting F marks had increased by 83% last year due to the COVID-19-related restrictions on in-person learning, with students with disabilities bearing the brunt.

Among middle and high school students, there was an 83 percent increase in the number of students receiving two or more F marks, said the study on the Fairfax school system, which has 186,000 students.

Conducted by the Office of Research and Strategic Improvement, the study analyzed marks at the end of the first quarter in the school year 2020-21 compared to marks from the school year 2019-20 Q1. Overall, F marks increased from 6 percent of all marks to 11 percent of all marks, it found.

In November, CDC Director Robert Redfield said schools are the best place for children to be during the pandemic. The infections that weve identified in schools when theyve been evaluated were not acquired in schools, Redfield said at a coronavirus task force briefing held at the White House, according to Fox News. They were actually acquired in the community and in the household.

He continued: The truth is, for kids K-12, one of the safest places they can be, from our perspective, is to remain in school, and its really important that following the data, making sure we dont make emotional decisions about what to close and what not to close. Im here to say clearly the data strongly supports that K-12 schools  as well as institutes of higher learning  really are not where were having our challenges.

On Sunday, Trump approved a $900 billion relief package, which includes about $82 billion for education.




Haiti - 217th independence : Statement of the Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau





On Friday January 1, 2021, the Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau made a statement on the occasion of the 217th anniversary of the independence of Haiti that we invite you to read :



Statement by Justin Trudeau :

"Today, we join the Haitian community in Canada and around the world in marking Haitis Independence Day.



For a long time, Canada and Haiti have been united by a strong friendship. This friendship has grown stronger over time as a result of the close ties between our people, a common language, and a long history of cooperation, especially within several international organizations. By sharing its culture and traditions, the Haitian community in Canada also continually enriches our country.



The current global COVID19 pandemic reminds us more than ever of the importance of solidarity. This is why, by working with our partners, the Government of Canada will continue to help Haiti strengthen its national systems and assist in the timely distribution of COVID19 vaccines.



In Canada, members of the Haitian community have made an exceptional contribution to the pandemic response. Many have been on the front lines helping our most vulnerable. I would like to thank them, from the bottom of my heart. We will always remember their courage and the tremendous sacrifices they have made.



Unfortunately, this year, we will not be able to all come together to share a traditional soup joumou as part of the celebrations on January 1. However, we can still mark this important day in other ways, while following public health guidelines.



On behalf of the Government of Canada, I offer my best wishes to the Haitian community celebrating Haitis Independence Day today."



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Just one Republican voted to convict Donald Trump for abusing the office of the presidency. (Getty Images)

Donald Trump was acquitted by the Senate at just the third presidential impeachment trial in US history in February, and yet it might not even crack the top three most important news developments over the past 12 months.

Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney made headlines at the time for becoming the first member of an impeached presidents party to convict him.

But the real story  how the history books will remember the saga  is how every single other Republican in Congress stuck by Mr Trump's side.

With so many different factors contributing to the electoral landscape this past fall  the Covid-19 pandemic, a reignited racial justice movement, voter suppression  it is mere speculation how much of an impact that cohesion had on Republicans clinging to power in the Senate (for now).

At the time, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was confident Democrats failed impeachment had been a colossal political mistake".

The Kentucky Republican was clear-eyed that the electoral consequences may not last through the fall, informed by decades of experience that the American public has a very short political attention span.

But he was bullish.

Every one of our people in tough races  every one of them  is in better shape today than they were before the impeachment trial started, Mr McConnell said at a news conference after the impeachment votes on 5 February.

The politics of impeaching Mr Trump were always going to be tricky for Democrats.

Late in 2018, after the party had taken back the House majority, incoming Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler told me he intended to avoid a partisan impeachment process in the next term at all costs.

This was more than a year before the president withheld military aid from Ukraine to boost his political prospects, the basis for his eventual impeachment.

If youre serious about removing a president from office, what youre really doing is overturning the result of the last election, Mr Nadler told me at Roll Call at the time. You dont want to have a situation where you tear this country apart and for the next 30 years half the countrys saying We won the election, you stole it.

Story continues

Well, it turns out Mr Nadler didn't get his wish on either account (although impeachment had no bearing on the second of those): by and large, Republicans maligned the impeachment process, and Mr Trumps White House has been a spigot of misinformation and discredited conspiracy theories claiming the 2020 election was stolen from him in the weeks since 3 November.

While the most ardent Trump loyalists in both chambers justified his behaviour with Ukraine, a substantial handful of GOP senators acknowledged the president had abused his power  just not enough to remove him from office.

I think it was a mistake. ... I think he shouldn't have done it, retiring GOP Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said of Mr Trumps attempts to leverage military aid to Ukraine for his own political benefit. But the impeachment charge  abuse of power  was such a vague term, he said, it doesn't mean anything.

For some, such as Florida Senator Marco Rubio, whether Mr Trump's actions constituted an impeachable offence or not didn't even matter.

"Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a President from office, Mr Rubio wrote in a blog post at the time.

I will not vote to remove the President because doing so would inflict extraordinary and potentially irreparable damage to our already divided nation.

Americans achieved the same end result nine months later when they voted Joe Biden to be the next president, rendering the impeachment debate more historically symbolic of a time of intense American division than academically substantive.

Read More

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Pelosi wont rule out Trump impeachment to stall Supreme Court battle
2021 is being bombarded by tech releases from different companies, with OnePlus introducing their iteration of a smartwatch that would be the perfect pair for its smartphones, with leaks now confirmed by the company. The new watch still has limited information regarding everything the public needs to know about it, which OnePlus would soon reveal.

The Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturing company, OnePlus, has risen to fame over the past years after its initial release last 2013, and the young company already has fans and enthusiasts for its products. Now, the company has unveiled its OnePlus Watch which is one of the most rumored products in the company.

OnePlus Watch: Rumors and Leaks Confirmed-Rival to the Apple Watch

Rumors and leaks have all talked about the plans of OnePlus to release their version of the smartwatch that can rival tech giants Apple and Samsung with their iterations of the smartphone-paired timepieces. Initial specs of the new smartwatch are all about its phone connectivity and compatibility, which would center on OnePlus' products.

Arguably, its top competitor would be the Apple Watch which has released its Series 6 and SE last September 2020, and Samsung's Galaxy Watch 3 that was released earlier in August of the same year. However, the same time where the listing for the new OnePlus Watch appeared also in August but did not have a 2020 release date.

Fans and enthusiasts of the smartphone company have anticipated the smartwatch after its initial rumors but have not seen any revelation or confirmation from OnePlus. However, the start of the new year has been planned by the company after all, with the new smartwatch now confirmed by OnePlus without saying its official name yet.

Read Also: PS5 Restock Times and Dates: Here's When Amazon, Best Buy, Target, Walmart and MORE Will Likely Restock!

OnePlus Watch Specs

The company announced in their official Twitter account (@oneplus) that there would be more (tech devices) that would come to their "ecosystem" (lineup) soon. The cryptic message left fans and enthusiasts to wonder and expect more from the company but was radio silent until the recent confirmation.

The watch is expected to have a round face, as opposed to Apple Watch's rounded square shape. Additionally, the OnePlus Watch would run the WearOS from Google, which is also used as the same operating system for other wearable gadgets.

CEO Pete Lau mentioned that it would soon change for the company, as it works to develop its operating system for the smartwatch venture. The smartwatch would not be an exclusive accessory to OnePlus smartphones but would be for all Android OS running phones.

OnePlus Watch Price

According to Tom's Guide, there is no certain price tag for the watch revealed by the company or as known by the leaks, but it is expected to be around the price of all flagship smartwatches from other companies. The Apple Watch Series 6 costs $399 and the SE has a price tag of $279.

These prices mean that the OnePlus Watch would be around the price tag of $279 to $350, which is a reasonable and ideal price range for devices such as an Android smartwatch.

OnePlus Watch Release Date

The OnePlus CEO's tweet mentioned that the smartwatch would come in "early next year," which would mean the Q1 of 2021. There are no official dates for the release, along with official specs and prices.

Related Article: Apple's 2020 Is One of The Best Years for the Company-Cupertino Giant's Best 5 Tech Releases!

This article is owned by Tech Times





Written by Isaiah Alonzo

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Brody McWilliams Brown was born to mum Jennifer McWilliams in The National Maternity Hospital at four seconds past midnight, making him the first baby born in Ireland in 2021

When Jennifer McWilliams (19) made a pre-Christmas dash into Holles Street, she initially thought she was having contractions - given that she was nearly 37 weeks pregnant.

But nothing could have prepared her for the news that came back from her medics - she had tested positive for Covid-19.

She would go on to have Ireland's first baby of 2021 in what has been described as "ironic" by the National Maternity Hospital Master, Professor Shane Higgins, given the current pandemic.

The Sallynoggin student was not due her first baby with partner Eric Brown until January 13 but both mum and her little boy Brody, who weighed 7lbs 10oz, are thriving.

She told the Herald how she was asymptomatic when she first entered the hospital but would go on to lose her sense of taste.

She received her Covid positive diagnosis on December 22.

"I came into hospital thinking I was having contractions and they said they would do a blood test and also a Covid-19 test," she said.

"It was a shock as everyone in my circle of close contacts have come back as negative except me so I've no idea where it came from."

She added: "My main concern was for the baby but after talking to the midwives and the nurses, they said anyone they've seen who had Covid didn't pass it on to the baby.

"So that was a relief to hear. They tested him this morning but we haven't got the results yet, so fingers crossed."

Given that she was also diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, medics decided to induce her on December 31 as a precautionary measure.

She said she had "no idea" she would welcome in the country's first New Year's Day baby and said having him after being diagnosed with Covid was "crazy".

The hospital said all proper protocols were followed to ensure the care of Jennifer and delivery of Brody.

"We weren't too sure when he'd arrive but one minute, we checked and I was only 2cm dilated and an hour later, I was at 10cm and we were pushing so it was quick," she added.

"I didn't actually think he was going to be the first. Holles Street was very busy last night, so I wasn't expecting it."

The Master of the National Maternity Hospital, Prof Shane Higgins, said it was "ironic" that the first baby born in 2021 was to a Covid-positive mum and encouraged all their patients to remain vigilant.

Meanwhile, Co Cork's first birth of 2021 was at one minute past midnight.

Busy

A baby boy was born to parents Karen and Michael Foley.

The first New Year's Day birth recorded at the Coombe hospital was with a baby girl who arrived in at 12.24am.

The new arrival, who has been named Kady, was born to parents Vanessa and Garry McLaughlin from Co Meath.

It will be a busy time in their household, given that baby Ava was born in the same hospital 19 months ago.

The first New Year's Day birth recorded at the Rotunda Hospital came at 12.31am.

Baby girl Riona, who was born to parents Ursula Ni Shionnain and Dean Mac Aogain from Dublin.

Herald
The has overwhelmingly overturned Donald Trump's veto of the annual USD 740 billion defence policy bill, delivering a resounding bipartisan rebuke to the President in his final days in the White House.

The overriding of the Congressional veto the first of his administration is seen as a stinging rebuke to President Trump given that the Senate, which is controlled by his Republican Party, voted 81-13 against his veto of the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) 2021.

Early this week, the House of Representatives had voted 322-87 to override Trump's veto.

The President had vetoed the NDAA 2021 arguing that certain provisions of the bill impacted national security. He also disagreed with provisions to rename military installations bearing the names of Confederate generals.

Trump, who is set to be succeeded by President-elect Joe Biden on January 20, responded on Twitter hours after the first veto override of his presidency, saying, "Our Republican Senate just missed the opportunity to get rid of Section 230, which gives unlimited power to Big Tech companies. Pathetic!!!"



Bills passed by Congress need a president's signature to become law.

On rare occasions, a president may choose to veto - or reject - legislation because of some policy disagreement. Lawmakers can override a presidential veto and enact bills into law by mustering two-thirds of votes in both chambers of Congress.

The USD 740.5 billion NDAA 2021 determines the annual budget of the United States.

The legislation, which has been enacted into a law every year for 60 years in a row, authorises funding and provides critical authorities for the US military to strengthen national defence and take care of the US service members and military families.

Senator Jim Inhofe, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that with this vote, the Senate has sent a strong message of support to troops by voting to make the Fiscal Year 2021 NDAA law.

Not only does this bill give our service members and their families the resources they need, but it also makes our nation more secure pushing back against China and Russia, strengthening our cyber defences, and accelerating innovation into the technologies that will keep our children's children safe. I'm glad the Senate voted once again, by a wide bipartisan margin, for this bill the most important bill we do each and every year, for 60 years in a row, Inhofe said.

With today's successful veto override vote in the Senate, the Congress has prevailed despite the President's illogical opposition to this year's annual defence bill, and for the 60th consecutive year the NDAA has become law, said Congressman Adam Smith, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

Voting to override the presidential veto, Senator Mark Warner, Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said that the annual defence bill is critical to the US national security.

Failure to pass it would jeopardise our country's military readiness and national defence, cybersecurity, the well-being of our US service members and their families, and more. The stakes are just too high to risk further delay, he said.

Senator Ted Cruz, who voted against the move to override Trump's veto of NDAA 2021 said that he had several concerns over the bill.

As it currently stands, this bill includes a host of partisan Democrat priorities unrelated to national security, and conflicts with the Constitution, like requiring the Department of Defence to rename military bases in a brazenly political attempt to erase our nation's history, he said.

Additionally, the bill significantly diminishes our ability to execute military strategies, make expeditious military decisions directly related to our national security interests, and wind down endless wars by interfering with the President's Article II authority. This bill also fails to advance much-needed reforms to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which Big Tech exploits while working hand in glove with the Democrat Party, Cruz said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that passage of the NDAA is a serious responsibility.

We have passed this legislation 59 years in a row, and one way or another, we are going to complete the 60th annual NDAA and pass it into law before this Congress concludes on Sunday. It's a serious responsibility, he said.

But it's also a tremendous opportunity: to direct our national security priorities to reflect the resolve of the American people and the evolving threats to their safety, at home and abroad. It's our chance to recommit to research and development, so that our 21st-century military is equipped to outmatch any adversary, McConnell said on the Senate floor.

"The full United States Congress, with these sweeping and overwhelmingly bipartisan votes, has delivered a resounding rebuke to President Trump's reckless assault on America's military and national security," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.

(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, January 2)  Two tourists from Metro Manila bound to Boracay were recently arrested after presenting counterfeit coronavirus test result documents at the Caticlan Airport.

The individuals arrived in the gateway on December 29, where they were apprehended and brought to Kalibo, the capital of Aklan province. They are currently confined in a quarantine facility, where they await reverse transcript polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing.

Boracay opened its doors to travelers from areas under general community quarantine in October with strict measures in place to curb the spread of the highly contagious virus. These include a negative RT-CR test results 48 to 72 hours prior to the visitors' travel, along with pre-arranged reservations.

In an interview, Malay, Aklan Mayor Floribar Bautista warned against attempting to fake their COVID-19 test results to gain entry to Boracay.

"They are wasting their time and money sa mga kalolokohan nila. Malalaman pa rin at mahuhuli ang mga magtatangkang gawin ang pamemeke. Hindi sila makakalusot sa Boracay," he said.

[Translation: They are wasting their time and money with their misdeeds. Anyone who dares falsify (test results) will get exposed eventually. They won't be able to get away with such in Boracay.]

On December 7, six tourists who entered the island were arrested after only one of them presented an authentic test result. The other five showed photocopied results.

Correspondent Carla Doromal contributed to this report.
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Photo: (Photo : Rachel Murray/Getty Images for MAKERS)

Gitanjali Rao, TIME's 2020 Kid of the Year, revealed the most effective teaching methods throughout her learning journey. She said classes, where they listened to a lecturer and took notes, were the least effective. Rao encourages active learning to boost the learning capabilities of students.

Who is Gitanjali Rao?

Gitanjali became known for her invention that detected lead in water faster than existing techniques. This helped solve the contaminated drinking water problem in some areas.

The 15-year-old is also busy with other pressing issues such as opioid addiction and cyberbullying. Further, the teen is on a mission to solve global problems by creating a community of young innovators worldwide.

In an interview with actress and U.N. special envoy Angelina Jolie for TIME, Rao said, "some students have ideas but know not where to start. If you give them that spark, they can build off from there and come up with ideas that solve problems."

ALSO READ: Substance in Bright Colored Fruits and Vegetables found to Give Teens Greater Ability to Tackle Complex Tests

Lectures Can Fool Students into Thinking they are Learning

A study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences revealed that students who engage in active learning could learn more than their peers in lecture-oriented classrooms.

However, in assessments of "feeling of learning" vs. "tests of learning," it revealed that active learning students felt they learned less than their lecture-taught peers, Inside Highered reported. Their higher scores on learning tests counteracted this feeling.

ALSO READ: Children Who Miss the Best Start Can Still Improve Literacy by Age 11

Teen Genius Shares Effective Ways to Teach Students

Rao was also featured in the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast. In the interview, she shared the top ways she learned from her teachers:

Spend 1-on-1 Time with your Students

Rao stressed the importance of making relationships with each of your students. She says that the extra few minutes she gets with her teachers motivate her to work on her ideas until completion.

Heather Stinnett, a lead advisor for Khan Lab School in California, revealed how spending one-on-one time with her students made her a better teacher. She wrote on Edsurge how she worked independently with students after lessons, when grading papers, after dismissal, and during bell-ringer time in the mornings.

Stinnett revealed such efforts resulted in better grades, improved behavior, and increased happiness in the classroom. "I felt more connected to my students, and they felt more connected to me." She also said she was able to help students connect too. Her students eventually started helping each other out, and she could better create projects that reflected her students' desired learning experiences.

Help Kids Pursue Passions

Once the teacher and student brainstorm what the kid is passionate about, teachers can become great motivators. The teen genius listed her chemistry, computer science, and engineering teachers as the top people who helped her bring fruition to her invention in a shorter timeframe.

Hands-On Learning is Best

America's Top Young Scientist of 2017 said she learned most through hands-on activities, Cool Cat Teacher reported. While she knows kids have different learning styles, she says hands-on learning proves to be beneficial for teaching students.

Hands-on learning can be challenging to do during the COVID-19 pandemic. But, educators are leveraging virtual reality and other software that allows remote hands-on learning.

Bring Out the Fun in Learning

Rao says she learns well with activities that feel like playing. Please encourage students to think, tell their thoughts to test their learning. Incorporate games into your lessons. Through play, learners can discover their interests as well as learn about their abilities and limitations.
Newsfrom Japan

Gifu, Jan. 2 (Jiji Press)--The prefectural government of Gifu, central Japan, said Saturday that an outbreak of avian influenza believed to be highly pathogenic has been confirmed at a chicken farm in the city of Minokamo.

It is the first time that a farm outbreak of such bird flu has been reported in the prefecture this season. Gifu thus became the 14th Japanese prefecture to confirm such an outbreak.

All chickens at the Minokamo farm, totaling 68,000, will be killed. The prefectural government will urge farms within a 3-kilometer radius of the affected farm not to move their chickens or eggs.

The prefectural government received a report of a possible outbreak from the Minokamo farm on Friday and obtained positive results through simple testing. Polymerase chain reaction tests conducted later detected an H5 subtype virus from all samples collected from chickens at the farm.

END

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
New Delhi, Jan 2 : The Central Government on Saturday said that the expert panel of India's drug regulator has recommended granting permission for restricted emergency use of the indigenously developed Covid-19 vaccine 'Covaxin' in "public interest as an abundant precaution." The Subject Expert Committee of Central Drugs Standards Control Organisation had met on January 1 and 2, and made the following recommendations for the consideration and final decision of the Drugs Controller General of India. The final decision will be taken by DCGI VG Somani soon.

"Grant of permission for restricted use in emergency situation in public interest as an abundant precaution, in clinical trial mode, specially in the context of infection by mutant strains, to Bharat Biotech International," the centre said in a statement.

Bharat Biotech's Covaxin is India's first indigenous vaccine for coronavirus. The inactivated virus vaccine has been developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and National Institute of Virology (NIV).

The expert panel, tasked with vetting the Covid-19 vaccine proposals, has also recommended Serum Institute of India's Covishield for emergency use. It also gave its nod for Phase-III Trials trial protocol to Cadila Healthcare.

Their approval by DCGI will bring major relief for India which has the second highest number of infections in the world, after the United States.

The central government plans to vaccinate nearly 30 crore people in the first phase of drive in the next six to eight months.

It will be offered to one crore healthcare workers, along with 2 crore frontline and essential workers and 27 crore elderly, mostly above the age of 50 years with co-morbidities.
Head of Iran's judiciary warned Trump that he is 'not safe on this Earth'

Ebrahim Raisi made remarks while commemorating death of Qassem Soleimani

Pentagon ordered USS Nimitz home from Middle East after lengthy deployment

Move seen as effort by Trump administration to 'de-escalate' tension with Iran

Pentagon leadership divided on whether Iran intends to strike US forces soon

Iran this weekend marks one-year anniversary of Soleimani's assassination

Soleimani, commander of Quds Force, was killed in US attack in Iraq last year

Defense officials said intelligence indicates Iranian revenge attack is 'imminent'

But other Pentagon officials deny there's 'corroborating intel' backing up claim

The United States reportedly removed its only aircraft carrier from the Middle East region to de-escalate tensions with Iran, as one of the country's top officials said that President Trump and other US leaders were not safe on this Earth.

US intelligence officials have reportedly been alarmed at growing indications that an Iranian forces are on high alert and a possible attack on American forces is imminent in the run-up to Sundays one-year anniversary of the killing of General Qassem Soleimani.

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Iran denies plotting an attack, with the country's foreign minister going so far as to accuse arch-enemy Israel of planning to using 'agent-provocateurs' to kill US service members in order to provoke Trump into responding against Tehran.

Acting defense secretary, Christopher C. Miller, ordered the redeployment of USS Nimitz away from the region in a 'de-escalatory' signal to Tehran, US officials told the New York Times.

Officials are keen to avoid sparking a crisis in the region less than three weeks before the end of Trump's presidency.

But the head of Irans judiciary, Ebrahim Raisi, appeared to threaten Trump himself, saying all those who had a role in the killing of Quds Force commander Soleimani last year will not be able to escape law and justice, even if they were an American president.

They will witness severe revenge, Raisi told the gathering at Tehran University, referring to Trump and US military leaders.

President Trump

Ebrahim Raisi

The Pentagon earlier this week decided to return home the USS Nimitz, the Naval aircraft carrier that has been operating just off the coast of Somalia during a 10-month deployment. The Nimitz is seen above in the Strait of Hormuz on September 18, 2020

The move to send the USS Nimitz home was seen as an effort by the Trump administration to 'de-escalate' tensions with Iran as the nation mourns the one-year anniversary of the January 3, 2020 assassination of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani (pictured above in Tehran on September 18, 2016)

What has come so far has only been glimpses.

Do not presume that someone, as the president of America, who appeared as a murderer or ordered a murder, may be immune from justice being carried out. Never, Raisi said.

Click here to resize this module

Those who had a role in this assassination and crime will not be safe on Earth.

The Pentagon on Thursday ordered the USS Nimitz to return to its homeport in Washington State - a move at odds with a recent warning from the president.

The Nimitz was operating just off the coast of Somalia and was in the midst of a 10-month deployment when the Defense Department announced that it would be returning to homeport.

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The move comes just two days after the US flew strategic bombers over Iran as a show of force and a week after Trump warned its government that it would be held responsible for attacks targeting Americans in Iraq.

The top US military commander in the Middle East, General Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr.

Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller

'Our embassy in Baghdad got hit Sunday by several rockets. Three rockets failed to launch' Trump tweeted from aboard Air Force One on December 23.

'Guess where they were from: IRAN. Now we hear chatter of additional attacks against Americans in Iraq... Some friendly health advice to Iran: If one American is killed, I will hold Iran responsible. Think it over,' he wrote.

The decision to send the Nimitz home, announced Thursday by acting secretary of defense Miller, came one day after Air Force B-52 bombers flew nonstop from the United States to the Persian Gulf in a show of force that military officials said was intended to caution Iran against carrying out attacks against US forces or interests.

Sending the Nimitz, home to the US West Coast would seem at odds with the idea that a show of force is needed to deter Iran.

This might reflect a split within the defense establishment on whether Iran poses a heightened threat to strike in the waning days of the Trump administration.

In announcing the decision to send the Nimitz home, Miller made no mention of Iran.

Miller, who was installed as acting Pentagon chief after Trump fired Mark Esper just days after the November 3 election, reportedly overruled his top military commander in the Middle East, General Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr.

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The general wanted to extend the deployment of the Nimitz and keep it in the region as a deterrent, according to The New York Times.

But Miller and his top aides, including Ezra Cohen-Watnick, who was recently given a senior intelligence policy position within the Pentagon after Trumps post-election purge of the agency, believed that the deterrence value of keeping the Nimitz deployed in the region was limited.

American military analysts in recent days are said to have noticed that Iranian air defenses, maritime forces, and other security units were on higher alert, though it is uncertain if they were readying to strike US troops or were preparing against a possible pre-emptive American attack against them.

The decision to send the Nimitz home was made just days after the American military flew B-52 nuclear-capable bombers over the Persian Gulf region in a show of force. The image above shows a US Air Force B-52H 'Stratofortress' from Minot Air Force Base, ND, being refueled by a KC-135 'Stratotanker' on Wednesday near the Persian Gulf. The show of force was meant to deter Iran from attacking American or allied targets in the Middle East

US Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon escort is aerial refueled during Wednesday's mission. The United States flew strategic bombers over the Persian Gulf for the second time this month

An Iranian woman holds a picture depicting General Qassem Soleimani during a ceremony marking the first anniversary of his assassination by the United States last year in Iraq. US military planners are on alert for possible Iranian retaliation as the anniversary approaches

The Pentagon is reportedly divided as to whether there are credible reports that Iran or pro-Iranian militias in Iraq are intending to launch an attack on American interests in the region this weekend.

One defense official told CNN that the current threat level from Iran is the most concerning they have seen since Soleimanis death.

The official cited intelligence that Iran and its allied militias in Iraq could be plotting attacks against US forces in the Middle East.

Iran is said to be moving short range ballistic missiles into Iraq, according to CNN.

But others in the Pentagon disagree, saying that the threat is being exaggerated and that there is not a single piece of corroborating intel that would suggest an attack is imminent.

When asked about the view that the threats are being exaggerated, a senior military official is quoted by CNN as saying: The intelligence isn't perfect as you know, it never is, but we do see several planning efforts underway and if even some of them are true and they execute they could kill several Americans.

While American defense officials remained divided, there was more saber-rattling coming out of Tehran on Friday.

General Hossein Salami, the top commander of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, said on Friday that his country was fully prepared to respond to any US military pressure.

The move to bring home the USS Nimitz comes just two days after the US flew strategic bombers over Iran as a show of force and a week after President Trump warned its government that it would be held responsible for attacks targeting Americans in Iraq

Some friendly health advice to Iran: If one American is killed, I will hold Iran responsible. Think it over,' he wrote

Salami spoke at a ceremony at Tehran University commemorating the upcoming one-year anniversary of Soleimanis assassination.

At the time, Iran retaliated by launching a ballistic missile strike on a military base in Iraq that caused brain concussion injuries to about 100 U.S. troops. Washington and Tehran came dangerously close to war as the crisis escalated.

Today, we have no problem, concern or apprehension toward encountering any powers. We will give our final words to our enemies on the battlefield, Salami said, without mentioning the U.S. directly. Several top Iranian officials, along with Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanese allies and members of Soleimanis family, were in attendance.

Soleimanis replacement, Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani, said at the ceremony that Iran was not afraid of confronting powers, again without naming the US.

He also warned that freedom seekers within the US could retaliate for the attack that killed Soleimani, telling America that inside your own home, there might be those who want to respond to the crime that you committed.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Saturday accused Israel of trying to provoke a war by planning attacks on US forces in Iraq.

'New intelligence from Iraq indicate that Israeli agent-provocateurs are plotting attacks against Americans - putting an outgoing (President Donald) Trump in a bind with a fake casus belli (act justifying war),' Zarif said in a tweet.

'Be careful of a trap, @realDonaldTrump. Any fireworks will backfire badly,' Zarif wrote.

In a sign of just how tense the situation in the Gulf is, Iraqi explosives experts were working to defuse a large mine discovered on an oil tanker in the Persian Gulf and evacuate its crew, authorities said Friday.

The statement came a day after two private security firms said sailors feared they had found a limpet mine on the MT Pola, a Liberian-flagged tanker in the waters off the Iraqi port of Basra.

A limpet mine is a type of naval mine that attaches to the side of a ship, usually by a diver-member of special forces. It later explodes, and can significantly damage a vessel.

Iran has denied that it intends to attack American troops. On Saturday, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif accused arch-enemy Israel of planning to using 'agent-provacateurs' to kill US service members in order to provoke Trump into responding against Tehran

'New intelligence from Iraq indicate that Israeli agent-provocateurs are plotting attacks against Americans - putting an outgoing (President Donald) Trump in a bind with a fake casus belli (act justifying war),' Zarif said in a tweet. 'Be careful of a trap, @realDonaldTrump. Any fireworks will backfire badly,' Zarif wrote

The Iraqi statement said the mine had been attached to a tanker rented from Iraqs Oil Marketing Company SOMO that was refueling another vessel.

Iraq's naval forces were making 'a great effort to accomplish the mission' safely, said Iraq's Security Media Cell, which is affiliated with the countrys security forces.

It was the first official Iraqi confirmation that a mine was discovered on an Iraqi tanker transferring fuel in the Persian Gulf to another vessel.

It did not identify either vessels or provide more details.

Meanwhile, Iran has told the United Nations nuclear watchdog it plans to enrich uranium to up to 20 per cent purity, a level it achieved before its 2015 accord, at its Fordow site buried inside a mountain, the agency said on Friday.

The move is the latest of several recent announcements by Iran to the International Atomic Energy Agency that it plans to further breach the deal, which it started violating in 2019 in retaliation for Washington's withdrawal from the agreement and the reimposition of U.S. sanctions against Tehran.

This step was one of many mentioned in a law passed by Iran's parliament last month in response to the killing of the country's top nuclear scientist, which Tehran has blamed on Israel.

Such moves by Iran could complicate efforts by President-elect Joe Biden to rejoin the deal.

General Esmail Ghaani, Soleimani's successor as the new head of Quds Force, speaks during a ceremony on the occasion of first anniversary of death of the force's previous head General Qassem Soleimani in Tehran on Friday

'Iran has informed the Agency that in order to comply with a legal act recently passed by the country's parliament, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran intends to produce low-enriched uranium (LEU) up to 20 percent at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant,' the IAEA said in a statement.

An IAEA report to member states earlier on Friday obtained by Reuters used similar wording in describing a letter by Iran to the IAEA dated December 31.

'Iran's letter to the Agency ... did not say when this enrichment activity would take place,' the IAEA statement said.

Fordow was built inside a mountain, apparently to protect it from aerial bombardment, and the 2015 deal does not allow enrichment there.

Iran is already enriching at Fordow with first-generation IR-1 centrifuges.

Iran has breached the deal's 3.67 per cent limit on the purity to which it can enrich uranium, but it has only gone up to 4.5 per cent so far, well short of the 20 per cent it achieved before the deal and the 90 per cent that is weapons-grade.

The deal's main aim was to extend the time Iran would need to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, if it chose to, to at least a year from roughly two to three months.

It also lifted international sanctions against Tehran.

US intelligence agencies and the IAEA believe Iran had a secret, coordinated nuclear weapons program that it halted in 2003.

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Iran denies ever having had one.
Does the January share price for EnWave Corporation (CVE:ENW) reflect what it's really worth? Today, we will estimate the stock's intrinsic value by estimating the company's future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. This will be done using the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. Models like these may appear beyond the comprehension of a lay person, but they're fairly easy to follow.

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. Anyone interested in learning a bit more about intrinsic value should have a read of the Simply Wall St analysis model.

See our latest analysis for EnWave

The calculation

We're using the 2-stage growth model, which simply means we take in account two stages of company's growth. In the initial period the company may have a higher growth rate and the second stage is usually assumed to have a stable growth rate. To begin with, we have to get estimates of 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, so we discount the value of these future cash flows to their estimated value in today's dollars:

10-year free cash flow (FCF) estimate

2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 Levered FCF (CA$, Millions) CA$594.0k CA$2.98m CA$4.73m CA$6.71m CA$8.71m CA$10.6m CA$12.2m CA$13.5m CA$14.7m CA$15.6m Growth Rate Estimate Source Analyst x1 Analyst x1 Est @ 59% Est @ 41.76% Est @ 29.69% Est @ 21.25% Est @ 15.34% Est @ 11.2% Est @ 8.3% Est @ 6.27% Present Value (CA$, Millions) Discounted @ 6.9% CA$0.6 CA$2.6 CA$3.9 CA$5.1 CA$6.2 CA$7.1 CA$7.6 CA$7.9 CA$8.0 CA$8.0

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)

Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = CA$56m

Story continues

The second stage is also known as Terminal Value, this is the business's cash flow after the first stage. For a number of reasons a very conservative growth rate is used that cannot exceed that of a country's GDP growth. In this case we have used the 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield (1.5%) 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 6.9%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2030  (1 + g)  (r  g) = CA$16m (1 + 1.5%)  (6.9% 1.5%) = CA$293m

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= CA$293m ( 1 + 6.9%)10= CA$150m

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 CA$206m. In the final step we divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of CA$1.2, the company appears quite undervalued at a 38% discount to where the stock price trades currently. The assumptions in any calculation have a big impact on the valuation, so it is better to view this as a rough estimate, not precise down to the last cent.

dcf

Important assumptions

Now the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate, and of course, the actual cash flows. You don't have to agree with these inputs, I recommend redoing the calculations yourself and playing with them. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at EnWave 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 6.9%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.032. 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.

Next Steps:

Although the valuation of a company is important, it is only one of many factors that you need to assess for a company. The DCF model is not a perfect stock valuation tool. Rather it should be seen as a guide to "what assumptions need to be true for this stock to be under/overvalued?" 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. Can we work out why the company is trading at a discount to intrinsic value? For EnWave, we've compiled three further factors you should look at:

Risks: For instance, we've identified 2 warning signs for EnWave (1 is significant) you should be aware of. Future Earnings: How does ENW'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 Solid Businesses: Low debt, high returns on equity and good past performance are fundamental to a strong business. Why not explore our interactive list of stocks with solid business fundamentals to see if there are other companies you may not have considered!

PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every Canadian stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.
A New York City woman has been found dead in the garbage chute of a Staten Island apartment building.

The 34-year-old woman identified as Lisa Maria Hernandez, was found by police and firefighters in the Silver Lake Apartment building around 2:30pm on Friday.

Emergency services were called to the building after a resident who lives on the third floor of the building found the woman's body after they had been told about it by a neighbor.

Authorities were called to 937 Victory Boulevard just before 2:30pm on Friday after a woman's body was found in a Staten Island building trash chute

It happened at the Silver Lake Apartment building on New York's Staten Island

EMS rushed the woman to Richmond Hospital but she could not be saved

'I said, "Listen, you've got to call the cops on this one. This is a dead woman,' he said. The woman, who he didn't recognize, was fully clothed, and appeared to have trauma on her face", he said to the New York Daily News.

'Her head was sticking out, and her arms were sticking out,' he said. 'It's very vivid.'

Firefighters managed to remove Hernandez from the chute and took her to Richmond University Medical Center but she was unable to be saved.

Police canvassed residents on Friday night showing a picture of the woman to see if anyone was able to help determine how she ended up in the chute and where foul play was involved.

Fire department sources said the woman was found feet-first down the chute

The NYPD are conducting an investigation in an attempt to determine how the woman died

Fire crews were called to the building after a resident in the block found the lady in the chute

The man who called the police expressed doubt that Hernandez would have fallen into the chute on her own.

'You'd have to be a contortionist,' he said.

'I've been in this building for 20 years now, and never ever ever seen this,' the man said. 'The floor that I live on in the whole entire complex is probably the most quiet floor, so that's why we're shocked. Everybody here is shocked.'

An NYPD spokeswoman said the circumstances surrounding the Hernandez's death are now under investigation.

Several fire engines appeared on the scene in an attempt to rescue the woman

Residents of the building were shown a photograph of the woman to see if anyone knew of her
Such is the weirdness of this time, that the two men who have done the most to dispel the myth perpetuated by Republican officials of voter fraud are President Donald Trump and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

This wasnt the intent of either man. Theirs werent noble quests or even good-faith efforts to protect the sanctity of the vote by rooting out irregularities, but rather raw and demonstrably undemocratic attempts to disenfranchise millions of American voters. Although these attempts havent been successful, they serve the purpose of undermining our democracy by questioning the legitimacy of our elections.

Trump, by power of the office hell soon be vacating, has been the most reckless and is doing the most damage. His questioning of election outcomes stretches back to 2016 when, thinking he might lose to Hillary Clinton, he began speaking about rigged elections.

He won but lost the popular vote by about 3 million. Claiming that 3 million to 5 million votes were illegally cast, Trump established the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in May 2017 to prove it. The commission shut down eight months later, finding nothing.

In 2020, Trump began spewing conspiracy theories, including lies about the security of mail-in balloting, months before he lost to Joe Biden by more than 7 million votes. Since then, hes escalated his lies about the stolen election and repeatedly gone to court to have Bidens decisive victory  in the Electoral College and popular vote  overthrown. Meanwhile, hes duped supporters out of hundreds of millions of dollars that will be used to pay his post-presidential expenses.

Trump and his legal team have lost 59 of the 60 lawsuits theyve brought as they try to overturn the election, defeats that were often in humiliating fashion and accompanied by withering criticism from judges, including some appointed by Trump.

Not one of these five dozen lawsuits have yielded a single credible case of noncitizens or dead people voting or someone voting twice for Biden. These are examples of the voter fraud allegations made by Republican officials in several states through the years to justify restrictive voting measures disproportionately hurting Black and Latino voters.

Even Trumps legal team didnt allege fraud in most of their lawsuits. A New York Times analysis found that in two-thirds of its cases, the legal team didnt allege fraud but challenged changes in election codes by states and municipalities.

Paxtons passion for stamping out voter fraud is greater than his ability to find any. Records obtained by the nonprofit government watchdog American Oversight and shared with the Houston Chronicle revealed that the attorney generals office spent nearly twice as much time working on voter fraud cases in 2020 than it did in 2018, resulting in half the resolved prosecutions from two years ago.

Those 16 cases in 2020 all involved residents of Harris County who gave false addresses on voter registration forms. None were sentenced to jail.

It wasnt as if Paxton wasnt trying. He doubled the number of prosecutors, while nearly doubling the number of law enforcement sergeants to which the election integrity unit has access.

According to records, only a few dozen cases in which jail time was given have been prosecuted by the election integrity unit. None involved widespread voter fraud.

In the closest alignment of Trumps and Paxtons agenda, Paxton brazenly tried to have the results of four battleground states  all won by Biden  ruled unconstitutional and hand re-election to Trump.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear it because of a lack of standing. Thats a ruling summing up the phantom scourge of voter fraud.




Haiti - FLASH : Sabotage of the Avenue N power substation





Michel Presume Director General of Electrcite d'Haiti (EDH) "[...] apologizes to his customers for the consequences that the sabotage on January 1st of the Avenue N substation will have on the company's efforts to supply electricity reliably for more and more hours every day [...]'



"I regret to inform the population that early in the morning January 1, 2021, unidentified individuals threatened the lives of technicians and sabotaged the power substation at the top of Avenue N, which regulates the network of the Metropolitan area primarily supplying the General Hospital.



I ask the judicial authorities and the security forces of the country to identify and neutralize, without delay, those individuals who sabotaged the electrical substation [...]"



HL/ HaitiLibre


















US: 1,100 pounds of methamphetamine found in watermelons

Tesla owners will be paid $ 16,000 each due to slow charging

Advisor to Armenia Prosecutor General provides details about incident with Armenian soldier killed in Verin Shorzha

Banksy's painting of punk Lenin sold at auction in Hong Kong for $ 960,000

CSTO Deputy Secretary-General: Escalation on Armenia-Azerbaijan border requires undertaking of urgent measures

Catholicos of All Armenians receives newly appointed Ambassador of Japan

Australia closing its embassy in Kabul for security reasons

Biden to discuss issues related to Belarus and Ukraine with Putin

Armenian acting FM meets with ambassadors of CSTO member states accredited to Armenia

Armenia Ombudsman presents human rights protection in post-war period to CoE Programmes Directorate General

Germany is investigating Google's position in market

France: Sanctions against Belarus will continue

Armenia opposition party MP: Azerbaijan is a terrorist state, negotiations can't be led with such a country

US to reopen its Consulate General in Jerusalem

EU expects to receive over 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine by end of September

Armenian MFA strongly condemns Azerbaijan's blatant armed encroachment on Armenia's sovereign territory

UN still awaits strong evidence that Dubai ruler's daughter is alive

Opposition Bright Armenia Party urges Government to immediately address UN Security Council

Armen Sarkissian receives Russia Ambassador to Armenia

Armenia President, France Ambassador discuss situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border

Overchuk: We hope unblocking of links between Armenia and Azerbaijan is a success

Armenia police officer commits suicide, criminal case launched

Armenia Environmental Protection and Mining Inspection Body has new deputy heads

Zarif, Aliyev discuss railway routes connecting Iran, Azerbaijan and Armenia

EU leaders agree to donate at least 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to poor countries

Armenian serviceman Mher Hovhannisyan fires gunshot at his head, criminal case launched

Soldier who died in Armenia's Verin Shorzha was son of ARF-D member, father of 2

Blinken promises to continue close consultations with Israel on Iran

Armen Sarkissian: Armenia's relevant state institutions need to take the tightest measures

Armenian soldier commits suicide, opposition speaks on tense situation on border, 25.05.21 digest

Yerevan man's body found at Tatul Krpeyan Park

Armenia MOD: Reports about Armenian soldiers being injured in Sisian section of border not confirmed

EU summit calls for rarly implementation of vaccination certificates

Parliament of the Netherlands adopts resolution, EU must demand that Azerbaijan pull out troops from Armenia

Kremlin: Russian and US presidents to meet in Geneva on June 16

Spokesperson of community council of Armenia's Sisian: Men got enlisted and climbed to military posts

Bright Armenia Party: We are not satisfied with CSTO response

EU leaders urge council to review internal border guidelines by mid-June

Armenia MOD: Fixed-term serviceman receives lethal firearm injury in head area

Dollar still stable in Armenia

Armenian Catholic Catholicos-Patriarch passes away

Kathimerini: US seeks to increase military presence in Greece due to doubts about Turkey's reliability

US Congress members call on Biden to suspend all military assistance to Azerbaijan

Armenia acting economy minister receives Montenegro's newly appointed Ambassador

Armenia MOD: Soldier killed during shootings from Azerbaijani side in Verin Shorzha

Russian MP: Azerbaijani leadership interested in Armenia acting PM's victory in snap elections

Armenia MOD reports shooting from Azerbaijani side in Verin Shorzha border section

Armenia opposition MP: Authorities promised to separate business from politics, but they're failing to fulfill promise

There will be post-election processes if authorities try to rig voting, says Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan

CNN: Putin and Biden will meet on June 15-16 in Geneva

Latin America has the highest poverty rate in 20 years

Ex-President Kocharyan on Armenia applying to CSTO: No one will help you if you do nothing to solve your problems

Armenia ruling Civil Contract Party presents list of first 10 candidates ahead of snap parliamentary elections

Armenia acting justice minister discusses broad range of cooperation issues with top CoE official

Armenia former President Kocharyan: This guilt, this criminal article is on these authorities

Man survives after spending 17 days in desert

Azerbaijan continues course towards systematic extermination of Armenian heritage in Shushi

Armenia Syunik Province ex-governor: Azerbaijani soldiers advanced along length of border two days ago

Newly appointed Ambassador of Montenegro presents Letters of Credence to Armenia President

Its about bringing Karabakh issue back to right to self-determination, says Armenia ex-President Kocharyan

Iran FM to arrive in Armenia

Ara Aivazian and Austrian counterpart hold phone talks, focus on Azeri army's infiltration into Armenia's territory

Kocharyan: Elect todays political team if you are ready to live squatting

Jean-Michel Basquiat's painting sold at auction in Hong Kong for $ 30 million

2nd President Kocharyan on Armenia Security Council chief: Do you take that person seriously?

"Key" to settlement of Karabakh conflict cant be in one place, says Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan

Texas may permit carrying of pistols without special permission

Ex-President Kocharyan on Armenia acting PM Pashinyan's high popularity rating: We will wear it down to the root

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Election bloc format must be workable in some logical sense

Attorney: Political persecution against Robert Kocharyan is becoming more noticeable during election campaign

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: We must do everything so that our domestic politics is not dictated by Azerbaijan

Armenian acting defense minister meets Russian peacekeeping mission chief

Congress predicts US nuclear spending to reach $ 634 billion by 2030

Russian MP: The effectiveness of military cooperation with Armenia depends on Yerevan as well

Delimitation now may create some problems in Karabakh negotiation process, says Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan on relations with 3rd President Sargsyan: We go our own way they go their own

Judge adjourns hearing over case of Armenia 2nd President and ex-Deputy PM for 3 weeks

Court hearing over case of Armenia 2nd President and ex-Deputy PM

2nd President Kocharyan: Armenia must show that it will not be subjected to such pressures

Kocharyan: You may find yourself in stupid situations if you come to negotiations without any baggage

Armenia Investigative Committee: Criminal case opened into soldiers death

157 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

EU helps UN World Food Programme provide humanitarian assistance for conflict-affected people in Armenia

Yerevan municipal council convenes regular session

Armenia legislature speaker on situation at Syunik Province: CSTO still has procedures

Blinken arrives on his first official visit to Israel

World oil prices going up

Provincial hall issues statement on Tavush section of Armenia border with Azerbaijan

MFA statement: Azerbaijan continues to use Armenian POWs as political hostages

Newspaper: There are last-minute changes on Armenia ruling party electoral list

Armenia parliament starts regular sessions

Newspaper: Armenia 3rd President Sargsyan intensively engaged in election campaign

EU leaders call for ban on Belarus airlines flights to their countries

Quake hits Georgia, also felt in Armenia

2nd President Kocharyan: Process of obtaining Armenia citizenship shall be simplified, shall take only few months

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Appointments in army were not based on knowledge but on loyalty

Robert Kocharyan: Armenia must not go back to the past and stay there, just like the incumbent authorities did

Armenia 2nd President on recent Karabakh war, consequences and the signed document

Armenia 2nd President: Current authorities don't have remorse, aren't conscious and patriotic

Armenia 2nd President on black PR and management system in the country
The Bhartiya Tribal Party (BTP) in Gujarat will contest upcoming local body polls in the state in alliance with the AIMIM, BTP chief Chhotu Vasava said on Saturday after AIMIM MP Imtiaz Jaleel met him at his residence at Jhagadia in Bharuch district.

Notably, Vasava had in December announced severing of ties with the Congress party in two district Panchayats in Narmada and Bharuch.

(Asaduddin) Owaisi is with the people who are fighting for the Indian Constitution. We will fight for our rights that are being taken away by the Narendra Modi government which is doing nothing for the poor...We will contest the upcoming elections to local bodies with the AIMIM, Vasava told reporters.

Owaisi heads the Hyderabad-headquartered All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM).

Well begun is half done! Had a fruitful meeting with BTP chief Chotu bhai Vasava at his house in Bharuch. The long wait of the Gujarati people finally gets over as BTP and AIMIM come together to create new political power, tweeted Jaleel, who heads Maharashtra unit of the AIMIM and represents Aurangabad Lok Sabha seat in the neighbouring state.

He told reporters that both the parties shared the same ideology that the country should run according to Constitution.

Jaleel said the alliance will emerge a strong challenger for the BJP and the Congress, and will make impact on the upcoming polls.

The alliance with the BTP is a matter of pride for the AIMIM. There is great enthusiasm among people over this tie-up. People in Gujarat will choose us as an alternative, he said.

The BTP has two MLAs in the Gujarat Assembly who had refrained from voting in the Rajya Sabha elections held in June last year.

The tribal party had contested the 2017 Assembly elections in alliance with the Congress.

But after the newly-elected members of Congress in Rajasthans Dungarpur district Panchayat voted for a BJP nominee for the presidents post, which queered the pitch for the BTP-backed candidate, Vasava announced severing of its alliance with the Congress in December.

The BTP had allied with the Congress in Rajasthan and supported Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot during the revolt by then deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot earlier last year.

Elections to six municipal corporations, including Ahmedabad, 55 municipalities, 31 district panchayats and 231 taluka pachayats were supposed to be held in November, 2019, a month before their five-year terms came to end, but were postponed by three months in view of the Covid-19 pandemic.
ITC Grand Chola (Image: www.itchotels.in)

A five-star property in Chennai turned into a coronavirus hotspot after 85 persons including guests, the chef, and other staffers tested positive for COVID-19.

The ITC Grand Chola was declared a coronavirus cluster after 85 people working/ residing at the luxury hotel property tested COVID-19 positive over the past two weeks, reported the Indian Express.

Commenting on the situation, J Radhakrishnan, Health Secretary, Tamil Nadu, said: One staff member tested COVID-19 positive on December 15. A total of 609 samples have been collected till now and 85 of those turned out to be positive for the viral disease. The Chennai Corporation has advised saturation testing of all the residents of the hotel.

Officials of the Greater Chennai Corporation have confirmed that saturation testing will be done at all luxury hotels as a precautionary measure. Meanwhile, all hotels in Chennai have been reminded to adhere to coronavirus related SOPs issued by the government.

This is the second time Chennai is in the news for reporting a COVID-19 cluster. In December 2020, IIT Madras had turned into a COVID-19 hotspot after almost 200 students had tested positive for the virus.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

Follow our coverage of the coronavirus crisis here
If you do something wrong, there will be an encounter, Telangana minister warns

Human rights of Indian seafarers trampled by China says NHRC

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Jan 02: India has asked China to urgently provide practical and time-bound assistance to help the sailors stuck in the two ships anchored off the Jingtang and Caofeidian ports.

India told Beijing that the the conditions are becoming increasingly difficult for the 39 sailors from India and they are being forced to live onboard the MV Jag and MV Anastasia, which have been anchored off the ports of China for several months now.

It may be recalled that the National Human Rights Commission had take suo motu cognisance of media reports on the issue and issued notices to the Secretary (Consular, Passport and Visa) of the Ministry of External Affairs.

The NHRC observed that it appeared prima facie that the rights to life, dignity, equality and liberty of the 39 seafarers had been trampled down by a member nation of the United Nations in derogation of international human rights.

Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said Indian bulk cargo vessel MV Jag Anand has been on anchorage near Jingtang port in Hebei province of China since June 13 and it has 23 Indian sailors.

Another vessel, MV Anastasia, with 16 Indian nationals as its crew is on anchorage near Caofeidian port in China since September 20, he said.

Srivastava said both these vessels have been waiting for discharge of their cargo and there is a growing stress on the crew members on account of the long delay.

"Given this and our concern for the increasingly difficult conditions for our crew members, these two cases are being pursued vigorously," he said responding to a media query on the matter.

Srivastava said the Indian Embassy in Beijing continued to remain in close and continuous touch with the Chinese authorities in Beijing, Hebei and Tianjin, adding the MEA is also following up on the matter through the Chinese Embassy here for "an early resolution".

Vaccines to be provided for free across India, says health min | Oneindia News

"We have noted the statements of the Chinese side, expressing their willingness to extend their assistance in this matter. We expect that this assistance will be provided in an urgent, practical and time-bound manner, given the grave humanitarian situation that is developing on board the ships," Srivastava said.

He said the Indian Embassy has repeatedly taken up the issue with both the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs and the local provincial authorities, requesting that the ships be allowed to dock and/or the crew be allowed to be changed.

"They have been following up this matter for the last few months. The Indian Ambassador has personally taken up this issue with the Vice Foreign Minister. The Ministry has also been following this issue with the Chinese Embassy," Srivastava said.

He said the Chinese authorities have conveyed that on account of various COVID-19-related restrictions imposed by the local authorities, change of crew is not being permitted from these ports.

"While the shipping companies are examining the logistics of sailing the ships away from their current points of anchorage, our embassy is liaising with relevant authorities in Tianjin for berthing approvals to facilitate the crew change," Srivastava said.

He said the shipping companies have been requested to ensure that they submit their plans for crew change at the earliest for approvals by the local Chinese authorities.

"We also understand that MV Anastasia is exploring the possibility of a crew change at sea at its current point of anchorage in Caofeidian. Our Embassy has yesterday written to Chinese authorities proposing this alternative and sought approval for the same," he said.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Saturday, January 2, 2021, 8:20 [IST]
RAY BROOK -- The public comment period is ending in the next few days for several proposals before the Adirondack Park Agency board.

According to the agencys website, they include:

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Hilaria Baldwin has been pictured for the first time since she was accused of faking her accent and lying about her Spanish heritage as she stepped out for a stroll with her kids and husband Alec Baldwin in the Hamptons.

The 36-year-old Boston native - whose birth name was Hillary - was spotted out walking with her brood and two nannies near the luxury home in New York state that she shares with her actor husband.

She sported head to toe black in a potential hope to stay incognito in the wake of the huge storm that has erupted about her 'fake' Spanish heritage claims.

Alec came to join the group soon after, scaling a fence in just a t-shirt despite the chilly temperatures.

The family enjoyed the fresh air for about an hour before retreating once again to their home where Hilaria has been holed up ever since she was forced to confess she had been born in Boston and not the Spanish island of Majorca despite previously claiming to have first come to America at the age of 19.

Hilaria Baldwin has been pictured for the first time since she was accused of faking her accent and lying about her Spanish heritage as she stepped out for a stroll with her kids in the Hamptons

Hilaria and Alex Baldwin were spotted enjoying a New Year walk in the woodland near their home

The 36-year-old Boston native was spotted out walking with her brood and two nannies near the luxury home in New York state she shares with here actor husband Alec Baldwin

She sported head to toe black in a potential hope to stay incognito in the wake of the huge storm that has erupted about her 'fake' heritage claims

Baldwin came to join the group soon after, sporting just a t-shirt despite the chilly temperatures and scaling a fence

SNL star Alec joined the group for the New Year's walk after coming to his wife's defense over the scandal

Hilaria carried the couple's youngest child, three-month-old Eduardo 'Edu' Pao Lucas, in a sling as she left their home in Amagansett for the woodland walk.

She was joined by at least three of their other children - who have all been given Spanish names - and two nannies before Alec caught up with them.

The SNL star was seen clambering over a wooden fence post and, at one point, put a protective arm around his wife as she leaned in to speak to him.

The couple appeared serious during the exchange but Hilaria managed to flash a smile at one point on the outing as she looked at her phone.

The group walked through the woodland near to some stables before returning home again.

The online frenzy over Hilaria's heritage was sparked on December 21 when a woman tweeted: 'You have to admire Hilaria Baldwin's commitment to her decade long grift where she impersonates a Spanish person.'

In the next few days several videos of Hilaria's past TV appearances resurfaced showing her commitment to a Spanish accent, including one where she seemingly forgot the English word for 'cucumber'.

Yet Hilaria appeared to slip out of the accent last week when she took to Instagram Live to react to a prank post from comedian Amy Schumer.

Several former classmates came forward to confirm that Hilaria was in fact raised in Weston, Massachusetts, by American parents without a hint of a foreign accent.

'I went to high school with her. Genuinely lovely person, I recall, but fully a white girl from Cambridge,' one wrote.

Hilaria revealed the truth about her upbringing in a rambling Instagram video on Sunday, saying: 'Yes, I am a white girl. I am a white girl. Let's be very clear that Europe has a lot of white people in there and my family is white. Ethnically, I am a mix of many, many, many things. Culturally, I grew up with two cultures so it's really as simple as that'

Another added: 'I went to high school with her. She was perfectly nice and serious about ballroom dancing. Her name was indeed Hillary Hayward-Thomas and she did not have her current accent.'

Class ratios at the Cambridge School of Weston are six students to one teacher.

The exclusive school lists Hillary Hayward-Thomas among its notable alumni, alongside Lion King screenwriter Jonathan Roberts (1973) and American Pie actress Jennifer Coolidge (1979).

Internet sleuths were quick to uncover details about Hilaria's parents, Dr Kathryn Hayward and David Thomas, who lived and worked in the US for years before retiring to Majorca in 2011, according to Page Six.

While Hilaria has long described her mother as Spanish, records revealed that Hayward is in fact a fourth-generation Massachusetts resident who spent most of her career practicing medicine in Longmeadow.

Kathryn went on to become an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. She have birth to Hillary in January 1984 in Boston.

Alec put a protective arm around his wife as she carried their youngest child in a sling for the walk

The couple appeared serious during the exchange after the intense week where Hilaria's false claims were exposed

The online frenzy over Hilaria's heritage was sparked on December 21 when a woman tweeted: 'You have to admire Hilaria Baldwin's commitment to her decade long grift where she impersonates a Spanish person'

Hilaria carried the couple's youngest child, three-month-old Eduardo 'Edu' Pao Lucas, in a sling as she left their home in Amagansett for the woodland walk

Alec was seen clambering over a wooden fence post as he joined his family for the woodland walk

Alec climbed over the fence to join his brood after he has leaped to defend his wife over the saga this week

Dr Hayward's father and Hilaria's grandfather, Charles 'Chuck' Hayward, was born and raised in Massachusetts, as was his late wife Irene.

Hilaria's father's family has even deeper ties to the US, having lived here since before the American Revolution. He was an active volunteer for the Beacon Hill Civic Association during his '37 years living in Boston,' The New York Post reports.

Her parents also co-founded International Integrators in Boston.

Hilaria finally came clean about her upbringing on Sunday telling fans she spent 'some of' her childhood in Spain and 'some' of it in Massachusetts.

'There was a lot of back and forth my entire life,' the Mom Brain podcaster explained.

'And I'm really lucky that I grew up speaking two different languages and I'm trying to raise my kids, so they speak two languages too. And that's something very important to me especially having my family abroad.'

Hilaria added: 'Yeah I'm a different kind of Bostonian but that's who I am, and you kind of can't change your background - nor would I want to - I'm really, really proud of who I am.'

She also noted that '44 people from Spain' attended her 2012 wedding to Oscar nominee Alec Baldwin, but she hasn't seen her family since September 2019 because of 'the pandemic'.

The NYU alum and her 62-year-old husband gave all five of their children Spanish names - daughter Carmen Gabriela, 7; son Rafael Thomas, 5; son Leonardo Angel, 4; son Romeo Alejandro, 2; and son Eduardo 'Edu' Pao Lucas, 3 months.

Hilaria managed to flash a smile at one point as she looked at her phone and walked with her daughter Carmen Gabriela, 7, who like all their children was given a Spanish name

Baldwin cradles one of his sons before giving the boy a ride on his shoulders as they enjoy the fresh air

Alec has defended his wife over the scandal lashing out at a critic Monday night who called his wife Hilaria a 'fraud'

Hilaria was joined by at least three of their other children and two nannies before Alec caught up with the group

As for her name, Hilaria said she'd use Hillary in the States and Hilaria in Spain.

'My whole family call me Hilaria. It always kind of bothered me that neither name sounds good in the other language. So I would use one or the other one,' she said.

Her video sparked a flurry of memes with some jokingly comparing her to Rachel Dolezal and Jessica Krug.

Krug, a professor of African American history at George Washington University, pretended to be black her entire career. Dolezal, a former NAACP leader, was unmasked as a white woman in 2015.

Despite claiming Majorca was her birthplace and that she only arrived into the US at the age of 19, DailyMail.com revealed that Hilaria grew up in a 100-year-old $4million house in the heart of the most desirable district in Boston.

Records show her parents bought the five-bed, five-bath house on Pinckney Street in June 1987 when their daughter was just three years old. They didn't move out till she had turned 28.

DailyMail.com also discovered the only property her parents currently own on the island of Majorca in their names are two apartments dating from the 1960s in the center of Inca which they purchased last summer.

Hilaria gave an 80-minute cringe-worthy interview with the New York Times to 'clarify' her story where she blamed the media for 'misrepresenting' her as Spanish and said that was why people are now 'confused' about her heritage.

The influencer said she 'hid' her Boston upbringing so as to protect her parents from media scrutiny after she began dating Baldwin - who she said has always known she is from New England.

And she also attempted to explain away the now infamous Today cooking segment where she 'forgot' the word for cucumber and claimed it was because she was nervous on live TV.

She denied she is guilty of cultural appropriation and that she ever tried to pretend she was Spanish at any time.

Alec has defended his wife over the scandal lashing out at a critic Monday night who called his wife Hilaria a 'fraud'.

After the accusations she 'faked' her Spanish heritage, Hilaria Baldwin confessed that her real name is Hillary and she was actually born in Boston, not Majorca

Internet sleuths were quick to uncover details about Hilaria's parents, Dr Kathryn Hayward and David Thomas, pictured, who worked in the US for years before retiring to Majorca in 2011

The SNL actor launched his latest attack on Monday night in the comments of an Instagram photo he posted in reference to the scandal, which featured the famous Mark Twain quote: 'A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.'

A commenter quipped: 'Like your wife being Spanish when she lived in Massachusetts her entire life. I take it her accent is fake as well? FRAUDS!'

Alec's reply was scathingly succinct: 'Go f**k yourself.'

He took a more subdued swipe at another critic via Twitter just before the Instagram spat, in response to a post about an opinion essay for People entitled: 'Why the Hilaria Baldwin Scandal Is Painful for Immigrants  Including Me.'

The essay by Ale Russian slammed Hilaria for the 'exaggerated' accent she 'appropriated as an adult'.

Alec replied: 'Fake? Exaggerated? Appropriated an accent as an adult? She lived in Spain for many years as a child. She lived both places.'

This came after he first leaped to her defence in a social media video on Sunday.

Alec Baldwin took to Instagram on Sunday - not to address the allegations, but rather to blast outlets like TMZ and the New York Post for printing claims he called 'spectacularly false'

Without addressing the allegations directly, the SNL star said Twitter is 'a lot of s**t'.

'You have to kind of hack your way through the debris of Twitter. Twitter is just a vast orchard of cr**,' he continued.

'There's things that have been said lately about people that I love, that I care about deeply, which are ridiculous. I mean, just ridiculous.

'They've said it about people I love - false things. Untrue things.

'And as much as that hurts, the only thing I can do is talk to that half of the public or that portion of the public who understands what I mean when I say: "Consider the source. When you love somebody you want to defend them.'

On Monday he posted a quote seemingly about the incident to his Instagram page which read: 'A lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is lacing up its shoes.'

A video of Alec on The Late Show in 2013 emerged Monday in which he impersonated his wife's 'Spanish' accent, telling David Letterman: 'My wife is from Spain.'
Bookmaker Tom Waterhouse has hit back at critics, after his bizarre 'family' Christmas photos caused quite the stir.

On Saturday, the 38-year-old told The Sydney Morning Herald's Private Sydney that the photos, which were taken to promote his betting app, were purely posted in good fun.

In one image, that was posted on Christmas Day, Tom held a baby goat while wearing a suit and posed with bikini-clad women. The post soon divided followers, with many branding it 'sexist.'

Hitting back: Bookmaker Tom Waterhouse hit back at critics this week, after posting a series of bizarre 'family' Christmas photos that showed him surrounded by goats and bikini-clad women

The bookmaker defending his marketing strategy and explained to the publication that he wanted to 'do something different' from the 'vanilla' posts online.

'We're just trying to mix things up a bit, it's a pun on a joke... taking the p**s,' Tom said.

On Christmas Day, Tom shared a photo of himself in a suit holding a baby goat surrounded by more goats, alpacas and scantily-clad young women on a regional property to Twitter and Instagram.

'From my family to yours, wishing you all Merry Christmas,' he captioned the post.

The women in the photo were models and not actually his family.

He is the fourth generation of the Waterhouse racing dynasty and the grandson of Australia's most influential bookmaker William 'Bill' Waterhouse, who died in November last year.

'We're just trying to mix things up a bit, it's a pun on a joke... taking the p**s,' Tom said

Tom's Christmas post divided users, with many saying it was sexist.

'I'd feel more comfortable if he wasn't parading women like livestock and posing them like objects. What he does and doesn't wear is of no concern to me. The sexist attitudes he perpetuates are,' one man wrote.

'Women as decoration was tacky in the 90s. This is gross,' a woman wrote.

Another woman pointed out the double standard in clothing: 'Tom! Where are your speedos? We are gender blind these days so don't be shy'.

'This type of marketing rings alarm bells for me,' one man said.

Another man wrote: 'Sad AF... He had to pay for a farm and all those models for a tweet? That has to be the most incel Christmas tweet of 2020.'

Having their say: Tom's Christmas post divided users, with many saying it was sexist

Another one: On Christmas Eve, Waterhouse posted a similar picture of his suited self surrounded by alpacas, goats and the same women, one of whom was holding a napkin for him, on the same regional property

While the post was largely panned, some people appreciated it for either its perceived marketing or 'comedy' value.

'GOAT = Greatest of all time! Pretty smart marketing!' One man wrote.

Another man said: 'This is comedy gold, in a world where everyone is too scared to have a joke and a laugh. Well played, sir!'

'Lot of people getting highly strung about this family photo. What they don't realise is this is giving Tom the exposure he desperately craves. Tom 1, Easily Offended 0,' another man said.

On Christmas Eve, Tom posted a similar picture of his suited self sitting at a dinner table drinking an UpandGo with trophies, fruit, a Fanta can and a bunny also on the table.

Mixed opinions: While the post was largely panned, some people appreciated it for either its perceived marketing or 'comedy' value

He was again surrounded by alpacas, goats and the same women, one of whom was holding a napkin for him, on the same regional property.

'Good times in Happy Valley,' he captioned the post.

The previous week he posted a picture with two more women, captioned: 'Just had six Up&Go. Now I'm ready to party'.

Up and Go, Fanta, female models and luxury sportscars are recurring themes in videos and photos on Tom's social media channels as of late.

Most of the posts are promoting his new smartphone application, which he claims finds the top betting odds for punters.
mfanukhona@times.co.sz

MBABANE  The much awaited African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which will see Eswatini penetrate a market consisting of 1.2 billion people, started on Friday.

It must be said that January 1, 2021 was an important occasion in the history of Africa as a webinar featuring South Africas President Cyril Ramaphosa was organised to celebrate this milestone. Even though Eswatini lost the bid to host the AfCFTA secretariat to Ghana, it is still an active member of the economic bloc, which aims at bringing together 1.2 billion people in an E49.6 trillion (US$3.4 trillion) bloc.

This will be the largest free trade area since the establishment of the World Trade Organisation.

To mark the occasion, a lunchtime ceremony that included speeches by some African Union Heads of State and government, representatives of development partners and the private sector as well as showing of videos on different aspects of trade and development in Africa was held on New Years Day.

Keynote speakers were Ramaphosa, the current Chairperson of the African Union, Mahamadou Issoufou, President of Niger and AU Champion of the AfCFTA, Moussa Faki Mahamat, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission and Wamkele Mene, the Secretary General of the AfCFTA.

Senator Manqoba B. Khumalo, the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Trade, said: this is a great milestone for the African continent.

Khumalo said the country was excited that local businesspeople will now be able to trade across the African continent. This is very much in line with our export driven economy strategy as a ministry, he said.

The minister said he was excited that the AeTrade platform that the country is privileged to host would start opening out of the Royal Science and Technology Park (RSTP) to support the AfCFTA. Early in the new year, he said the AeTrade Group will be announcing the launch of the platform for local SMEs to use.

Eswatini to take advantage

He applauded the AU leadership and that of AfCFTA for working very hard to achieve this milestone. He said Africa has now laid a foundation for being the economic giant that has been predicted. Eswatini will take this opportunity with both hands, said the minister.

Currently, it is said that the percentage of trade that African countries do with each other is a mere 16  18 per cent. The bulk of the continents trade is with the rest of the world, and most African exports are in raw materials including extractive commodities like oil, gas and minerals which are vulnerable to market volatility.

It is said that under AfCFTA trading, tariffs on various commodities where rules of origin have been agreed will be drastically reduced and traders of all sizes will have access to a much bigger market than they used to before.

Non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to trade will also be addressed and a mechanism for speedy reporting and resolution of NTBs has been put in place.

The African Union (AU) said the bigger market would spur producers to upscale and so support increased industrialisation and value addition on the continent. It is envisaged that more employment opportunities will be generated for Africas burgeoning youth population.

The AfCFTA will also be a tool for mitigation of Covid-19 by allowing free and unhindered trade in health products across the continent. The Times SUNDAY can mention that this move is thought to be relevant at this point in a time where the continent is ravaged by COVID-19.

The agreement establishing the AfCFTA was signed in March 2018, in Kigali Rwanda, following conclusion of the main legal texts. It has been reported that 54 member states of the African Union have signed, and 30 countries have deposited their instruments of ratification with the Chairperson of the African Union Commission.

For sake of simplicity, the main objectives of the AfCFTA are to create a single market for goods and services, facilitate the movement of persons, promote industrial development and sustainable and inclusive socio-economic growth, and resolve the issue of multiple memberships, in accordance with agenda 2063. Basically, it lays a foundation for the establishment, in future, of a continental common market. Sources close to AU told the Times SUNDAY that there was a possibility of introducing a single currency for Africa in future.

The new economic bloc backers said it would boost trade among African neighbours while allowing the continent to develop its own value chains. The World Bank estimated it could lift tens of millions out of poverty by 2035. There is a new Africa emerging with a sense of urgency and purpose and an aspiration to become self-reliant, Ghanas President Nana Akufo-Addo said during an online launch ceremony.

COVid-19 game changer

Critics, on the other hand, say obstacles, which range from ubiquitous red tape, poor infrastructure to the entrenched protectionism of some of its members must be overcome if the bloc is to reach its full potential. Trade under the AfCFTA was meant to be launched on July 1, 2020, but was pushed back after COVID-19 made in-person negotiations impossible.

However, the pandemic also gave the process added impetus, said Wamkele Mene, secretary-general of the AfCFTA secretariat. COVID-19 has demonstrated that Africa is overly reliant on the export of primary commodities, overly reliant on global supply chains, he said. When the global supply chains are disrupted, we know that Africa suffers.

Every African country except Eritrea has signed on to the AfCFTA framework agreement, and 31 have ratified it, including Eswatini.

Certain observers such as Gyude Moore  a former Liberian minister who is now a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development  say the real work begins now. I would be surprised if they can have everything set up within 24 months, he told Reuters news agency. For long-term success, I think well need to look at how long it took Europe. This is a multi-decade process.

Historic challenges including Africas poor road and rail links, political unrest, excessive border bureaucracy and petty corruption will not disappear overnight. And an annexe to the deal outlining the rules of origin  an essential step for determining which products can be subject to tariffs and duties  has not been completed yet.

Meanwhile, 41 of the zones 54 member states have submitted tariff reduction schedules.

Members must phase out 90 per cent of tariff lines  over five years for more advanced economies or 10 years for less developed nations. Another seven per cent considered sensitive will get more time, while three per cent will be allowed to be placed on an exclusion list. Finalising those schedules and communicating them to businesses must be done quickly, said Ziad Hamoui of Borderless Alliance, a group that campaigns for easier cross-border trade.

In his New Years Eve Speech, Ramaphosa spoke about his enthusiasm for the new partnership, We are just a few hours away from the birth of the African Continental Free Trade Area, which will fundamentally change the economic fortunes of our continent. It is the start of a new era of trade between African countrieswhen [the continent] will realise its great potential of its abundant natural and human resources.

It is said that AfCFTA has the potential to increase intra-African trade by 50 per cent, according to the United Nations (UN)s Economic Commission for Africa, while the World Bank suggests the agreement could mean an E1.1 trillion in income for the rest of the world.

Despite the clear benefits and historic accomplishment, other media publications in Europe quoted experts saying the agreement will face a number of hurdles in practice. This includes lack of modern and efficient infrastructure, unclear information about processes, and barriers for women-led businesses, and the economic destruction brought on by Covid-19 that could reverse years of progress in the region.

Some also fear that large economic gains made in the diverse economies will be unequally distributed. Regard

less, there are high hopes for the agreement. We want to move Africa away from this colonial economic model of perpetually being an exporter of primary commodities for processing elsewhere, the trade blocs secretariat, Mene, told the Financial Times. We want to stop approaching tariffs as a tool for revenue. We want tariffs to be a tool for industrial development.
I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! is set to return to Australian television screens on Sunday.

And the executive producer behind the hit show, Alex Mavroidakis, told the TV Reload podcast on Friday that 'up to 70 names' were seriously considered to star.

Insisting that Pete Evans was never confirmed to appear on the series, Alex also revealed whether he believes the chef would have been an ideal contestant.

SPOILER: An executive Producer behind I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! revealed how up to 70 stars were considered for the 2021 season, on the TV Reload podcast on Friday. Pictured: the show's hosts Dr. Chris Brown and Julia Morris

Alex, who interviewed this year's cast via Zoom from his Gold Coast home, said 'it's not an exaggeration' to say they had '60 to 70 names seriously in the mix'.

In terms of what makes a great star lineup, he explained: 'We've got to check off diversity, we've got to check off fame, we've got to check off funny, we've got to check off headlines.'

Alex went on to say, that while it may sound like a cliche, they've got to have that 'x-factor'.

Secrets revealed: Alex Mavroidakis (pictured), who interviewed this year's cast via Zoom from his Gold Coast home, said 'it's not an exaggeration' to say they had '60 to 70 names seriously in the mix'

When asked his thoughts on whether he believes Pete Evans would have made an ideal contestant, Alex began by stating that 'there's absolutely zero confirmation Pete Evans was ever anything to do with I'm A Celebrity'.

However, he did say that from a certain perspective, he would have '100 per cent' casted him in the jungle.

'I'm commenting on this from the perspective of someone who reads Facebook and Twitter. From a headline-grabbing point of view, the hack producer in me says, "100 per cent put him in".'

In terms of what makes a great star lineup, Alex explained: 'We've got to check off diversity, we've got to check off fame, we've got to check off funny, we've got to check off headlines.' Pictured with Geordie Shore star and I'm A Celeb Australia's 2020 star Charlotte Crosby

Perfect candidate? When asked his thoughts on whether he believes Pete Evans (pictured) would have made an ideal contestant, Alex said that from a 'headline-grabbing point of view', he would have '100 per cent' casted him in the jungle

Pete was reportedly dumped from the I'm A Celebrity cast in November, after posting a neo-Nazi meme to Facebook.

At the time, the former My Kitchen Rules judge, 47, laughed off his latest scandal outside his farm in northern NSW, offering a half-hearted apology to those offended by his racist social media post.

Pete told Daily Mail Australia: 'I apologise to anyone who might've taken it out of context. I promise you, whatever anybody is saying, that is not who I am,' he insisted, before bursting into a fit of giggles.

'And once again, deepest apologies to anyone who might have taken offence to that comment, or the image that I shared, because it was never meant to be taken in that way,' he added.

Dumped at the eleventh hour? Reports surfaced that Pete was dumped from I'm a Celebrity in November... after posting a neo-Nazi meme to Facebook. Pictured: hosts Julia Morris and Dr Chris Brown

Shameful: He posted this cartoon of a caterpillar wearing a MAGA cap and a butterfly with the neo-Nazi Black Sun emblem on its wing - with the suggestion being that neo-Nazism is the natural evolution for Donald Trump supporters

When asked how he felt about being axed from I'm a Celebrity, Pete once again laughed hysterically, saying: 'Oh! I don't even know what you're talking about!'

Pete has faced significant backlash since sharing the racist meme on Facebook.

The post was a cartoon of a caterpillar wearing a MAGA cap and a butterfly with the neo-Nazi Black Sun emblem on its wing - with the suggestion being that neo-Nazism is the natural evolution for Donald Trump supporters.

Pete is an enthusiastic supporter of the president and advocates the baseless claim that Joe Biden only won the 2020 election due to voter fraud.

Remorseful: He later deleted the post and replaced it with an image of a rainbow heart alongside a sarcastic non-apology in which he claimed he would be 'studying all of the symbols that have ever existed' to make sure he doesn't offend anyone again

The Black Sun symbol became infamous after it was introduced by top-ranking Nazi Heinrich Himmler during World War II. The symbol has since been adopted by numerous neo-Nazi groups, and by Christchurch mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant.

Pete seemingly confirmed he was aware of the meaning of the symbol when a fan stated they recognised it, and Pete replied: 'I was waiting for someone to see that.'

He later deleted the post and replaced it with an image of a rainbow heart alongside a sarcastic non-apology in which he claimed he would be 'studying all of the symbols that have ever existed' to make sure he doesn't offend anyone again.

'Sincere apologies to anyone who misinterpreted a previous post of a caterpillar and a butterfly having a chat over a drink and perceived that I was promoting hatred,' he wrote.

'I look forward to studying all of the symbols that have ever existed and research them thoroughly before posting. Hopefully this symbol resonates deeply into the hearts of ALL! '

WASHINGTON (AP)  A federal judge on Friday dismissed a last-gasp lawsuit led by a House Republican that aimed to give Vice President Mike Pence the power to overturn the results of the presidential election won by Joe Biden when Congress formally counts the Electoral College votes next week.

Pence, as president of the Senate, will oversee the session Wednesday and declare the winner of the White House race. The Electoral College this month cemented Bidens 306-232 victory, and multiple legal efforts by President Donald Trump's campaign to challenge the results have failed.

The suit named Pence, who has a largely ceremonial role in next week's proceedings, as the defendant and asked the court to throw out the 1887 law that spells out how Congress handles the vote counting. It asserted that the vice president may exercise the exclusive authority and sole discretion in determining which electoral votes to count for a given State.

In dismissing the lawsuit filed by Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and a group of Republican electors from Arizona, Texas U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, wrote that the plaintiffs allege an injury that is not fairly traceable to Pence, and is unlikely to be redressed by the requested relief.

The Justice Department represented Pence in a case that aimed to find a way to keep his boss, President Donald Trump, in power. In a court filing in Texas on Thursday, the department said the plaintiffs have sued the wrong defendant"  if, in fact, any of those suing actually have a judicially cognizable claim.

The department said, in effect, that the suit objects to long-standing procedures laid out in law, not any actions that Vice President Pence has taken," so he should not be the target of the suit.

A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction, the department argued.

Trump, the first president to lose a reelection bid in almost 30 years, has attributed his defeat to widespread voter fraud. But a range of nonpartisan election officials and Republicans has confirmed there was no fraud in the November contest that would change the results of the election. That includes former Attorney General William Barr, who said he saw no reason to appoint a special counsel to look into the presidents claims about the 2020 election. He resigned from his post last week.

Trump and his allies have filed roughly 50 lawsuits challenging election results, and nearly all have been dismissed or dropped. Hes also lost twice at the Supreme Court.
Protesting farmers to hold tractor parade in Delhi on January 26

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

New Delhi, Jan 02: In a recent development, protesting farmers said that they will hold marches towards governors' houses in different states on January 23 and take out a parade on tractors on January 26 against the Centre's three farm laws.

"On January 23, we will hold marches towards Governors' Houses in different states and a 'Tractor Kisan Parade' will be held on January 26 in Delhi. The tractor parade with the national flag will be called 'Kisaan Parade'," Krantikari Kisan union president Darshan Pal said.

Farmers warn of firm steps if talks with government fail on Jan 4

"We were peaceful, are peaceful and will be peaceful, but will stay at Delhi borders until new farm laws are repealed," said one of the leaders of the protesting farmers' unions," Darshan Pal said.

On Saturday, farmer groups continued to block traffic from Ghaziabad and Noida. The Singhu and Tikri border crossing points from Delhi to Haryana have also remained completely blocked since last month when the farmer agitation against three laws enacted to liberalize the sector started.

At the Ghazipur border, the service lane of National Highway-24 continued to remain closed for traffic.

Farmers Protest: Demonstrators stay put amid severe cold in Delhi

Meanwhile, Union minister of state (MoS) for agriculture Kailash Choudhary said a solution would come up during the talks to be held on January 4 with the farmers and that the ongoing deadlock would end.

Vaccines to be provided for free across India, says health min | Oneindia News

"I am confident that in the next round of talks with farmers, a solution will be reached and the ongoing protest will come to an end. The three farm bills are in favour of farmers. They used to demand to get rid of the middleman and sell their produce at a rate of their choice," the minister said.

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Story first published: Saturday, January 2, 2021, 14:25 [IST]
Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli are welcoming the new year together. Treating their fans, the actress shared some happy pictures of the soon-to-be-parents couple on her verified Instagram account. In the monochrome pictures, the duo was seen sharing a hearty laugh as they posed together for the cameras.

The pictures are from the intimate get-together hosted by Anushka and Virat at their home for new year's. Sharing the pics, Anushka wrote, "Wishing you all bountiful of love, happiness and prosperity this new year. From us to you."

View this post on Instagram A post shared by AnushkaSharma1588 (@anushkasharma)

For new year's Anushka and Virat hosted an intimate dinner at their home. For the occasion, the duo was joined by Hardik Pandya and his wife Natasa Stankovic, who also became parents earlier this year. In the pictures shared by Virat, the couples are seen gathered around the dinner table as they get snapped ahead of the New Year. Anushka wore a printed black dress and Virat complimented her in an all black look.

Virat captioned his post, "Friends who test negative together spend positive time together!  Nothing like a get together with friends in safe environments. May this year bring a lot of hope, joy, happiness and good health. Stay safe (sic)!"

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Virat Kohli (@virat.kohli)

Virat and Anushka tied the knot on December 11, 2017. The couple had a hush-hush destination wedding in Italy.

Anushka is expected to deliver her child in January next year. The couple had shared the happy news in August on social media, writing: "And then, we were three! Arriving Jan 2021."
In one of the most challenging years facing the states oil and gas industry, the Railroad Commission, charged with overseeing the industry, not only managed to maintain operations amid the pandemic but exceeded a number of key legislative goals.

The commission was able to exceed our performance goals this year because of the hardworking employees that I am proud to work with, Christi Craddick, chair of the Railroad Commission, told the Reporter-Telegram by email. Our inspectors continued to perform their duties in the field, and office staff continued to process permit applications to keep the industry moving forward. Our IT upgrades helped as well, allowing operators to file applications and permits remotely, prioritizing health and safety for RRC staff and operators alike.

During the states fiscal year 2020, which ended Aug. 31, the commission plugged 1,477 orphan wells, above the legislative target of 1,400. Wells were plugged at an average of 46.75 a day with an aggregate depth of more than 3.22 million feet. The commission also investigated, assessed or cleaned up 258 abandoned sites, exceeding the goal of 230 by 12 percent, and averaging 104 days to complete cleanup.

The Field Operations section of the commissions Oil and Gas Division performed over 347,000 inspections, exceeding the goal of 189,367 inspections and averaging 2,107 inspections per inspector, more than 8,895 above the goal of 1,199. The section also reduced the percentage of wells not inspected in at least five years to 1 percent, exceeding the goal of 5 percent and inspected 33.4 percent of the total well population, exceeding the goal of 22.5 percent.

Between March 15 and Aug. 31, the Pipeline Safety Department conducted 3,032 evaluations, most virtually and up from 2,523 evaluations in the same time frame of 2019. Six new pipeline safety inspectors were hired, bringing the agency to an all-time high of 70 inspectors.

The Hearings Division processed 2,091 new cases, an increase over the previous three years. The total number of dockets closed was 1,594. Of those closed, 1,531 were Oil and Gas dockets, which equates to just over 150 per examiner.

Looking back over the year, Craddick wrote, There is no denying that this year was challenging for the oil and gas industry. As a result, the biggest issue we faced as an agency was managing to provide regulatory certainty during uncertain times. From day-to-day operations to proration discussions, our agency prioritized the Texans we serve by ensuring continuity of service and accessibility to the industry. This state could not afford an oil and gas industry shut down, and our job was to make sure that operators could continue to provide energy for Texans who were working and learning from home. While implementing work-from-home policies for RRC staff, our agency was able to continue performing inspections, processing permits, and responding to industry needs. I am proud of the work we have done and will continue to do to maintain regulatory certainty for operators and prioritize environmental, health, and safety standards for all Texans.

Asked what she was most proud of in the agencys performance in 2020, Craddick replied, In March, when COVID-19 started to appear in Texas and our state started to shut down, this agency was faced with a challenge just like businesses and entities across the country. When I look back at the year, I am most proud of the willingness, drive, and hard work of our staff. In trying times, RRC staff met each challenge with resilience and effort, and I credit that hard work with the continued success we saw throughout the year. Whether it be switching to virtual platforms to conduct business, conducting a 11-hour open meeting to discuss proration, meeting our performance goals, developing the Form R-32 data sheet for flaring information, or maintaining a presence in the field to prioritize the mission of this agency, our staff exceeded all expectations, and I am proud of the hard work that this agency completed. While this industry is not out of the woods quite yet, I know that this agency is poised to meet the needs of all Texans because of the excellent staff that we have on board.
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Bakersfield College has had a group the past couple years called Free on the Outside, which is focused on being a safe place where students wh
The number of people killed in large commercial airplane crashes rose in 2020 to 299 worldwide, even as the number of crashes fell by more than 50%, a Dutch consulting firm said on Friday.

Aviation consulting firm To70 said in 2020 there were 40 accidents involving large commercial passenger planes, five of which were fatal, resulting in 299 fatalities. In 2019 there were 86 accidents, eight of which were fatal, resulting in 257 fatalities.

Large commercial airplanes had 0.27 fatal accidents per million flights in 2020, To70 said, or one fatal crash every 3.7 million flights -- up from 0.18 fatal accidents per million flights in 2019.

The decline in crashes came amid a sharp decline in flights due to the coronavirus pandemic. Flightradar24 reported commercial flights it tracked worldwide in 2020 fell 42% to 24.4 million.

More than half of all deaths in the To70 review were the 176 people killed in January 2020 when a Ukrainian plane was shot down in Iranian airspace. The second deadliest incident was the May crash of a Pakistan airliner crashed in May killing 98.

Large passenger airplanes covered by the statistics are used by nearly all travellers on airlines but exclude small commuter airplanes in service.

Over the last two decades, aviation deaths have been falling dramatically. As recently as 2005, there were 1,015 deaths aboard commercial passenger flights worldwide, the Aviation Safety Network (ASN) said.

Over the last five years, there have been an average of 14 fatal accidents for commercial passenger and cargo planes resulting in 345 deaths annually, ASN said.

In 2017, aviation had its safest year on record worldwide with only two fatal accidents involving regional turboprops that resulted in 13 deaths and no fatal crashes of passenger jets.

The United States has not had a fatal US passenger airline crash since February 2009 and one fatality due to a US passenger airline accident in that period.
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Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that China will continue to advance global cooperation on epidemic response, strengthen joint prevention and control, and assist countries and regions in need.

"We will never slacken such efforts until humanity secures a final victory against COVID-19," he said in a recent interview with Xinhua News Agency and China Media Group.

Wang summarized China's contributions and support to the global COVID-19 response in six respects, including being the first country to report cases to the world, taking the most rigorous control measures to fight the virus, conducting the largest-scale online exchanges on epidemic response, providing urgently needed assistance by launching the largest global emergency humanitarian campaign since the founding of the People's Republic of China, doing its best as the largest manufacturer of medical supplies, and being the first to pledge to make vaccines a global public good.

"When hit by an unknown coronavirus, China took immediate actions to carry out epidemiological investigation, identify the pathogen and publicize key information including the genome sequencing of the virus. All this sounded alarm bells across the world," he said.

Wang said that China effectively controlled the virus within the shortest possible time, and steadily resumed economic and social activities, making an early contribution to building a strong global line of defense against the virus.

"We organized over 100 video meetings with experts from other countries, opened an online knowledge center to share China's experiences with all countries, and published eight updated versions of diagnosis and therapeutic solutions and seven updated versions of prevention and control protocols," he said.

To help people across the world prevailing over the virus, China has provided assistance to over 150 countries and 10 international organizations, sent 36 medical teams to 34 countries in need and provided funding to WHO and other relevant UN agencies, according to Wang.

As the largest manufacturer of medical supplies, China has provided countries around the world with over 220 billion masks, 2.25 billion protective suits and over 1 billion testing kits, Wang said.

"We were the first to pledge to make vaccines a global public good, bearing in mind the greater good of humanity," he said.
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A Nigerian police officer who said he once rejected N864 million bribe has reportedly resigned from his job, claiming he has been denied promotion thrice.

The officer, Francis Erhabor, headed a division of the police in Akwa Ibom State, South-south of Nigeria, before his alleged resignation.

An online publication, Igbere TV, broke the news of the officers resignation, Saturday.

Igbere TV in December honoured Mr Erhabor as Police officer of the year  it said the officer came top in a nationwide online voting.

I have witnessed my juniors get promoted over me over and over again, and it hurts deeply. I filed a complaint, asked for ratification of my promotion date, and was even investigated, with the outcome verified in my favour, yet nothing has been done to remedy the situation, Mr Erhabor, a chief superintendent of police, was quoted to have said about his resignation.

I have wasted 30 years serving my fatherland, he added.

Mr Erhabor said he joined the Nigerian police as a cadet inspector 30 years ago, in 1990, when he was just a little above 17.

He said he was told at that time that the nations police needed young people like him who were patriotic and passionate.

This profession I once called a noble one, doesnt care about those of us who tread the path of honour and dignity.

I once had a dream about the Nigeria Police Force becoming the peoples force, the countrys pride.

So sad, I no longer believe in the system as a noble one, but one were mediocrity, nepotism, and all other ignoble acts are given higher preference, the officer was quoted as saying.

I am sorry I let all my fans down. I am deeply sorry for not finishing where you all expected me to finish. Thanks for your strong and relentless faith in me. I remain forever grateful to you all, he added.

A fellow divisional police officer in Uyo has confirmed Mr Erhabors resignation to PREMIUM TIMES.

The police in Akwa Ibom have, however, dismissed the story as false.

The Commissioner of Police, Amienghene Andrew, is not in receipt of any letter of resignation from the Senior Officer and has not in any way communicated same to the Force Headquarters, the police spokesperson in Akwa Ibom State, Odiko MacDon, said in a statement, Saturday.

For the avoidance of doubt, appointments and resignations of the NPF are not done on social media, Mr MacDon, a superintendent of police, added.

PREMIUM TIMES could not immediately reach Mr Erhabor as his phone line remained switched off throughout Saturday.
Tamil Nadu on Saturday conducted a dry run at 17 centres for the rollout of Covid-19 vaccination that showed successful working of the processes involved and it was a learning experience as well, a top state health official said here on Saturday.

The exercise showed that all preparations were in ready mode for the roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccine in the state, Tamil Nadu Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan said, adding that overall, the processes worked successfully.

The dry run was held at three centres each in the districts of Chennai, Tiruvallur, Nilgiris, Tirunelveli and five in Coimbatore.

An initial learning was that the room earmarked for vaccination should be more spacious, the secretary told reporters, adding officials from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) also witnessed the drive.

Click here for the complete Covid-19 coverage

Quoting initial inputs, he said the dry run, involving about 2,000 personnel and 510 participants, showed overall satisfactory results, adding that the focus of the exercise was preparation and planning for the proposed roll out of the vaccination.

The mobile application and other processes, including identification of beneficiaries worked well and aspects like internet connectivity in hilly regions were also studied and all of these observations would be sent to the Centre,he said.

After perusing all reports related to the dry run, if needed, changes would be suggested by Tamil Nadu to the Centre in the pattern of processes and its working, he said.

The objective of the exercise was preparatory in nature, where the working of various processes involved for successful hassle free vaccination was tested.

Also Read | Govt releases SOP for travellers flying from UK: All you need to know

The overall management scenario of vaccination,right from bringing vaccines to inoculation centres from cold chain amenities and verifying beneficiaries in a mobile application following initial identification were among aspects studied.

Availability of requisite drugs and presence of a doctor in an observation room to monitor people who received the vaccine shots for unlikely reactions or adverse events was also evaluated, the top official said.

About 100 people could be vaccinated in a day in a given centre with all amenities, including separate entry and exit points and this feature was also evaluated.

The beneficiaries also received SMS on their phones informing them of successful (dummy message during practice session) vaccination, he said.

As many as six lakh health personnel have already registered for the vaccination and other frontline workers were set to register themselves, followed by the elderly and those with co-morbidities, he said.

In Chennai and other districts,teams have been set at the level of zones and unions respectively and 45,200 sites for providing vaccination and 51 walk-in coolers, 2,800 secondary cold storage points with capacity to store 2.5 crore ampules are ready , he said.
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz has said he will be among a dozen Republican senators who will challenge President-elect Joe Biden's victory when Electoral College results are tallied in Congress next week.

Twelve Republicans have now said they will vote to reject the electors on January 6, after Missouri senator Josh Hawley became the first to announce his intentions this week to challenge the result.

In a statement on Saturday with ten more GOP senators, Cruz demanded the appointment of an emergency commission to conduct a 10-day audit of the election returns in 'disputed states'.

Until such a commission is appointed, they vowed to intend to vote on January 6 to reject the electors from those states - a largely symbolic move that has little chance of preventing Biden from taking office.

The effort is considered separate from but parallel to that of Senator Hawley, who earlier this week became the first sitting member of the Senate to announce he would challenge the election result.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz has said he will be among a dozen Republican senators who will challenge President-elect Joe Biden's victory when Electoral College results are tallied in Congress next week

It comes in defiance of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, who has pleaded with his caucus not to attempt to block certification of the election

Trump's Dirty Dozen Senator Josh Hawley - Missouri - has already said he will object The Cruz faction Senator Ted Cruz - Texas Senator Ron Johnson - Wisconsin Senator James Lankford - Oklahoma Senator Steve Daines - Montana Senator John Kennedy - Louisiana Senator Marsha Blackburn - Tennessee Senator Mike Braun - Indiana Senator-elect Cynthia Lummis - Wyoming Senator-elect Tommy Tuberville - Alabama Senator-elect Bill Hagerty - Tennessee Senator-elect Roger Marshall - Kansas *Senators-elect will be sworn in as senators on Sunday January 3, and will be eligible to vote on January 6 Advertisement

Cruz was joined in the statement by Senators Ron Johnson, James Lankford, Steve Daines, John Kennedy, Marsha Blackburn, Mike Braun, along with Cynthia Lummis, Tommy Tuberville, Bill Hagerty, and Roger Marshall, all of whom will be sworn in as senators on Sunday in the new Congress.

In a statement, Cruz and the other senators said they intend to vote to reject electors from swing states that have been at the center of President Donald Trump's unproven assertions of election fraud and will call for the establishment of a commission to investigate claims of fraud on an emergency basis.

'We intend to vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not `regularly given and `lawfully certified (the statutory requisite), unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed,' they wrote in the statement.

'We do not take this action lightly,' they said.

It comes in defiance of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, who has pleaded with his caucus not to attempt to block certification of the Electoral College results.

In conference calls with colleagues, McConnell has reportedly argued that any attempt to block certification of Biden would be futile, and only divide the party.

Cruz's statement pointed out that Democrats in Congress had previously raised objections to the result of a presidential election, including in 1969, 2001, 2005, and 2017.

President Donald Trump has not proven his claims of election fraud, but Cruz believes an emergency commission should be appointed to get to the bottom of the matter

Senators (left to right) Ron Johnson, James Lankford, Steve Daines signed on with Cruz

Senators John Kennedy, Marsha Blackburn, Mike Braun also joined Cruz's faction

Also joining Cruz were incoming Senators (left to right) Cynthia Lummis, Tommy Tuberville, Bill Hagerty, and Roger Marshall, all of whom will be sworn in as senators on Sunday

Senatory Hawley of Missouri (above) was the first to defy McConnell by announcing he would join House Republicans in objecting to the state tallies on January 6

'The most direct precedent on this question arose in 1877, following serious allegations of fraud and illegal conduct in the Hayes-Tilden presidential race,' the senators argued.

'Specifically, the elections in three states-Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina-were alleged to have been conducted illegally,' they continued.

'In 1877, Congress did not ignore those allegations, nor did the media simply dismiss those raising them as radicals trying to undermine democracy.

'Instead, Congress appointed an Electoral Commission-consisting of five Senators, five House Members, and five Supreme Court Justices-to consider and resolve the disputed returns,' the statement added.

A number of Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives also plan on contesting the vote tally.

The days ahead are expected to do little to change the outcome. Biden is set to be inaugurated January 20 after winning the Electoral College vote 306-232.

Senator Hawley of Missouri was the first to defy McConnell by announcing he would join House Republicans in objecting to the state tallies during Wednesday's joint session of Congress.

The moves drew swift condemnation from Democrats, including former Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill, who tweeted 'There are actually 12 Senators 'pointing a loaded gun' at the heart of democracy. They should always be known as the #dirtydozen.'

The Dirty Dozen was a 1967 war film about about ragtag group of hardened criminals who were recruited to form an elite Allied commando unit sent on a virtual suicide mission against high-ranking Nazi officers.

On the other side of the Republican party's split, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska warned such challenges are a 'dangerous ploy' threatening the nations civic norms.

The issue is forcing Republicans to make choices that will set the contours of the post-Trump era and an evolving GOP. Caught in the middle is Vice President Mike Pence, who faces growing pressure and a lawsuit from Trumps allies over his ceremonial role in presiding over the session Wednesday.

'I will not be participating in a project to overturn the election,' Sasse wrote in a lengthy social media post. Sasse, a potential 2024 presidential contender, said he was 'urging my colleagues also to reject this dangerous ploy.'

The Dirty Dozen was a 1967 war film about about ragtag group of hardened criminals who were recruited to form an elite Allied commando unit sent on a virtual suicide mission against high-ranking Nazi officers during WWII. They were victorious, but few survived the mission

Trump, the first president to lose a reelection bid in almost 30 years, has attributed his defeat to widespread voter fraud, despite the consensus of nonpartisan election officials that there wasn't any.

Of the roughly 50 lawsuits the president and his allies have filed challenging election results, nearly all have been dismissed or dropped. Hes also lost twice at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Still, the president has pushed Republican senators to pursue his unfounded charges even though the Electoral College has already cemented Bidens victory and all that's left is Congress formal recognition of the count before the new president is sworn in.

'We are letting people vote their conscience,' Sen. John Thune, the second-ranking Republican, told reporters at the Capitol.

Thunes remarks as the GOP whip in charge of rounding up votes show that Republican leadership is not putting its muscle behind Trumps demands, but allowing senators to choose their course. He noted the gravity of questioning the election outcome.

'This is an issue thats incredibly consequential, incredibly rare historically and very precedent-setting,' he said. 'This is a big vote. They are thinking about it.'

Pence will be carefully watched as he presides over what is typically a routine vote count in Congress but is now heading toward a prolonged showdown that could extend into Wednesday night, depending on how many challenges are mounted.

The challenge is expected to do little to change the outcome. Biden is set to be inaugurated January 20 after winning the Electoral College vote 306-232

The vice president is being sued by a group of Republicans who want Pence to have the power to overturn the election results by doing away with an 1887 law that spells out how Congress handles the vote count.

Trump's own Justice Department may have complicated what is already a highly improbable effort to upend the ritualistic count.

It asked a federal judge to dismiss the last-gasp lawsuit from Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and a group of Republican electors from Arizona who are seeking to force Pence to step outside mere ceremony and shape the outcome of the vote.

In a court filing in Texas, the department said they have 'have sued the wrong defendant' and Pence should not be the target of the legal action.

'A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction,' the department argues.

A judge in Texas dismissed the Gohmert lawsuit Friday night. U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, wrote that the plaintiffs 'allege an injury that is not fairly traceable' to Pence, 'and is unlikely to be redressed by the requested relief.'

To ward off a dramatic unraveling, McConnell convened a conference call with Republican senators Thursday specifically to address the coming joint session and logistics of tallying the vote, according to several Republicans granted anonymity to discuss the private call.

The Republican leader pointedly called on Hawley to answer questions about his challenge to Bidens victory, according to two of the Republicans.

But there was no response because Hawley was a no-show, the Republicans said.

His office did not respond to a request for comment.

Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., who has acknowledged Bidens victory and defended his states elections systems as valid and accurate, spoke up on the call, objecting to those challenging Pennsylvanias results and making clear he disagrees with Hawleys plan to contest the result, his office said in a statement.

McConnell had previously warned GOP senators not to participate in raising objections, saying it would be a terrible vote for colleagues. In essence, lawmakers would be forced to choose between the will of the outgoing president and that of the voters.

Several Republicans have indicated they are under pressure from constituents back home to show they are fighting for Trump in his baseless campaign to stay in office.
MASON CITY, Iowa - Two wanted men were taken into custody Friday night after a short pursuit in a Mason City neighborhood.

The Cerro Gordo County Sheriffs Office said it attempted to stop a vehicle for fraudulent use of registration at 8:08 p.m. at the intersection of 7th St. NE and N. Pennsylvania Ave. The vehicle led authorities on a short pursuit in an alley before the driver, Joshua Teeter, 23, of Mason City, fled on foot.

Teeter had a valid warrant out of Cerro Gordo County for violation of parole and pretrial release violations. He was also charged with eluding, interference with official acts and fraudulent use of registration

One of the passengers, Tony Jones, 32 of Mason City, was taken into custody on a valid Worth County warrant. He was also charged with possession of drug paraphernalia.
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 17:33:07|Editor: huaxia

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AUCKLAND, New Zealand, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- A New Year online concert, organized by a New Zealand based cultural exchange organization, was showcased on Saturday by youth to celebrate the Chinese culture.

The New Year online concert was part of the ongoing online charity concert series participated by young performers from across the world.

Its organizer, the Culture Bridge, said that the New Year concert was aimed to celebrate and promote the Chinese culture globally.

"The livelihood and creativity of our overseas Chinese rooted from Chinese culture, for which we bear the responsibility to preserve and promote," said Jie Min, director of the Culture Bridge.

Young performers in the New Year online concert came from New Zealand, the United States, Australia, Canada and Thailand. While most of the performers are overseas Chinese, there were also local fellows joining the concert to show their talent in Chinese songs.

The two-hour New Year concert featured some famous and classic Chinese songs and performances such as the Wushu performance, Colourful Clouds Chasing the Moon, and Me and My Motherland.

The first concert session of the online charity concert series organised by the Culture Bridge debuted in early 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown when a group of overseas Chinese students joined a global rally to sing for COVID-19 frontline health workers. The online concerts have since been joined by over 2,000 young performers globally, according to its organizer. The New Year concert was the ninth session of the online charity concert series. Enditem
Senior leader and former MP from Jalore, Buta Singh passed away on Saturday aged 86.

The leader's son, Arvinder Singh Lovely Sidhu took to Facebook to inform about his father's passing.

"My father, Buta Singh passed away today morning. May Waheguru bless his soul," his post read (roughly translated from Hindi).

Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot expressed grief at the demise of the leader and extended condolences to his family.

"Sad to learn about the demise of a former union minister, senior leader and former MP from Rajasthan, Shri Buta Singh ji. My heartfelt condolences to his family members in this difficult time, may God give them strength to bear this loss. May his soul rest in peace," Gehlot wrote on Twitter.

A four-time MP from Jalore-Sirohi Lok Sabha constituency, Buta Singh served as Home Minister of India in the Rajiv Gandhi government from 1986 to 1989, and President of Scheduled Caste Commission.

(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.)
EDITOR'S NOTE The Midland County Historical Society is partnering with the Midland Daily News for "A Window to Midland's Past," which will feature historical pieces in print and online at ourmidland.com. This particular piece was compiled by retired historical society director Gary Skory and was originally published on Aug. 4, 1998.

By the early 1880s Midland County possessed the appearance of a proper Victorian lumber town, complete with modern facilities, impressive homes and commercial buildings, and a solid economy based on lumbering. In 1884 a Portrait and Biographical Album of Midland County, was written by a Chicago firm that specialized in such publications. Today this book provides unique and fascinating insights into the early years of our city and county. The following excerpt is taken from this book.

RAILROADS

The subject of transportation has been and is now one of the vital questions in the growth and development of a country, be it new or old. Midland County was for several years shut off from civilization except by means of the river, there being no wagon roads leading out of the county. Even the despised corduroy was unknown until the county had been settled for many years.

The Flint & Pere Marquette Railroad was the first and only line to date that has been completed in the county. This was secured by liberal inducements offered by a few individuals along the line. John Larkin gave the right of way through the village. J.W. Cochrane was also quite active in this enterprise, which has been of so great benefit to Midland County.

This railroad was completed to Midland City and opened for business Dec. 1, 1867. Six months later it was extended to Averill, which place was its western terminus nearly two years. The line was then pushed rapidly to Clare and thence to Reed City, its present western termination. A branch road under the control of the Flint & Pere Marquette, extends southerly from Coleman to Mount Pleasant, in Isabella County. Added to this is a line extending several miles into the woods north of Coleman, which carries logs to the Flint & Pere Marquette.

With the railroad came prosperity to this county, and the men who so energetically managed the matter will never receive half the credit they deserve.

The Bay City & Midland Railroad was contemplated in 1870, and prospects for an east and west road were never better between two villages. A company was organized in the spring of that year, consisting of such well known men as John Larkin, J.W. Anderson, George A. Janes, Thomas J. Carpenter, Benjamin Dean and William Patrick of Midland, George Campbell, the Munger brothers, W.H. Miller, James Schearer, William Westover, J.R. Hall, Pitts & Cranage and Judge Holmes, of Bay City, as stockholders.

The assessment of 10% was paid up. Captain E.R. Craw was elected president, John Haines, secretary, and George Campbell, treasurer. Work was pushed during the year, and the road was graded and culverts built along the entire line. As the work progressed, other assessments were made, but owing to the mismanagement of the secretary and treasurer, the company ran out of funds and operations were suspended indefinitely.

In the spring of 1882, Bay City parties made this proposition to the stockholders: That Midland raise $10,000 and someone be authorized to act as attorney for the original stockholders; that the right of way be thus secured and Bay City would raise the balance necessary to complete the line. This was done by the people of Midland, and William Mann, of Bay City, given authority to act for the stockholders. This venture was also a failure. Bay City failing to raise the amount necessary to complete the contract. The right of way is still secure, but no efforts are made toward finishing the road. There is little doubt but it will be taken hold of by some company ere long and carried to completion.
Since early December, the number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths in Jefferson Parish has pulled roughly even with New Orleans and on many days surpassed it.

But it's a milestone that, like many statistics of the pandemic, resists definitive analysis, and what it means depends on who you talk to.

Officials in Jefferson say it's the inevitable result of having a larger population. A prominent epidemiologist cautions that policy decisions and behavioral choices cannot be excluded from the conversation. A data analyst said it means very little.

There had been 642 confirmed COVID-19 deaths in Jefferson as of Wednesday compared to 638 in Orleans. Jefferson first eclipsed New Orleans by two deaths in on Dec. 9 before dropping behind again on Dec. 16. Since Dec. 23, Jefferson has been ahead, though they are still close enough for that to change again.

Jefferson has been closing the gap since the summer, and Jefferson Parish Coroner Gerry Cvitanovich said this was statistically inevitable.

Im not surprised that our numbers have surpassed Orleans, he said, noting Jeffersons rate of deaths per 100,000 is lower than in New Orleans. Im pleased that it has taken this long for it it happen, but I expected it to happen.

As of July 2019, the recent census data available, Jefferson Parishs population of 432,493 was 11% larger than Orleanss 390,144.

Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng said the population difference has played a key role, but agreed there are other factors at play.

The recent surge, she said, is a matter of too many holidays in quick succession.

There are too many of those days where we get out of our routines, get out of our habits and see new people, she said, adding this is particularly disappointing because vaccinations have just begun.

The solution is very close to us, she said, encouraging residents to stick to mask and social-distance guidelines. You see the finish line right there, just try to cross it.

Dr. Susan Hassig, professor of epidemiology at Tulane University, said she doesnt think the difference in population is sufficient to close the gap, particularly in light of the fact that Jefferson has had higher rates of infection than Orleans since the first surge, which struck New Orleans worse but hit Jefferson quite hard as well.

One major issue with anything cumulative over the last 10 months is that so many of the variables have shifted over time. The initial outbreak in March was marked by many in high-risk groups getting sick in high numbers because the virus took hold before many of the most vulnerable could protect themselves, including African Americans, people with underlying health conditions and the elderly, particularly those in nursing homes.

Vaccine news in your inbox Once a week we'll update you on the progress of COVID-19 vaccinations. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

The second wave, which began in June, was believed to be driven by children, who are less likely to get severely ill and die, while the current wave is thought to be driven by holiday travel and gatherings -- as well as pandemic fatigue -- and is infecting many older people again, though not as much as the first wave.

And all the while, the likelihood of dying from the disease has been decreasing as treatment protocols have improved. All this makes the first wave of the pandemic quite different from the months since June, which is a major reason why Jeffersons cumulative COVID-19 death rate  148 deaths per 100,000  is better than Orleanss  163 per 100,000  Hassig said.

But this doesnt change the fact that Jefferson, where coronavirus cases surpassed Orleans back in May, hasnt been as successful at suppressing infections as Orleans.

Its number of infections per 100,000 far outstrips New Orleans as well, at 6,777 per 100,000 to 5,029.

Weve seen mortality generally decline in terms of survivability of infection, but with the number of infections we have occurring  there is only one way that (the number of) deaths are going to go, and thats up, Hassig said.

Businesses and public spaces in Jefferson Parish have always been as open as the state would allow, and the Parish Council lobbied Gov. John Bel Edwards  albeit unsuccessfully  to move ahead to Phase 3 sooner than other parishes.

Overall, Jefferson Parish has generally had more lax restrictions throughout the summer and fall than Orleans, which has been more strict than any other parish in the state.

The council and local business groups have been unapologetic about balancing the economy and public health as long as hospital resources, as measured by the number of available beds, stay below federal guidelines.

Everything is a choice, Hassig said. Its a policy choice, a behavioral choice ... there are choices at all levels that lead to what were seeing with hospitalizations, infections and mortality.

Jeff Asher, a data analyst and consultant who has been tracking coronavirus statistics throughout the pandemic, also noted Jefferson's uptick in cases since the first wave.

Population, he said, may matter a little bit, but Jefferson has consistently had a higher level of tests that were positive.

However, a metric he used to compare the two parishes  confirmed deaths as a percentage of estimated infections  has Orleans and Jefferson quite similar to one another since June.

Ultimately, Asher said he doesnt think too much can be read into the milestone because of how much uncertainty surrounds the data, particularly when it comes to testing.

It just doesnt seem like there are broad conclusions you can draw from it, he said, at least in my humble opinion.
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Around 80,000 exiled Tibetans will participate in the first phase of the global election for Sikyong  president of Central Tibetan Administration (CTA)  and members of the 17th Parliament-in-exile on Sunday amid the pandemic. The final round of the two-phase election will be held on April 11, 2021. The votes will be cast through ballot.

As per the CTA election commission, of the 80,000 voters 56,000 live in India, Nepal and Bhutan while 24,000 are in other countries.

Eight candidates are in fray for Sikyong, including representative of the Dalai Lama in New Delhi and former CTA home minister Kasur Dongchung Ngodup, former representative of Dalai Lama to North America Kelsang Dorjee Aukatsang, former speaker of the Parliament-in-exile Penpa Tsering and incumbent deputy speaker Acharya Yeshi Phuntosok.

Incumbent Sikyong Lobsang Sangay was the first elected political leader of exiled Tibetans. An individual can serve only two terms as a Sikyong.

Around 150 candidates are vying for 45 seats of members of parliament10 representatives from each of the traditional provinces of Tibet  U-Tsang, Dhotoe and Dhomey; two from each of the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism and the pre-Buddhist Bon religion.

Besides, two representatives each are elected from the Tibetan communities in North America and Europe; and one from Australasia and Asia (excluding India, Nepal and Bhutan).

Polling stations have been set up and social distancing, wearing masks, sanitisation will be observed.

Dharamshala settlement officer and head of the Dharamshala regional election commission Kunga Tsering said elections will be held as per the Covid SOPs issued by the Government of India and CTA.
(Natural News) A Texas man who recently moved to California had his home raided by police after trying to legally register a firearm he brought with him from the Lone Star State.

At least eight law enforcement officers from what appeared to be the California Department of Justice swarmed the mans home, bringing with them a warrant that they used to search the property for something illegal.

After coming up with nothing, the SWAT-like band of thugs left the mans home empty-handed, after which he uploaded footage of the horrific incident to the internet.

In September, the California Department of Justice (DOJ) warrant searched my home, after I attempted to register a firearm with them, a description for the below video reads.

They left having found nothing illegal, according to California State law. I have no criminal history.

Why is BLM allowed to commit endless crimes and never be punished?

The incident took place just months after roving mobs of Black Lives Matter (BLM) thugs swarmed the nation in response to the death of George Floyd, looting and destroying businesses while police stood idly by and did nothing.

None of the culprits were ever arrested or punished, and BLM ended up raking in a whopping $10.6 billion in financial support and aid while pretending to be victims of systemic racism.

Meanwhile, when a law-abiding citizen tries to comply with ridiculous gun laws, hes rewarded with police swarming his house to look for a lower receiver, writes Chris Menahan for Information Liberation, contrasting the two situations.

These cops would never dream of going throughout the ghettos of Los Angeles where violence is surging to confiscate illegal guns from gang members!

As Sam Francis warned, America is now living under anarcho-tyranny

As the late paleoconservative writer Sam Francis warned would happen, the United States has descended into total anarcho-tyranny. In essence, the state is failing to properly enforce the law while selectively targeting those who abide by it with persecution.

What we have in this country today, then, is both anarchy (the failure of the state to enforce the laws) and, at the same time, tyranny  the enforcement of laws by the state for oppressive purposes, Francis wrote.

Law-abiding citizens and the innocent, he added, are criminalized through egregious taxation, excessive bureaucratic regulation, privacy invasion, and social engineering. Meanwhile, actual criminals are allowed to roam free and do whatever they please.

The rise of sensitivity training, hate crimes, hate speech, and other Orwellian, multiculturalist brainwashing aims to deconstruct everything that was once good in our nation in order to replace it with all kind of boundless evil.

The laws that are enforced are either those that extend or entrench the power of the state and its allies and internal elites, Francis added, noting that much of what is now becoming law actually punishes people who insist on behaving according to traditional norms.

Not wanting to pay taxes or wear seat belts, for instance  or in 2020, not wanting to wear a mask  is all seen as delinquent, while damaging private property and raising hell because of perceived racism is seen as virtuous.

Other malcontents that are punished under the new lawless paradigm including families with both a husband and a wife, people who quote the Bible or the Constitution, and people who oppose the limitless invasion of our country by illegal aliens from the third world.

This cruelty toward innocent citizens most deserving of law enforcements protection while simultaneously letting armed BLM and Antifa spit in their faces during the commission of crimes is rather obviously a defining essence of cowards, and the worst sort at that, wrote one Information Liberation commenter in response to the above video.

More of the latest news about the collapse of American society under political correctness can be found at Collapse.news.

Sources for this article include:

InformationLiberation.com

YouTu.be

NaturalNews.com
Vietnamese in UK wary but not afraid of new Covid-19 variant

Vietnamese people in the UK are on high alert as the country tries to cope with the new and more contagious strain of Covid-19.

The new strain, known as VUI (Variant Under Investigation) -202012/01, was officially acknowledged on December 14, with authorities saying it has 20 changes or mutations from the original version and is believed to be 70 percent more transmissible.

It was first spotted in September, and a quarter of new infections in the capital London in November were caused by it. By mid-December, the number rose to almost two-thirds.

Sharon Vu, who lives with her husband and two children in London, said: "My relatives and I are more cautious about the new strain."

A view of London Bridge on December 29, 2020. Photo by AFP/Tolga Akmen.

She said after almost a year of living with the novel coronavirus everyone had become familiar with epidemic prevention and working remotely, her family had stopped worrying too much about Covid-19, and she and her friends had continued to meet occasionally.

"But this time we strictly follow preventive measures. I really feel unsafe and have been avoiding crowded places. I don't even go out of the house. When my husband and sons go out for a run or exercise, I repeatedly remind them not to run near pedestrians and keep a distance."

The new strain has caused unprecedented pressure on the U.K. health system, with the number of Covid-19 patients hospitalized at a record high of more than 20,000.

Britain has the sixth largest number of Covid patients in the world, 2.3 million, with 41,385 people being diagnosed with the infection on December 28, the highest single-day number since the pandemic broke out.

The country has also recorded more than 71,000 deaths.

Since December 20, millions of people in London and most of the southeastern region have been placed under an emergency blockade after Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned the pandemic was "out of control."

People are required to stay at home, gathering outside the home is forbidden, and malls, personal services and non-essential businesses are closed.

While people were rushing to stock up things to last through the pandemic and for the holidays, Sharon did not dare go to the supermarket for fear of getting infected.

She said: "I limit shopping because there is enough food in the house. Moreover, people queuing up for kilometers at the supermarket is the main source of infection."

She did not organize parties or invite friends to the house for Christmas, though she had decorated it by late November. Though the holiday season was bleak, her family's health is the first priority, she said.

Paramedics prepare to remove a patient from an ambulance at Guy's Hospital in London on December 29, 2020. Photo by Photo by AFP/Tolga Akmen.

Tran Xuan Thai, who has lived in London for 12 years, is especially careful when it comes to the health of his two children after learning that the new strain could affect children more than the earlier one.

He said: "My family goes out as usual but with a mask, and washes hands more often. The kids only go to the park for jogging and exercise. I don't let them go to other public places or shopping malls. Although the level of danger of the new variant is similar to that of the old one, it is best avoided if possible."

Since Thai is into trading, fear of the mutated virus has affected his business with a number of countries closing off their borders to the U.K. More than 50 countries have banned flights from the nation or tightened entry controls for passengers.

Experts are not sure how far this new strain has spread and the travel bans threaten more economic and psychological pain.

"My year-end shipments have been blocked due to the French closure of their border," Thai said.

After France closed its border with Britain on December 20 thousands of trucks on either side have been unable to cross the English Channel.

"My driver was allowed to pass after a few days after his test results came back negative."

Le Ha, who lives in Woking in Surrey County, 30 minutes by train from London, said her life has been affected by the pandemic and the governments random and inconsistent decision making.

"The government's decisions on opening and closing businesses keep changing every one or two weeks, and so I cannot make long-term plans for my life or work. All I can do is wait. The situation doesn't look good."

Surrey has raised the alarm level to four, the highest so far, following the appearance of the new strain.

Ha said most people have to stay at home, except for those who cannot work remotely, and are only allowed to go out to buy basic necessities like food and medicine.

Restaurants and coffee shops are open but only for takeout orders. Everyone must wear a mask when entering a public building or public transport vehicle. A minimum social distance of two meters is mandatory.

The new strain has made Ha even more worried than earlier, and she has always been vigilant and taken preventive measures such as wearing a mask and washing her hands often.

"What makes me sad is that the new outbreak has occurred during the year-end holidays, and so I cannot meet my relatives and friends. I feel hopeless at times because I understand the pandemic won't go away for the next few months."

Lily Vu and her husband, both ethnic Vietnamese living in Leeds in Yorkshire County, 270 km north of London, contracted Covid-19 but do not know if it was the new strain.

They tested positive a few days before London announced the new variant, and their test results did not specify which strain it was.

They recovered after they were quarantined and treated at home. But it will take them a few more weeks to become completely healthy again.

Lily said: "After contracting Covid-19, I feel like I get tired much faster. I don't have the same stamina as before.

"Also, my husband and I still do not have our sense of smell. The doctor said it might take weeks or months to get it back."

Leeds city has seen a sharp increase in the number of infections in recent days. Lily said her area is on a level 3 alert for Covid-19 on a four-level scale. Since the pandemic is unpredictable, alert levels can change rapidly.

Pedestrians walk past a bus stop in London with a government message about the coronavirus urging people to take precautions on December 29, 2020. Photo by AFP/Tolga Akmen.

But she and people around her are only slightly more worried than before, Lily said.

"Everybody does everything they can, like washing their hands, wearing masks, not meeting other people, and keeping their distance."

Thai has the same view that there is no need to worry too much about a new strain of Covid-19 because viruses constantly change.

"I'm more interested in vaccines now," he said.

On December 2, the U.K. became the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine and began a vaccination campaign dubbed V-Day (Vaccine Day) on December 8.

Caregivers and elderly people in nursing homes and healthcare workers have been assigned priority.

The government has recently approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the first doses would be administered on January 4.

Thai said: "2020 is a difficult year for everyone in general. What direction 2021 will take is hard to say, but at least we have seen the light at the end of the tunnel.

"I think everyone should take advantage of the last few days of the year to isolate, rest, regain their energy and think positively about the future."
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UPDATE: Saturday morning authorities located a missing Madison County woman on Ready Section Road in Toney.

Crews began another day of searching for Shelby Clark around 8 a.m. Saturday. The Madison County Sherriff's Office says she was found about two hours later in good condition. Clark is currently being transported to Huntsville Hospital for evaluation.

Shelby Clark Shelby Clark

Approximately 30 minutes ago Mrs. Shelby Clark was located in an area off Ready Section Road. She is in GOOD condition and currently being transported to @HSVHospital for evaluation.

 Madison Sheriff AL (@mcsosheriffAL) January 2, 2021

From earlier:

Dozen of volunteers and Madison County Sheriff's Office deputies are searching for a missing Madison County woman and her dog.

WAAY 31 learned late Friday afternoon that the state helicopter started flying over the area where Shelby Clark and her Corgi, Stumpy, went missing on New Year's Eve. State Rep. Andy Whitt, who lives in the area and represents it, told WAAY 31 he asked for the helicopter to be flown over the area and spent the day helping with the search for Clark and Stumpy.

Investigators also shared late into the day on Friday that they were investigating a new tip that Clark was possibly spotted near Bethel Road and State Highway 251 early Friday morning. That location is about four miles from where she lives near Ready Section Road in Ardmore.

The tip is also vastly different than one they were following earlier in the day that she was spotted about 6 miles in the other direction from her house this morning near Opp Reynolds Road and Shady Lane. The two possible sightings are nearly 10 miles apart.

Multiple volunteer fire departments, the Madison County Sheriff's Office, K-9 groups and other volunteers have been out in the area throughout the last 24 hours helping Clark's family search for her. The Bobo Volunteer Fire Department is offering a $500 reward for information that helps locate Clark.

Her family is gravely concerned for her safety and well-being because she is a diabetic and they don't think she has her medication with her. Her nephew told WAAY 31 he is pleading with anyone who might have information on where she is to call authorities.

"If anyone sees her, please, please contact local authorities, call 911. If you see the dog, please let us know. We're frantically searching for her. We're worried to death about her and we just want [to say] if she sees or hears this, we want her to know she's loved and that we miss her and that we want to find her as soon as possible," Matt Moon, her nephew, said.

It's believed Clark was wearing a red and black plaid coat when she went missing.

Volunteers said they searched miles into the woods, checked abandoned homes and are asking people to check any home surveillance videos to see if she's been near their homes.

Moon said they are thankful for the mild weather that's made searching for her today easier.

"She currently is diabetic. We don't know if she has had her medication, if she took any medication with her. She is also in the pre-stages of leukemia, but I do know that she is a real bad diabetic, so we're concerned that she hasn't eaten, drink, had anything of sorts within the last 24 hours," he explained.

Moon also shared he has a very special connection to many in the community who have come to help look.

"She has previously been in the Bobo Volunteer Fire Department. She was in there for, I want to say, a good 15 years. Everybody that's in Bobo Volunteer Fire Department knows her, knows the family real well. And a lot of them grew up and went to school with her, so they know her pretty well," he said.

The Harvest Fire chief said the departments crews are leaving for the night, but they will come back at 6 a.m. Saturday. He said the Bobo and Toney volunteer fire departments plan to stay out all night.

He said Sheriff Kevin Turner said deputies will stay on this until they find her. Its not clear how long the helicopter will be up.

If you have any information about her whereabouts or have spotted Clark or Stumpy, you are asked to call 911.
Hong Kong will complete an e-booking system for Covid-19 vaccine inoculations this month and is in talks with other countries to allow the records to be used for travel, local media including Hong Kong Economic Times reported.

The electronic-registration system will record when and which type of vaccine a person/citizen has received and will remind the user when to receive a second shot, Secretary for Innovation and Technology Alfred Sit was cited as saying in a radio interview.

Hong Kong has already reached agreements with Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE, AstraZeneca Plc and Chinas Sinovac Biotech Ltd. to acquire 22.5 million potential doses of vaccines, and is seeking a further 7.5 million. The government has said residents will be able to choose which type they receive, though the details are yet to be announced.

The Hong Kong government appointed a committee to approve the emergency use of the vaccines, Chief Executive Carrie Lam said last week, signaling the city is moving closer to authorizing the candidates.

Separately, Radio Television Hong Kong reported Saturday that Tony Ko, chief executive of the citys Hospital Authority, said the organization is considering testing all of its medical staff regularly for coronavirus.

Hong Kong does not require all residents to screen for the virus but issued mandatory testing orders to tenants of 44 buildings where cases were found in the past 14 days.
WERES MY MONEY' was spray painted on front door of Mitch McConnell's home

'MITCH KILLS THE POOR' was also written on window near front porch

McConnell's house is located in the Highlands section of Louisville, Kentucky

Earlier this week, McConnell rejected holding vote on $2,000 stimulus checks

House of Representatives voted to approve $2,000 stimulus checks

'Vandalism and the politics of fear have no place in our society,' McConnell said

On New Year's Day, vandals struck the San Francisco home of Nancy Pelosi

House was spray painted while the head of a dead pig was left nearby

The graffiti on Pelosi's home reads 'cancel rent' and 'we want everything'

'2k' is written on the garage and then crossed out, a reference to $2,000 stimulus checks Pelosi was pushing for

The Kentucky home of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was vandalized just days after he refused to allow the upper chamber to vote on boosting stimulus checks to $2,000.

WERES MY MONEY was spray painted on the front door to McConnells home in the Highlands section of Louisville on Saturday.

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On the window adjacent to the front porch, graffiti is seen which says: MITCH KILLS THE POOR.

The vandalism was first reported by WDRB-TV.

A spokesperson for Louisville Metro Police Department told DailyMail.com that the incident happened at around 5:00am on Saturday.

Police said there was minor damage of graffiti on a window and a door. So far, no suspects have been identified and investigators continue to pursue leads.

The spray painted message was found more than 24 hours after vandals struck the $5million San Francisco home of the second most powerful member of Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Vandals spray painted 'WERES MY MONEY' on the front door of the Louisville, Kentucky, home of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The above image is from Saturday

On the window adjacent to the front porch, graffiti is seen which says: MITCH KILLS THE POOR

Vandals also spray painted an obscenity in referring to the Senate majority leader on Saturday

McConnell's home is located in the Highlands section of Louisville, Kentucky

McConnell on Saturday released a statement to the Louisville Courier Journal which read: 'Vandalism and the politics of fear have no place in our society. My wife and I have never been intimidated by this toxic playbook. We just hope our neighbors in Louisville arent too inconvenienced by this radical tantrum'

McConnell on Saturday released a statement to the Louisville Courier Journal which read: 'Ive spent my career fighting for the First Amendment and defending peaceful protest.

'I appreciate every Kentuckian who has engaged in the democratic process whether they agree with me or not.

'This is different.'

He continued: 'Vandalism and the politics of fear have no place in our society.

Click here to resize this module

'My wife and I have never been intimidated by this toxic playbook.

'We just hope our neighbors in Louisville arent too inconvenienced by this radical tantrum.'

Pelosis home was vandalized in the early morning hours of New Years Day with a pig's head surrounded in a pool of red paint, as well as a spray-painted message appearing to allude to the failed $2,000 stimulus checks.

Photos of the disturbing scene shared on social media by conservative filmmaker Maggie VandenBerghe on Friday showed the House Speaker's white garage door defaced with black graffiti text reading: '$2k Cancel RENT! We want everything!'

According to TMZ, San Francisco Police had been called to the home on reports of vandalism at the property in the early hours of New Year's Day.

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Officers arrived around 3am and documented the incident in a report, but it is unclear if there are any suspects. DailyMail.com has reached out to the San Francisco Police Department for comment.

VandenBerghe, a self-proclaimed patriot and independent journalist that has been featured on conservative news outlets in the past, accused police in her post of trying to cover up the incident after the city reportedly called in the vandalism.

Nancy Pelosi s San Francisco home has been vandalized with red paint, a pigs head and a spray painted message about $2,000 checks, according to TMZ

Police sources told the outlet that cops were called out to reports of vandalism at the House Speaker's property in the early hours of New Year's Day. Her home as it normally looks above

'City called to clean up at 3am & police attempting to stop photos of scene. Media SILENT,' she tweeted.

The San Francisco mansion is located in the city's swanky Pacific Heights neighborhood and counts as one of Pelosi's several residences in California.

The four-bedroom, three-bathroom house has an estimated worth of $5.4million, according to property records.

The home was also once the site of a small protest in September, when Pelosi came under fire for getting her hair styled at a local salon that had been closed under COVID-19 restrictions.

The Speaker of the House is yet to comment on the incident.

Pelosi has been calling for the second round of stimulus checks to be increased from $600 to $2,000 - an amount also proposed by Donald Trump.

But the efforts have so far fallen short with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday blocking the Democrats' standalone bill to send the checks to Americans.

McConnell told Pelosi the Senate won't be 'bullied' into passing it, dashing hopes of the higher checks being sent out to Americans.

San Francisco officers arrived on the scene around 3 a.m. and a police report was taken, TMZ said. Pelosi is seen above in Washington, DC, on Wednesday

Pelosi had urged the Republican to allow the upper chamber to vote on the bill after it passed in the House through a bipartisan vote.

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'The Democrats and Republicans in the House have passed that legislation. Who is holding up that distribution to the American people? Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans,' she said Wednesday.

'In blocking it, they are in denial of the hardship the American people are experiencing now, health wise, financially, and every way.'

But judging by the state of the garage door, some Americans are outraged with Pelosi over her efforts.

This isn't the first time the House Speaker's home has been targeted.

Back in September, a Youtuber appeared to defecate in the driveway of her home in a livestream video.

In the footage, the man was seen walking through the streets of San Francisco in search of the Democrat's home.

Once he found her home, he set up a camera across the road and walked over to her driveway.

Armando then saluted his viewers, pulled down his pants and proceeded to squat.

After a few seconds, Armando stands to his feet and wipes his buttocks before walking away and leaving behind what appeared to be feces.

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'That was for President Trump,' Armando is heard telling his viewers.
Representative image

The Labour Ministry on January 1 published its draft standing orders on work from home for the mining, manufacturing and service sectors, under the new Industrial Relations Code. It is aimed at formalising service-related matters in an amicable manner, as per a ministry statement.

Pursuant to Section 29 of the Industrial Relations Code (IRC), 2020, the central government has published the draft model standing orders for the manufacturing sector, mining sector and service sector, it said.

Under the model standing orders drafted for the services sector, decision on work hours for employees in the information technology (IT) space has been left up to employers, The Economic Times reported.

However, safeguards for the IT industry have been included in the services sector model in relation to employer computer system, unauthorised access of IT systems and customer or client misconduct, the news report noted.

Moneycontrol could not independently verify the report.

Keeping in view the needs of the services sector, a separate model standing orders for the services sector has been prepared for the first time, the ministry said.

All three models are uniform, but provide flexibility for sector-specific requirements. In the mining sector, rail travel facility has been extended to all workers  something that was earlier only allowed for coal miners, it also defines what would constitute a habitual offender in regards to indiscipline as employees found guilty of misconduct three or more times in preceding 12 months.

The draft standing orders have been released for public comments over the next 30 days.

The IRC is among the four new streamlined labour codes which amalgamate 29 labour laws. The Centre is in the process of implementing these by April 1, 2021. Other three codes are the Wage Code, Code on Social Security and Code on Occupational Safety.
An out-of-control dog has killed thirty sheep on a farm in Cheshire in an incident the police have described as 'abhorrent'.

The attack is believed to have occurred between the evening of 24 December and the following morning, on a field off John Street, Utkinton.

Cheshire Police said the incident was a 'huge loss' to the farmer affected.

Livestock worrying cost farmers 1.2 million in 2019, figures by NFU Mutual show.

Just last month, a loose dog massacred 46 sheep in Suffolk, one of the worst livestock worrying incidents seen in recent times.

"Only limited actual bloody attack wounds are present indicating a dog/s have chased and worried the majority of the sheep," a Cheshire Police spokesperson said.

"Beyond the appalling animal suffering and criminal offences committed, this is huge loss to the farmer.

"This attack with the limited injuries is a case in point to illustrate that dogs need not be ferocious or actually necessarily physically attack livestock to cause catastrophic results."

The force said enquiries were ongoing, and anybody with any information should get in touch.

The National Sheep Association (NSA) added that walkers should take 'responsibility for their actions' when in the countryside, especially near livestock.

The industry body said sheep were a 'hugely valuable asset' to the farmer, and any damage to the flock can have 'detrimental effects'.

NSA Chief Executive Phil Stocker noted that livestock worrying was a 'criminal act  and for very good reason'.

"Few people would understand the stress and anger that a farmer or shepherd goes through by finding a dog killing sheep," he said.

"We appreciate how distressing this would be for a dog owner, but very few farmers would do this out of choice.

Attacks on dogs often cause huge financial cost for the farmer but for most the initial stress and anxiety is equally impactful.

"The only way to avoid incidents like this is for dog owners to take proper responsibility for the dogs  know where they are at all times and keep them on leads anywhere in the vicinity of livestock.
Japan Today - May 21

Less than 30% of Japan's medics have been vaccinated against COVID-19 in major cities with just 65 days to go before the start of the Tokyo Olympics, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Wednesday, amid growing calls for the Games to be canceled.
To the Editor:

Re Our Democracy, Though Resilient, Isnt Unbreakable, by Susan D. Hyde and Elizabeth N. Saunders (Op-Ed, Dec. 16):

Yes, President Trump tried to break our democracy and turn the United States into an authoritarian state controlled by him. He failed  because of the safeguards the founding fathers built into the Constitution. The framers were fearful of a rogue tyrant abusing the power of the presidency, as Mr. Trump did over and over during his four years.

We can be grateful that Mr. Trump failed and will be gone in a few weeks. Mr. Trump may have weakened our democracy, but whether that weakening is fatal is up to us.

We now know that it is essential to harden the boundaries that future presidents must abide by and provide specific legal remedies when they fail to do so. We must require the release of tax returns before running for president and that the presidents assets be placed in a blind trust during his or her presidency.

There must be laws that limit self-dealing, executive privilege, sale of presidential pardons, and claims of absolute immunity from investigation and prosecution.
The portrait of Fr John Murphy that remained hidden in a wooden box in the wall of a house for over 200 years.

This year was a very significant year in terms of Irish history as it marked the 100th anniversary of the events that occurred on Croke Park on Bloody Sunday, 1920.

However, an organisation in Enniscorthy also marks a significant milestone because it too celebrated its 100th anniversary.

The Ui Cinsealaigh Historical Society was borne from a meeting in the Mission House, Enniscorthy, in October 1919, but the official launch of the new Society took place at a public meeting in the Athenaeum on January 8, 1920.

To mark the occasion the society has just published the centenary issue of its historical publication, 'The Past', and it's a formidable read packed with stories relating to many different parts of the county.

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The publication's editor, Fr Jim Hammel, outlined the origins of the book and said the first book was welcomed 'with great enthusiasm by all sections of the local community and of County Wexford at large'.

The initiative itself came from members of the local clergy, particularly those keen to see the preservation and recording of historical events and traditions of the county, and anxious to save documents, artefacts, architectural sites and local history from loss, neglect and oblivion,' he said.

The name Ui Cinsealaigh represents that area of the province of Leinster which includes most of County Wexford but also parts of south Wicklow and the boundaries of County Carlow.

It was from the Ui Cinsealaigh clan or 'tuath' that some of the Kings of Leinster were chosen in the later part of the first millennium.

'The famous Dermot Mc Murrough - some will say infamous - was himself, to my knowledge, a member of the Ui Cinsealaigh clan,' said Fr Hammel.

The first edition of 'The Past', was published in 1920 and copies of that first edition, which are now very scarce, have become somewhat of a collectors item.

Throughout the journal's history 34 issues have been published, with the greater number of them produced between 1970 and 1916, under the editorship of Canon Seamas S De Val, who was an Irish language scholar with a wide knowledge and appreciation of local history.

The current edition features a piece written by Canon De Val on the literary contributors to the first issue of the journal.

In addition to being editor of the centenary edition, Fr Hammel was also editor of last year's journal.

There is a wide range of articles in the current edition and as usual they provide an excellent insight into some of the most historically significant events to take place in the county at various times in its history.

There is an excellent article on the 1798 Rebellion in Wexford as well as a focus on the work of celebrated architect AWN Pugin, with reference to his work in County Wexford, including St Aidan's Cathedral in Enniscorthy.

The valuation of County Wexford in the years 1841 to 1854 is a very interesting read and opens a window into what was the 19th century equivalent of today's commercial rates and taxes.

Another very interesting article in the book is a piece on Wexford's Civil War dead (1922-1923). It's written based on a statistical survey of deaths attributable to political violence in the Model County during the latter end of the Irish revolution.

One of the famous names of the 1798 rebellion was that of Fr John Murphy whose story has been laid down in song and poetry. However, in 'The Past' the focus of attention is placed on a recently discovered portrait of Fr Murphy which was discovered in a wooden box concealed in the walls of an abandoned house during renovation work.

Another interesting article is an historical account of Airmount House which overlooks the Slaney in Enniscorthy.

What will be of interest to many is the comprehensive index of all articles published in 'The Past' since it first appeared 100 years ago.

In addition to its comprehensive articles the quality of 'The Past' is also worth noting.

The centenary edition of 'The Past' is now on sale, priced 20, in various locations throughout the county including: Eason's in Enniscorthy, and in Enniscorthy Castle; Eason's and the Book Centre, Main Street, Wexford; Eason's and the Book Cafe, Main Street, Gorey.

Enniscorthy Guardian
'The surge in cases has, according to Taoiseach Micheal Martin (above), far exceeded even the worst fears of medical experts.' Photo: Julien Behal/PA

It was the news we were all dreading - yet the news that Ireland was going back into lock-down felt inevitable long before Micheal Martin addressed the nation.

Even without the new mutated and more virulent strain of Covid-19, cases had started creeping up and most people had already resigned themselves to an even bleaker January than usual.

The news that our long awaited holiday celebrations, earned though months of sacrifice, were to be severely curtailed was incredibly disappointing but it was the right call.

The surge in cases has, according to the Taoiseach, far exceeded even the worst fears of medical experts, and we can expect to see massive case numbers over the next fortnight.

However bad they get, they would have been much worse if the Government hadn't pulled the plug on New Year celebrations.

The new case numbers are likely to be huge and frightening in the coming days but, thanks to the Government's decision, they should, hopefully, begin to abate fairly quickly.

Then it will be down to everyone of us to knuckle down for a difficult few months. The start of the year - never the most pleasant of times - will be tough, there's no point sugar coating it, but better times are ahead.

While it will take several months to have a noticeable impact, the vaccination programme is a game changer and it will help bring an end to this seemingly endless misery.

We will see and hold our loved ones again and it will happen sooner than we think. That's the thought and hope we must hold on to for the next few months. This spring will bring more hope than any for generations.

For all that, there is more that Ireland and specifically the Government can do to bring the crisis to an end as soon as possible.

While schools are unlikely to be shut - the Government is utterly determined to keep them open and has staked its very survival on it - they are proven hotbeds of the virus and more stringent restrictions should be considered.

The real problem in Ireland is our grossly inefficient and utterly deficient case tracing system.

In countries and areas that have managed to control the virus - such as New Zealand and Hong Kong - case tracing has proved one of the most important and most effective tools.

Despite mountains of evidence to show just how important tracing is, two successive Government and the HSE have completely failed to set up an adequate system here.

There have been countless promises that hundreds of tracing staff would be hired but we have seen no evidence of that happening. Instead we have stories from every corner of Ireland where people who volunteered and were trained to be case tracers have never again been contacted by the HSE.

We've been told that whatever is needed, the resources are there. When it comes to case tracing it certainly doesn't feel like it.

Then there's the story from a Dublin hairdresser who was told, by a case tracer, that her staff were not considered close contacts of a Covid positive customer they had spent three and a half hours with. That's not only astonishing, it's frightening.

Kerryman
A new report found that Michigan lawmakers missed a total of 3,791 roll-call votes in 2020, though Midland's local representatives were firmly in the lower end of that spectrum.

The report comes from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, with the information being compiled by Jack McHugh, editor of MichiganVotes.org.

Rep. Annette Glenn, R-Midland, of the 98th District, completed her first term in the state House of Representatives with a perfect voting record, casting a vote on all 1,027 recorded roll-call votes between January 2019 and December 2020. Glenn was one of 51 state representatives in the 110-member House who maintained a perfect record throughout the entire term.

In a press release, Glenn stated that never missing a vote, including during a period of time when she was recovering from shoulder surgery, reflects the "serious and sober" duty she feels to constituents she represents in Lansing.

Serving as state representative is a responsibility I take very seriously, Glenn stated. The people of Bay and Midland counties entrusted me to serve as their voice at the state capitol, and being there to cast every vote on the House floor is the bare minimum essential to maintaining that trust.

Other local representatives missed few votes this past year. Roger Hauck, R-Union Township, representing the 99th District, only missed two out of his 1,027 votes, while Sen. Jim Stamas, R-Midland, missed nine out of 1,002.

Three senators and three representatives each missed 50 or more votes in 2020, according to the Mackinac Center report, though 12 senators and 60 representatives missed no votes this year.

The 3,791 missed votes in 2020 is understandably up from recent years, a Mackinac Center press release stated, as a number of lawmakers either spent time in quarantine or contracted the COVID-19 virus during the ongoing worldwide pandemic. In comparison, Michigan lawmakers missed just 768 roll call votes in 2019.

The number of missed votes could have been a lot higher given the epidemic, McHugh stated. Legislative leaders and members had to overcome many obstacles to schedule and show up for daily sessions.

Missed votes often occur when family, health or personal issues require a lawmakers absence for an entire day or longer, according to the report.
Ambulances waited hours for openings to offload patients. Overflow patients were moved to hospital hallways and gift shops, even a cafeteria. Refrigerated trucks were on standby, ready to store the dead.

For months, did many of the right things to avoid a catastrophic surge from the pandemic. But by the time Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Dec. 15 that 5,000 body bags were being distributed, it was clear that the nation's most populous state had entered a new phase of the COVID-19 crisis.

Now infections have been racing out of control for weeks, and remains at or near the top of the list of states with the most new cases per capita. It has routinely set new marks for infections and deaths, and began the new year reporting a record 585 deaths in a single day.

Experts say a variety of factors combined to wipe out the past efforts, which for much of the year held the virus to manageable levels. Cramped housing, travel and Thanksgiving gatherings contributed to the spread, along with the public's fatigue amid regulations that closed many schools and businesses and encouraged or required an isolated lifestyle.

Another factor could be a more contagious variant of the virus detected in Southern California, although it's not clear yet how widespread that may be.

California's woes have helped fuel the year-end U.S. infection spike and added urgency to the attempts to beat back the scourge that has killed more than 340,000 Americans. Even with vaccines becoming available, cases are almost certain to continue growing, and yet another surge is expected in the weeks after Christmas and New Years.

On Friday, the number of confirmed U.S. cases surpassed 20 million, nearly twice as many as the No. 2 country, India, and nearly one-quarter of the more than 83 million cases globally, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

In California, the southern half of the state has seen the worst effects, from the agricultural San Joaquin Valley to the Mexico border. Hospitals are swamped with patients, and intensive care units have no more beds for COVID-19 patients. Makeshift wards are being set up in tents, arenas, classrooms and conference rooms. Some hospitals are having difficulty keeping up with the demand for oxygen.

Hospitalizations statewide have gone up more than eightfold in two months and nearly tenfold in Los Angeles County. On Thursday, the total number of deaths surpassed 25,000, joining only New York and Texas at that milestone.

Most heartbreaking is that if we had done a better job of reducing transmission of the virus, many of these deaths would not have happened, said Barbara Ferrer, the county's public health director, who has pleaded with people not to get together and worsen the spread.

Crowded houses and apartments are often cited as a source of spread, particularly in Los Angeles, which has some of the densest neighborhoods in the U.S. Households in and around LA often have several generations or multiple families living under one roof. Those tend to be lower-income areas where residents work essential jobs that can expose them to the virus at work or while commuting.

The socioeconomic situation in LA County is "like the kindling, said Paula Cannon, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Southern California. And now we got to the stage where there was enough COVID out in the community that it lit the fire.

Home to a quarter of the states 40 million residents, LA County has had 40% of the states deaths and a third of its 2.3 million cases. The virus has hit Latino and Black communities harder.

Cannon said there's a moral imperative for people who can follow stay-home orders to help prevent spread that is harder to contain in other areas.

What you can't do is say to people, Can you stop living in a house with eight other people, five of whom are working essential worker jobs? she said. This is the structure that we cant change in LA. This is, I think, contributing to why our levels have suddenly got scarily high and looks like theyre going to keep going up and keep staying that way.

In March, during the early days of the pandemic, Newsom was hailed for issuing the nation's first state stay-home order.

The Democrat eased business restrictions in May, and when a broader restart led to another surge, imposed more rules. In early December, with cases out of control, he issued a looser stay-home order. He also closed businesses such as barbershops and salons, halted restaurant dining and limited capacity in retail stores. The latest restrictions apply everywhere except in rural Northern California.

But Dr. Lee Riley, an infectious diseases professor at the University of California at Berkeley, said that while the state managed to flatten the curve of rising cases, it never effectively bent the curve downward to the point infections would die out.

When cases rose in June and July, California was never able to do enough contact tracing to isolate infected people and those they may have exposed before they spread the disease often unwittingly to others, he said. And public health directives were never adequately enforced.

What California did was to maybe delay the peak, Riley said. Infections really just never got low enough. And we started lifting the restrictions, and that just allowed the transmissions to just continue to increase. We never really saw a real decline.

(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.)
During patrolling on the New Years Eve, officers of the anti-narcotics cell (ANC) of the Mumbai Police arrested a foreign national in Santacruz (East) and recovered 204 gram of cocaine worth 51 lakh from him.

The arrested accused, Honore Gahie, 44, is from the Republic of Ivory Coast and came to Mumbai in 2017 on a business visa. He has been allegedly staying illegally in India for around a year after his visa expired. According to police, he was residing at Turbhe in Navi Mumbai.

Gahie is allegedly a major supplier of cocaine in Mumbais western suburbs.

We are checking his call data records to trace other persons from whom he took the supply of cocaine. It appears that he is directly in touch with some customers, but we are also checking if any drug peddlers were in touch with him, said Datta Nalawade, deputy commissioner of police, ANC.

ANC units across the city were instructed to keep vigil in their respective jurisdictions on New Years Eve. Accordingly, officers of the Bandra ANC unit were on patrol when they noticed Gahie sitting in his car, parked near Diamond AWWA Hostel in Santacruz (East).

The police team conducted a search of the accused after he hesitated to answer their questions. We found cocaine in his possession, said police inspector Anil Wadhwane of the Bandra ANC unit.

The seized cocaine is of pure quality, and Gahie revealed that he was supplying drugs for almost six months. Police are now inquiring about his other source of income and what he was doing in the city earlier.

A case has been registered against the arrested accused under relevant sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, and he was produced before a court and remanded to police custody till January 6.
The market for renewable aviation fuel is still in its infancy, but it is expected to ramp up rapidly in the coming years as the air transportation industry moves to reduce its net carbon dioxide emissions, said Jeremy Baines, president of Neste U.S. Worldwide, Neste has a workforce of 5,000, and its U.S. operations employ about 340 people, including about 80 in Houston.

Theres been a lot of talk about electrification, but the reality is theres no electric cable long enough to power planes, he said. The only way we can enjoy the benefits of flying is if we make it more sustainable, and the only fuel that can do that is renewable aviation fuel.

Baines recently spoke with the Houston Chronicle about the future of biofuels. Edited excerpts follow.

Q: After transitioning from a traditional oil and gas company to becoming one that gets 80 percent of your revenues from renewables, how does Neste plan to grow its business, across the United States? In Houston?

A: We are certainly expecting strong growth, both in our Houston office and in our operations across the U.S. (Last year), Neste acquired Illinois-based Mahoney Environmental, one of the largest used cooking oil collectors in the U.S. Were looking to expand that and are adding more jobs across the U.S.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Biofuel could save oil companies as more transit goes electric

Were always looking for other opportunities to expand our physical presence or our capabilities in the Houston area. Were definitely going to be adding more people (in 2021). Mahoney is planning to grow by 10 percent, and our Houston office is going to be expanding by at least 15 percent, with the known projects that we have.

Q: Can you describe the process for creating renewable diesel fuel from used cooking oil?

A: The used cooking oil needs to be collected from tens of thousands of restaurants across the country. Imagine that youre collecting from Burger King or Buffalo Wild Wings. First, you need to clean out all the food waste. Then, once youve collected it from tens of thousands of restaurants, it needs to be fed into an industrial process.

Renewable diesel is not the same as biodiesel. Renewable diesel uses a very similar technology to what you would find in a fossil fuel refinery. The big difference being that were not using any fossil fuels. All the carbon that we use was in the atmosphere at some stage.

Q: Where is the center of the current North American market for renewable diesel fuel? Where do you see the expansion of the market in the future?

A: The process is more expensive (than refining fossil fuels). The feedstock is a lot harder to collect, and its a lot harder to convert it into renewable fuel. But, because it reduces emissions and that emission reduction has a benefit in California, we are able to sell it in California at a competitive price to fossil diesel.

Renewable diesel can be used anywhere in the United States because its a drop-in fuel. You dont need to do anything different. It uses the same logistics, the same technology. Theres nothing you need to change.

Q: You recently announced a deal with DHL Express to supply that carrier with sustainable aviation fuel. How does Neste view the market for that product?

A: Thats an exciting market. One of the big benefits of sustainable aviation fuel is it works in existing pipelines, in existing infrastructure and existing aircraft engines. The only thing you need to do is drop it in and fly. The market is still relatively small, but its an emerging market, a growing market not only in the U.S., but in Europe and Asia. This market is really on the point of taking off.

Were working with Alaska Airlines, Jet Blue, American Airlines and some private aviation companies like Signature Flight Support and Net Jets. We work with some of the courier companies. We see this for passengers, private plane passengers and for cargo.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Phillips 66 to reconfigure San Francisco refinery for renewable fuels

At (Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport) we collect used cooking oil from all the concessions. That used cooking oil is then converted into fuel. In the future, we might even see some of the planes flying on converted used cooking oil from Dallas-Fort Worth.

Today its planes flying out of San Francisco, but we also hope to be able to bring that to Dallas-Fort Worth, or maybe even to the Houston airports.

Q: On Nestes website, its stated that by 2022, the company plans to be able to produce over 1million tons of renewable aviation fuel annually. How does Neste plan to grow its production to meet that goal?

A: Thats equivalent to 515 million gallons of SAF. The majority of that will come from our Singapore refinery, which were in the process of expanding. However, because of COVID, that increased production will be delayed until early 2023. Once that expansion comes online, well have the ability to produce at least 340 million gallons of SAF annually, which is 10 times what we can produce today.

Q: How does Neste contribute to the fight against global climate change?

A: (In 2019) Neste helped our customers reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by about 9.6 million tons. Our vision is to get to 20 million tons by 2030. In that same time Neste wants to get to net-zero (carbon) production by 2030.

The world is looking for low-carbon solutions. Over the next decade, we expect the demand for renewable diesel to increase fivefold in the United States. Add to that, Canada, Europe, etc., we see the market for liquid renewable fuels increasing enormously. We see that on land and in the skies and on the water, because all of those industries are looking to decarbonize.
The Wicklow RNLI lifeboats launched a total of 25 occasions in 2020 and assisted 26 people in the process.

The first and final call-outs of the year involved stricken fishing vessels.

The year also marked some considerable changes, including the retirement of Des Davitt as Operations Manager after 27 years volunteering with Wicklow RNLI. Des joined the RNLI Wicklow committee in 1993, becoming vice chairman in 1995 and taking charge of all fundraising for the branch with support from the Ladies Guild. He was Chairman of the appeal committee who raised 64,000 in six months for a new inshore lifeboat and an extension to the boathouse to house the new lifeboat in 1996. In 2001, he was awarded the bronze badge for his services to fundraising. Three years later, he took over the new position of lifeboat operations manager from the retiring Kevin Desmond. Fundraising then became separate from Operations. In 2016 Des was awarded inscribed binoculars in recognition of his long service to the RNLI.

In November he was replaced by new Operations Manager Mary Aldridge. Mary joined Wicklow lifeboat Station as a volunteer Deputy Launching Authority four years ago. She was a member of An Garda Siochana for over 30 years and was transferred to Wicklow from Dublin in 2007, and was the Inspector in Wicklow District until she retired in 2014. She regularly competes in Open Water competitions in the Leinster Open Sea Series and with Wicklow Swimming Club, for whom she was a former Secretary and Vice Chairperson.

The Covid pandemic had a major impact on fundraising activities for Wicklow Lifeboats, in what proved to be a busy year call-outs wise.

Wicklow RNLI PRO Tommy Dover said: 'It has been a strange year. The station has been closed since March but we are still providing a 24-7 service. Fundraising activities had to be cancelled but we have set up a contactless donation machine in the lifeboat shop. People have still been very generous in coming forward with their donations. We have had a lot of virtual events taking place during the build up to Christmas and the money is still being donated.'

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The contactless donation machine is still located in the window of the RNLI Lifeboat shop on the East Pier, Wicklow Harbour. The machine is set at 3 so all you need to do is simply tap your card to donate 3 to Wicklow RNLI Lifeboat Station.

The final Wicklow RNLI call-out of the year involved the launch of the all-weather lifeboat launched on the morning of Tuesday, October 6 to assist in a multi-agency search for a missing person from a Dublin - Holyhead ferry.

Fifteen minutes after launching Wicklow lifeboat was re-tasked by the Coast Guard to assist a fishing vessel with machinery failure south of Greystones. The lifeboat under the command of Coxswain Nick Keogh located the stricken fishing vessel off Kilcoole at 11.20 a.m.. Conditions at the scene were sea state moderate, with north westerly wind force four.

A towline was quickly established, and the ten-metre fishing boat was taken in tow back to Wicklow harbour, where the four fishermen were landed safely ashore at lunchtime.

After refuelling and a crew change, Wicklow lifeboat returned to sea to resume a search for the missing sailor off the Wicklow Coast. The operation which involved RNLI lifeboats from Ireland and Wales, Coast Guard helicopters and fixed wing aircraft from the Irish Air Corps and UK Coastguard, carried out a co-ordinated search covering a large area of the Irish sea. No body was recovered and the multi-agency operation ended late in the afternoon.

It was a particularly busy 24-hours on the weekend of Saturday, August 8, with Wicklow Lifeboat volunteers responding to four incidents as the Station resumed crew training.

The first call-out on Saturday afternoon and involved both the Inshore and all-weather lifeboat. They diverted from a crew exercise after being tasked to Brittas Bay by the Coast Guard at 4.15 p.m. to reports of a jet ski in difficulty off the popular beach. On arrival at the scene the Inshore lifeboat located two men on a drifting jet ski with engine failure one mile off Brittas Bay beach, they were transferred onto the all-weather lifeboat and landed safely at Potter's Point, while the inshore lifeboat towed the jet ski ashore.

The second call-out came on Sunday morning, August 9, as the all-weather lifeboat launched at 3.25 a.m. to join Arklow lifeboat in a combined operation, to assist a solo sailor on a yacht with a rope fouled prop. Initial reports indicated the yacht's position was a few miles north of Arklow port, but it was located by Arklow lifeboat about two miles south of the Horseshoe Buoy near Wicklow Head. The eight-metre yacht was fouled in ropes and unable to make any headway. Conditions on scene were sea state slight with wind north west force three. A towline was established with Wicklow Lifeboat before 4 a.m. and the stricken yacht was towed back towards Wicklow harbour.

The third call-out came two and a half hours later on Sunday morning when the all-weather lifeboat was launched at 8.39 a.m. to reports of an 11 metre fishing vessel in difficulties near the Six Mile Point. The lifeboat was alongside the fishing vessel 20 minutes after launching seven miles north of Wicklow harbour. The vessel with three fishermen had developed mechanical problems and was unable to return to the harbour under power.

The fourth call came after 2 p.m. on the Sunday afternoon as the all-weather lifeboat diverted from a crew exercise to assist a yacht in difficulties four miles off the harbour. The yacht was brought safely alongside the East pier a short time later.

RNLI Volunteer Peter Byrne participated in his first call-out as Wicklow all-weather lifeboat launched on Wednesday nigh, July 15, after a member of the public reported seeing a wind surfer having problems getting ashore near Brittas Bay beach as darkness fell. As the lifeboat proceeded south to the last known reported position, more information was relayed from the Coast Guard and it was confirmed that the craft was in fact a trimaran.

2020 also saw RNLI volunteer Carol Flahive receive a long service badge in recognition of 20 years' dedicated service to the community. She joined Wicklow RNLI in November of 2008 and has been Helm of the inshore lifeboat and a crew member of the all-weather lifeboat Annie Blaker down through the years.

More recently Carol qualified as a Navigator on the all-weather lifeboat and looks after crew training as Local Training Coordinator at the Station. She has been involved in numerous call-outs over the past 20 years, including an incident in July 2014 when multiple casualties had to be rescued after being cut off by the tide at Silver Strand.

Sadly, the annual service of remembrance which usually takes place on New Year's Day can't take place this year due to Covid restrictions, representing the first occasion in decades that Wicklow RNLI have been unable to hold the event.

Wicklow People
The Subject Expert Committee (SEC) on COVID-19 of the CDSCO noted that the vaccine is an inactivated whole virion, coronavirus vaccine, having the potential to target mutated coronavirus strains, a source told PTI

New Delhi: An expert panel of India's central drug authority on Saturday recommended granting permission for the restricted use of Bharat Biotech-developed indigenous COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin in emergency situation, especially in the context of infection by mutant strains, officials said.

The recommendation for Bharat Biotech's vaccine came a day after the panel cleared the Serum Institute of India's emergency use athorisation application for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine Covishield, paving the way for the roll-out of COVID-19 shots in the country in the next few days.

The Union Health Ministry on Saturday also confirmed that the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has recommended granting permission to the Serum Institute of Institute (SII) for restricted emergency use of Covishield in India, subject to multiple regulatory conditionalities.

"The SEC of CDSCO met on 1 and 2 January and made the recommendations for the consideration and final decision of the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI)," the ministry said.

Covaxin has been indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

The SEC again deliberated on the emergency use authorisation (EUA) application of Bharat Biotech on Saturday after it presented the updated data, justification and requested for consideration of their proposal in the wake of the incidence of new mutated coronavirus infection.

It recommended "grant of permission for restricted use in an emergency situation in the public interest as an abundant precaution, in clinical trial mode, especially in the context of infection by mutant strains, to Bharat Biotech," the health ministry stated.

According to sources, the committee, however, stated that the firm shall continue the ongoing phase 3 clinical trial and submit data emerging from the trial as and when available.

The committee noted that the vaccine is an inactivated whole virion, coronavirus vaccine, having the potential to target mutated coronavirus strains, a source said.

The data generated so far demonstrates a strong immune response (both antibody as well as T cell) and in-vitro viral neutralisation.

While granting the restricted emergency use approval for the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine on Friday, the panel had imposed certain regulatory provisions, including that the shot is indicated for active immunisation in individuals of 18 years or more to prevent the disease and that SII should submit safety, efficacy and immunogenicity data from the ongoing clinical trials in the country and across the globe for review at the earliest.

Also, the Pune-based firm should submit the safety data including the data on adverse events following immunisation (AEFI) and an adverse event of special interest (AESI) with due analysis every 15 days for the first two months and monthly thereafter till the completion of the ongoing clinical trial in the country, according to the recommendations.

Thereafter, the firm should submit the safety data as per the provisions and standard procedures.

According to sources, the recommendations stated that the vaccine should be supplied along with a fact-sheet and separate leaflet for the guidance of the healthcare provider. The Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, has tied up with AstraZeneca to manufacture Covishield.

According to sources, the firm had presented the details of the conditions and restrictions under which AstraZeneca was granted emergency use authorisation in the UK and the revised fact sheet and prescribing information in the Indian context as required by the committee.

SII had applied to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) for EUA for Oxford COVID-19 vaccine on 6 December, while the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech had sought the nod for its indigenously developed Covaxin on 7 December.

Pfizer had applied for regulatory approval for its vaccine on 4 December has not yet turned for deliberation. After detailed deliberations, the SEC has also recommended for grant of permission to Cadila Healthcare Ltd in Ahmedabad for the conduct of phase-3 clinical trial protocol for its vaccine candidate.
Minister wants to revamp the Police Department View(s):

Many an eyebrow has been raised by a recent news item which states that Public Security Minister Sarath Weerasekera discussed ways and means of revamping the Police Department with IGP C. D. Wickramaratne and senior police officials. Carried along with the news items was a photograph of the Minister with the IGP, senior police officers, Public Security Ministry Secretary retired Maj. Gen. Jagath Alwis

The news item is seen with raised eyebrows as this message is nothing new. For this very same message has been given to the Police since 1947 by those who had authority over the Police. The only thing new is the word reform being replaced by revamp. Police are, therefore, quite used to such vacant message. Police officers thus barely react to these, particularly since each of those messages meant little at the end. The Police were, thereby, neither changed nor revamped in any way. This same message had, therefore, only to be repeated just as it suited the messenger  in this case Minister Weerasekera  the latest.

The problem even with the current message of the minister is that it also means nothing, as before. But yet it is uttered to be heard loud. The sound of the note is meant only perhaps to carry to the higher authorities. It is possible that the higher authorities themselves want only to hear what is said with little concern of what thereafter is to be done. For the public, the concern is how the revamping is to be done. I think, even the minister does not have a clue, what revamping is, how it is to be done, when it is to be done.

The Police well understand this, hence the silence. The overhaul of Police or if such be the idea covers a large area, the scope of which, as extensive as it is, is doubted, whether the minister himself has any idea of it.

Therefore, the message of the minister to the Police higher echelons may have been uttered only to be heard by his own ears, only to stamp his weight. The police rank and file would not even listen, since they can size up matters far better than others can. Minister Weerasekera is blissfully unaware of this underlying current of cynicism among the constable who matters. The minister may even be treating the constable as a soldier as he would within his familiarity. Revamping the police as the minister proclaims can then be lost, dense or obtuse, if it were not to strike a police chord of reaction and response.

For better focus, however, revamping may then be confined by the minister only to police investigation. Revamping of police investigation can surely help revamping of the police in considerable measure. In this respect too, it is still doubtful that the minister can somehow revamp police investigation.

Police, as it stands today, suffer in their reputation and in their task for law and order through failure of investigation. Such failure is rampant over the recent years, in various ways. For failure of investigation has led to violence and disorder. The Ratupaswala incident and the prison riots at Welikada and Mahara are basically failure of investigation. Failure of investigation has also led to breakdown of law and order by way of gang rivalry, hired assassination, abduction even from near embassy premises and suppression of murders. Such failure of investigation has even resulted in police misdemeanor and illegality itself when suspects in police custody have come by violent deaths at police hands when suspects are said to have been trying to escape from police custody. So much so that the intransitive verb escape has come to mean a transitive verb just as the intransitive verb disappear turned transitive.

Thus, one hears of people being disappeared and being escaped. Dead bodies found the next morning, murders converted into suicide for politically corrupt reasons, are also the order of the day, not of law. This failure is surely the direct result of the political authorities even by encouragement or neglect. Or else such would not be so blatantly repeated as the public can see.

Failure of investigation is equally the result of a breakdown in the criminal justice administration, of the Judiciary and the court, of the AG and his role, of the police themselves and also of the prisons. The laxity of the criminal justice administration within all its agencies is now common place.

Police investigation cannot so help law and order, not in this quagmire of the law. Most lawyers are proclaimed to be corrupt. How could such proclaimed offenders thrive if the judicial system is itself not corrupt or at least affords the space for such corruption? Can the Police be revamped in such situation? Is then the loud statement of the minister to the Police hierarchy just as inane as it sounds?

The ministers statement to revamp Police is then made not with intelligence and discernment but with rifles and bayonets. The point is that the minister may suffer in the revamping process from a double disadvantage in his makeup, political and military. Politically, Mr. Weerasekera has shown himself to owe duly to his political superiors. Militarily, the disposition of Mr. Weerasekera to his superiors orders is inbuilt in him.

A concerned reader referring to my previous article Police investigation into crime whilst commending me for writing it and urging me to keep on writing, described the speech made by the minister in Parliament, as immature. The minister is in a double bind for want of maturity and competence, and such seems to be the highest acceptable qualification desired by his political superiors.

The hope is then that the minister can yet break through this impasse and not be a mere convenience for his political higher-ups that may require only the statement not the action that follows. That hope is nearly forlorn given the realities the public are well aware of. Current experience is that the breakdown of law and order and much that goes with it are advantageous to political masters.

Nevertheless, this criticism of the minister and his claim to revamp the Police yet need some modulation. For the minister only inherits the breakdown of law and order, of failure of police investigation, all coming over for some time before he came into this position. The task now before him is huge. Yet the finger now points only at him. The minister needs advice. This guidance he may gain from the panel of experts in his political list, who, I think, are competent enough to give such guidance.

And, again, if the minister were to embark on such a venture, in such a way, I believe the Police may come around somewhat.

(The writer is a Retired Senior Superintendent of Police. He can be contacted at seneviratnetz@gmail.com; TP 077 44 751 44.)
President Xi Jinpings Communist Party of China hasnt given up on efforts to influence the course of Nepali politics and has positioned a three-member team in Kathmandu that is continuing to reach out to prominent politicians in the Himalayan nation, people familiar with the matter said.

President Xi had sent a four-member team led by Guo Yezhou, vice-minister of the international department of the Chinese communist partys central committee that made a high-profile visit to Nepal that was closely tracked by the media.

The team wrapped up its visit on Wednesday, unable to deliver on its primary objective of uniting the two rival factions of the Nepal Communist Party led by Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and former prime ministers Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Madhav Nepal.

Also Read: Chinese team in Nepal makes a peace offering to PM Oli. He doesnt bite

Guo Yezhous delegation, which had targeted persuading PM Oli to roll back the December 20 presidential order dissolving Nepals 275-member House of Representatives, had also explored the possibility of getting the two warring factions to jointly contest the national elections on April 30 and May 10 if the presidential order cant be rescinded. A third option believed to have been pursued by Guo Yezhou was designed to address the possibility of the Supreme Court rolling back the presidential order and involved the formation of a communist-led government with the support of opposition parties such as the Nepali Congress minus PM Oli.

Nepal watchers said the high-profile Guo Yezhous delegation was, however, only the public face of the Chinese effort.

The covert aspect continues, one of them said.

For now, this assignment has been handed to three officials of the Chinese communist party, who were part of the second team that had quietly travelled by road from China to Nepal before Guo Yezhou landed at Kathmandus international airport on Sunday last.

The three - Zekun Lai, Dongme Huang and Yonglin Zhong - are the Chinese communist partys points persons on Nepal politics who have cultivated political leaders for years. This is what you might call the backchannel effort that stays under the radar, a diplomat based in Nepal said.

The change in the Chinese approach to keep its intervention a secret comes against the backdrop of resentment in some quarters in Nepal over its attempt to influence politics and politicians.

A day before Guo Yezhous delegation returned to China on Wednesday, dozens of people had hit the streets of Kathmandu holding a torch rally on Tuesday night to protest against the visit that was aimed at interfering in Nepals internal political matters.

To be sure, China denies that Guo Yezhous team was tasked to influence Nepals politics but underlines that it wants Nepals politicians to properly manage internal differences.

As the countrys friend and close neighbour, we hope relevant parties in Nepal can take into account the national interests and the big picture, properly manage internal differences and commit themselves to political stability and national development, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said last week.
Senator Mitt Romney criticized the slow roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccine in the US, blaming the federal government for failing to help states get the shot into more peoples arms.

That comprehensive vaccination plans have not been developed at the federal level and sent to the states as models is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable, the Utah Republican said in a statement Friday.

The US vaccination program -- Operation Warp Speed -- has distributed millions of doses to states but is failing to meet projections for how quickly people will be inoculated. About 3.2 million doses have been given, according to the Bloomberg News vaccine tracker, far short of the Trump administrations goal of administering 20 million vaccinations by the end of 2020.

Officials have blamed the delays on a delicate vaccine with complex storage requirements, uncertainty over the supply of doses, and strain on local health agencies already facing historic challenges. After criticism, President Donald Trump said this week that its the responsibility of the states to deliver the shots, urging them on Twitter to Get moving!

Romney, one of the most forceful Trump critics among Republicans, said its unrealistic to assume health-care workers caring for those sickened by the virus can take on a vaccination program as well, or to lean on major pharmacy chains to save the day. He suggested more medical professionals be trained and enlisted to administer shots, including veterinarians, combat medics, and medical students.

The current program is woefully behind despite the fact that it encompasses the two easiest populations to vaccinate: front-line workers and long-term care residents, Romney said. Unless new strategies and plans are undertaken, the deadly delays may be compounded as broader and more complex populations are added.

Michael Pratt, chief communications officer for Operation Warp Speed at the Department of Health and Human Services, said the department has been working with states for months to distribute the vaccines and that the pace will ramp up.

Sluggish Vaccine Campaign Raises Specter of US Dysfunction

There will always be a lag between the doses allocated and those shipped; between those shipped and those administered; and between those administered and those reported to CDC as administered. Were working to make those lags as small as possible, Pratt said.

There have been more than 20 million cases in the US and more than 346,000 Americans have died. Tens of thousands more are expected to succumb in coming months, making the vaccines distribution all the more critical.

Some countries are far outstripping the USs vaccination pace. Israel, whose size and population is similar to New Jerseys, gave shots to an average 60,000 people a day in its first week. If the US were moving at the same speed, it would be doing 2.2 million daily inoculations -- 10 times its current pace.

President-elect Joe Biden this week faulted Trump for the slow roll-out of the vaccine and vowed he would speed up vaccinations to 100 million shots in his first 100 days in office.
The Victorian governments abrupt decision to shut the states border with NSW has been nothing short of a debacle.

It was precipitous, poorly managed and, frankly, dangerous as thousands of cars, caravans and boat-trailers crammed highways to beat an unreasonably tight deadline.

Yes, Victorians had been warned two weeks ago that their travel into NSW could be curtailed suddenly. Yes, they knew the situation could change at any moment. But families, children, the elderly and disabled are always at terrible risk when trapped in traffic for hours.

It would be catastrophic if a fire had taken hold, or if someone were to have a heart attack or seizure.
Reacting to Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadavs rejection of Covid-19 vaccines, Jammu Kashmir National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said he would happily get a vaccine when his turn comes and that vaccines belong to humanity and no political party. He also said that it would be better for the country and the economy if more people would get vaccinated.

Earlier, Akhilesh Yadav had said that he would not get vaccinated and does not trust the BJP vaccine. I am not going to get vaccinated for now. How can I trust BJPs vaccine, when our government will be formed everyone will get free vaccine. We cannot take BJPs vaccine, he said.

Omar Abdullah replied, saying that the coronavirus has been far too disruptive and he would be willing to take one if the vaccines would restore normalcy. I dont know about anyone else but when my turn comes Ill happily roll up my sleeve & get a COVID vaccine. This damn virus has been far too disruptive & if a vaccine helps bring about a semblance of normalcy after all the chaos then sign me up, he said.

I dont know about anyone else but when my turn comes Ill happily roll up my sleeve & get a COVID vaccine. This damn virus has been far too disruptive & if a vaccine helps bring about a semblance of normalcy after all the chaos then sign me up. https://t.co/bVOw7lPJ6w  Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) January 2, 2021

He also said that the vaccines do not belong to any political party and it would be better for the economy if more people get vaccinated. The more people that get vaccinated the better it will be for the country & the economy. No vaccine belongs to any political party, they belong to humanity & the sooner we get vulnerable people vaccinated the better, he added.

Also read: Health minister urges people not to pay heed to rumours

On Saturday, a two-day Covid-19 vaccination dry run was conducted across all states and union territories. Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan had assured that all protocols have been followed in approving the vaccines and appealed to the people to avoid rumours about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.
Bharuch:

Police on Sunday arrested four persons and seized scrapped currency notes in Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denominations with a face value of over Rs 1 crore.

Bharuch Special Operations Group (SOG) made the seizure and arrest after intercepting an SUV which was coming from Surat in Sheetal Chowk area, said a police official.

As many as 11,322 demonetised currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500, having a face value of Rs 1,01,98,000, were found in a travel bag kept in the vehicle, he said.

Four persons travelling in the SUV were arrested and an FIR was registered at Bharuch C Division police station after they failed to provide satisfactory reply about the source of the defunct bills, the official said.

The police gave the names of the arrested persons as Chatur Singh Sodha, a resident of Barmer in Rajasthan, Denis Gangani, from Bhavnagar, Himanshu Megdani and Viral Ranpariya, both hailing from Surat.

We seized their mobile phones and documents they were carrying and launched an investigation, the official said.

They did not reveal the source of the scrapped notes, but said they wanted to exchange them for a commission, the police said.

An SOG team has left for Surat to further probe the matter, he said.

The seizure comes a day after Rajkot police seized Rs 1 crore in scrapped notes and held two persons.

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Kingstree, SC (29556)

Today

A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible early. Mostly clear. Low 64F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible early. Mostly clear. Low 64F. Winds light and variable.
Chief Minister K Palaniswami on Saturday announced Rs 600 crore relief assistance to about five lakh farmers, whose crops on 3.10 lakh plus hectares were hit due to the recent back to back cyclones in Tamil Nadu. A norm that permitted relief only upto a maximum of two hectares has been relaxed in view of the losses suffered by ryots and the assistance shall cover loss in its entirety without any upper limit, Palaniswami said.

The assistance would be directly credited to the bank accounts of farmers from January 7, he said in an official release.

Palaniswami said agricultural and horticultural crops on 3,10,589.63 hectares were affected in Tamil Nadu due to the Nivar and Burevi cyclones witnessed during November-December last year. Farmers, who bore huge production cost, were hit badly due to the storms, he added.

The Chief Minister increased aid, covered under input subsidy head, to Rs 20,000 from Rs 13,500 per hectare for rainfed and irrigated paddy and for other crops with irrigation amenities.

For all rainfed crops, barring paddy, the relief assistance per hectare is raised to Rs 10,000 from the present Rs 7,410, he announced.

Similarly, the Chief Minister hiked assistance under the perennial crops category to Rs 25,000 from the present Rs 18,000 per hectare.

The present slab of assistance per hectare is based on the National Disaster Relief Fund guidelines and the quantum of hike over and above the NDRF stipulation shall be borne by the state government, Palaniswami said.

Tamil Nadu has sought Rs 3,750.38 crore assistance for damage due to Nivar and Rs 1,514 crore for Burevi from the Central government.

"Rs 600 crore assistance will be provided to about five lakh farmers and the benefit shall be directed transferred to their bank accounts from January 7," he said.

Also read: India's mantra for 2021 -- 'Dawai bhi aur kadaai bhi', says PM Modi

Also read: PM Modi lays foundation stone of Light House Projects on New Years Day
The Future Star winner at the 2017 O'Brien Awards, driver Brett MacDonald certainly delivered on that promise with a breakout year in 2020.

While still a tender 24 years of age, MacDonald was Canada's second-winningest driver last year, amassing 279 victories and capturing top honours at Clinton Raceway, Flamboro Downs and Georgian Downs in just his sixth full season of driving. Like many top horsepeople, MacDonald was born into the sport, and the pull of the racetrack proved too strong for him to pursue another profession.

"I knew I wanted to do it at a very early age," MacDonald said in a recent profile by the Hamilton Spectator. "My family was into it and I simply did not like school. I did graduate high school and did some classes in the electrician and other trade fields, but it was always about the horses."

And, for MacDonald, it truly is all about the horses  day in and day out.



Brett MacDonald guides Avatar J to victory at Western Fair Brett MacDonald guides Avatar J to victory at Western Fair

From his home base in Freelton, Ont., MacDonald's commute to Flamboro Downs is a paltry 15 minutes, but with Clinton, Georgian and The Raceway at the Western Fair District all over an hour away, the youthful reinsman puts up with a demanding road schedule in order to stay competitive on Ontario's "triple-A" circuit and try to break into harness racing's big leagues at Woodbine Mohawk Park.

"Its seven nights a week in the winter driving and six in the summer," he continued. "But if one wants to do this, there is no other way."

And if that weren't enough, he spends most mornings assisting his father, Ron, in maintaining a 16-horse stable  and having the odd drive at Mohawk behind some of the stable's promising young performers.

By way of a perpetual, relentless grind of long days and long drives, MacDonald is building some serious momentum. Since moving west from Rideau Carleton Raceway at the end of 2017, his mounts have earned more than $1.2 million and he has driven at least 180 winners each of the last three seasons. And while a seat in Canada's top colony may be the ultimate goal, MacDonald will be content with maintaining his current trajectory through 2021:

Im very happy with my year, winning 279 races and nearly $1.8 million in purses. Both are personal highs. I wont go into 2021 with any specific goals other than to do better.
As Asian oil demand looks set to increase over the next decade, Cambodia is taking advantage of the opportunity with its first crude oil production. Cambodias plan is to extract oil from the Gulf of Thailand oil fields in a joint project with Singapore's KrisEnergy Ltd, a plan that has seen several years of delays.

The development was announced by Prime Minister Hun Sen on social media, "The year 2021 is coming and we have received a huge gift for our nation  the first oil production in our territory". Going on to say, Key benefits include national budget revenue, economic benefits from the diversification of the oil industry and national capacity building in this sector. This came after production started in the region on Monday.

The venture was initially proposed in 2017 when KrisEnergy and the Cambodian government signed a pact to develop 3,083 square kilometers of the Khmer basin in the Gulf of Thailand, also known as Block A. The government hopes this project will earn around $500 million in revenue in the first phase of the project, with an initial production rate of 7,500 bpd.

KrisEnergy already has several ongoing exploration, appraisal, development and production projects across Asia, in Bangladesh, China, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia. The company hopes to increase its Asia portfolio with a 95 percent stake in block A, having purchased Chevrons stake in the zone for $65 million in 2014.

Oil was initially discovered in the region in 2004 by U.S. energy giant Chevron. Despite this early discovery, Chevron was unable to reach an agreement with the Cambodian government to develop its oil capabilities. Additionally, due to the drop in oil prices in 2014, few companies have been willing to invest in the unestablished oil region.

The project is not without risk, with the production commencing in the midst of a global pandemic that has significantly threatened oil demand. However, the government believes there to be hundreds of millions of barrels of crude in Cambodias waters, making the outlook promising.

The drilling program is expected to be completed by February 2021. The exploration and production of oil in Block A is being carried out in phases to collect and assess data to mitigate risk, due to the unknown production performance in the basin.

Related: Was Buffett Right About Energy In 2020?

Cambodia currently produces three-quarters of its energy needs, split between around 44% coal production and 45% hydropower. Earlier in 2020, Cambodia announced plans for the future of its energy industry, embracing new coal power projects. The Cambodian government stated plans to triple the countrys coal output in the coming years. The move comes following failures in Cambodias hydropower industry due to drought.

However, Cambodias reliance on fossil-fuel over renewable alternatives has led the country to appear less attractive to international brands that manufacture in the country. Companies worry that Cambodia will not keep up with international trends and that it is not considering environmental concerns for the future of its energy, with no clear renewable energy target stated at present.

In contrast, neighboring country Vietnam is embracing its solar potential with production levels increasing from 100 megawatts to 4.5 GW between 2016 and 2019. A clear move to renewables going into the next decade therefore makes Vietnam a more attractive option for many international brands.

As Cambodias hydropower industry is faltering in the face of drought, its new oil potential could offer a bright alternative for the countrys energy future. While the government has faced criticism over its move to increase coal output, the new oil venture looks set to improve Cambodias energy outlook.

By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
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The governors of Tokyo and three other Japanese prefectures urged the government on Saturday to declare a state of emergency following a resurgence of COVID-19 cases.

Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told reporters at a briefing after meeting the governors that the government would need to hear from experts before deciding on whether to make an emergency declaration.

New COVID-19 infections in Tokyo hit a record 1,337 on Dec. 31, and on Friday numbered 783. A nationwide record was also set on Dec. 31 with 4,520 new cases.

Short link:


ACROSS AMERICA  Kristen Cline was working a 12-hour shift in October at the Royal C. Johnson Veterans Memorial Hospital in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, when a code blue rang through the halls. Knowing the patient was dying from coronavirus, the nurse rushed to help, grabbing the crinkled and dirty N95 mask she had reused for days to protect herself.

Her determination wasn't enough. The patient "fell victim to a hospital in chaos," Cline said in her post-death report.

The crash cart and breathing bag that should have been in the room were missing. The patient wasnt tethered to monitors that could have alerted nurses sooner. He had cried out for help, but the duty nurse was busy with other patients, packed two to a room meant for one.



He died scared and alone. It didnt have to be that way. We failed him  not the staff, we did everything we could, Cline told ProPublica. The system failed him.

The system also failed her, Cline told the nonprofit newsroom. The Department of Veterans Affairs is not doing enough to protect its front-line health care workers, she said. Her complaints about inadequate personal protective equipment have fallen on deaf ears.



And while every American hospital has been stretched by the pandemic, the VAs lack of an effective system for tracking and delivering supplies has made it particularly vulnerable, according to ProPublica's report.

When this is over, Cline said, those of us who dont die are going to quit.

Read more via ProPublica

The Latest

As Americans close out the long holiday weekend, the United States recorded yet another record of new daily cases on Saturday.

More than 280,400 new cases were reported on Saturday, according to a Washington Post database. While the number seems staggering, it could also be distorted. According to a New York Times report, 19 states reported no data on New Year's Day. The near doubling of cases a day later can mostly be explained by many states reporting cases for both Friday and Saturday. One state, Michigan, reported cases for Thursday as well.

Story continues

While total U.S. cases have now exceeded 20.4 million, the number of lives lost to the coronavirus also surpassed 350,000 on Sunday. As families grieve, funeral homes are once again being forced to turn them away as states deal with a crippling rise in deaths.

California is among the states hardest hit. The head of the state funeral directors association told The Associated Press that mortuaries are being inundated, and some funeral home owners are saying they've never experienced anything like it.

Ive been in the funeral industry for 40 years and never in my life did I think that this could happen, that Id have to tell a family, No, we cant take your family member," Magda Maldonado, owner of Continental Funeral Home in Los Angeles, told The AP.

On Sunday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said a new confirmed case is being reported in the county every six seconds.

This is something now that really is spreading in the home, Garcetti said on "Face The Nation, adding, Its a message for all of America: We might not all have the same density as L.A., but whats happening in L.A. can and will be coming in many communities in America.

As America leaves the holidays behind, some public health officials are still fearing what's to come: gatherings that no doubt will fuel a new surge of illness and death.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said on "Meet The Press" that what's to come is "terrible" but it's also predictable.

It's predictable likely because American airports recorded their busiest day of the pandemic on Saturday, with nearly 1.2 million passengers passing through security checkpoints, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

Since Dec. 18, the agency has counted more than 16.3 million trips through its airport checkpoints, down from more than 35.4 million in the same period a year ago. Tens of millions more people were also expected to travel by car, the New York Times reported.

On Sunday, a top official for Operation Warp Speed floated one possible solution to protect Americans: halving the dose of each Moderna vaccine to potentially double the number of people who could receive it.

Data from Modernas clinical trials showed that people between the ages of 18 and 55 who received two 50-microgram doses showed an identical immune response to the standard of two 100-microgram doses, said Dr. Moncef Slaoui.

Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida, agreed that there might be more data to support a vaccine strategy that relied on half-doses rather than delayed doses.

There is a path forward if you can show that two lower doses yield a similar immune response, Dean told the New York Times.

So far, federal officials have failed to outline a plan for distributing vaccines to U.S. states. Meanwhile, overworked, underfunded state public health departments are scrambling to patch together plans for administering vaccines.

Amid the different approaches, a multitude of logistical concerns have complicated the process, leading to long lines, confusion, frustration and jammed phone lines.

Terry Beth Hadler, a 69-year-old piano teacher stood in line overnight with hundreds of other senior citizens outside a library in Bonita Springs, Florida, waiting to get her shot. They were offered on a first-come, first-served basis to people over 65.

She wouldn't do it again. A brawl nearly broke out just before dawn when someone cut in the line. She also worried that she was in the middle of a superspreader event.

"I was petrified," she told The AP.

Newest Numbers

At least 2,353 deaths and 280,497 new cases of coronavirus were reported in the United States on Sunday, according to a Washington Post database. The Post's reporting shows that over the past week new daily cases increased by 12.6 percent, new daily deaths rose by 16.8 percent and new coronavirus-related hospitalizations increased by 5.4 percent.

Currently, there are more than 123,600 people hospitalized with a coronavirus-related illness in the United States, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

As of Sunday, 47 states and Puerto Rico remained above the positive testing rate recommended by the World Health Organization to safely reopen. To safely reopen, the WHO recommends states remain at 5 percent or lower for at least 14 days.

As of Sunday afternoon, the United States had reported more than 20.5 million cases and more than 351,200 deaths from COVID-19-related illnesses, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.



Stay up to date on the latest coronavirus news via The New York Times or Washington Post.



Read More From Across America

This article originally appeared on the Across America Patch
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An NHS worker as he receives his first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in Cwmbran, Wales. (Getty Images)

coronavirus latest news

More than one million people in the UK have received a COVID-19 vaccine, Matt Hancock has revealed.

The Health Secretary said the "end is in sight" as the country reached the milestone in its race to vaccinate the population against coronavirus.

Vaccinations began almost a month ago after the UK became the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer/BioNtech jab that was developed in the US.

Hancock tweeted on Saturday: "Huge THANK YOU to everyone playing their part in the national effort to beat coronavirus.

To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here to do so.

"Over a million people have been vaccinated already.

"With the vaccine roll-out accelerating, the end is in sight & we will get through this together."

It comes after the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was approved for use earlier this week, meaning the UK will soon have enough vaccine doses to immunise the entire population.

The first 530,000 jabs are expected to be rolled out on Monday with the potential for 24 million people to get the jab before Easter.

Read: North of England bracing for huge COVID wave as new variant continues to spread

By the middle of January, two million doses of the Oxford vaccine are expected to be supplied weekly, a source told The Times.

A member of the Oxford/AstraZeneca team said: "The plan is to build it up fairly rapidly - by the third week of January we should get two million a week."

Second doses of either vaccine will now take place within 12 weeks rather than 21 days as initially planned.

Deputy chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), Professor Anthony Harnden, defended the plans.

A member of the Welsh Ambulance Trust receives his first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in the waiting area for any adverse reactions in Cwmbran, Wales. (Getty)

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Saturday that patients he had dealt with accepted the move, stating: "When it was explained to them that the vaccine offers 90% protection for one dose, and the priority was to get as many people vaccinated in the elderly and vulnerable community as possible, they understood.

"I think the country is all in this together.

"And, I think we really, really want to pull together to try and do the best strategy possible."

Story continues

Meanwhile, England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty warned that COVID vaccine shortages will last for months despite the newly approved Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine improving supply issues.

But both Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZenica have refuted reports of shortages.

Watch: Altmann: Price for getting vaccine wrong could be very high

Pfizer said in a statement today: "We do not have any supply issues from our side at this point with regards to what has been agreed with the UK."

Meanwhile, Dr Mary Ramsay, head of immunisations at PHE, told Sky News that mixing is not recommended and should only happen on "rare occasions".

"We do not recommend mixing the COVID-19 vaccines - if your first dose is the Pfizer vaccine you should not be given the AstraZeneca vaccine for your second dose and vice versa," she said.

"There may be extremely rare occasions where the same vaccine is not available, or where it is not known what vaccine the patient received.

"Every effort should be made to give them the same vaccine, but where this is not possible it is better to give a second dose of another vaccine than not at all."

Meanwhile, medical experts and public officials said the North of England is bracing for a devastating COVID-19 wave as the new variant continues to spread across the UK.

People queue at an NHS Covid-19 vaccination centre for the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in London on December 30 (AFP via Getty)

The mutant coronavirus strain was first detected in the South East before Christmas and has been found to be 70% more transmissible.

It has since been driving up new infection rates, putting the NHS on the brink of being overwhelmed.

Several London hospitals like UCH and the Royal London have issued desperate pleas for more staff in the last 24 hours as COVID wards fill up rapidly.

A nurse, who works at the Whittington Hospital in north London, described the "unbearable" conditions as Covid-19 patient numbers continue to rise.

The nurse described patients being left in corridors, some spending up to three hours in ambulances because of a lack of beds and one left without oxygen when their cylinder ran out.

Read more

The Tier 4 COVID lockdown rules explained

The Tier 3 COVID lockdown rules explained

The Tier 2 COVID lockdown rules explained

The nurse said: "I'm worried about patient safety because if these little things are happening now when we're short and it's busy, it's only going to get worse.

"I don't know what else will happen - it worries me."

The number of Covid-19 patients in hospitals is at record levels in many areas of England - including London, the South West and the Midlands - with admissions rising above the levels seen during the first wave.

On Friday, NHS England said a further 420 deaths in the UK were reported and 50,668 cases were confirmed.

Watch: How does the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine work?
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Katie Price complained about her 'sore' feet as she went on a walk in the woods with her beau Carl Woods on Saturday.

The former glamour model, 42, appeared to be on unsteady feet as she made her way slowly through the forest as her beau, 31, filmed her and shared the video on his Instagram stories.

Katie broke both of her feet in a freak accident back in August and subsequently had to undergo major surgery to fuse the bits of broken bone together.

Sore: Katie Price complained about her 'sore' feet as she walked in the woods with beau Carl Woods on Saturday after breaking both feet in a freak accident

Carl tried to be supportive as he filmed Katie, saying: 'Look at this fine creation of a woman. Hobbling away there!'

Katie joked that she was 'hobbling', but said she was doing so because her feet were feeling 'sore' after they'd taken the dogs for a walk.

On her own social media, Katie shared a video of her feet as she slowly walked through a grassy plain in her Wellington boots.

Helpful: Carl tried to be supportive as he filmed Katie, saying: 'Look at this fine creation of a woman. Hobbling away there!'

Doing her best: Katie joked that she was 'hobbling', but said she was doing so because her feet were feeling 'sore' after they'd taken the dogs for a walk

Boots made for walking: On her own social media, Katie shared a video of her feet as she slowly walked through a grassy plain in her Wellington boots

Earlier on, Katie shared a video of her eldest son Harvey, 18, after he drew her a picture of a train as a sweet gift.

Showing off the picture he had drawn, Harvey sweetly told his mum: 'Its a Happy New Year present.'

Katie was delighted with the gift, as she told him: 'Aww Harvey, look at me, you are so cute!'

He then said: 'I know mum', and she claimed that he was 'the best' in the caption.

Adorable: Earlier on, Katie shared a video of her eldest son Harvey, 18, after he drew her a picture of a train as a sweet gift

Sweet: Showing off the picture he had drawn, Harvey sweetly told his mum: 'Its a Happy New Year present'

In November, Katie arrived at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, where doctors gave her the green light to walk again. However, it will be a long road to her recovery.

At the end of October, Katie stunned fans by taking her first steps since her horrific accident, in footage filmed by a fellow guest at her luxury resort in The Maldives.

Katie Price's representative told MailOnline: 'Katie is indeed on the mend, however she still has a long way to go in her recovery.

'This time away has done Katie the world of good and is making wonderful progress.'

Ouch: The glamour model, 42, broke both of her feet in a freak accident back in August and subsequently had to undergo major surgery to fuse the bits of broken bone together

On October 12th, Katie confirmed in a YouTube video doctors had told her it would be '18 months' until she'd be back walking properly.

The reality star, who has been in a wheelchair since July, is understood to have used her recent getaway in the Maldives to plan her comeback for 2021.

According to a recent report, she is expected to 'get engaged to boyfriend Carl Woods by the end of the year' after 'breaking her feet and ankles has made her to take stock of what matters.'
MASON CITY, Iowa - If you've been driving around Mason City this evening, you might have noticed something a bit out of the ordinary. A bright column of light stretching into the sky from the top of MercyOne North Iowa.

At 5 o'clock this evening, the huge beacon was switched on. It has a very special meaning for the folks at MercyOne North Iowa.

The beacon honors all the hard work the health care heroes have performed during the pandemic. It's also symbolic of the hopes for a brighter 2021.

It's not just happening in Mason City, but at all 16 MercyOne medical centers across the state of Iowa. With perfect weather conditions, the bright tower of light can be seen for miles around.

MercyOne CEO Bob Ritz talks about why they chose this symbol.

"We thought it was the best way to unify, essentially the magnetic role that our health systems have played in helping our communities find safety in this pandemic," said Ritz.

MercyOne North Iowa will be lighting up the sky until January 7th. You can also check out pictures of the MercyOne beacons on social media, just search for the hashtag #mercyonehope2021.
There is a point at which typically reasonable, law-abiding people come to realize that an unjust law is no law at all and decide to no longer comply.

For Amy Heikkinen and her brother Jake, restaurateurs in tiny Calumet, Michigan, that time has come. According to their GoFundMe page, their coffee and pastry shop survived Governor Gretchen Whitmer's first lockdown order, which Michigan's Supreme Court struck down this past summer as executive overreach. In retaliation, Whitmer has essentially commandeered the administrative state, using Michigan's Health Department to enforce her mid-November ban on indoor dining.

This time, however, Amy and Jake had reached their breaking point and have been ignoring the order. Incensed at the disobedience, Whitmer's administrative brownshirts went to court for a restraining order. And, as the Detroit News reports, they won last week in Ingham County Circuit Court  hundreds of miles south of Calumet.

"There are thousands of Michigan restaurants, bars and businesses trying to do right by their communities and fellow business owners, but their sacrifices must not be undermined because others ignore the law and make up their own rule book during a pandemic," said Gary McDowell, a director for Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. The cafe is ordered to appear before Stokes next Thursday. "It's my right to earn an income to protect and feed my family," [Heikkinen] said. "That's the right of every American. You can't make me not work." Heikkinen said the restaurant has the support of local officials, a factor she thinks pushed the state to file its complaint in Ingham County instead of Houghton County. "That's why this is so absolutely ridiculous because it's an eight-hour drive from the county where this judge issued this so-called order," she said.

The Heikkinens are raising money to offset the legal battle.

Whitmer's war against COVID has always been long on tyranny and short on facts. This has led residents to question not only her actions, but the entire administrative state. When New York published its results on contract tracing, it showed households and "social gatherings" as the leading "exposure sources" with an almost 74% share. Restaurants and bars have a measly 1.43%.

This data argue for an enterprising law firm to begin foraging state tort cases for arguments and precedents for damages.

Image: SecretName 101.
1. Yes. The public must have assurances that ethical standards are met by everyone.

2. Yes. As long as an independent board hears the grievances, its a worthwhile idea.

3. No. The concept is too broad. It should be limited to the citys elected officials.

4. No. There are plenty of stipulations in place already. An ordinance is a waste of time.

5. Unsure. Its hard to say without seeing how it would be structured and applied.

Vote

View Results
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The national strategy to ensure road traffic order and safety for 2021-2030 and a vision to 2045 was recently approved by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, with the goal that in 2021-2030, it will implement periodic emission controls for motorcycles.

Chu Manh Hung, former head of the Ministry of Transport's Environment Department, talks to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper about many issues surrounding this goal

What is your opinion on the recommendation for periodic emission controls for motorcycles and motorbikes?

I support and welcome this recommendation because our goal is ensuring traffic order and safety and a cleaner air environment. However, we must have solutions to comply with the law for the people to follow them. Motorcycle emissions controls should have been around for a long time.

By the middle of October 2020, the number of motorcycles nationwide had reached more than 72 million. If on average, four motorbikes consume gasoline equal to one car, that means we have emissions of 18 million cars.

Currently, more than 4.6 million cars of all kinds are subject to periodic inspections both for technical standards and emissions.

Such a comparison shows how much gasoline is burned and emitted by motorcycles into the environment, not to mention cars. There are many old motorcycles that burn gasoline and waste directly into the environment, causing fine dust in the air.

Did we set up regulations to control motorcycle emissions 25 years ago?

In 1995, when I was working at the Vietnam Road Administration, I joined the drafting team of Decree 36 on ensuring road traffic safety and order and urban traffic order and safety.

This decree, signed by the late Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet and promulgated on May 29, 1995, provides technical standards and organises the inspection and supervision of the technical quality of all types of road motor vehicles and periodic travel permits.

At that time, we went to Singapore to survey this issue and agreed vehicles with internal combustion engines using gasoline, diesel, and gas should all be put under emissions control. At that time, there were only 6 million motorbikes in the whole country, but the authorities of the time only talked about controlling car emissions. Therefore, in 1995, only cars emission standards were introduced.

The number of motorcycles is constantly increasing, while the 2000 and 2008 Road Traffic Laws have not yet regulated periodic emission controls for motorbikes. Why has this not been put into law?

The first time we had the Law on Road Traffic was in 2000. In 2008, the law was revised. In 2000, when the law was enacted, emissions controls for motorbikes were still not included, even though the number reached 12 million vehicles. 600,000 cars were still under technical and emissions control.

By 2010, then Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung issued a project to control motorcycle emissions in a certain number of cities across the country, but so far it has not been implemented since such move would require some social cost and administrative procedures that are not specified in the Law on Road Traffic 2008.

Therefore, in 2017, PM Phuc directed the Ministry of Transport to continue studying this in the process of developing the revised Road Traffic Law. But the revised Road Traffic Law has not been passed by the National Assembly.

How often should motorbike emissions controls be implemented?

The competent authority must calculate and consult scientists, if there is no appropriate method, it will easily lead to social disorder when there are 72 million motorbikes in the country that need to be put under emissions control.

To control motorcycle emissions, the Ministry of Transport needs the participation of the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, and the People's Committees of provinces. Even the Ministry of Health can participate if it has data on people suffering from many respiratory diseases due to exhaust gas to have appropriate policies.

The National Assembly should enact the Law on Road Traffic with regulations on controlling motorcycle emissions. If it is necessary to legalise and immediately implement the Prime Minister's decision on the national strategy to ensure road traffic order and safety for the period 2021-2025 and a vision to 2045, the National Assembly Standing Committee can issue a resolution to add to the existing Road Traffic Law instead of waiting for a revised law to be passed.

VNS
Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum helped discover Ebola virus in 1976

He said new potentially fatal viruses emerge from Africa's tropical rainforests

'Disease X', which stands for unexpected, is hypothetical but could be deadly

Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum, pictured, said humanity faces an unknown number of new viruses

The doctor who discovered Ebola warns that new deadly viruses are set to hit mankind as medics fear new Disease X.

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Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum, who helped discover the Ebola virus in 1976, said humanity faces an unknown number of new viruses.

He has said there are new and potentially fatal viruses emerging from Africa's tropical rainforests, reports CNN.

He added: 'We are now in a world where new pathogens will come out. And that's what constitutes a threat for humanity.'

The professor said that he thinks future pandemics could be worse than Covid-19 and could be more apocalyptic.

In Ingende, Democratic Republic of the Congo, a patient, who wishes to remain nameless was showing early symptoms of hemorrhagic fever.

The patient had an Ebola test, but doctors fear she is patient zero of 'Disease X', which stands for unexpected, when the results came back negative.

This new pathogen could spread as fast as Covid-19 but has Ebola's 50 to 90 per cent fatality rate.

The professor said that he thinks future pandemics could be worse than Covid-19 and could be more apocalyptic (pictured: Researchers collect samples from a bat in Gabon)

'Disease X' is hypothetical, but scientists fear it could lead to destruction around the world if and when it occurs, according to WHO.

Professor Muyembe took the first blood samples from the victims of a mysterious disease, later named Ebola, when he was a young researcher.

The disease caused hemorrhages and killed about 88% of patients and 80% of the staff who were working at the Yambuku Mission Hospital when it was first discovered.

The vials of blood were sent to Belgium and the US, where scientists found a worm-shaped virus.

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The professor warned of many more zoonotic diseases - those that jump from animals to humans - to come.

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Yellow fever, various forms of influenza, rabies, and Lyme disease are among those that pass from animals to humans, often via rodents or insects and have caused epidemics and pandemics before.

Experts say the rising number of emerging viruses is largely the result of the destruction of animal's habitats and wildlife trade.

As their natural habitats disappear, animals like rats, bats, and insects survive where larger animals get wiped out.

SARS, MERS and the Covid-19 virus are all coronaviruses that jumped to humans, with Covid-19 thought to have originated in China, possibly in bats.

The professor warned of many more zoonotic diseases - those that jump from animals to humans - to come (stock image)

According to research by Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, new species of viruses are being discovered at a rate of three to four a year.

The majority of them originate from animals with scientists believing zoonotic illnesses like Ebola and Covid-19 make the leap when wild animals are butchered.

The live animals in so-called 'wet' markets pose a bigger threat and 'Disease X' may be living inside any one of the animals there.

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Scientists have previously linked these kinds of wet markets to zoonotic diseases, as the avian flu and SARS both emerged from them.
On January 1, 2021, a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Israel came into force in accordance with the Law of Ukraine "On Ratification of the Free Trade Agreement between the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Government of the State of Israel".

The FTA with Israel was signed by the fifth President of Ukraine and the Prime Minister of Israel in Jerusalem on January 21, 2019.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the law "On Ratification of the Free Trade Agreement between the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Government of the State of Israel" on July 11, 2019. According in the explanatory note to the bill, the agreement aims to liberalize trade in goods between Ukraine and the State of Israel.

President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law ratifying the FTA with Israel in August 2019.

The reason for the delay in Israel's ratification of the Agreement was the constant holding of parliamentary elections. On March 2, they were held for the third time in a row, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was unable to form a government after two elections in April and September 2019.

As Ukrinform reported, President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that the implementation of the provisions of the Free Trade Agreement between Ukraine and Israel will help increase mutual trade to USD 2 billion.

ish
Business Roundup Irrawaddy Business Roundup

KB Kookmin Bank, South Korea, COVID-19, coronavirus, CPC Corporation, Thailand, foreign direct investment, Taiwan, MyanTrade, Korea Desk, Amata Smart and Eco City, Yangon

YANGON  Myanmar has extended COVID-19 preventive measures until Jan. 31 but many businesses are already preparing to reopen as unemployment rises.

Also this week a South Korea desk opened to boost bilateral trade and investment and the South Korea-based KB Kookmin received a license to open in the country.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held at the Thai-backed Yangon Amata Smart and Eco City project this week. Taiwans state-owned CPC Cooperation also announced that it will consider investing in Myanmars oil and gas sector.

South Korea desk opens in Yangon

A South Korean desk has launched in Yangon to help Korean investors deal with Myanmars administrative issues and for firms in Myanmar to explore the Korean market.

MyanTrades Korea Desk has opened at the One-Stop Service office in Yangons Yankin Township. Myanmar and South Korea agreed to establish the desk during President Moon Jae-ins visit to Myanmar in September last year.

South Korea is one of Myanmars major economic partners with investments of more than US$4 billion (5.3 trillion kyats), according to the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration, Myanmars investment agency.

Thai-backed project kicks off

A groundbreaking ceremony at the Thai-backed Amata Smart and Eco City project was held this week. The project aims to create an economic hub with industrial, logistics and services infrastructure to attract domestic and foreign investors.

The estimated $1-billion (1.3-trillion-kyat), 800-hectare project is near Laydaunkkan village in East Dagon and South Dagon townships. The project will be jointly developed by the Urban and Housing Development at the Ministry of Construction and Thailands Amata Corporation.

The ministry said the project is expected to create 33,000 jobs, attract foreign investment and boost Yangon Regions industrial output and exports. The entire project is expected to be completed in five years and the construction of the first phase is due to begin in the first three months of next year.

South Korean bank to open in Myanmar

One of South Koreas largest banks, KB Kookmin, has received a license from the Central Bank of Myanmar to open a branch in the country, a first for a foreign bank.

According to the bank, it plans to open at least 10 branches, including in Yangon and Mandalay, to provide loans to promising businesses, mortgages and ATM services.

KB Kookmin was among the seven foreign banks that received approval from the central bank in April.

Taiwanese group eyes oil and gas stake

The Taiwanese state-owned energy group, CPC Corporation, is seeking opportunities for oil and gas joint venture projects in Myanmar as a part of its southbound policy to develop a stronger diplomatic and economic relationship with Myanmar.

CPC said it is studying Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries for oil and gas investment.

Taiwan has been the 11th-largest investor in Myanmar since the 2016-17 financial year.

You may also like these stories:

Chinese Foreign Minister to Visit Naypyitaw Next Month

Myanmars Economic Year in Review

Myanmar to Start Joint Projects With Three Asian Countries
Indias national carrier Air India on Saturday opened booking for flights between India and the United Kingdom hours after the civil aviation ministry said flights from India to the UK will start operating from January 6. Air India also confirmed that the new flights are in addition to the regular flights and tickets could be booked online through its website.

#FlyAI : Booking for Air India flights between India & UK is open now.

 

Mumbai-London Heathrow

Delhi-London Heathrow

 

London Heathrow-Mumbai

London Heathrow-Delhi

 

Mumbai-London Heathrow

London Heathrow-Mumbai (1/2)  Air India (@airindiain) January 2, 2021

These flights are in addition to the regular flights. Booking open through Air India Website, Booking Offices, Call Centre and Authorised Travel Agents, the carrier tweeted.

On January 6, 2021, two flights will fly to London Heathrow  one each from Mumbai and Delhi. The next day, two Air India flights are scheduled from London Heathrow to Delhi and Mumbai. On January 8, one Air India flight will fly from Mumbai to London Heathrow and another return flight has also been announced.

The announcement from Air India came a day after Indias civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri said, It has been decided that flights between India & UK will resume from 8 Jan 2021. Operations till 23 Jan will be restricted to 15 flights per week each for carriers of the two countries to & from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru & Hyderabad only.

The minister also offered further clarification about the decision on Saturday saying that flights from India to the UK would commence operations on January 6, while those from the UK to India would begin from January 8. In a tweet, he said, Resumption of flights between India & UK: India to UK from 6 Jan 2021. UK to India from 8 Jan 2021. 30 flights will operate every week. 15 each by Indian & UK carriers. This schedule is valid till 23 Jan 2021. Further frequency will be determined after review.

Also read: India to UK flights will resume from January 6, ministry clarifies

Puri also assured that all necessary precautions would be taken following the standard operating procedures (SOP) issued by the health ministry regarding air travel between India and the UK.

Earlier on December 21, 2020, India joined a number of countries in suspending air travel for international flights after a mutated Covid-19 strain was known to be spreading rapidly in the UK.
24 Louisiana State Reps Urge GOP Congressional Delegation to Reject Biden-Harris Electors

Twenty-four Louisiana House Republicans are calling on the states Republican congressional delegation to reject the electors for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) for six swing states on Jan. 6, due to fraud in the presidential election.

Lawmakers will gather on Jan. 6 for a joint session of Congress to formally certify states electoral votes for the president of the United States.

The 24 Louisiana House Republicans told Republican members of Louisianas congressional delegation in a letter why they believed that Biden-Harris electors from six statesArizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsinwere chosen in violation of the U.S. Constitution and the states respective laws.

In the six states, unelected, unaccountable judges and other unauthorized persons set about to revoke election integrity laws thereby endorsing, enabling, and encouraging election fraud, the 24 Republicans wrote in a Dec. 28 letter, released on Jan. 1.

Every fake vote cast by, or on behalf of, an unqualified or non-existent voter for Biden/Harris robs an actual legitimate Trump/Pence voter and cancels out his or her vote, their letter reads.

The state lawmakers said that when the six states failed to correct fraud and put forth their Electoral College slate of electors, it disenfranchises states like Louisiana whose electors lawfully elected Trump/Pence.

The letter goes on to outline at least 10 reasons why the representatives believe that the six states slates of electors should be rejected. Such reasons include how voters who were not residents of the states were allowed to vote and their votes were counted, anomalies in computer software, and how state laws were ignored, not followed, or changed without the authorization of state legislatures, in the November 2020 election.

Gwinnett County election workers handle ballots as part of the recount for the 2020 presidential election at the Beauty P. Baldwin Voter Registrations and Elections Building in Lawrenceville, Ga. on Nov. 16, 2020. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)

The lawmakers also noted how in some of the states, counting abruptly stopped after midnight on Nov. 3, 2020, and then resumed without adequate representation of all poll watchers.

The reasons also included anomalies in select states, such as the case of Georgia where in one precinct, new boxes of ballots were found under a table after poll watchers left to go home.

With such glaring irregularities, fraud, and abuse, it is of utmost importance to preserve the integrity of our election process and the confidence of the people by rejecting this contrived outcome, they continued. We cannot expect our republic to continue if we are willing to compromise the very safeguards put in place through state laws and our Constitution.

The failure of Congress to certify the results of these aforementioned states will allow an up-or-down vote of Congress to preserve our republic from the clear and present danger of the theft of our election system. When that vote in Congress arises, we are asking you to vote for the Trump/Pence ticket, the letter concludes.

Louisiana worked hard to protect election integrity, state Rep. Beryl Amedee said in a statement. For Congress to casually certify election results from states where blatant fraud was tolerated is offensive and unacceptable.

State Rep. Valarie Hodges said in a statement: Whether you are Democrat or Republican, honesty in the election booth should matter. The integrity of elections must be preserved if we are to remain a free nation. Every disenfranchised voter should contact their congressman and senators immediately.

We will never have another free or fair election if the fraud is not addressed now, state Rep. Kathy Edmonston said in a statement. Trust is destroyed in the system.

The six states noted in the state representatives letter are among the seven states where Republican electors in December cast alternative votes for President Donald Trump, even though Biden was certified as the winner in the states. Republican parties of the states said the dueling votes were cast to preserve Trumps legal challenges.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and about 40 House GOP lawmakers have announced they would challenge the Electoral College votes on Jan. 6 due to alleged election fraud and irregularities. The challenge could lead to several hours of debate during the session.
Emily Mieure covers criminal justice and emergency news. She also leads the News&Guides investigative efforts. She has reported for WDRB TV in Louisville, Ky., WFIE TV in Evansville, Ind., and WEIU TV in Charleston, Ill.
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New Delhi:

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor today filed a civil defamation suit against Arnab Goswami and his newly-launched news channel Republic TV in the Delhi High Court claiming damages and compensation of Rs 2 crore for allegedly making defamatory remarks against him while airing news relating to the death of his wife Sunanda Pushkar.



The Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram has also sought a direction from the high court to restrain the TV channel from broadcasting any show relating to the death of his wife till the investigation is completed by the Delhi Police.



The Congress leader, in his lawsuit, has made Goswami and Arg Outlier Media Asianet News Private Limited, the company which owns Republic TV, as parties.

Also Read | Sunanda Pushkar murder case: Shashi Tharoor says, I have nothing to hide



He has referred to the broadcasting of news items from May 8 to 13 when the TV channel claimed to air an expose connected to the death of his wife.



The lawsuit filed through advocates Muhammad Ali Khan and Gaurav Gupta denounced the news, claiming that the recordings were released in a sensational manner so as to appease the viewers and created a non-existing controversy by maligning his public life and public image.



"It is not out of place to say that defendants (Goswami and TV channel) broadcast news reports and alleged expose' which were intended to lead the viewers to believe that the deceased was murdered either by plaintiff (Tharoor) or at the instance of the plaintiff.



"Such a broadcast clearly has the potential of adversely impacting the ongoing investigation into the death of the deceased," the plea said, while seeking to restrain from "maligning and defaming him in any manner" by reporting or broadcasting the news relating to the death of Pushkar.



Responding to the suit, Goswami alleged Tharoor wants to stop his channel from finding out the truth in the Sunanda Pushkar case.



"My response is that it is a matter of great concern that Tharoor wants to block a TV channel from finding out the truth about who killed his wife," he told PTI in Mumbai.



"In fact, he should be more concerned about finding the truth. And it is he who should be asking questions about why the investigations have been so shoddy, rather than block the channels trying to finding out the truth," he said.



According to Tharoor, Goswami earlier as the editor-in- chief with another TV news channel had aired such news, which was restrained by the National Broadcasting Standards Authority.



In the lawsuit, he was entitled to Rs 2 crore damage and compensation "for having suffered humiliation and having suffered severe loss of reputation in the eyes of the public and he has baselessly been declared by the defendants as the alleged murderer of his late wife".



He stated that the police is probing into the matter and has also lodged an FIR.



"It is pertinent to mention that the Delhi Police took statements from a number of people, including him," the suit said, adding that during the probe not a single allegation has been made by the investigating authorities against the MP.



Sunanda was found dead in a suite of a five star hotel in South Delhi on the night of January 17, 2014.

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New Delhi, Jan 2 : Two BSES contractual employees have been arrested by Delhi Police as they tried to extort money from a shop owner in Malviya Nagar after telling him that his electricity meter was tampered and would attract a fine of Rs 3.5 lakh.

Later they demanded Rs 35,000 to settle the case and threatened to implicate the complainant in a legal case if the money was not paid.

During the course of investigation, the BSES officials were contacted and it was revealed that the matter of extortion had already come to the notice of vigilance officers of BSES. Therefore, a police team and vigilance staff of BSES asked the complainant to call the accused for the settlement of the matter.

The accused were called to receive the extortion money at the house of complainant. Accordingly, a trap was laid along with the officials of BSES Vigilance and later the two came there and one of them received the money and kept it in his pocket.

"Immediately, the joint staff swung into action and successfully arrested the duo who were later identified as Shahil Goyal and Tarun Suri," said Atul Thakur, DCP-South Delhi.

Further investigation of the case is under progress to ascertain if the duo had indulged in similar offences earlier as well.
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A traffic stop about an hour east of the Florida-Alabama line Wednesday led to two men facing human trafficking charges, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said.

Sitting in Santa Rosa County jail, each with a bond of $1.1 million, are 39-year-old Frank Moreno of Odessa, Texas, and 21-year-old Jackson Perez-Godinez of Guatemala. Each faces two counts of engaging in human trafficking for labor or servitude on a child under 18 years old and smuggling an illegal individual into the state.

When a Santa Rosa County Sheriffs Office deputy stopped Moreno on Interstate 10 to discuss a moving violation, FDLE said, the deputy spotted signs of human trafficking. Eventually, FDLE agents were called in and the agency says the deputies and agents discovered two Guatemalan boys who had been smuggled into the country through Mexico.

Investigators believe the boys were trafficked into the United States for forced labor, FDLE Said. According to the victims, their families each paid more than $1,000 to be smuggled into America. Each teen was told they had to work to pay off additional travel debt. Agents believe the men were taking the boys to different cities in Central and South Florida.

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Gardai are to exhume the remains of an unidentified man who washed up on Tullaghan strand, at the northernmost point of Co Leitrim, in May 1986 in a bid to solve a 34-year-old mystery.

The body was later buried in Manorhamilton and an exhumation of the remains is due to take place this month under the supervision of detectives from the Garda Missing Persons Bureau, according to a report in the Irish Independent.

It is hoped that advances in forensic science, in particular DNA identification, could help investigators to finally identify the man. The man is believed to have drowned and no foul play is suspected.

The body, which was discovered shortly after 10am on May 1, 1986, is thought to have been in the water for some time.

Despite being very badly decomposed, a number of distinctive tattoos, located on both arms, could provide vital clues as to the identity of the man. A tattoo of the word Eire was found on the upper left arm while the right arm had a green shamrock alongside a dagger and a scabbard.

The man was found with no upper body clothing but was wearing Wrangler brand jeans with a belt that had a silver buckle with a dog on it.

A post-mortem was carried out prior to burial in Manorhamilton, but no DNA profile was obtained.

It is now hoped that an exhumation will allow experts in the field of forensic science to piece together further clues about who the man is.

In a statement to the Irish Independent, the Department of Justice confirmed that a ministerial order for the exhumation had been granted by Justice Minister Helen McEntee under Section 47 of the Coroners Acts. This followed a request from the Coroner for Co Leitrim for the exhumation, for the purposes of DNA retrieval.
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No avail! Indian security forces foil attempts by Pakistan to revive terror

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Jan 02: The sustained interrogation of a terrorist has led the security agencies to a hideout, which is being used as an infiltration route into India from Pakistan.

During the questioning, it was revealed that the Pakistan based terrorists are trying to revive terrorism in the Jammu division and for this they are using routes that were abandoned years back. This is now a cause of concern for the security agencies, as terrorism had been wiped out in the division for almost a decade.

IGP, Mukesh Singh said that on Friday, the security forces had recovered a large cache of weapons n the Mahore area of Reasi district Jammu. A 9 mm pistol, 5 grenades and ammunition were recovered from the terror hideout, Singh also said.

Security forces bust The Resistance Front module in J&K

This comes in the backdrop of Pakistani troops dropping a cache of weapons with the help of drones in the Rajouri sector. Three terrorists from South Kashmir who had travelled to collect the ammunition were arrested. During the operation, 2 AK-56 rifles, six AK magazines with 180 bullets, two Chinese pistols, three pistol magazines with 30 rounds, four grenades and Rs 1 lakh in cash were recovered.

The Pakistan based terrorists have been making several attempts to infiltrate into Jammu and Kashmir, but a majority of them have been foiled. Sources tell OneIndia that these terrorists are now trying to use the abandoned routes to make fresh infiltration bids. However these attempts have been foiled and these routes are under tight scrutiny, the source also said.

There are desperate attempts being made by the ISI backed terrorists to revive terror in the Jammu region. However the security forces had last week foiled an attempt when Raees Ahmed Dar and Sabzar Ahmed were arrested on the bypass while trying to smuggle an AK rifle, a pistol and ammunition that they were carrying in a car. In another operation one Mohammad Ashraf was arrested with two live grenades from near the military station in Sunjwan.

These developments come in the wake of Pakistan increasingly trying to use Chinese commercial drones to push arms into India. Last week. A drone was detected by the troops of the Border Security Force in the Chandu Wadala area of Gurdaspur in Punjab.

When the drone was fired upon it returned to the Pakistan side, officials said. This comes close on the heels of the security forces seizing 11 hand grenades suspected to have been deployed by a drone flying in from Pakistan into Gurdaspur.

The ordinance factory made drones from Pakistan were used to send in the grenades. The consignment of Arges Type HG-84 series grenades were packed in a plastic box. This is the 8th instance of ammunition being smuggled from across the border.

The Intelligence Bureau had cautioned security officials about the ISI's moves to upgrade newer versions of the drones from China.

11 Pakistan-made grenades seized as Indian security forces fire shots

Earlier this month, BSF, Director General Rakesh Asthana, spoke about the challenges posed by drones that are being used by Pakistan. At the raising day event of the force on Tuesday, Asthana said that the BSF had intercepted a drone with huge payload of weapons and ammunition in Jammu's Kathua on June 20.

He said that the BSF is working to find technical solutions to counter-drone infiltrations on the western border.

Vaccines to be provided for free across India, says health min | Oneindia News

In the past couple of months, the Intelligence Bureau has raised concerns about Pakistan using bigger drones to smuggle in arms and ammunition in Jammu and Kashmir.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Saturday, January 2, 2021, 12:25 [IST]
Dean Wells has revealed some new details about the upcoming Married At First Sight reunion episode.

Speaking to The Wash's Justin Hill, the 42-year-old admitted that filming 'got ridiculous' as many of his co-stars clashed over petty social media spats.

'Some of the participants, I wont name any names on here, acted like absolute muppets and made fools of themselves,' he said.

Outspoken: Dean Wells has revealed some new details about the upcoming Married At First Sight reunion episode

'Some of the participants, I wont name any names on here, acted like absolute muppets and made fools of themselves,' he continued.

'Some people are just really angry people, its who they are. They still hold grudges over things that happened years ago.'

Dean admitted that Nasser Sultan 'was the front of most of the anger' for how much he's trolled the other MAFS participants on social media over the years.

Drama: Speaking to The Wash's Justin Hill, the 42-year-old admitted that filming 'got ridiculous' as many of his co-stars clashed over petty social media spats

'I try not to pick on anybody, but Nasser brings it upon himself,' he revealed.

'Hes publicly attacked me time and time again, so I gave it back to him. Its going to be good TV.'

Nasser dramatically quit the Married At First Sight reunion special after an explosive clash with Cyrell Paule last month.

'Some people are just really angry people, its who they are. They still hold grudges over things that happened years ago,' Dean said. (Pictured: Cyrell Paule)

During filming, the reality star stormed out of the Lilyfield warehouse where filming was underway, before collecting his belongings and leaving his nearby hotel.

Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Australia after his exit, Nasser said he came to blows with Cyrell, before the dinner party of co-stars turned on him.

He revealed that the confrontation led to an out-of-control clash that sent producers scrambling to halt filming before he left the venue in anger.

He's out: Nasser dramatically quit the Married At First Sight reunion special after an explosive clash with Cyrell last month

Nasser claims the argument arose when Cyrelle demanded an apology from him for 'trolling her baby' while she was pregnant - referring to Boston, her now 10-month-old son with Love Island star Eden Dally.

'She wanted me to me to apologise. She said I'm a troll. That I trolled her when she was pregnant. Which there's no way I did,' Nasser said, his luggage in tow.

The Married At First Sight all-stars special is set to air on January 21, 2021
Civil Court Rejects Kangana Ranaut's Plea; States There Had Been 'Grave Violation' Of Sanctioned Plan

Actor Kangana Ranaut violated the sanctioned plan while merging her three flats, a civil court here has remarked while rejecting her plea seeking to restrain the Mumbai civic body from demolishing the unauthorized construction. A court in suburban Dindoshi dismissed an application filed by Ranaut last week. The detailed order became available on Thursday.

Judge L S Chavan noted in the order that Ranaut, who owns threeflats on the fifth floor of a 16-storey building in Khar area of the city, merged them into one. In doing so, she covered thesunkarea, duct area, common passage and converted freeFloor Space Index (FSI) intohabitable area, the judge observed. "These are grave violation of the sanctioned plan for which the permission of the competent authority is required," the court said.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had in March 2018 issued a notice to the actor for "unauthorized constructions" at her Khar flats. Another notice asked her to restorethe structure to its original position as per the original plan, warning that otherwise the unauthorized portion will be demolished.

Ranaut challenged the demolition notice and also requested the court to restrain the civic body fromcarrying out demolition. The court had then ordered status-quo. In the latest order on December 23 judge Chavan rejected the actor's application, sayingthe "interference ofthis court is not required". However, the court has given her six weeks to approach the Bombay High Court against the order.

On September 9, the BMC had demolished parts of Ranaut's bungalow in the Pali Hill area for alleged "unauthorized" construction. She moved the HC against it. The high court later termed the BMC's action as illegal and malicious.
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Udayangas Ukraine project puts tourism sectors comprehensive plan in abeyance By Namini Wijedasa View(s): View(s):

On December 9 last year, the tourism regulator was made aware that Udayanga Weeratunga Sri Lankas former Ambassador to Russia who now gives his official address as Temple Trees, Colombo 3intended to bring a large number of Ukrainians to the country as a pilot project.

The Health Ministry had not even issued protocols for tourism at the time the information came. The Ukrainian project effectively overrode the plans Sri Lanka Tourism and the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) had to open the sector in stages, while offering opportunities to a broader spectrum of service providers. They had even mapped the global COVID-19 situation to target tourists accordingly (starting with low-risk, which Ukraine is not). It was to be a methodical, transparent process.

But the rug has been pulled from under their feet. Now, there will be 12 flights in total, all from Ukrainian capital, Kiev, starting on December 28. The last one was scheduled for January 24. The first landed at the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (MRIA) on December 28 with 180 passengers. The second one came the following day with 204 passengers and there was one yesterday with 172 passengers. Nine more flights are due, three of them next week.

The Health Ministrys first set of protocols maintained the mandatory quarantine period at 14 days. But the Tourism Ministry issued a new set, less comprehensive, on December 27the day before the first flight from Ukraineslashing this period to seven days. It was also provided for tourists to undergo PCR tests at the hotel when it was earlier required to be done at the airport.

Both guidelines did have provision for the tourists to participate in excursions to Health Ministry-approved, identified locations in a bio-secure bubble. They were not to have contact with locals. All sites, including Sigiriya, would be closed to Sri Lankans during specified time slots to facilitate this.

This project was approved not because Ukraine, with its high rate of COVID-19 infections, was the best option for the country. It was because Mr Weeratunga had pulled the strings. And this was not how the tourism sectormost of whom are now afraid to express themselves openly because of the former Ambassadors ties to the President, the Prime Minister and other Rajapaksa relatives in Governmenthad envisioned a return to business.

Just week after the pandemic shut down Sri Lankas travel and tourism sector, the industry regulator started working on a comprehensive plan to prepare the country to receive international visitors again.

This included drawing up a comprehensive set of tourism operational guidelines with health protocols. Sri Lanka Tourism and the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) then rolled these out to the industry and called on service providers to be compliant. Everything was covered from entry procedure, airport processes and transfers to internal travel, accommodation, cafes, restaurants and beach vendors.

More than 14 awareness seminars were carried out. Some companies spent considerable sums upgrading or changing their facilities, adjusting their practices and introducing standards to ensure they were ready to receive tourists in the post-COVID era. SLTDA then commissioned KPMG to carry out audits.

The regulator studiously processed applications for Safe and Secure certification before sending them to KPMG. If the auditor was satisfied with responses to a written questionnaire, an onsite visit was scheduled. And if more than five major shortcomings were identified, the hotel would fail. Certification would be granted after these were rectified.

Since the start of the process, 101 hotels have passed the test. The Health Ministrys original guidelines mandated that tourists shall only be accommodated at these Safe and Secure certified hotels. With Mr Weeratungas intervention, this was changed to also include other hotels approved by the Health.

In total, there are 21 hotels proposed for the pilot. They are in Ahungalla, Dambulla, Bentota, Beruwala, Habarana, Kalutara, Kandy, Kirinde, Sigiriya,Tangalle and Yala. Industry sources said they had been prevailed upon to significantly slash prices. Several of them have not been audited and certified.

SLTDA also introduced a tourism mobile app to ensure, among other things, that hotels were prepaid for the full quarantine period stipulated by the Health Ministry (14 days); that the cost of PCR tests and COVID-19 insurance premium would be recovered; and that advance information on hotel bookings would be provided to district level health officers. This app is still with Cabinet for approval.

Even till the last hour, tourism authorities did not receive written confirmation of the travel programme from travel agents or hotels. But as the regulator, SLTDA would be responsible if health and safety protocols were broken. The information was only received after considerable pressure, travel sector sources said.

Tourism Minister Prasanna Ranatunga said yesterday that every measure was being taken to prevent the tourists from coming into contact with the community. They travel as a group wherever they go and will not be exposed to any civilians, he vowed. They are always under supervision.

The Sri Lankans that do deal with themincluding drivers, tour guides and service staffwill be quarantined for the mandatory 14 days and subject to PCRs, he said. It was not immediately clear whether Mr Weeratunga, who was seen at the airport in close contact with the first group of Ukrainians, is now in quarantine. He did not answer his phone.

Large contingents of military have been deployed to escort and monitor the tourists. There is even a separate toilet bus which travels with them.

The SLTDA also requested the presence of their own officers with them so that gaps can be identified and corrected (as it is, after all, a pilot project). They were present at the hotels in protective gear, giving on-the-spot feedback where necessary. The key is to ensure the virus, if present, does not go out into the community.

Irrespective of who they are, as Sri Lankans who love the country, all of us want to see its done correctly, a tourism official said, requesting anonymity.

It is doubly important to ensure there are no problems to worsen the situation in a country in the midst of a rampant second wave, as Sri Lanka now is.

But the tour organisers are actively resisting all efforts to implement the protocols strictly, even blaming the authorities for the possibility of bookings being cancelled over these requirements. That is rich, observed industry sources, considering that only minimum standards are now being applied.

UN reports damns Ukraine

authorities handling of COVID A week before the first batch of Ukraine tourists landed in the country, a damning UN report was released by the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) detailing how Ukrainian authorities failed to take adequate measures to slowdown the spread of the pandemic in the country.As in many other parts of the world, the report said in Ukraine, the COVID-19 crisis exacerbated patterns of discrimination, exclusion and inequalities that existed before the pandemic, and exposed existing weaknesses in the healthcare and social protection sectors.Conflict-affected populations, older persons and persons with disabilities, in particular those living in institutions, and homeless persons have been identified as the most vulnerable to the effects of the COVID-19 crisis. The pandemic also created new vulnerabilities, affecting the lives of thousands of healthcare workers involved in COVID-19 response, the vast majority of whom are women, the report concluded. The report also found that measures taken by Ukrainian authorities to slow the spread of COVID-19 are inadequate and failing to protect public health. It also stressed that the measures also are worsening the hardships faced by people living in the conflict-affected areas in eastern Ukraine. As of today, Ukraine recorded 19, 281 COVID-19 related deaths with over a million cases.
The Purchase of the site for St Michaels House Special School near Loughshinny needs to go ahead said Local Skerries Cllr Tom Oleary

He said: 'I contacted Leader of the Seanad Senator Regina Doherty on this matter this week after I received concerned representation on the issue locally.

'The sale has been agreed a long time ago. The actual process is now ongoing for four years.

'It's now time for this to finish and move to the next stage.'

Cllr O'Leary explained: 'A formal planning application should be made for the new school including 16 classrooms with two additional ASD classes, additional office for Deputy Principal, nurse's office, additional Multi-Sensory Room and Home Economics Room.'

He added: 'I urge The Department of Education , The Chief States Solicitors Office and Fingal Council to work hard and expeditiously with a sense of urgency to process any outstanding small legal queries and close the sale on this sit so St Michaels House special pupils and excellent staff can look forward to a new modern state of the art school as soon as possible.'

As reported in last week's Fingal Independent, Senator Regina Doherty raised the issue with Minister Jospepha Madigan in the Seanad recently.

The Minister for Special Education and Inclusion Jospeha Madigan has undertaken to monitor closely the progress of this new school project.

Cllr O'Leary said: 'I commend the great work of the Principal of the school and the board in working positively and constructively on the design of the new school with the Department of Education and Science.

'I will continue to press for a formal planning application for the new school in quarter one of two of 2021.'

Fingal Independent
John Minchillo / Associated Press

NEW HAVEN  Another 104 deaths from the coronavirus were tallied over the last 48-hour reporting period, bringing the total in the state during the pandemic to 6,099, Gov. Ned Lamont said Saturday.

There were 4,412 confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 reported since Thursday, bringing the total in the state to 190,120, according to Lamonts office.
When naturalist Justin Legge was a young boy growing up in Ashland, Ore., there was an oak tree in his front yard that he used to climb. Even now, at 32, he can remember exactly the way the ants smelled when he squished them against the tree.



Do you have a memory in your brain about a tree, from when you were young? asks Legge.



There was a time I took my shirt off, climbed into a tree with a bunch of boys and got all scraped up, but that feels weird to mention, so instead, I say I have forgotten most of childhood, which is also true.

Were walking from Elk Meadow Cabins, where Legge works as the manager of the lodgings and attached Redwood Adventures tour business, through a clearing and toward a creek and forestland on the outskirts of Redwood National and State Parks. It's Legges standard introduction, an attempt to call to mind our visceral childhood memories involving trees. He uses it every time he guides forest bathing.



For the uninitiated, forest bathing  or shinrin-yoku, as its Japanese creators call it  is a process of taking in the forest through the senses. Breathing it. Smelling it. Feeling it. Watching it. The practice got started in the 1980s as a way to combat high rates of suicide among Japans working class; today, spending time on certified therapy trails is considered medical treatment, and scientists are studying it around the world.

Ashley Harrell

I had read that forest bathing had certain health benefits, like boosting immunity, reducing anxiety and lowering blood pressure, but wasnt sure how reliable that was. Susan Abookire, a doctor who works as an assistant professor for Harvard Medical School (and also guides forest bathing) admits that more data is needed. Its all fairly small studies and a lot of them did not happen in the United States, says Abookire. But a key benefit, she says, is breathing in phytoncides, which stimulate the production of certain white blood cells that fight tumors and viruses.

Abookire is careful not to oversell the science at this point, and really its just something you have to experience, she says. Thats part of why shes designed two new curriculums for internal medicine residents that incorporate forest therapy.

Under normal circumstances, if somebody told me they could guide me in breathing near trees, it would set off my bullshit detector. In booking an $85 forest therapy session for the day before the election, though, I was hoping to distract myself with something out of the ordinary, something benign.



Your main focus is to achieve nothing and to think about nothing, and to clear your mind and focus on whats around you, Legge explains. And actually thats harder than most people realize.



On a usual hike, a human spends a lot of time thinking about things like: What time is it? How far do I have to go? Wheres my water bottle? Is that a tick? Legge says. There are so many things that our monkey minds are over-analyzing and freaking out about all the time.



So thats basically why you need a guide, he says, which actually surprised him, too, back when he first got into this. Legge studied outdoor recreation in college and has worked for the Forest Service in Lake Tahoe, in addition to holding jobs as an educator and a guide and facilitating groups. Hes an emergency medical technician and a wilderness first responder.

Ashley Harrell

Why do I need a piece of paper that says Im a forest therapy guide? he wondered before going through the training with the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy. I was the person saying, 'You dont need that! Who cares! Whatever!'



Against his better judgment, Legge attended the training, a seven-day trip into the Eastern Sierras last October. He says he emerged with a new set of new forest friends and a brand new body of knowledge, and became the first and only certified forest bathing guide in Humboldt County.



This is a standardized method that flips specific psychological switches; it basically always works, Legge says. The goal of a forest therapy program is to exit our normal consciousness  to exit the human world.



Legge is quirky and dramatic, but hes also incredibly knowledgeable about Redwood National and State Parks. He cares deeply about providing visitors with an experience that is as fun as it is educational. If I were going to try this unusual practice, I was pleased to have someone a bit eccentric to guide me through.



When we reach the forested area, Legge has us sit comfortably on mats, anywhere we want as long as we can hear him, and close our eyes. He offers a reminder that he is not a therapist. I am a guide. The forest is a therapist, he says. I would like to introduce you to this amazing therapist. She knows some pretty good stuff.

He gives us a series of invitations, which we are welcome to accept or ignore. There are no requirements, no correct answers, no prizes, no wrong way to do this.



Ill invite you to just take some deep breaths. In through your nose, he says. Just normal breaths, noticing what the sensation of breathing feels like.



He speaks slowly, deliberately.



Noticing right now, you are sitting, he says. Wonder what it feels like to be sitting.



Suddenly, the wind picks up and blows a few strands of hair onto my face. I can hear the traffic of the nearby highway, which, according to Legge, is ideal. Forest bathing doesn't happen in deep wilderness, he says. The Japanese designed the practice to take place at the edge of the forest, the satoyama, as they call it.



This is a way to begin seeing the human world as part of nature, rather than something separate. It also makes forest bathing accessible to anyone who can find a tree, or even an ocean, which apparently also works.

Ashley Harrell

Legge asks us to shift our weight from side to side. To notice the sensation of our bare skin, feeling the air, feeling the wind. To touch the Earth. To rub dirt on a finger and smell it. I wonder where the smell might take you.



I havent exactly been taken anywhere, but I do notice that Im starting to relax. To slow down. After a few more invitations, Legge has us stand, facing any direction we like. He asks us to report what we are noticing, just in a few words.



The pull of the sun, and its warmth, I find myself saying.



The next invitation  which can sometimes feel uncomfortable, Legge warns  is to simply walk slowly and notice whats in motion. Were allowed to go off-trail or wherever we want. There are no right or wrong answers. Legge will hoot like an owl to indicate that we should meet him back in the original spot.



I start to amble along the path, taking note of how the strands of spider webs twitch with the breeze. Bugs and translucent fibers from dead thistles float by, while maple leaves drift from branches and plop into the creek. Speckled light is coming through the trees whose shadows are dancing on each others trunks.



A bee lands on a leaf and takes off again, and I am fully present to witness it. In this moment, according to me, there is no United States president.



How you should be feeling is childish, Legge says after hooting us back to the circle. He then tells us to find a sit spot, maybe near a tree, maybe beside the creek. We sit for an undisclosed period of time, continuing to observe nature and remain in the moment. If our minds wander, we ask ourselves: What am I noticing? What is happening in front of me.



The minutes pass quickly as I gaze upon the creek, studying how the ripples move out when the leaves hit the surface. The only times I can remember watching something like this  and remaining interested for so long  all involve mind-altering substances.



I have to admit it  my state of mind is altered. Ive departed the human world.



When Legge calls us back, he unveils a Himalayan blackberry concoction for a tea ceremony, a taking of the forest into our bodies. Its been used since the times of the Greek army, he tells us, and is particularly great because the species is invasive. Eat your invasives! he says.

Ashley Harrell

As were walking back toward Elk Meadow Cabins, he starts talking about how forest bathing helped him.



Before the training he says, he used to worry all the time about how humans would destroy the Earth. He hated that so many redwoods were cut down, and are continuously cut down  which he still considers a huge problem, of course  and also the sound of the highway through Redwood National and State Parks.



But forest bathing helped me have these epiphanies about this land, he says. I have now fallen in love with the human artery that cuts through the park. I have realized, humans cannot overcome the Earth. The forest cannot be destroyed or defeated. Humans might be, but for now were part of this, and we cant escape it.

We love California's parks just as much as you do, so we're launching a newsletter that covers them top to bottom - sign up here.
(Natural News) When President Trump signed the $2.3 trillion COVID-19 relief bill on Sunday, it kicked off a 180-day countdown for the Pentagon and other agencies to disclose everything they know about UFOs.

This provision was largely overlooked in the focus on stimulus checks and extended unemployment, partly because it was not part of the actual text of the 5,593-page legislation. Instead, it appeared as a committee comment that was attached to the yearly Intelligence Authorization Act that was rolled inside the bill.

In the comment, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Senator Marco Rubio directs the [director of national intelligence], in consultation with the Secretary of Defense and the heads of such other agencies  to submit a report within 180 days of the date of enactment of the Act, to the congressional intelligence and armed services committees on unidentified aerial phenomena.

The report must discuss observed airborne objects that have not been identified, along with detailed analysis of unidentified phenomena data collected by a.) geospatial intelligence; b.) signals intelligence; c.) human intelligence; and d.) measurement and signals intelligence.

The committee said the report should also include a detailed analysis of FBI data derived from investigations of any unidentified aerial phenomena found over restricted air space and an assessment of whether such activity could be related to foreign adversaries.

The New York Post reports that former legislative and Pentagon officials have confirmed that the package begins a countdown on UFO-related disclosures. A Defense Department spokesperson acknowledged that the committee requires such a report.

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Chris Mellon told The Debrief: Assuming the Executive Branch honors this important request, the nation will at long last have an objective basis for assessing the validity of the issue and its national security implications. This is an extraordinary and long overdue opportunity.

Mellon, who was also a staff director for the Senate Intelligence Committee, added that concerns by military personnel and the public have been ignored by a complacent national security bureaucracy for far too long.

Just how forthcoming will the report be?

Some experts have expressed skepticism about just how forthcoming the report will be. Nick Pope of the UK Ministry of Defence said that there are questions about how much will ever be made public due to the highly classified nature of such occurrences, but he conceded that it was a positive step nevertheless.

In April, the Department of Defense declassified three UFO videos and acknowledged the footage was taken by pilots for the U.S. Navy. One was recorded in 2004 and the others were recorded in 2015. After determining the footage did not reveal sensitive capabilities or systems, the DoD released the videos.

In a statement, the department said they were releasing the videos to clear up public misconceptions about the validity of the videos and admitted the aerial phenomena they contained remains unidentified.

In one clip, a dark circular object can be seen flying in front of a jet. A second video shows a small object racing above land at a dizzying speed, while the third shows a circular object that speeds before slowing down and getting closer to the pilots camera. The trio of videos have been widely circulated among UFO research groups.

When discussing the creation of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force earlier this year, Senator Rubio said: We have things flying over our military bases and places where we are conducting military exercises and we dont know what it is  and it isnt ours.

He added that it would be preferable for the task force to find that the aircraft was from somewhere beyond Earth rather than other nations here that could be threatening the U.S.

Frankly, that if its something from outside this planet  that might actually be better than the fact that weve seen some technological leap on behalf of the Chinese or the Russians or some other adversary that allows them to conduct this activity, he said.

Sources for this article include:

DailyWire.com

NYPost.com
Mumbai Police often tweets witty and creative advisory posts that leave people amused. Their posts never fail to create buzz online. The same is happening again but this time due a reply they shared while answering a question of a Twitter user.

It all started with a post that the department shared on December 31. They tweeted the giggle-inducing advisory post to remind people about the necessity to ensure safety on New Years Eve.

Single and ready to mingle but ONLINE, they tweeted and shared this image:

Expectedly, the post accumulated tons of responses. Among them was a reply where a person asked, What if I reach her place by 11pm and stay there overnight? In case youre unaware, on the particular day a night curfew was imposed in Mumbai between 11 pm to 6 am.

To answer the Twitter users question, Mumbai Police came up with an apt and to the point reply. Heres what they shared:

We hope you have taken her consent else we have an alternate accommodation for the night in mind for you! #ConsentMatters #SafetyFirstOn31st https://t.co/nKbdA64rOF  Mumbai Police (@MumbaiPolice) December 31, 2020

Mumbai Polices response soon captured peoples attention. Applauding the reply, they shared various comments.

   Ravi Dubey 1 (@_ravidubey) December 31, 2020

I always said that the team behind Mumbai police Twitter handle is   Erfaan Andrabi  (@AndraabiIrfan) December 31, 2020

Hahaha.. free accommodation with Bharpoor Seva till morning like Jamai. If you get permission to stay more from the Family Head called Court then it will be extended for another 2 weeks. Enjoy...  swapnil ughade (@swapnil_ughade) December 31, 2020

 kudos to guy handling Mumbai Police Twitter account   Vivek (@_vksingh_) December 31, 2020

What do you think of the exchange?

Also Read | Mumbai police shares hilarious posts on New Years Eve celebration ideas
The Center for the Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) declared the 28 provinces, including the capital Bangkok , as areas under maximum control from January 4 to February 1, to stem a further spread of the virus, reports Xinhua news agency.

Bangkok, Jan 2 (IANS) Twenty-eight provinces of Thailand will be put under maximum control as Covid-19 cases have continued to spike, health officials announced on Saturday.

While addressing a daily briefing, CCSA's spokesperson Taweesin Visanuyothin also reported 216 new cases of infection, of which 214 are domestic ones and two others from quarantine facilities.

The spokesperson said there was one new death, bring the total death toll in the country to 64.

Bangkok on Friday ordered temporary closure of the city's venues including schools, stadiums and amusement parks for at least two weeks.

The total number of confirmed infections in Thailand stands at 7,379 currently, with 4,299 recoveries and 64 deaths.

A total of 3,016 patents are being treated in hospitals.

--IANS

ksk/
Following accounts of potential allergies to the COVID-19 vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, scientists have outlined steps on safely receiving the second dose of the therapeutic in individuals who develop a reaction to their first dose.

The research, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice, summarised what is currently known about allergic reactions to vaccines like those developed against COVID-19.

In the study, a team of experts led by allergists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in the US, proposed detailed advice so that individuals with different allergy histories can safely receive their COVID-19 vaccine.

After closer review of the data related to allergic reactions, the US FDA recommended that the mRNA vaccines, based on the genetic material of the novel coronavirus, be withheld only from individuals with a history of severe allergic reactions to any component of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also advised that all patients be observed for 15 minutes post-vaccination by staff who can identify and manage such reactions.

In the review research, Aleena Banerji, MD, clinical director of the Allergy and Clinical Immunology Unit at MGH and her colleagues outlined steps on safely receiving the second dose in individuals who develop a reaction to the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

"Our guidelines are built upon the recommendations of US regulatory agencies and provide clear steps to the medical community on how to safely administer both doses of the vaccine in individuals with allergic histories," Banerji said.

According to the experts, allergic reactions to vaccines are rare, with a rate of about 1.3 per 1 million people.

They said the mRNA vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna will have a similarly low rate of occurrence of allergic reactions.

The researchers recommend that individuals with a history of anaphylaxis to an injectable drug, or vaccines containing polyethylene glycol or polysorbate speak with their allergists before being vaccinated.

Banerji and her co-authors also suggested that vaccine clinics monitor all patients for 15 to 30 minutes to manage any allergic reactions that occur.

They said even patients with severe allergies to foods, oral drugs, latex, or venom can safely receive the COVID-19 vaccines.

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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Vikings season 6B has finally premiered on December 30 on Amazon Prime Video, and it left a lot of questions looming involving a variety of situations the main characters go through. One of them actually thinks they encounter a goddess at one point.

Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers from Vikings]

Historys Vikings ship at San Diego Comic Con | Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for HISTORY

Ivar and Hvitserk return to Kattegat

In season 6, fans will recall that Ivar (Alex Hgh Andersen) and Hvitserk (Marco Ils), allied themselves with Prince Oleg (Danila Kozlovsky). The Rus invaded Scandinavia and during the first wave of fighting, Bjorn Ironside (Alexander Ludwig) is stabbed by what appears to be Ivar (Even though hes supposed to be somewhere else entirely at the time). Although Bjorn dies, he first devises a plan to get the Rus to believe hes already dead. When they see him ride out on his horse very much still alive, it scares them. Bjorn is even shot with three arrows but still manages to unsheathe his sword. The Rus retreat when the people of Scandinavia (who have come to the aid of Bjorn) attack. Bjorn dies saving his country, and he is given a lavish burial.

Ivar and Hvitserk return to Kyiv to help overthrow Oleg with Price Dir (Lenn Kudrjawizki) and Igor (Oran Glynn ODonovan). Ivar convinces Igor to kill his uncle with an arrow, and he falls from a balcony and dies. When Ivar is sure that Igor is safe, the brothers choose to return to Kattegat. Surprisingly, King Harald (Peter Franzen) allows them to stay, and he even convinces the people about it. But at this point, its unclear what the brothers will do next.

Hvitserk believes he encounters a goddess

Marco Ils in Vikings | Jonathan Hession/History/A+E Networks

RELATED: Vikings Season 6B: Fans Predict What Could Happen in the Final Episodes

Hvitserk takes the time to say goodbye to Bjorn at his burial site. He talks to him about his mistakes in the past with drinking, abandoning Ubbe (Jordan Patrick Smith) and killing Lagertha (Katheryn Winnick). He asks Bjorn to put in a good word with the gods because he knows they arent fans of his, and he thinks they despise him.

A woman, who says her name is Idun, comes upon Hvitserk, and tells him not to think so unkindly of the gods. She tells him she knows all about him, and that she will spend tonight with him. When they go back to her place, Hvitserk tells her that he knows who she is.

Idun, Hvitserk says. The goddess blessed with eternal youth.

When Hvitserk tells her that Odin must have sent her, she says, Im not acting under orders. I watched you all your life, shared your joys, and your pain. And so I decided to appear to you as you deserve.

He asks her to stay with him, and she agrees, but only until the dawn. They go on to have an intimate encounter, and when Hvitserk wakes up the next morning, shes gone.

Based on everything she said and the fact that she had apples with her  in Norse mythology, Idun gives the other gods apples to keep them youthful  and the fact that her name is Idun, Hvitserk believes he meets a goddess. However, he never sees her again.

Hvitserk travels with Ivar back to Wessex, where hell stay. Ivar dies in battle against King Alfred (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) before telling Hvitserk to leave the thick of the fighting after soldiers recognize his brother as a son of Ragnar and try to kill him.. A Wessex soldier stabs Ivar multiple times and he seemingly allows it to happen. When he falls and hurts his leg, he dies in Hvitserks arms.

Hvitserk decides to convert to Christianity, which might be surprising to some fans considering his upbringing and the fact that he thinks he saw Idun back in Norway.
Ben Chafin, a Republican state senator representing southwest Virginia for the past seven years, died on Friday from COVID-19 complications.

The state senator had spent the previous two weeks at the VCU Medical Center Richmond, Virginia, where he was hospitalized with the deadly virus.

His passing was confirmed by his office, WJHL reported.

The 60-year-old leaves behind a wife and three adult children.

'With the passing of Senator Ben Chafin, Southwest Virginia has lost a strong advocateand we have all lost a good man,' Gov. Ralph Northam said in a statement.

'This is sad news to begin a new year with the loss of a kind and gracious man. May we all recommit to taking extra steps to care for one another.'

Virginia state Senator Ben Chafin passed away this week from COVID-19 complications

Pictured: Chafin poses for a picture with President Donald Trump during a campaign

Gov. Northam also ordered the state flag to be lowered and flown at half-staff as a tribute to Chafin.

Chafin served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates in 2013 before moving up to the state senate the following year.

He won reelection in 2019, with WJHL reporting Chafin won 64 percent of the vote in a preliminary count, while his opponent, independent George McCall, won just 34 percent of the vote.

He has represented a district that encompasses Bland, Buchanan, Dickenson, Russell, Tazewell, and Pulaski County, as well as parts of other counties.

'Senator Ben Chafin was a great legislator as well as a friend,' tweeted Rep. Morgan Griffith, who serves in the United States House of Representatives. 'As a native of SWVA, he cared deeply for its people and was a tremendous advocate for them in the state Senate. I will miss this good and dedicated public servant. My prayers are with his wife Lora and his family.'

Terry Gilgore, who serves in Virginia's House of Delegates, sent his condolences to the family

United Staets Rep. Morgan Griffith also took to Twitter in tribute to Ben Chafin

The Virginia GOP tweeted their condolences to the Chafin family as well

Chafin, who served in the state Senate since 2014, is survived by his wife and three children

'SWVA has lost a true leader. I am so sorry to lose my friend Senator Ben Chafin. Ben was a strong advocate for SWVA and a great Virginian. Pleas join me in lifting up Bens family in your prayers,' tweeted Terry Gilgore, who serves in Virginia's House of Delegates.

'Virginia has lost a great man, and we in the General Assembly have lost a good friend in Senator Ben Chafin. Our prayers are with his family,' tweeted the Virginia House Republican Caucus.

Prior to going into politics, Chafin worked as both an attorney and farmer, with the Bristol Herald Courier reporting Chafin started the Chafin Law Firm in 1986.

Like the rest of the country, Virginia has seen an uptick in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks

This week, the United States surpassed 20 million coronavirus cases

The Virginia Department of Health reports there have been 358,755 cases of coronavirus in the state, including nearly 4,000 new cases reported on New Year's Day.

The state has lost 5,117 people to the virus so far.

Chafin's death comes just days after Louisiana Congressman-elect Luke Letlow died, after spending ten days in the hospital with the virus.

Letlow, 41, had undergone surgery for a blood clot before he suffered a heart attack and died Tuesday, it has been revealed.

The Louisiana Republican House Representative-elect was being treated at Ochsner LSU Health in Shreveport, weeks after he spoke at GOP campaign events to maskless crowds.

His death sent shockwaves through the government and the nation given his age and that he had no underlying health conditions, as he became the first federally-elected official to die from the virus.

The United States has now surpassed 20 million total COVID-19 cases, with over 347,000 succumbing to the virus.
Superstar Shah Rukh Khan may not have officially announced his next movie project but on Saturday the actor assured his fans that they will get to see him on the big screen this year. Extending New Year wishes to his fans, the 55-year-old star, who was last seen in 'Zero', posted a over three-minute-long video and said he is looking forward to entertain the audience in cinema halls.

"I am late in conveying my wishes to all of you and I am sure everyone will agree 2020 has been the worst year for everybody. And in this awful times it is difficult to find a ray of hope, positivity. But I have a way of looking at bad, difficult days, awful years. I believe when one is at their lowest, bottomest (sic) of their life, the good thing is from here there is only one way to move that is upwards, higher and better places," Khan said.

The actor, who started shooting for his next film helmed by 'War' director Siddharth Anand in November last year, wished a bigger, better and brighter year to everyone.

The film, reportedly titled 'Pathan', is billed as an action-thriller. It is produced by Yash Raj Films. "See you all on the big screen in 2021," he concluded his message, without divulging details about his slate of upcoming films.

According to reports, the star is in talks with Rajkummar Hirani for a social comedy, south filmmaker Atlee for a potboiler, and 'Bharat' director Ali Abbas Zafar and director duo Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK of 'The Family Man' fame for separate films.
Lahore: Mumbai attack mastermind and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operations commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was arrested on Saturday in Pakistan on terror financing charges, an official said.

Lakhvi, who was on bail since 2015 in the Mumbai attack case, was arrested by the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of Punjab province.

However, the CTD did not reveal the place of his arrest.

"Following an intelligence-based operation conducted by the CTD Punjab, proscribed organisation LeT leader Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was arrested on charges of terrorism financing," it said.

It further said that Lakhvi, 61, was arrested in a case of terrorism financing registered in a police station of CTD Lahore.

"Lakhvi is accused of running a dispensary, using funds collected for terrorism financing. He and others also collected funds from this dispensary and used these funds for further terrorism financing. He also used these funds for personal expenses," the CTD said.

The CTD said that in addition to belonging to proscribed organisation LeT, Lakhvi is also a UN designated individual.

"His trial will be held before the Anti-Terrorism Court in Lahore," it added.

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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Chiara Luna was the first bouncing baby born in Malaga province and also the first born in Andalucia in 2021.

The little girl came into the world while the New Year bells were still ringing, just after midnight at the Malagas Hospital Materno Infantil.

Chiara weighed in at 3.5 kilogrammes, (7.5 lbs) and was born by natural childbirth. The girl is the second daughter of a Czech-Italian couple from Prague who have been living in Malaga for ten months.

We are very happy parents. Thank you very much to the entire hospital, " said her father, Jaroslav Janda.

The delivery was simple, said doctor Sofia Acosta who added they were not initially aware of the time of Chiaras arrival.

You don't look at your watch, we were in a very tense moment in which the priority is that the baby is born well.

The second child to be born on January 1, 2021 in Malaga province was Estefania, who made her appearance at 3.48am at the Costa del Sol hospital in Marbella weighing in 3,440 grammes and the third was at 6.46am, when Lara was born in the Antequera district. The little girl weighed 3,055 grammes. There were no births recorded in the hospitals of Ronda and Axarquia.

Across the rest of Andalucia, Oliver was the first to arrive in Almeria, being born at 00.01 am at the Poniente Hospital. At that same moment, the births of Pablo in the Virgen del Rocio in Seville and that of Candela in the Hospital de Jerez (Cadiz) were also recorded. Enzo, the first baby born in Cordoba at the Reina Sofia Hospital arrived at 12.30am and Rocio was born at the Virgen de las Nieves in Granada just before 1am.

Aura is the name of the first born in Jaen (1am), while in Huelva the first baby of the year took a little longer to arrive. His name is Antonio Sebastian.
THE cathaoirleach of the Adare/Rathkeale Municipal District has said hes speechless after it was confirmed that Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) refused to fund the installation of new storm drains in Adare during recent works to upgrade the sewage system in the village.

Cllr Adam Teskey made his comments during a discussion about the poor condition of some of the roads in Adare.

Calls have been made for several years to extend the footpath from the village as far of Murphys Cross on the Croagh side.

However, council officials have said TII will not fund any substantial resurfacing works until the Adare Bypass is completed.

Cllr Teskey said this is not acceptable and he called for TII representatives to travel to Adare to look at the condition of the road. It is a death trap and if we have to wait for the bypass to provide a footpath, there will be tombstones there first.

Cllr Stephen Keary agreed saying those living and working at that side of the village are entitled to have some level of proper accessibility.

At the same meeting, director of service Caroline Curley confirmed TII also declined to fund works to install storm drains at the same time as works which were carried earlier this year to upgrade the sewage network.

The overall overlay project had everything included in it and it was all going to be done together but the decision from TII was that it was not going to be funded until after the bypass happened so what was decided then was to put in the sewer, she said adding that the sewer was essential to allow the facilitate the construction of 31 new houses in Adare.

The alternative was that there would be no sewer laid until after the bypass, she added stressing that she did not believe there had been a waste of public funds.

However, Cllr Teskey said he strongly disagreed with that assertion.

Im speechless. We spent meeting after meeting, special meeting after special meeting, design after design trying our best to be prudent with public money and now we are being told in seven years it will be okay to dig it up, he said.

Senior Executive Engineer Aidan Finn said the storm drains will have to be installed 4 metres underground and that there will be significant disruption during the works.

He added that the resurfacing works which were completed after the installation of the sewer pipes was designed to last around seven years. There has been no bad management of public funds, he said.
Prison officers have shared more than 1.16m since 2018 in an allowance for having to deal with inmates at the country's high-security jail.

Officers in Portlaoise Prison are paid an "environmental allowance" due to the stressful working conditions at the jail.

According to figures from the Irish Prison Service, 317 officers earned 208,822 - or an average of 659 each - in the first half of last year.

In 2019, 330 prison officers were paid a combined total of 480,706 - or the equivalent of 1,456 each in the environmental allowance.

Altogether, 1.16m was paid throughout 2018, 2019, and the first half of last year.

The allowance was first introduced in 1982 as part of an agreement between prison bosses and the Prison Officers' Association to compensate for the "abnormal tension and strain" of working in Portlaoise Prison.

At the time, conditions at the prison were particularly difficult with a large number of republican paramilitary prisoners imprisoned there at the height of the Troubles.

The allowance is payable to all officers at the jail, including clerical staff based at the prison.

The payment was ceased in 2009 for officers newly transferred to the prison.

However, a civil service arbitration board later ruled it should be restored for all.

For staff that joined before April 1995, the payment works out at around 1,250 annually.

Contributions

For other prison officers who began service after that, the rate is slightly higher - because of higher pension contributions - and is paid at the rate of around 1,470 a year.

The Prison Officers' Association (POA) said the continued payment of the allowance was fully justified given the harsh pressures of working in Portlaoise.

The allowance goes back to the eighties and it has been subject to arbitration," said POA general secretary John Clinton.

"The type of prisoner you have there are paramilitaries or those involved in extremely serious crime, including gangland activity.

"We have nowhere else with these conditions - and that's recognised between ourselves and our employers."

Herald
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Footage from inside Mar-a-Lago's New Year's Eve bash showed Vanilla Ice performing to a crowd of hundreds of maskless partygoers as Don Trump Jr. boasted on social media that the rapper gave him a birthday shoutout.

Smartphone video posted online by the president's eldest son showed dozens of revelers packed in on the dancefloor - not social distancing or wearing masks - as Ice performed his hit song 'Ice, Ice Baby' and Wild Cherrys 'Play That Funky Music'.

Trump Jr. told the camera 'that was pretty awesome' and wrote that the star gave him a 'birthday shoutout' as he turned 43 on New Year's Eve.

'Ok this is amazing. Vanilla Ice is playing the Mar-a-Lago New Years Eve party. As a child of the 90s you can't fathom how awesome that is. Beyond that I got the birthday shoutout so that's pretty amazing,' he wrote.

Also at the event was Trump's personal attorney and the man who spearheaded much of his election legal battle Rudy Giuliani who was spotted in separate footage slow dancing up close with a woman to Frank Sinatra's 'New York, New York'.

This comes after Giuliani was hospitalized with COVID-19 in early December and given a cocktail of drugs, sparking outrage that Trump's friend - who repeatedly shunned masks - skipped the line to get treatment that is in short supply.

The president's Palm Beach social club played host to the huge New Year's Eve gala which disregarded coronavirus safety guidelines but in place by his own administration as cases, deaths and hospitalizations soar to record levels across America.

Footage from inside Mar-a-Lago's New Year's Eve bash showed Vanilla Ice performing to a crowd of hundreds of maskless partygoers as Don Trump Jr. boasted on social media that the rapper gave him a birthday shoutout

Smartphone video posted online showed dozens of revelers packed in on the dancefloor - not social distancing or wearing masks - as Ice performed his hit song 'Ice, Ice Baby' and Wild Cherrys 'Play That Funky Music'

'Ok this is amazing. Vanilla Ice is playing the Mar-a-Lago New Years Eve party. As a child of the 90s you can't fathom how awesome that is. Beyond that I got the birthday shoutout so that's pretty amazing,' Trump's eldest son wrote

Guests also appeared to flout local Palm Beach County guidelines that masks must be worn inside all businesses and establishments.

Absent from the celebrations was President Donald Trump who, in a last-minute change of plans, returned to Washington DC with First Lady Melania to try to resolve the highly-anticipated COVID relief bill.

But the party went on without him and hundreds of partygoers packed inside the private club where tickets cost $1,000 per person.

As well as the president's eldest son, many of his family members turned out for the shindig including Trump Jr's girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle, Eric Trump and his wife Lara, Tiffany Trump, Representative Matt Gaetz and vocal Trump ally and businessman Mike Lindell.

Guests danced to performances from Vanilla Ice, two members of the Beach Boys and Teri Nunn from the band Berlin while dining on a menu that included 'Mr. Trump's Wedge Salad,' cheese tortellini and a Wagyu beef entree.

It is not clear how many people attended exactly but more than 500 people had made reservations, according to the Palm Beach Post.

Also at the event was Trump's personal attorney and the man who spearheaded much of his election legal battle Rudy Giuliani who was spotted in separate footage slow dancing up close with a woman to Frank Sinatra's 'New York, New York'

Hundreds of partygoers packed inside the private club where tickets cost $1,000 per person

Giuliani shakes hands with a guest. Giuliani was hospitalized with COVID-19 in early December and given a cocktail of drugs, sparking outrage that Trump's friend - who repeatedly shunned masks - skipped the line to get treatment that is in short supply

Inside the huge function room before the revelers arrived for the glittering Palm Beach bash

Guests dined on a menu that included 'Mr. Trump's Wedge Salad,' cheese tortellini and a Wagyu beef entree

The Trumps: The president's children gathered at his Mar-a-Lago estate for his annual New Year's Eve gala on Thursday

Donald Trump Jr, who turned 43 today, and girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle shared a video message on Facebook wishing his supporters a happy new year from Mar-a-Lago

Hundreds of people typically attend the bash. The main ballroom can hold 700 people and there are smaller ballrooms available to add to the crowd size.

Tickets to the event were going for $1,000 each, one person attending the gala told DailyMail.com. A person has to be a member of Mar-a-Lago or a guest of a member in order to attend.

Earlier in the evening, the president's eldest son Donald Trump Jr and his girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle shared a video message wishing everyone a happy new year from the venue.

'We just wanted to wish you guys an incredible new year. Obviously 2020 has been a little bit nuts and rather crazy, I don't think anyone's going to be upset about moving on from this one,' Don Jr, said.

Eric Trump, 36, shared a photo alongside wife Lara as they celebrated the end of 2020 at the Palm Beach resort

Lara Trump, who shares a son and daughter with Eric, put the kids to bed before heading off to the celebration

The New Year's Eve gala is an annual tradition that pre-dates Trump's time in the White House. Last year, Trump walked the red carpet with his wife Melania and their son Barron.

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner also attended with their children. Donald Trump Jr. was accompanied by one of his sons and girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle. Eric Trump and Lara Trump were also there as were Tiffany Trump and her boyfriend Michael Boulos.

Prominent Trump friends like Rudy Giuliani have also made an appearance.

As the president returned to White House Thursday, he released a New Year's video message claiming that 'everyone is calling' to thank him for the vaccine.

Trump and first lady Melania Trump held hands as they walked from Marine One toward the White House with the president splitting off from his wife to go to the Oval Office.

Trump also touted his accomplishments with Operation Warp Speed in a bizarre video he shared on Twitter Thursday afternoon.

Rep Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican who recently proposed to girlfriend Ginger Luckey (not pictured) at the resort, was among the guests on Thursday night

Gaetz, who was pictured with two guests, was seen dressed to the nines ahead of the new year, but neglected to wear a mask

The New Year's Eve gala held at the president's second home (pictured) is an annual tradition that pre-dates Trump's time in the White House

'Over and over again, we were told it would be impossible to deliver a vaccine by the end of the year,' Trump said in the five-minute clip.

'All of the experts said, 'Absolutely unthinkable. Trump is exaggerating. It can't happen.' And we did it,' the president said. 'Years from now, they'll be talking about it. They'll be talking about this great, great thing that we did with the vaccines.'

'The world will benefit. We'll benefit. And everybody's calling to thank me,' Trump added.

'To defeat the China virus we launched the largest mobilization since World War II. We transformed our factories to build tens of thousands of ventilators and millions and millions of masks virtually overnight,' Trump said.

'Nobody thought it could be done. We ignored the experts who demanded open borders and we shut down travel from China and Europe to protect our citizens and we built the wall,' Trump said before claiming that his administration's pioneering of new therapies and treatments 'saved millions of American lives'.

Trump said his administration has 'to be remembered for what's been done'.

The video was released the same day Trump returned to the White House.

Officials at the White House did not give a reason for the return but it coincided with Trump's fight with Congress over his veto of a major defense bill, his demand for increased COVID stimulus checks, and the January 6th electoral college certification, which Republicans plan to object. It also came amid increased tensions with Iran.

2019: President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump are pictured at last year's New Year's Eve party at Mar-a-Lago

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump walk from Marine One toward the White House after returning to Washington D.C. from Florida a day earlier than planned
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This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.

The photograph showed a masked nurse caressing the face of an elderly man in a hospital bed with her blue-gloved hand. The man was Jose Garcia, a longtime employee of a chile processing company in New Mexico, and the nurse was one of his nine children.

The picture was widely shared on social media and picked up by news organizations across the country, a haunting image from the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr. Garcia died on Dec. 15 at Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces, N.M. He was 68. The cause was complications of Covid-19, said his daughter, the nurse, Carolina Garcia.
494 new Covid-19 cases and 14 deaths in Delhi

Four UK returnees to Gujarat test positive for new strain

Rajasthan government imposes night curfew from 8 pm to 6 am in 13 urban districts

Jharkhand logs 151 new Covid cases in last 24 hours

Russia inoculates more than 800,000 people against Covid-19

Chandigarh reports 29 new Covid cases in last 24 hours

A health worker preserves a swab sample to test for coronavirus infection. (Vipin Kumar/HT Photo)

A one-day nationwide dry run for Covid-19 vaccination began on Saturday and is currently underway, after the exercise was carried out in four states-Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Punjab-on December 28 and 29. The country's search for a Covid-19 vaccine is also on the verge of ending as a subject experts committee (SEC) of the government on Friday reportedly gave its approval for the emergency use authorisation (EUA) of Oxford University-AstraZeneca's Covishield, which will be manufactured in India by Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII). The vaccine will by officially cleared for use after approval from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), where its EUA application will be sent next.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

India's tally of cases of Covid-19, meanwhile, is at 10,305,788 after the Union health ministry on Saturday reported that the country had logged a total of 19,079 infections in the preceding 24 hours. Recoveries, active cases and death toll are at 9,906, 387, 250,183 and 149,218 respectively. These constitute 96.12%, 2.43% and 1.45% of the country's total Covid-19 cases thus far.

Follow all live updates here:
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Jaipur: Senior Rajasthan Congress leader and former MP from Jalore, Buta Singh passed away on Saturday aged 86.

The leader's son, Arvinder Singh Lovely Sidhu took to Facebook to inform about his father's passing.

"My father, Buta Singh passed away today morning. May Waheguru bless his soul," his post read (roughly translated from Hindi).



Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot expressed grief at the demise of the Congress leader and extended condolences to his family.

"Sad to learn about the demise of a former union minister, senior Congress leader and former MP from Rajasthan, Shri Buta Singh ji. My heartfelt condolences to his family members in this difficult time, may God give them strength to bear this loss. May his soul rest in peace," Gehlot wrote on Twitter.

A four-time MP from Jalore-Sirohi Lok Sabha constituency, Buta Singh served as Home Minister of India in the Rajiv Gandhi government from 1986 to 1989, and National President of Scheduled Caste Commission.
She shot to prominence by playing the ditzy customer service representative Kelly Kapoor on the US version of The Office.

And Mindy Kaling referenced the now-classic comedy series in a TikTok-style challenge video she shared with her 5.7 million Instagram followers on Friday.

The 41-year-old actress and writer answered some burning questions about her preferences with the popular This or That meme scored to Run-DMC's It's Tricky.

Office throwback: Mindy Kaling, 41, got in on the TikTok This or That challenge with a video posted to Instagram in which she chose 'The Temp' from The Office over Jim and Dwight

Mindy seemed to be anticipating some bright spring fashion with a coral sweater with red and orange horizontal stripes.

She contrasted the vibrant top with navy blue jeans while going barefoot in her back yard.

The TikTok challenge features creators dancing or comically choosing their preferences among two competing things, and Mindy looked like she was having a hard time choosing between the Office characters Jim (played by John Krasinski) and Dwight (played by Rainn Wilson).

But she perked up when an option for 'The Temp' suddenly popped up, and she made a beeline toward it.

'New year, same me. Am I doing this right???' she captioned the clip.

Vibrant: Mindy seemed to be anticipating some bright spring fashion with a coral sweater with red and orange horizontal stripes

Costars: 'The Temp,' Ryan Howard, was played by Mindy's on-and-off ex-boyfriend B. J. Novak, who also served as a writer and producer on The Office with her; still from The Office

'The Temp,' Ryan Howard, was played by Mindy's on-and-off ex-boyfriend B. J. Novak, who also served as a writer and producer on The Office with her.

Although the two initially had a sweet if comical romance on the series, the characters began to supply some broad comedy for the series as they became increasingly codependent and deranged.

In December, Mindy revealed to fashion designer Tory Burch that B. J., who has remained good friends with her, was going to be dressing up as Santa Claus to surprise her two children, Katherine, three, and Spencer, three months.

'We're Hindu and B. J. is Jewish. So this is like cultural appropriation on our part, to be Christian,' she joked.

The Late Night actress had the idea to have him sneak in to her living room in a Santa suit while she and Katherine were in the kitchen cooking.

'[Santa] needed to take a rest,' she clarified. 'Tory, it's so complicated why Santa was there, why he was taking a nap. But we're going to do that.'

Sweet: In December, Mindy revealed to fashion designer Tory Burch that B. J., who has remained good friends with her, was going to dress up as Santa to surprise her two children

Mindy and B.J. were introduced while working on the series, and they had an onoff relationship while on the series, which was mirrored and parodied by their characters' relationship.

Both Mindy and B. J. have continued to be good friends since their time on the show, though earlier this month he seemed to get a bit flirty with her on Instagram.

Minday had revealed her lovely cover for Vogue India, which featured her in an eye-catching white and red striped dress.

B. J. simply commented 'Check your DMs,' which may have been a knowing joke alluding to speculation about their relationship among fans.

Work romance: Mindy and B.J. were introduced while working on the series, and they had an onoff relationship while on the series, which was mirrored and parodied by their characters' codependent relationship; seen together in May 2019

Fan service: 'Both Mindy and B. J. have continued to be good friends since their time on the show, though earlier this month he seemed to get a bit flirty with her on Instagram

In her Instagram video, Mindy also revealed that she's more of a fast food fan than a fine dining obsessive.

She looked guilty in another section as she admitted she was 'Messy AF' and not a 'Clean Freak.'

She showed she was more a snorer than a drooler for another question, and confirmed she was a fan of Captain America over Thor, though she didn't pick a side until the last second.

Salt of the earth: In her Instagram video, Mindy also revealed that she's more of a fast food fan than a fine dining obsessive

Being honest: She looked guilty in another section as she admitted she was 'Messy AF' and not a 'Clean Freak'
New Delhi: The national spokesperson of Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKY) Rakesh Tikait on Saturday (January 2) warned that the Uttar Pradesh government should declare the price value of sugarcane as soon as possible, otherwise there will be agitation in Lucknow.

Rakesh Tikait expressed his condolences on the suicide of Kashmir Singh Ladi, a 75-year old man from Uttar Pradesh. He said that the government should not test the patience of the farmers. 47 farmers have lost their lives in the movement and this government should be ashamed of this.

In the upcoming talks between protesting farmer unions and the government on Monday (January 4), the minimum support price should be enacted and all three bills should be withdrawn otherwise, the movement will be intensified he added.

Uttar Pradesh government has warned that writing 000 on the sugarcane slip will not work. The government should declare the sugarcane price value in a week. Tikait said while addressing the event.

There is no product whose price value is declared after its sell. Sugarcane farmers are being looted in Uttar Pradesh. He further added.

He warned Uttar Pradesh government that Sugarcane farmers will no longer tolerate oppression. Even today, Rs 4 thousand crores are in arrears of sugarcane farmers. The government stands in favour of the mill owners and persecution of sugarcane farmers has been done.

He added by saying that Uttar Pradesh government should solve the issues of paddy and sugarcane farmers as earliest otherwise, the farmers will go on an indefinite siege in front of the Lucknow Legislative Assembly. Farmers will lead the movement with the do or die attitude.

Rakesh Tikait stated that The government should give financial assistance of Rs 10 lakh to the family of farmer Galan Singh Baghpat and Kashmir Singh Rampur who martyred on the Ghazipur border and give the immediate job to 1 dependent from his family.
One of the four former Blackwater contractors pardoned by President Donald Trump for his role in a Baghdad shooting rampage has defended his actions in the incident, as the FBI agent who investigated the case calls it a 'massacre' and UN experts claim the pardons violate international law.

Evan Liberty was convicted of voluntary and attempted manslaughter in the 2007 incident in which U.S. contractors opened fire in busy traffic in Baghdad's Nisour Square and killed 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians.

'I feel like I acted correctly,' Liberty said of his conduct in 2007, in his first interview after his release. 'I regret any innocent loss of life, but I'm just confident in how I acted and I can basically feel peace with that.'

After six years behind bars, Liberty had tried to not get his hopes up about a pardon.

Last month, he was reading in the top bunk of his cell one evening late last month when a prison supervisor delivered news he had hoped for.

'He says, `Are you ready for this?'' Liberty recalled. 'I said, `Uh, I'm not sure. What is going on? He said, `Presidential pardon. Pack your stuff.'

Evan Liberty was convicted of voluntary and attempted manslaughter in the 2007 incident in Baghdad's Nisour Square, and says after being pardoned: 'I feel like I acted correctly'

An Iraqi looks September 2007, at a burnt car on the site where Blackwater guards who were escorting US embassy officials opened fire in western Baghdad

Trump pardoned the four former Blackwater guards on December 22, 2020

'Dumbfounded' when the news came, he grabbed a photograph of his grandfather, a list of Spanish vocabulary he'd been studying and a motivational book on discipline, leaving the rest behind.

The New Hampshire native and Marine veteran said he is uncertain of future plans, though he's passionate about physical fitness and interested in helping veterans' organizations.

He says he's grateful to his supporters and to Trump for what he calls a 'second chance at life.'

Liberty enlisted in the Marines at age 17 and later worked for contractor Blackwater

'I feel like it's my duty to go out and do something positive and live a good life because they gave me a second chance, so thats basically my goal.'

The Blackwater rampage marked one of the darkest chapters of the Iraq war, staining the U.S. government reputation and prompting an international outcry about the role of contractors in military zones.

In a letter to the New York Times, the retired FBI agent who investigated the case, John M. Patarini, blasted the pardons and called the shooting 'a massacre along the lines of My Lai in Vietnam.'

'President Trump should have had staff members review the trial evidence that led to the convictions and read the judges' opinions and sentencing statements,' he wrote. 'I'm so disgusted with the president's actions!'

'I'm so glad that I'm retired and will never again be asked to risk my life and those of my fellow investigators, only to have killers pardoned for purely political reasons,' he continued.

The My Lai massacre occurred in 1968, when U.S. soldiers killed hundreds of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians, including women and young children.

The Nisour Square killings in Iraq in 2007 sparked similar outrage.

After a monthslong trial in 2014, a jury convicted the four Blackwater guards in the deaths of 14 civilians and of injuring even more. A judge called the shootings an 'overall wild thing' that cannot be condoned.

Nicholas Slatten was convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting, while Paul Slough, Liberty and Dustin Heard were convicted of voluntary and attempted manslaughter. They were serving sentences ranging from about 15 years to life before Trump pardoned them in a pre-Christmas clemency spree.

The guards have long maintained they were targeted by insurgent gunfire at the traffic circle where the shooting occurred.

Convicted in the shooting rampage were: Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Nicholas Slatten and Paul Slough. Trump pardoned the four guards on December 22

Blackwater Worldwide security guards Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Donald Ball, Nick Slatten and Dustin Heard appear in federal court with their attorneys in 2008

Prosecutors argued there was no evidence to support that claim, noting that many victims were shot while in their cars or while taking shelter or trying to flee.

Trump's pardon of the four guard violated U.S. obligations under international law, U.N. human rights experts said on Wednesday.

'Pardoning the Blackwater contractors is an affront to justice and to the victims of the Nisour Square massacre and their families,' said Jelena Aparac, chair of the U.N. working group on the use of mercenaries, said in a statement.

The Geneva Conventions oblige states to hold war criminals accountable for their crimes, even when they act as private security contractors, the U.N. experts said.

'These pardons violate U.S. obligations under international law and more broadly undermine humanitarian law and human rights at a global level.'

By allowing private security contractors to 'operate with impunity in armed conflicts', states will be emboldened to circumvent their obligations under humanitarian law, they said.

Liberty said he understands many may view him undeserving of clemency but attributes it to what he insists is a misguided narrative of the shooting. In the interview, he maintained that he did not shoot in the direction of any of the victims. 'I didn't shoot at anybody that wasn't shooting at me,' he said.

He said he and the others would 'never take an innocent life', insisting: 'We responded to a threat accordingly.'

Liberty, whose 30-year sentence was cut by roughly half last year, isn't certain how he came to be pardoned and said he has not spoken with Trump. But the group does have supporters, some with ties to the White House.

Former Blackwater Worldwide employee Evan Shawn Liberty, 26, a former Marine from Rochester, N.H. leaves federal court December 8, 2008 in Salt Lake City, Utah

Erik Prince, chairman of the Prince Group, LLC and Blackwater USA, holds up a picture showing the affect of a car bomb while testifying on Capitol Hill October 2, 2007

The Blackwater firm, whose name has since changed, was founded by former Navy SEAL Erik Prince, a Trump ally whose sister, Betsy DeVos, is education secretary. Their cause also was championed by Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, an Army veteran.

In a statement announcing the pardons, the White House said the move was 'broadly supported by the public' and backed by a number of Republican lawmakers.

Trump's approach to pardons have been heavily influenced by personal appeals from allies.

Throughout his presidency, including in his most recent round of pardons, he's cleared the convictions of his political backers, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and a pair of Republican congressmen who were early supporters of his 2016 campaign.

Trump has also shown a willingness to intervene on behalf of service members accused of war crimes.

In announcing the Blackwater pardons, the White House cited the men's military service, the support they received and the tangled history of a case that zigzagged for years in Washington's federal court, turning on radically different interpretations of the shooting.

An Iraqi victim of the shooting incident holds up a picture of himself, during a meeting with US Federal Prosecutors to discuss the case against the security firm Blackwater

Criticism was swift. A Washington Post editorial called the pardons a 'unique threat to national security' and suggested the guards had committed 'astonishing acts of inhumanity.'

Iraqi citizens described old wounds being reopened. Soon after the announcement, a photograph of a 9-year-old victim in a blue-patterned shirt smiling faintly circulated widely online. The boy's father told the BBC that Trump 'broke my life again.'

'They haven't denied doing what they did,' said Paul Dickinson, who represented victims in a lawsuit over the shootings. 'They haven't apologized for what they did. They havent admitted any wrongdoing in what they did.'

Blackwater guards, who as State Department contractors were responsible for providing diplomatic security, were already seen as operating with impunity in Iraq. The rampage further escalated international scrutiny of them, prompted multiple investigations and strained U.S.-Iraqi relations.

How the shooting rampage unfolded

On September 16, 2007, the guards were summoned to create an evacuation route for a diplomat after a car bomb explosion.

By prosecutors' account, the shooting began after the guards' four-vehicle convoy took up positions at Baghdad's crowded Nisour Square, where the contractors launched an unprovoked attack using sniper fire, machine guns and grenade launchers.

Liberty says he shot only in the direction of an Iraqi police post; the guards had been concerned by infiltration by insurgents of police ranks. Prosecutors say he and the others fired indiscriminately.

Defense lawyers say the shooting began only after a white Kia broke from the traffic and moved toward the convoy in ways the guards perceived as a threat and a potential car bomb. In a narrative disputed by prosecutors, the guards say they responded to insurgent gunfire.

One contractor who received immunity described hearing the incoming 'pop' of what sounded like AK-47 rounds shortly before another guard fired.

A file photos shows Nisour Square in 2010. The square was the scene of a shooting rampage

An Iraqi woman walks past a burnt car on the site where Blackwater guards who were escorting US embassy officials opened fire in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Yarmukh

The case was bitterly contested for more than a decade, with the Justice Department reviving the prosecution after an original indictment was thrown out because of government missteps and flying in dozens of Iraqi witnesses to testify.

Liberty and two others, Paul Slough and Dustin Heard, were convicted of manslaughter. Another, Nicholas Slatten, was convicted of first-degree murder.

A fifth guard, Jeremy Ridgeway, pleaded guilty and testified against the others, admitting firing multiple rounds into the Kia - which actually contained a medical student and his mother - but denied that he saw Iraqis pointing guns or that he felt threatened.

Defense lawyers sought to undercut his credibility by noting that he'd previously told a different story.

The lawyers challenged the verdict, citing in part newly discovered evidence - an Iraqi witness statement - they said contradicted what the jury was told.

Slatten's murder conviction was overturned but he was retried and convicted. The 30-year sentences for the others were shortened after a federal appeals court said the punishments were excessive even though what happened 'defies civilized description.'
Washington, Jan 2 : The US Congress has overturned President Donald Trump's veto of a defence spending bill -- the first time this has happened in his presidency.

The Republican-controlled Senate held a rare New Year's Day session to debate the move, which had already been voted for by the House of Representatives. The $740 billion bill will fund defence policy for the year to come, the BBC reported.

Trump, who leaves office in a few weeks, objected to certain provisions in the bill The Senate voted 81-13 for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) - a two-thirds majority is required to override a presidential veto in both chambers.

It comes just two days before a new US Congress is due to be sworn in.

Trump had taken issue with policies that limit troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and Europe and remove Confederate leaders' names from military bases.

He also wanted the bill to repeal a liability shield for social media companies.

Before the debate began, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said he was determined to pass the bill.

"Here's what the Senate is focused on - completing the annual defence legislation that looks after our brave men and women who volunteer to wear the uniform.

"We've passed this legislation 59 years in a row. And one way or another, we're going to complete the 60th annual NDAA and pass it into law before this Congress concludes on Sunday," he added.

Later Trump responded to the vote specifically on the issue of liability protection.

"Our Republican Senate just missed the opportunity to get rid of Section 230, which gives unlimited power to Big Tech companies. Pathetic!!!" he said on Twitter.

Bills passed by Congress need a president's signature to become law. On rare occasions, a president may choose to veto - or reject - legislation because of some policy disagreement.

Lawmakers can override a presidential veto and enact bills into law by mustering two-thirds of votes in both chambers of Congress.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful congressional Democrat, said Trump's veto was "an act of staggering recklessness that harms our troops, endangers our security and undermines the will of the bipartisan Congress".

"In a time when our country was just targeted with a massive cyber-attack, it is particularly hard to understand the reasoning behind the president's irresponsibility," she said in a statement.

Ahead of Wednesday's veto, some of the outgoing president's advisers had cautioned him against rejecting the bill.

Trump has previously vetoed eight bills, vetoes which were all upheld with support from his fellow Republicans in Congress.

He is due to leave office on January 20, when he will be replaced by Democrat Joe Biden.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 2, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Luna Global Networks applauds Congress overriding the President's veto on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2021. On Jan. 1, the US Senate overrode the President's veto on the NDAA. This historic anti-corruption legislation ending anonymous companies in the United States passed by both Chambers of Congress is now law.

Luna Global Networks

Illicit trade, which includes a convergence of numerous trafficking, smuggling, financial and cyber crimes, fuels a multi-trillion-dollar illegal economy globally every year. While the COVID-19 pandemic has brought economic malaise to most sectors, the illicit economy is booming. This is especially true across e-commerce marketplaces that are generating tremendous prosperity for scammers, fraudsters, kleptocrats, organized criminals, terrorists, and other threat networks.

Fortunately, the newly-enacted law will attack a critical vulnerability of this illicit economy: anonymous shell companies. This will level the playing field for many legitimate businesses and industries across the country that get harmed, for example, by counterfeiters and online criminals. Included as part of the NDAA  which President Trump had inexplicably vetoed  is the Corporate Transparency Act, which will modernize our nation's anti-money laundering rules and help law enforcement identify the true, or "beneficial" owner of a company at the time of its formation. Such data will help US officials fight corruption, organized crime, and terrorism.

"Through the use of anonymous shell companies, criminals have avoided detection in ways that have financed other threats and harmed American consumers, including through the sale and trafficking of counterfeit medicines from India and China worth hundreds of millions of dollars including those used to treat breast cancer, cholesterol, high blood pressure, and other serious health conditions; knock-off parts across the Pentagon's supply chains that have cost the US military tens of millions of dollars and put our soldiers at risk; and other contraband that finance insecurity that undermines US foreign policy and national security interests," said David M. Luna, CEO & President of LGN.

Terrorist groups also manipulate anonymous shell companies to finance their infrastructure, operations, and campaigns of terror in the US and internationally. Oligarchs do as well, including those aligned with adversarial countries that are conducting massive cyberattacks against our government and private sector as reported in recent weeks.

Congressional leadership in overriding the president's veto and enacting this important legislation into law helps to not only protect our businesses and keep consumers safe and healthy, but will also give our law enforcement agencies the authorities and tools needed to protect our homeland, markets, and communities against determined bad actors and threat networks.

David M. Luna, former US diplomat and national security official, is President and CEO of Luna Global Networks & Convergence Strategies LLC.

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Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for being rated as the most popular head of Government by an American research firm. Rajnath Singh called it a proud moment for the country while stating that PM Modi has been praised for his leadership during the pandemic.

The popularity and credibility of PM Shri @narendramodi has been recognised globally. According Morning Consult, a data firm, his approval rating is the highest among the world leaders. He has been praised for his leadership during the Pandemic. Indeed a proud moment for India!  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) January 2, 2021

Morning Consult, an American research firm which carries out surveys and researches globally said in its latest survey that over 75% people approve of Modi while 20% disapprove, making the net approval ratings of PM Modi at 55%, which is said to be the highest among the world leaders. Approval ratings are based on a seven-day moving average of adult residents in each country, and samples sizes vary by country.

The research firm tracked the approval rating for governmental leaders in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

BJP National President JP Nadda too hailed the prime minister for having earned the trust of the people of the country. He took to Twitter to state that PM has yet again emerged the most popular head of Government for his efficient handling of various issues and management of the COVID-19 crisis.

Approval ratings of all the prominent global leaders tracked by Morning Consult

[Image credit: snip from Morning Consult website]

PM Modi's approval and disapproval ratings

[Image credit: snip from Morning Consult website]

Observations of the research

The blue line in the above snip depicts the approval rating for PM Modi while the red one shows his disapproval rating, making the net approval rating stand at 55%. The other leaders who have witnessed a rise in their popularity include Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

READ | 'IIMs Can Turn Local Into Global': PM Modi Lays Foundation Stone Of IIM Sambalpur Campus

PM Modi's new mantra

After laying the foundation stone for AIIMS at Gujarat's Rajkot, the prime minister said India is preparing to run the world's largest Covid-19 vaccination drive.

He urged the people not let their guard down and strictly abide by preventive measures against coronavirus even after the vaccines are launched. The prime minister also gave a new mantra of Davai bhi, kadaai bhi (medicines as well as caution) while recalling his previous mantra.

"I used to say 'jab tak davai nahi dhilai nahi' but now our mantra for 2021 should be: Davai bhi, kadaai bhi (yes to medicine and yes to caution)," PM Modi said while adding, "The numbers of new cases of Covid-19 infection in the country are decreasing now. We are preparing to run the world's largest vaccination program in the next year."

READ | PM Modi Launches Light House Projects In 6 States; Says 'country Took Innovative Approach'

READ | PM Modi Recites 'Abhi Toh Suraj Uga Hain' Poem, Pays Emotional Tribute To National Heroes
The biggest compliment we can hand a politician is that he or she represented all those who voted for him or her and not just a select few. Mike Conaway did that during his time as the elected leader of Texas 11th Congressional District.

Even in a district specifically drawn up to favor a candidate from Midland-Odessa, it would have been nearly impossible to identify Conaway as a graduate of Permian High School in Odessa or a resident of Midland based on his total impact in Congress. Go ahead and try; it cant be done.

Mike Conaway told the Reporter-Telegram it was important to represent the entire district, making an effort to travel to every county twice a year during non-COVID times. Toward the end of his tenure, that meant hitting nearly 30 counties. There are fewer counties in the states of Vermont and New Hampshire combined.

He made sure that the interests of people in San Angelo were heard. That is where Goodfellow Air Force Base resides. He also made sure agrarian matters were handled.

Congressman Mike Conaway continued the outstanding legacy of Texans leading the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture with distinction, Texas Farm Bureau President Russell Boening wrote to the Reporter-Telegram.He accomplished much for Texas farmers and ranchers during his tenure as chairman. His successful completion of the 2018 Farm Bill in the same year it was introduced is considered his greatest achievement. He exhibited during five months of intense farm bill negotiations the same type of determination, focus and hard work farm and ranch families are known for.  Texas Farm Bureau will always be grateful for his steadfast dedication to Texas agriculture.

It wasnt that Conaway wasnt interested in energy issues. As the Permian Basin Petroleum Associations Ben Shepperd wrote, The Permian Basin has benefited from the strong leadership of Congressman Conaway for over a decade and a half. He has been a staunch supporter of the oil and gas industry and was one of our greatest champions on efforts like lifting the crude oil export ban.

But as Conaway told the Reporter-Telegram, I worked really hard to make sure that I was going places I needed to go.

Are you listening August Pfluger? You take the oath this weekend with the highest of expectations and very large shoes to fill. As Conaway told the Reporter-Telegram, Pfluger showed a ton of political talent in dominating a 10-person field in the Republican primary. Conaway also described his replacement as a person of high character and a God-fearing man, something that the people of District 11 will appreciate.

But in the end, Congressman-elect Pfluger, this newspaper and our section of District 11 likely will measure you in two ways. Is this district in better shape than when you found it, and will your representation cover an entire district?

If you are unsure to what either means, give Mike Conaway a call. He knows what it means to answer yes.
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Loading The ranges subtle, complex flavour combinations include roast beetroot and sansho pepper (with tamari, among other ingredients), and caramelised pear and kombu (plus hints of ginger, black tea and spices such as star anise). Number six, whose dominant ingredients are tomato, capsicum and black pepper, will be released next month. Usually served neat in a wine glass, as well as on ice or as a spritz, Non beverages can bridge a gap in social settings, says Trotman. Consume it in a wine glass and youre automatically part of the table. Along with sophisticated flavours, this ability to help non-drinkers feel included is how new-breed non-alcoholic drinks have made it easier to consider abstinence as something you can do. In recent years, Australians and those in other Western countries have increasingly not only considered but embraced abstinence  or at least reduced their alcohol consumption. According to a 2019 Australian Nielsen study, one in four participants claimed they were drinking less, and 66 per cent aged 21-34 said they were making an effort to cut back. Trotman says there is lots going on socially to drive this trend. He believes people have been more focused on health lately, the #MeToo movement has inspired some to avoid getting into vulnerable situations with alcohol, and that kids dont want to drink  because they could be caught on social media.

Loading Another major factor is the pandemic lockdowns. According to Tribe Breweries Thiemann, while weve seen an initial rise of alcohol consumption during the outbreak, people are now trying to control their drinking habits through non-alcoholic beverages. He notes that non-alcoholic beer sales rose by 44 per cent in the US last year. In Australia 2020, there was an explosion of non-alcoholic beers and spirits, says Thiemann. There are more options than ever before. That includes Mornington Free pale ale, launched in November by Tribe-owned Mornington Peninsula Brewery. Weve been working on the recipe for more than a year  Its very hard to brew a great-tasting non-alcoholic beer so it took us some time. Thiemann explains that many mainstream beer brands  remove the alcohol after brewing more or less conventional alcoholic beer, a process that unfortunately also removes much of the characteristic boozy flavours. We dont follow this rather brutal approach. We use a very special yeast strain that doesnt ferment alcohol in the first place. However, it does produce some of these important boozy flavours. Luke Whearty, co-owner of Byrdi bar. Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui

Choosing to make a pale ale rather than lager is another important flavour factor, according to Thiemann. Many early non-alcoholic beers in Australia were lagers, a style he says isnt well suited to this category. Lagers have a less complex flavour profile, which means that if you take out one particular flavour, and in this case thats alcohol, youll notice much more  "Fruitier pale ales or dark beers offer a greater variety of flavours to play with and compensate for the lack of alcohol. Flavour is also paramount for Melbourne bartender Luke Whearty. At his CBD cocktail bar Byrdi, which debuted at 80 on the Worlds Best Bars list only a year after opening in 2019, we will put just as much effort into a non-alcoholic option as conventional drinks, says Whearty. Unusual ingredients such as the native Geraldton wax plant and house-made mango vinegar are used at his bar-meets-lab to create refined flavour profiles in which booze doesnt dominate  or doesnt factor at all. We give a lot of thought as to how much alcohol is in our alcoholic options, says Whearty. More often than not we can trim that back for the purpose of flavour. Loading

This attitude developed several years ago, when Whearty was working at Der Raum, Melbournes first craft cocktail bar, then his own Singapore venue Operation Dagger, which reached 21 on the Worlds Best Bar list (both are now closed). Some customers would order a drink purely for its alcohol content just to get intoxicated, he recalls. They would go through the menu and literally say Which ones the strongest? That was frustrating for me because we took a different approach with cocktail-making. There are some things that take a day or a week to prep, or are fermented for two months. Whearty says he nearly packed it all in because of this. However, instead of becoming an apprentice chef he decided to try and change peoples perception of drinking and went on to a top-10 place in the 2018 International Bartender of the Year awards. Now, when patrons order Byrdis non-alcoholic drinks, either because they are abstaining or slipping one in between cocktails to avoid excess, they can have just as much of an experience as those drinking alcohol, says Whearty. Theyre really surprised, and really love it. The drink you have when youre not having a drink has come a long way. Luke Wheartys Watermelone

Try this non-alcoholic summer sipper garnished with karkalla, a common native seaside succulent (also available from speciality stores). You might know this slightly salty plant as pig face or beach bananas. Whearty may be one of Australias most innovative bartenders, but dont worry, this recipe is easily made at home. Refrigerate leftover syrup and Watermelone batch for more drinks later. Salted raspberry syrup 125 grams fresh raspberries

125 grams caster sugar

10 grams sea salt

500 millilitres water Combine ingredients in a pot and bring to the boil. Remove from heat, stir to combine. When cool strain through a fine strainer.

Watermelone batch 700 millilitres fresh watermelon juice

150 millilitres verjuice

50 millilitres salted raspberry syrup Strain the juice, then combine with other ingredients and strain through coffee-filter paper. Individual serve 100 millilitres Watermelone batch

60 millilitres tonic water

Sprig of fresh karkalla
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SANTA FE  Low-income New Mexicans will receive more help with their utility bills under an effort funded by federal coronavirus relief money.

The state Human Services Department announced Tuesday that it has received more than $5 million in federal funding that will pay for $300 one-time payments for those who are behind at least one month on their utility payments.

Officials said eligible households will automatically be identified through a partnership between the state agency and existing vendors that work with the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program or LIHEAP. That program helps about 70,000 New Mexico households with heating and cooling costs.

State officials have reported strains on public assistance programs during the pandemic as joblessness has increased.

With the latest relief money, the state will issue the energy assistance payments directly to utility vendors on behalf of eligible households. Distributions will continue through September, unless funds are exhausted before that.

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An expert panel of India's central drug authority has recommended granting permission for restricted use of Bharat Biotech-developed indigenous COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin in emergency situation, especially in the context of infection by mutant strains, officials said on Saturday.

The recommendation for Bharat Biotech's vaccine came a day after the panel cleared the Serum Institute of India's emergency use authorisation application for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine Covishield, paving the way for the roll-out of COVID-19 shots in the country in the next few days.

Curiously, SEC has recommended Covaxin for restricted use on grounds of abundant precaution and in public interest, especially in the context of the mutant strain of Coronavirus that was confirmed by authorities in the United Kingdom over two weeks ago.

The companys CMD Krishna Ella had earlier this week claimed that the vaccine will be effective against the new strains. It (coronavirus) is expected to undergo a lot of mutation and you can be rest assured that this vaccine will protect one against those (mutations) as wellYou have these two components in the inactivated vaccine which will take care of those mutations," Ella said.

Although the recommendation has been granted, little is known about the results of its clinical trials.

The government said the final decision on the two vaccines would be made by the Central Drugs Standards Control Organisation's (CDSCO) chief, who has called a news conference on Sunday. The process for the final approval is expected to be a formality given the urgency for a vaccine in the country with the highest number of COVID-19 infections in the world after the United States.

Covaxin has been indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). The SEC again deliberated on the emergency use authorisation (EUA) application of Bharat Biotech on Saturday after it presented the updated data, justification and requested for consideration of their proposal in the wake of incidence of new mutated coronavirus infection.

According to sources, the committee, however, stated that the firm shall continue the ongoing phase 3 clinical trial and submit data emerging from the trial as and when available.

The committee noted that the vaccine is an inactivated whole virion, coronavirus vaccine, having potential to target mutated coronavirus strains, a source said. The data generated so far demonstrates a strong immune response (both antibody as well as T cell) and in-vitro viral neutralisation.

While granting the restricted emergency use approval for the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine on Friday, the panel had imposed certain regulatory provisions, including that the shot is indicated for active immunisation in individuals of 18 years or more to prevent the disease and that SII should submit safety, efficacy and immunogenicity data from the ongoing clinical trials in the country and across the globe for review at the earliest.

Also, the Pune-based firm should submit the safety data including the data on adverse events following immunisation (AEFI) and adverse event of special interest (AESI) with due analysis every 15 days for the first two months and monthly thereafter till the completion of the ongoing clinical trial in the country, according to the recommendations. Thereafter, the firm should submit the safety data as per the provisions and standard procedures.

According to sources, the recommendations stated that the vaccine should be supplied along with fact-sheet and separate leaflet for the guidance of the healthcare provider. The Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, has tied up with AstraZeneca to manufacture Covishield.

According to sources, the firm had presented the details of the conditions and restrictions under which AstraZeneca was granted emergency use authorisation in the UK and the revised fact sheet and prescribing information in Indian context as required by the committee. SII had applied to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) for EUA for Oxford COVID-19 vaccine on December 6, while the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech had sought the nod for its indigenously developed Covaxin on December 7.

Pfizer had applied for regulatory approval for its vaccine on December 4 has not yet turned for deliberation. After detailed deliberations, the SEC has also recommended for grant of permission to Cadila Healthcare Ltd in Ahmedabad for conduct of phase-3 clinical trial protocol for its vaccine candidate.
Colorado Springs School District 11 added to the number of schools pivoting to remote learning amid the increase in coronavirus cases in El Paso County.
A senior minister in Ontarios cabinet has resigned after vacationing in the Caribbean as residents of Canadas most populous province were being urged to stay home.

Rod Phillips, who was named Ontarios finance minister in 2018, told reporters that his trip was a dumb, dumb mistake when he arrived back in Toronto on Thursday, after being summoned home by Doug Ford, Ontarios premier.

Shortly afterward, Mr. Ford said that he had accepted Mr. Phillipss resignation. From the start of the pandemic, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a Liberal, has urged Canadians to avoid nonessential travel out of the country  and when announcing a province-wide shutdown that started Dec. 26, Mr. Ford, a Progressive Conservative, told residents to stay home to the fullest extent possible.

Mr. Phillips, and his wife, went to the French territory of Saint Barthelemy, which is commonly known as St. Barts, on Dec. 13. He left behind a series of photos and videos that were posted on social media during his absence, and several political opponents said that the posts were intended to create the illusion that Mr. Phillips was celebrating the holidays in Canada. The images appear to have been made at Mr. Phillipss home in suburban Toronto. He is now under a mandatory 14-day quarantine there.
After repeated riots and a recent shooting this week -- Po-po, mall cops & management start chasing away youngsters in earnest whilst begging shoppers not to leave this retail locale struggling with bad debt and a rowdy consumer base.

Read more . . .

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Friday was the first day of a new ban on teens being at Independence Center without their parents during certain hours. The 3 p.m. curfew was announced before a New Year's Eve shooting inside the mall. Last Saturday, up to 500 unaccompanied teens were involved in several fights in the mall.
Alex Kane and Andree Murphy assess 100 years of partition in Ireland

Alex Kane: We should all take a few months to ask difficult questions of ourselves

Partition is a fact of history. It is also a fact of history that neither unionists nor nationalists wanted it. And, a century on, it remains the chief bone of contention between both sides: the subject around which every and any election revolves.

A line on a map. A line in a mindset. A line that predominates and eclipses every other socio/economic/political issue. A line which still represents the permafrost barrier between possible reconciliation and dreary steeples retrenchment.

A line at the dead centre of our past, present and future. A line which needs to be discussed rationally and honestly by the primary political traditions (whose beliefs and strategies have been shaped by it), as well as by a younger generation which doesn't quite get the stranglehold it continues to exert over politics here.

I support the Union and will continue to do so. I welcome the opportunity to make the case for Northern Ireland. But I also accept that many, including some from a perceived unionist background, have difficulties with marking its centenary.

In To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus Finch tells his children: "If you just learn a single trick you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it."

And maybe that is the trick we need to learn as we reflect on the events of the last century and the fact of history which led us to where we are now.

I can understand why nationalists are wary of anything that looks like celebrating, rather than marking, the centenary of partition.

I understand why they think there will be elements of unionism which will adopt a triumphalist approach to the centenary - although it strikes me that the plans by political unionism to mark the event have, generally speaking, been fairly measured.

But the history of the last 100 years isn't just about "Ulster" unionism. The closing of Stormont in March 1972 - 49 years ago - removed unionism's power-base and put decision-making in the hands of Westminster (which often worked hand-in-glove with Irish governments).

A whole raft of legislation and reform changed Northern Ireland beyond recognition: opening doors for new political parties and new ways of cross-community engagement.

Nothing about the change was overnight, but the changes, collectively and cumulatively, finally made it possible to build a peace/political process which, for all its faults, is still in place.

That is why I was disappointed when Sinn Fein and the SDLP (along with a number of key figures from within civic nationalism and academia) turned down the opportunity to participate in the Centenary Forum marking the formation of Northern Ireland.

As I say, I understand their concerns about finding themselves attending some sort of celebratory event, yet their absence means there will be no significant, or substantive, nationalist input into an important debate.

The story of Northern Ireland cannot simply be told by one community. As one very shrewd observer of nationalism noted: "There is a real opportunity to reflect on how different sections of the community view the last 100 years and how they feel the partition of the island has impacted on generations of people who live here."

That is the opportunity which, I think, is now being missed. Fine, a very broad-based, inclusive, respectful debate about partition isn't going to put-to-rights all the divisions and dismantle all the barriers: yet it might open doors to the Atticus Finch position of being able to see your situation from the perspective of your opponents.

A fact of history a century ago still dictates and shapes our socio/political engagement: so maybe we should take a few months in 2021 to ask difficult questions of ourselves and of those we perceive as irreconcilable enemies.

I have long argued that unionists should not be afraid of engaging with nationalism on the subject of possible Irish unity. Many nationalists have praised me for that stance.

Yet, some of the people who have praised my willingness to engage with nationalism on various panels and at some Sinn Fein-organised conferences are now telling me that nationalism should remain "pretty aloof" when it comes to engaging with unionism during Northern Ireland's centenary. You can't have it both ways.

One of the main pitches made by nationalists to unionists during the various unity projects of the last decade is that unionists, along with their culture, traditions, heritage and identity, would be accommodated, recognised and respected in a "new Ireland".

An essential dimension to that unionist culture, tradition, heritage and identity can be summed up in the very words "Northern Ireland": a place unionists regard as their home. Yet, or so it seems, the vast majority of political/civic nationalism and republicanism doesn't want to engage in a centenary debate about Northern Ireland.

It always seems trite to say it is important we talk. Yet it's a simple, unavoidable truth: we do need to talk. About our shared present. About our shared past. About our shared future. About the facts of history which continue to shape and steer our engagement with each other after a century.

Alex Kane is a writer and commentator

Andree Murphy: the exciting conversation is on unity, not the stale promotion of lies

This month, Arlene Foster marks her fifth anniversary as leader of the DUP. In her acceptance speech of a position, by her own admission, she was never destined to achieve, she spoke of the centenary of partition. She set the frame for how she wanted to mark 2021 in this first missive.

Like so much else, events have got in the way of her ambition.

In words that might have been, but were not, influenced by the Gettysburg Address, she wondered what it was like for "our founding fathers... building a new state from scratch", how Northern Ireland was "our birthright" and, most telling of all, that after 100 years "we" are "safe in the knowledge that Northern Ireland's place in the Union is secure".

Instead of this secure picture-postcard of secure reflection, the marking of the centenary will occur at a time when there is an unprecedented focus on the constitutional future of the north.

Brexit, the sorry failure of the northern Executive to deliver on the promise of basic human rights, the Covid pandemic, a booming southern economy and demographics have all combined over the past three years to convince many that our future lies in a different constitutional one to that which has gone before and failed.

While for Foster, and those who are like-minded, the northern state was founded as a "birthright", for the other citizens living here the past 100 years has been the denial of the legitimacy of that other birthright - Irish identity.

An artificial line was drawn across Ireland in 1921 to secure a Protestant majority and deliberately create the conditions for what Fine Gael's Peter Barry called the "nationalist nightmare".

Decades of systemic discrimination against Irish citizens, upheld by a militarised police force and a system of laws which was the envy of South Africa's apartheid regime, was how the state was purposefully created "from scratch".

Of course, the tale of the north is a play of two halves, with the first half being the sectarian utopia to which some unionists look on with rose-tinted glasses and nationalists look on with trauma, sadness and anger, and a second half of the reaction to attempts to dismantle that infrastructure, the ensuing devastating conflict and the peace process.

The Northern Ireland Office, and some in unionism, want to make this a year of pretence. They want to talk about what unites "us", to celebrate the best of "us" and to think about "the future".

I am quite sure they do, but that is a deliberate sham, and not how we have done any other part of this decade of centenaries.

Every other reflection has been about interrogating the facts of what happened, uncovering the stories of those who received little attention at the time (mainly women, children and the working classes) and reflecting on modern-day implications of those events.

And those reflections have been about who were beneficiaries of those historic events and who were its victims.

The truth is there is no "us" when it comes to this anniversary.

For some, it is the anniversary of the "state" which was founded for "us" - the beneficiaries of the "state".

For others, it is the anniversary of partition and the purposeful delegitimisation of "them" - Irish citizens left as strangers in their own land.

The longer unionism and the Northern Ireland Office seek to sanitise, or avoid an honest and embracing truth, the more they look entirely happy with the endorsing of an official history which justifies discrimination, pogrom and murder.

It is worth noting that the formal structures by which both governments and all parties agreed to interrogate the second half of "Northern Ireland", the legacy structures of the Stormont House Agreement, haven't been implemented and have become politically contested.

Why? Primarily because the British state wishes to sidestep and sanitise its own record and history in this place.

Objective and independent scrutiny would shine a light on the lie that Britain was neutral during the conflict and on the lie that there were "two warring factions", when in fact the British state was at the heart of the conflict.

In this context, the idea that the Northern Ireland Office would swoop in and lead reflection on the "centenary", while denying truth to bereaved and injured victims of the latter half of the same "centenary", would be a sick joke, except there is nothing funny in this shamefaced approach.

Happily, irrespective of the prospect of an officially endorsed revision-fest, there is momentum towards positive conversation.

And that conversation is framed by planning for a constitutional future very different to the past. A future which has respect for identity and universality of rights at its heart.

This year's most exciting conversation is more likely to concentrate on this generational opportunity, rather than the stale promotion of official lies, or conveniences, regarding the past.

Andree Murphy is deputy director of Relatives for Justice
For five years, CW viewers hypothesized about the identity of Gossip Girl.

And with a new generation of Upper East Siders comes a new anonymous blogger for fans to obsess over.

The upcoming HBO Max continuation revealed the character names for Tavi Gevinson, Emily Alyn Lind and the rest of the cast Friday, sharing some chic production photos to Instagram.

Introduction to society: The upcoming HBO Max continuation of Gossip Girl revealed the character names for Tavi Gevinson, Emily Alyn Lind and the rest of the cast Friday, sharing some chic production photos to Instagram

Each photo of the impeccably styled stars also featured a one-word quality, teasing some insight into their role.

Gevinson, 24, a former fashion blogger and actress with roles in Parenthood and Scream Queens is credited as 'Kate Keller: Ambition.'

Lind, 18, who's starred in such films as Revenge, The Babysitter and Doctor Sleep portrays 'Audrey Hope: Grace.'

Whitney Peak, 17, who has appeared in Molly's Game and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, plays 'Zoya Lott: Perspective.'

Leading lady: Lind, 18, who's starred in such films as Revenge, The Babysitter and Doctor Sleep portrays 'Audrey Hope: Grace'

Rising star: Whitney Peak, 17, who has appeared in Molly's Game and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, plays 'Zoya Lott: Perspective'

Love triangle? Eli Brown, 22, known for Spinning Out and Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists, stars as 'Otto "Obie" Bergmann IV: Privilege'

Eli Brown, 22, known for Spinning Out and Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists, stars as 'Otto "Obie" Bergmann IV: Privilege.'

According to Deadline, Lind, Peak and Brown make up the 'leading trio' of the new cast, which will feature a similar dynamic as the original.

Jordan Alexander, a Canadian pop artist with several albums to her name, plays 'Julien Calloway: Influence.'

Savannah Lee Smith, a Hollywood newcomer, makes her breakout role as 'Monet de Haan: Power.'

Multi-talented: Jordan Alexander, a Canadian pop artist with several albums to her name, plays 'Julien Calloway: Influence'

New faces: Savannah Lee Smith, a Hollywood newcomer, makes her breakout role as 'Monet de Haan: Power.' Zion Moreno, 28, a Mexican-American actress who recently made her debut in the hacker series Control Z, appears as 'Luna La: Style'

Skater boy: Evan Mock, 23, a skateboarder, photographer and model who's worked with the likes of Frank Ocean and Travis Scott, stars as 'Akeno Aki Menzies: Innocence'

Heartthrob material: Thomas Doherty, 25, a Scottish actor with credits in High Fidelity, Legacies and Descendants 2 and 3, plays 'Max Wolfe: Freedom'

Zion Moreno, 28, a Mexican-American actress who recently made her debut in the hacker series Control Z, appears as 'Luna La: Style.'

Evan Mock, 23, a skateboarder, photographer and model who's worked with the likes of Frank Ocean and Travis Scott, stars as 'Akeno Aki Menzies: Innocence.'

Thomas Doherty, 25, a Scottish actor with credits in High Fidelity, Legacies and Descendants 2 and 3, plays 'Max Wolfe: Freedom.'

Rounding out the cast are Tony Award winner Laura Benanti, Johnathan Fernandez, Jason Gotay and Adam Chanler-Berat.

In addition to the new faces, Kristen Bell will return to narrate the series as the voice of the titular blogger.

Also starring: Rounding out the cast are Tony Award winner Laura Benanti, Johnathan Fernandez, Jason Gotay and Adam Chanler-Berat (Benanti pictured in January, 2020)

Familiar voice: In addition to the new faces, Kristen Bell will return to narrate the series as the voice of the titular blogger

Cool kids: Back in November, the new cast returned to a familiar spot, the famous steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the original show's most popular girls were known to perch

Back in November, the new cast returned to a familiar spot, the famous steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the original show's most popular girls were known to perch.

The reboot takes place eight years after the titular gossip site went dark, as a new crop of Upper East Side private school teens grapple with a new anonymous blogger and a new era of social media.

Production on the 10-episode season began in early November in New York City, and it's expected to premiere on HBO Max in 2021.

The original Gossip Girl starred Blake Lively, Leighton Meester and Penn Badgley, running for six seasons on the CW, from 2007 to 2012.

Based on the YA books by Cecily von Ziegesar, the franchise has also sparked spin-offs in Acapulco, Thailand and Indonesia, the latter premiering earlier this year and having since been renewed for season two.
User reports estimate the perceived ground shaking intensity according to the MMI (Modified Mercalli Intensity) scale

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Santa Cruz / Weak shaking (MMI III) : Approximately 2 seconds of shaking. Felt like someone lightly shaking the bead. On the bottom floor of a home near Pleasure Point, CA. | 5 users found this interesting.

MONTEREY CA (60.2 km WSW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s : started far away with a low rustle and then shook my walls, cups, and floor for scant period no more than 8 seconds with audible passing | 4 users found this interesting.

Carmel, Ca / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 5-10 s : Started with very little shaking, then increased and then reduced again. Heard waves from beach crash louder since then. | 4 users found this interesting.

Seaside CA / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Felt more like vertical movement rather than side to side like I experienced in Afghanistan. I live 3/4 mile from beach | 4 users found this interesting.

54.2 km NW of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s Ground floor light shaking felt while sitting on couch | 4 users found this interesting. (reported through (reported through our app / Weak shaking (MMI III) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s

Marina ca / Moderate shaking (MMI V) : Ive never experienced an earthquake like this before. Im new to California. I felt My entire bedroom shaking at 0643 hours. I thought my cats were jumping on my bed and making a ruckus but after a few seconds of the room shaking and everything rattling I realize this was an earthquake. Experienced earthquake in Germany in the early 90s and one in Maryland a few years ago but this is my first for California. | 3 users found this interesting.

Ben Lomond (96.1 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s : I think I was woken up by it, seemed to last for a little while, unsure what it was at first and thought it might get worse but then it stopped | 2 users found this interesting.

Salinas / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : I was sitting at the chair and my foot was pressing against the table leg. I felt like someone was slightly rocking my chair. It took me a second to realize it is not my cat rubbing against the chair but an earthquake. And I also heard a wall in the living room sort of cracking. It happens when my upstairs neighbours come home and enter their apartment. No objects were visibly moving. The other person was standing leaning towards the sink in the kitchen and did not feel anything. | 2 users found this interesting.

Salinas / Weak shaking (MMI III) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s : woke me up. my dresser was making a soft banging metal sounds because it was being shaked, fairy lights were swaying | 2 users found this interesting.

capitola cal. (59.4 km NW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 10-15 s : I was asleep and it woke me up ..but thought i could be having an earthquake dream, nightmare, that i sometimes occurs since the big one in the 80's. | One user found this interesting.

Marina, CA (53 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / very short : Jolt, small boom, rattled bedframe and other objects. A bit of noise. I'm one the second floor of an apartment and initially thought something blew up downstairs lol or hit the building. Had just been woken up ten mins prior I think because of a smaller quake just before the 4.3 | One user found this interesting.

Aptos, Seacliff (25.8 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : I was sleeping and was awakened by the feel of the earthquake. I heard a loud rattling possibly from the floor of our modular home. | One user found this interesting.

Hollister California (30.8 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s : I was asleep, then the noise of the rumble woke me up and I felt my bed and saw my dresser shake for roughly 5-10 seconds | One user found this interesting.

Santa Cruz (81.9 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s : Felt shaking for minimum of 5 seconds from an upstairs bedroom. Heard and felt rattling of objects against the wall and the house in general. | One user found this interesting.

Boulder Creek CA / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s : Woke me up | 3 users found this interesting.

Salinas , ca / Strong shaking (MMI VI) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s : Strong shaking that lasted for 2-4 secs . | 3 users found this interesting.

Santa Cruz / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / 20-30 s : Shook my bed & rattled windows.. cat got scared | 3 users found this interesting.

Newman (80.7 km N of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s : A horizontal shake back and forth once in each direction | 2 users found this interesting.

Del Rey Oaks, CA / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 15-20 s : Thought our cat jumped on the bed. As it continued and I was more awake realized it was an Earthquake as bed shook for another 15+ seconds. | One user found this interesting.

33 mile marker off Carmel Valley Road / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / 5-10 s : At first before initial quake there was a thrump and a noise and I thought there might be a quake within a few minutes there came the quake. Pretty strong and lasted a few seconds. Im up two miles off Carmel Valley Road and if I feel them up here I know its really strong elsewhere | One user found this interesting.

Santa Cruz, CA / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : Woke me up & lasted a few seconds, enough for me to jump out of bed & get slippers in case it continued. I was on 2nd floor of house. | One user found this interesting.

Hollister Ca. / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s : I usually sleep through these but my parrots and dogs started making noise 2 seconds before the boom hit than swaying started and was pretty long, bout 10 secs. From my location my phone logged it in at 4.6 .Than again I'm on the westside of the town 10min from San Juan Bautista ca. | One user found this interesting.

Carmel-by-the-Sea / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / 10-15 s : I was awakened by the shaking of my bed and the rattling of items on our dresser which also was shaking. | One user found this interesting.

Marina / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s : About 4 horizontal swingings back and forth and direction was from east to west and west to east. The first shake was from east to west. | One user found this interesting.

Santa Cruz, Ca / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s : Woke me up. Felt like someone was at the foot of my bed shaking it (push/pull shake). The dog was freaked out too. | One user found this interesting.

Salinas / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / 10-15 s : I was sleeping in bed when I suddenly felt the bed moving. I stood up and felt the small shacking of the Earthquake. | One user found this interesting.

Watsonville, CA / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / 2-5 s : This one got me out of bed, thinking that Id need to get under my dining room table. Nothing was displaced, though I am sure it was strong enough to be felt outdoors. Im at Sunset State Beach, Watsonville. | One user found this interesting.

Soquel Ca / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 10-15 s : Very noticeable earthquake. Alarming but not to the extent to move to safe place (though very close!). The swaying movement seemed to last longer than other typical small quakes. | One user found this interesting.

SEASIDE / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 20-30 s : I was asleep and woke up because I heard my window rattling and felt slight vibrations as of a large truck was passing by. I looke at my teardrop chandelier light and saw all the crystals were moving and if someone was jumping up and down next to the lamp. That lasted for a least 30 seconds if not more. | One user found this interesting.

66.4 km SSW of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Quake felt like a hard jolt. It was preceded by the closet door rolling open. I was on the second floor at the time of the quake. I live on campus at U.C.Santa Cruz

Castroville, CA 95012 (50.3 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt : Although I didn't feel this specific earthquake, over the last 36 hours I've repeatedly been sensing my earthquake "tell" of feeling like I'm on a boat that's swaying under my feet. No surprise when I checked USGS and discovered the Pinnacles are swarming + 3 earthquakes Northwest of there... even closer to home.

Santa Cruz, downtown (83.1 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 20-30 s : I awoke to rattling/creaking (upstairs in an old wooden house) which was sustained long enough for me to put a shirt on and get up to stand in a doorway in case it continued to build. I was surprised that the neighbors downstairs didnt notice the quake.

Aptos, Seacliff (25.8 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : I was sleeping and was awakened by the feel of the earthquake. I heard a loud rattling possibly from the floor of our modular home.

Campbell near the Pruneyard, 3rd floor apartment. (99 km NW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / vibration and rolling : A light rolling / shaking vibration that seemed to last a few minutes. I'm usually a deep sleeper so I was surprised that this woke me up. My bedside lamp was rattling.

Santa Cruz (84.6 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s : I've been in many quakes from '89 earthquake to now. This felt like a lot of surface waves, with noticeable shaking that was light and longer than smaller 3.x earthquakes, but never intensified. Came in two separate waves, maybe the initial S waves, then the surface waves after.

84.8 km WNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s : Woke from sleeping and a few moments later the room was shifting. At first I wondered if I was still sleeping but it lasted long enough for me to focus on the shaking and realize it was an earthquake. (5 seconds or so) The shaking paused momentarily and another lighter shake followed for 2 seconds or so.

57 km W of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / simple rolling (tilting sideways along one direction) / 2-5 s : A loose door in our home was shaking prior to the quake, starting around 4:15 a.m., about 3-4 times. Perhaps tremors?

Salinas CA (38.8 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Severe shaking (MMI VIII) / 10-15 s : I awoke from sleep due to the strong jolt and shaking from the earthquake. It felt as though some thing huge had struck the motel building. I was on the second floor of a large 3 floor motel building.

soquel ca (58.3 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 1-2 s : I was up in bed and thought someone was coming up the stairs for 2 sec. Window sill and closet doors shook. I figured it was an earthquake so I checked my clock for time and it was 6:40-something, and that's why I checked the computer for earthquakes today.

Mott street Santa Cruz CA / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 5-10 s : Laying in bed and immediately recognized it was an earthquake | 2 users found this interesting.

Monterey, Pasadera community / Light shaking (MMI IV) / vibration and rolling / 15-20 s : Steady shaking Not as much rolling | 2 users found this interesting.

Spreckels ca / Very strong shaking (MMI VII) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : First a small wave and 1-2 seconds later a strong wave with shaking | 2 users found this interesting.

Marina, CA / Moderate shaking (MMI V) : Got woken up from a deep sleep. | 2 users found this interesting.

83.2 km WNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : Woke up from sleep | One user found this interesting.

69.5 km NW of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Lying in bed, I felt light shaking and heard some items rattling. I said out loud, "3.8". | One user found this interesting.

82.1 km WNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s : I woke up to my bed shaking back-and-forth and the walls rattling. | One user found this interesting.

Hollister Ca (14.8 km SE of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / both vertical and horizontal swinging / 2-5 s : 3 sharp jolts and moderate shaking | One user found this interesting.

Sand city (57.6 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s : Woke dog then us | One user found this interesting.

Boulder Creek, CA (98.9 km NW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / vibration and rolling / 2-5 s Lying in bed. Cat noticed first. Vibration really. | One user found this interesting. (reported through (reported through our app / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / vibration and rolling / 2-5 s

Salinas ca (41.6 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s : Na | One user found this interesting.

Soquel, CA / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 5-10 s : On bed, second floor of house. Felt like a wave of shaking, seconds later another wave of shaking just as short and weak. Like the dog jumped on the bed twice in less then 10 seconds.

Merced / Weak shaking (MMI III) / very short : My boyfriend and I felt vibrations through the ground in our garage renovated room that felt weak but similar to the train passing through and yet strangely no train sounds to be heard. It last only a couple of seconds not sure exactly how long. We do live only a couple blocks from amtrak so pretty use to floor and walls constantly shaking. Did not think anything of it until I saw your post online and the timing is very significant to that experience.

Palo Alto / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short : I just felt a very mild brief bump that had no apparent other cause, so I wondered if it was an earthquake.

Watsonville, CA / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / 2-5 s : This one got me out of bed, thinking that Id need to get under my dining room table. Nothing was displaced, though I am sure it was strong enough to be felt outdoors. Im at Sunset State Beach, Watsonville.

Marina, CA. / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / 2-5 s : In Monterey It woke me in a very pleasant way. I take anxiety and sleeping pills so it was strong enough to wake me. Imidately I checked the time on my watch, it was 6:41am. Then went back to sleep. In a half awake state it felt like being rocked in a cradle but bumpy.

San Jose Ca / not felt / complex motion difficult to describe : I was asleep when it hit but I can tell you this was not a man made earthquake. Its the Bay Area not Oklahoma. The ring of Fire has been extremely active the last few weeks it was only a matter of time before the Bay Area would wake up. This is a potential foreshock. Once again not man made. Thats ridiculous to think so.

95060 / Light shaking (MMI IV) / vibration and rolling / 10-15 s : Vibration/rattling for about 5 seconds. Then 5 seconds of shaking, more characteristic of past earthquake experiences.

Santa Cruz / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Felt stronger then 4.2. From many, many other quakes I have been through, estimate 4.5 to 4.7. I was awakened, my mobile home had some back and forth movement for 3 to 5 seconds.

Monterey / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : I was sleeping and it awoke me. I called my 6 year old daughters, father in Watson ville. He did not feel it.

Cachagua Road, carmel Valley / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s : My whole family was quickly awoken by the sudden and brief shaking. Our most vibrant earthquake weve felt in the past year of moving here from Colorado.

Santa Cruz / Moderate shaking (MMI V) : I was waking up and it reminds me of the 1989 aftershocks and I was partially asleep so it was probably maybe felt more it Jolted because it was sudden and I was relaxed before that I felt the one in the early morning maybe earlier morning a couple weeks ago as well

La Selva Beach, Watsonville / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 10-15 s : Woke our whole house up from our sleep and lasted long enough to all realize there was an earthquake happening, cupboards rattled.

Santa Cruz / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s : Was in bed and woke up to sound of glasses clinking from the shake. My bed was shaking slightly like it was vibrating left to right. Lasted about ten seconds.

Carmel Valley / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s : I live at the top of Tassajara mountain just below Chews Ridge. I live in a 2 story home. I heard a rumble then fairly significant shaking for 5 to 10 seconds. It felt like it was over 5.0. I am used to desert earthquakes...lived in ridgecrest ca where the quakes are sizable. This one felt fairly big.

Santa Cruz, Ca / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s : was lying in bed....felt more like a rattling...hard to describe this one...definitely wasnt swaying or up and down jolting...could hear the sound of it...thought my cat was being mischievous

La Selva Beach / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 5-10 s : Upstairs in bed reading...felt it shake for around 5-10 seconds. Heard it was 4.5 which sounds accurate

Santa Cruz, UCSC / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake : I was sleeping, and with a jolt my bed had heaved upward before coming back down again. It ended soon after that.

Harbor Vista Lane, Santa Cruz / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s : Woke up to mild shaking, heard crack in house walls. Maybe 10 seconds. Felt three other after, within about 20 minutes, all subtle.

Seaside / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single vertical bump / 2-5 s : Woke me up from sleep, one section of the jolt felt worse down other side of house verticle | One user found this interesting.

Seaside, CA / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s : I heard the rubbling then a sudden jolt while I was in bed and knew it was an earthquake. | One user found this interesting.

Monterey / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s : Felt the bed vibrate, heard small items rattling against each other. | One user found this interesting.

San Juan Bautista / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s : I was in bed and it woke me up. The whole house shook. | One user found this interesting.

Santa Cruz / Light shaking (MMI IV) : started weak then escalated several seconds later before tapering off quickly | One user found this interesting.

Santa Cruz, CA / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s : Shaking woke me up from a deep sleep | One user found this interesting.

Santa Cruz / Light shaking (MMI IV) : sitting at my desk felt my 2 story house shake for about 10-20 seconds. | One user found this interesting.

Campbell CA / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : Doors rattling and bed shook sideways | One user found this interesting.

Hollister / Moderate shaking (MMI V) : Woke me up with things falling off all my shelves , dog was going crazy, scared me | One user found this interesting.

Hollister, Ca (indoors) / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Jolt, rocking motion. Set off car alarms. | One user found this interesting.

Carmel by the Sea / Moderate shaking (MMI V) : It started with a rumble and then a crack and then a long rumble. | One user found this interesting.

Soquel / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Shaking at 6:42 woke me up over in 3 seconds | One user found this interesting.

Monterey, CA / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : My bed was slightly shaking. | One user found this interesting.

Salinas / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s : furniture was shaking my walls made noise lasted about 2 to 5 seconds | One user found this interesting.

Aromas / Light shaking (MMI IV) / complex rolling (tilting in multiple directions) / 10-15 s : Rolling not shaking | One user found this interesting.

Santa Cruz / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s : 6:35 an | One user found this interesting.

Hollister (31.8 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / complex rolling (tilting in multiple directions) : Initial strike was a jolt, then it rolled.

Hollister (31.8 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / complex rolling (tilting in multiple directions) : Initial strike was a jolt, then it rolled.

83.3 km WNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

121.9 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / not felt

Castroville (0.1 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) : Woke me out of bed

Carmel Point (64.5 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) : in bed felt quick undulations rolling through bed. no objects disturbed. no creaking or sound.

87.2 km NW of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s : Awakened me.

87.2 km NW of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s : Awakened me.

73 km NW of epicenter [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / vibration and rolling / 20-30 s : Very scary.

168 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / not felt (reported through our app / not felt

Santa Cruz CA (83.6 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s

Livermore ca (128.9 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt No felt (reported through (reported through our app / not felt

Santa cruz (83 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 5-10 s

Monterey (60.6 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s

Carmel-by-the-Sea (62 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

73 km NW of epicenter [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / vibration and rolling / 20-30 s : Very scary.

79.4 km WNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

La Mesa neighborhood, Monterey (59.7 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s : Strong enough that it woke me up and prompted me to google if a quake had just happened

Santa Cruz (85 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / 5-10 s : Woke from sleep to the bed shaking and windows rattling.

Monterey (60.6 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s

Aotos, CA (74 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 5-10 s : Bed shook about 5-7 seconds and our windows rattled.

91.6 km NW of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Hollister (30.1 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 10-15 s

Monterey, ca (58.3 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Felt and sounded like heavy truck driving by and was shaking

238.9 km N of epicenter [ Map ] / not felt (reported through our app / not felt

Monterey CA (61.4 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating

Santa cruz (83 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 5-10 s

29.7 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / 10-15 s : Woken up to a violent jolt followed by shaking.

81.6 km WNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 1-2 s

Santa Cruz, California (82.3 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 5-10 s : The shaking woke me up. I was sleeping on a second floor of the house in Santa Cruz.

Scotts Valley (87.5 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Seaside (53.6 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) : I felt some shaking, woke up to make sure it was just a quake, then went back to sleep

Monterey CA (61.4 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating

Santa Cruz (82.4 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Woke up from sleep yeah, cats on alert, chickens started squawking

64 km W of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Santa Cruz (87.6 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Salinas ca (40.9 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : Big bump followed by shaking

Palm State Beach (61.3 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s

59.8 km W of epicenter [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V)

Corralitos (82.7 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 2-5 s

51.9 km W of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : I was laying down on a ground floor, it had a passing truck feeling

East Garrison, CA (47.3 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s

63.9 km W of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s

Marina CA (53.6 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating

Santa Cruz, CA (83 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Santa Cruz (47.3 km SSW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Seaside, Ca (54.9 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / complex motion difficult to describe / 2-5 s

East Garrison (47 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Monterey (55.3 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s

Santa Cruz (83 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Soledad, ca home (29 km SSW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s

Fresno (150.2 km E of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt I was awake ...felt nothing! Lol (reported through (reported through our app / not felt

172 km NW of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Marina, CA (48.8 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s

82.7 km WNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Marina (55.9 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 5-10 s : Woke us up, am usually a heavy sleeper. Objects rattled for about 10 sec.

51.9 km WNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single lateral shake / 2-5 s

Monterey (62.6 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Awoken from sleep with shaking

Tassajara Road, Carmel Valley CA 93924 (43 km SW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

86.5 km WNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

Aptos (71.2 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s

Pacific grove ca (63.9 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) : Laying in bed I was awake

Salinas, CA-East Acacia St. (40.2 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

44.2 km S of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

66.7 km WNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s

Aptos CA (77 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 5-10 s : Woke me up

san jose calif (97.4 km NW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 2-5 s : short,little shaker san jose cal

Salinas ca (41.6 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s : Na

77.9 km WNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 20-30 s

Santa Cruz (84.7 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / not felt

95.2 km NW of epicenter [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V)

96.6 km WNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Carmel (63.4 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 5-10 s

78.4 km WNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

60.4 km W of epicenter [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / complex motion difficult to describe / 15-20 s

38.1 km WNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 5-10 s

San jose (100.9 km NW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 1-2 s

Marina (49.9 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s

84.4 km WNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single lateral shake / 2-5 s

Salinas, ca (41 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

75.4 km WNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s

Santa cruz (83.6 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s : Na

357.1 km SE of epicenter [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) (reported through our app / Moderate shaking (MMI V)

Monterey, CA (62.5 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V)

Sant (83.7 km WNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Salinas (5.6 km WSW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / simple rolling (tilting sideways along one direction) / 10-15 s

90.8 km WNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Felt light shaking of house. Live in Felton.

Hollister (28.1 km NW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / 10-15 s : Woke me up

Corral De Tierra, CA 93908 (46.3 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / single lateral shake / 2-5 s

115.5 km NW of epicenter [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 1-2 s

South east side of hollister by Fairview (28.9 km NNW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / very short

71.8 km NW of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV)

29.6 km NNW of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / complex motion difficult to describe / 10-15 s

Salinas, CA (39.4 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s

Downtown Monterey (61.3 km W of epicenter) [ Map ] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / 2-5 s

88.4 km NW of epicenter [ Map ] / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 1-2 s

Mountain View (113.9 km NW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s

Salinas / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 10-15 s : Shook in bed

Watsonville / Moderate shaking (MMI V) : Woke me up

Salinas / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 10-15 s : Shook in bed

Gonzales ca / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / vibration and rolling / 2-5 s

Morgan hill ca / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Morgan hill ca / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Citrus Heights, ca / not felt / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s : I was sleeping and felt a swaying movement.

Soquel / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 20-30 s : Woke me up from sleeping and the room was shaking for about twenty seconds

Mountain House, CA 95391 / not felt

Santa Cruz / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 5-10 s

Morgan hill ca / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Marina California / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / vibration and rolling : I was in my bed in my bedroom at the time.

carmel valley / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s : started with fairly strong jolt or shake, quieted and then a small bit of rolling

Santa Cruz, Ca / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Davis ca / not felt

East Garrison ca 93933 / Light shaking (MMI IV) / vibration and rolling : Woke mi up

Santa Cruz / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / 20-30 s : Shook my bed & rattled windows.. cat got scared

SAN JOSE / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

Carmel Valley / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 20-30 s

Gilroy / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s

Bonny Doon, Calif 55 miles from Monterey / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s

Carmel / Moderate shaking (MMI V)

Soledad / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Santa Cruz California / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Salinas / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 10-15 s : Shook in bed

San Miguel, ca / not felt : Karrie Johnson

Aptos / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s

Paradise Park, Santa Cruz, CA / Very weak shaking (MMI II) : The liquid in a bottle swayed, my cats were spooked, I was in the second floor.

Marina / Weak shaking (MMI III) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s : .

San Jose Ca / not felt / single vertical bump / 2-5 s : It was like someone bumped me. No shaking or rattling.

Santa Cruz / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / vibration and rolling / 2-5 s : ONe of the bigger ones in recent years

Monterey / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Morgan hill ca / Weak shaking (MMI III)

San Jose Ca / not felt / single vertical bump / 2-5 s : It was like someone bumped me. No shaking or rattling.

214 Towhee Dr Santa Cruz, CA 95060 = Bonny Doon / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Aptos / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s

las palmas ranch, salinas, ca 93908 / Light shaking (MMI IV) / vibration and rolling / 2-5 s : It woke up my husband and he doesnt usually notice earth quackes while sleeping

Santa Cruz / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 10-15 s : Santa Cruz

Seaside / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s

Santa Cruz / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Santa Cruz / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s

95062 / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Santa Cruz / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 10-15 s : It woke me up and I felt the shaking of our house while laying in bed.

Santa Cruz / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s

Salinas / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 10-15 s

63.6 km W of epicenter [ Map ] / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 10-15 s : light shaking and rattling

Santa Cruz / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s : Just heard the door shaking and felt my bed shaking.

Salinas , ca / Strong shaking (MMI VI) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s : Strong shaking that lasted for 2-4 secs .

Pebble Beach / Weak shaking (MMI III) : The earthquake jolted me awake.

Santa Cruz / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Seaside, Ca. 93955 / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 5-10 s

soquel / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 1-2 s

Marina, Ca / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 10-15 s

Salinas / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Mountain View / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : Very subtle

95060 / Weak shaking (MMI III) : Knobs on dresser slightly rattling woke me from sleep. Other items very lightly shaking and swaying.

San Francisco / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Santa Cruz / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s : Felt the shake in bed this morning. A bit of rattling as well but didn't last very long.

Pacific Grove, CA / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 10-15 s : Vibration. Vertical movements.

Bonny Doon, CA / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

Santa Cruz / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 5-10 s

Hollister, / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Watsonville / Moderate shaking (MMI V) : Woke me up

Santa Cruz,ca / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s : Was woken by the quake

Santa cruz, ca / Very weak shaking (MMI II) : I was in bed, felt the bed shake a little.

Santa Cruz, CA / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s

Monterey / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Aptos / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s

Soquel, CA / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / 2-5 s

Carmel, CA / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Santa Cruz / Moderate shaking (MMI V) : Room and bookshelf shaking

Monterey / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

Marina, Ca / Weak shaking (MMI III) : Mild intermittent shaking for about 20 to 30 seconds

Santa Cruz, California / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Light shaking for about 15/20 seconds

Pajaro Dunes / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / very short : Dog woke up and then right after felt a very short and relatively subtle shaking

Aptos / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s : woke me up from sleep

Scotts Valley CA / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Santa Cruz, upper Westside, home / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 2-5 s : In bed, felt very light shaking for very short period of time.

Santa cruz, 2and story apt / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Monteret / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s : I woke to the shaking of my bed then heard rattling of glasses somewhere.

Soledad, Ca / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / 1-2 s : I was asleep when they shake woke me up.

Santa Cruz / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Monterey / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Santa Cruz, Ca / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Marina, CA / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s : Woke me up. My bedroom is upstairs .

Pebble Beach, CA, 93953 / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : Rattled handles on dresser, mild shaking.

Salinas / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s : Light shaking, 2-5 seconds

Los Gatos (96.9 km NW of epicenter) [ Map ] / Weak shaking (MMI III) : Na

Santa Cruz CA / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / single lateral shake / 2-5 s : I was awakened, felt three lateral shakes. I am in Santa Cruz at 320 Soquel Avenue.

Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Seaside. I was asleep / not felt

Soquel hills / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

Santa Cruz, CA / Light shaking (MMI IV) / vibration and rolling / 10-15 s

Salinas / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 5-10 s

Scotts Valley / Light shaking (MMI IV) / vibration and rolling / 10-15 s : Was awakened by rumbling of the house and glad windows vibrating.

Scotts valley / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s

Boulder Creek CA / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s : Woke me up

Santa Cruz CA / Moderate shaking (MMI V)

Monterey CA / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Monterey CA / Strong shaking (MMI VI) / both vertical and horizontal swinging : While sleeping was waken by it rocking us both side to side

Prunedale CA / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Santa Cruz / not felt : I slept through it. But woke up right after.

Santa Cruz, Ca / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s

Soledad CA / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s : It woke me up.

Salinas / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / single lateral shake / 1-2 s

Santa cruz / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Seaside, CA / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s

santa cruz / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s

Carmel / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Marina ca / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Santa Cruz, CA / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : The windows rattling woke us up. It lasted a while but wasnt strong enough to urge us out of bed.

Friant Ca / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s : Light vibration of bed

Monterey / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Woke me up. Bed shook and door rattled

Santa Cruz (Cayuga Street). 4 blocks from the ocea / Weak shaking (MMI III) / 1-2 s

Seaside / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Monterey / Light shaking (MMI IV) / vibration and rolling / 5-10 s

Monterey, / not felt

Aptos / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s

Santa Cruz / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 10-15 s

Hollister, Ca (indoors) / Light shaking (MMI IV) : Jolt, rocking motion. Set off car alarms.

Scotts Valley, Ca / Moderate shaking (MMI V) : Woke me up

Salinas / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s

Scotts Valley / Weak shaking (MMI III) : It lasted 5 or 6 seconds.

Monterey / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 2-5 s

Carmel valley village / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 5-10 s : Pool water moved

Soledad, CA / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Santa Cruz / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Santa cruz / Light shaking (MMI IV) : I heard and felt the shaking while lying in bed. It lasted only a couple of seconds.

Salinas ca / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Carmel / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

Soquel / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s

Santa Cruz,CA / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Watsonville, ca 95076 / Very weak shaking (MMI II) : Jolt

Carmel valley / Weak shaking (MMI III) : Felt like a big truck was rumbling by

San Benito / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / 20-30 s

Capitola / not felt / rattling, vibrating / very short : heated the rattling so knew it was one

Hollister / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Salinas / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 1-2 s

Santa Cruz / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s

Prunedale ca / Light shaking (MMI IV) / both vertical and horizontal swinging / 5-10 s

Soquel, California / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Pebble beach / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s : Minor rattling of wall objects but nothing felt

Santa Cruz CA / Light shaking (MMI IV)

95073 / Light shaking (MMI IV)

93901 / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s

Salinas / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Prunedale, California / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s

Prunedale, ca / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 5-10 s

Hollister / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s

salinas / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s

Wellington park dr, san Jose / Light shaking (MMI IV) / single lateral shake / 2-5 s

Soquel / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging

Prunedale,ca / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single lateral shake / 2-5 s

Santa Cruz / Light shaking (MMI IV)

SANTA CRUZ / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / 5-10 s

Santa Cruz Ca / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 2-5 s

HOLLISTER / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s

Carmel ca / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s

Hollister off of Meridian and Vintage way / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 5-10 s : The gentle shaking lasted longer than normal.

Santa Cruz / Weak shaking (MMI III) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Scotts Valley / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 1-2 s

Salinas / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Hollister, Ca / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s

Santa Cruz / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Salinas / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / 5-10 s

Brookdale / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Santa Cruz, Ca. / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Carmel / Weak shaking (MMI III) : A creak sound Very light shake woke us up

Salinas, CA / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 1-2 s

Salinas / Moderate shaking (MMI V) : It lasted longer than most.

95037 / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Carmel by the Sea / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / single lateral shake / very short

San Jose / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 5-10 s

SANTA CRUZ / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Salinas / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s

Marina ca 93933 / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 20-30 s

Sunnyvale / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / very short

Chualar CA / Light shaking (MMI IV) / 2-5 s

Soledad / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Carmel highlands / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s

Santa Cruz California / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / single lateral shake / very short

Gonzales / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / 2-5 s

Salinas, CA / Weak shaking (MMI III)

Salinas, Ca / Moderate shaking (MMI V)

Paicines, CA. San Benito RV Park / Light shaking (MMI IV) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 2-5 s

Hollister / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Salinas / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s

Morgan Hill / Light shaking (MMI IV) / complex rolling (tilting in multiple directions)

Soledad, Ca / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s

Hollister / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Hollister / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Monterey CA 93940 / Light shaking (MMI IV)

Hollister CA / Strong shaking (MMI VI) / horizontal (sideways) swinging

prundale ca / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / rattling, vibrating / 2-5 s

Gonzales / Strong shaking (MMI VI) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s

Hollister / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 5-10 s

Salinas / Light shaking (MMI IV) / rattling, vibrating / 5-10 s

Santa Cruz / Moderate shaking (MMI V)

Boulder Creek / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / 1-2 s

Santa Cruz Mountains / Very weak shaking (MMI II)

Aptos, Ca / Very weak shaking (MMI II) / rattling, vibrating
An Afghanistan national has been arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle into the country heroin worth Rs 4.5 crore at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in Delhi, according to an official statement on Saturday.

The accused was intercepted on his arrival from Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan on Tuesday.

"Subsequently on medical examination of the passenger, certain material was found to be secreted in the lower abdomen. Medical procedure yielded recovery of a total of 89 pellets of plastic containing a total of 635.5 grams of powdery substance suspected to be narcotics," the customs department said in the statement.

When the material was subjected to diagnostic test, prima facie it appears to contain commercial quantity of heroin with estimated market value of Rs 4.5 crore, it said, adding that the passenger has been arrested.

In another case, a man has been arrested at the international airport for smuggling in 16 iPhones.

The accused was intercepted by the customs officials on his arrival from Dubai on Saturday.

"During the personal and baggage search of the passenger, 16 mobile phones of iPhone brand (8 phone of 512 GB and the other eight of 256 GB) and one Macbook Air valued at Rs 17.04 lakh were recovered, it said.

The passenger also admitted to have smuggled iPhones valued at Rs 16.5 lakh in his previous visits, the statement said, adding that the accused has been arrested.

(Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed; only the image & headline may have been reworked by www.republicworld.com)
City, volunteers to line Highway 81 with flowers

The City of Watertown Parks and Recreation Department and volunteers will be planting flowers along Highway 81 starting at 8 a.m. Wednesday, May 26.
Lucknow: Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday termed the death of a 57-year-old farmer due to heart attack while protesting against the Centre's new farm laws at the Ghazipur border as "disturbing", and accused the ruling BJP of being "heartless".

In a Hindi tweet, he said, "On the first day of the new year itself, the news of the martyrdom of a farmer at the Ghazipur border is disturbing. The farmers are sacrificing their lives in the dense fog and cold, but the ruling party is sitting heartless. The ruthlessness seen in the BJP has never been seen so far." Mohar Singh died of heart attack while protesting against the farm laws at the Ghazipur border in Ghaziabad on Friday.

A resident of Bhagwanpur Nangal village in Baghpat district of Uttar Pradesh, Singh was rushed to a nearby hospital where the doctors declared him brought dead, an official said.
BRIGHTON  After 140 years, the Womens Fellowship at St. Johns United Church of Christ in Brighton is disbanding.

Begun in 1880, the group now has only four members, with three in their 80s or 90s. But their legacy of fundraising will continue through the churchs Loyal Daughters organization.

The church, originally named St. Johns Evangelical Church in Brighton, was founded 150 years ago. The Womens Fellowship  originally called the Ladies Aid Society  was established 140 years ago, in May 1880, with 41 members.

Several German churches such as St. Johns used the name Ladies Aid Society for their womens groups. The organizations raised money for church projects, provided spiritual support and fostered social interaction for the women of the church.

During its first year, the St. Johns Ladies Aid Society held a sale and supper to raise $154  equal to about $3,929 in 2020  to buy an organ. Seven years later it bought a 1,000-pound bell for the church steeple; it was hung on Oct. 17, 1887, replacing a smaller bell given to the one-room Bott School south of Brighton.

Annually the Ladies Aid Society would serve a summer dinner and supper open to the public. Each November they hosted a bazaar which, in the early years, included chicken and ham meals and useful and fancy items for sale.

In 1925, when St. Johns Evangelical Church underwent a major renovation, the Ladies Aid Society bought new pews for the sanctuary. The renovation included adding a basement, which over the years was the site of hundreds of events and fundraisers.

By its 50th anniversary in May 1930, the Ladies Aid Society had contributed $7,470 to the church, or about $116,000 in 2020 terms.

Denominational church mergers at the national level led to several name changes for the ladies group. In the early 1930s it became the Evangelical Womens Union. In 1941 it became the Womens Guild. Then in the late 1960s, it took its current name, the Womens Fellowship.

Its monthly meetings included planning for activities, spiritual and educational programs, refreshments and a social time. The group donated to every major building project at the church, Christmas presents for low-income families, Uni-Pres Kindercottage in East St. Louis and the local Good Samaritan Fund. It hosted bazaars, luncheons, food drives, collections of school supplies and personal items for a womens shelter, sewing events to make hats and mittens for children in need and the creation of Thanksgiving food baskets for local families in need.

In 1992, to provide a fellowship opportunity for younger adult women in the church, a group called Loyal Daughters was formed. Although the Womens Fellowship is ending, the Loyal Daughters will continue its legacy of caring.
The opposition parties in Pakistan hit out at the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Friday in the Senate on the issue of its performance and process of accountability.

The opposition members rejected the process of accountability as one-sided and accused the government of using it for witch-hunt of its opponents, reported Dawn.

Earlier also the opposition had levelled charges against the NAB of committing grave human rights violations, custodial deaths, and of being used by Imran Khans government to weaken the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM).

Alleging that the NAB chairman was being blackmailed by the federal government after immoral audio and video clips of him were leaked; some opposition Senators said that he is now compelled to obey all orders he receives through WhatsApp, reported Dawn.

NAB had become a tool in the hands of the government to victimise the opposition. This is why Maulana Fazlur Rehman has said he will not appear before the bureau, said Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F) (JUI-F) leader Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri.

You cannot run the government by hiding behind the army and continuously telling lies. Why do you defame the army by dragging it in politics? he added.

Pakistani Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N) Senator Javed Abbasi said that the NAB has been turned into a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) wing.

There are several judgements of the Supreme Court that highlights the role of NAB in political engineering and forcing politicians to change their loyalty, he added.

The members from the treasury benches responded by saying the opposition was trying to exert pressure on the government to force it to stop pursuing corruption cases against its leaders, who had amassed wealth through commissions and kickbacks, laundered money and stashed it in banks abroad, reported Dawn.

Meanwhile, on December 29, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and PML-N senior leader Khawaja Muhammad Asif was arrested by NAB in Islamabad in connection with the assets beyond means case. (ANI)

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Texas US District Judge Jeremy Kernodle on Friday dismissed a suit seeking to give Mike Pence power to overturn the election results

Kernodle, a Trump appointee, said plaintiffs lacked 'standing' and alleged 'an injury that is not fairly traceable' to the vice president

Rep. Louie Gohmert and Arizona's slate of 'alternate' Electoral College electors sued the vice president in a last ditch attempt to keep Trump in power

In a new filing Friday, Gohmert argued that Pence was more than a 'glorified envelope-opener in chief' when he presides over Congress on January 6

Gohmert and his allies want a federal court to rule that Pence has the power to 'to conduct that proceeding as he sees fit'

On December 14, in a White House-backed effort, Republican 'electors' in swing states President-elect Joe Biden won gathered and voted for Trump

Gohmert et. al. want Pence to be able to pick the uncertified votes from the rogue 'alternate' electors over real Electoral College results

A federal judge has thrown out Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert's lawsuit that had sought to give Mike Pence the power to overturn the presidential election during a formal count of the votes next week.

Texas US District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, on Friday dismissed the suit, ruling that the plaintiffs had lacked 'standing' and alleged 'an injury that is not fairly traceable' to the vice president.

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Gohmert and Arizona's slate of GOP 'alternate' electors had sued Pence to expand his powers, so that he can solely determine which Electoral College votes to count when he presides over the January 6 session of Congress to make President-elect Joe Biden's win official.

The Electoral College cemented Biden's 306-232 victory in mid December and multiple legal efforts by President Trump's campaign to challenge the results have failed.

Vice President Mike Pence

Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert (pictured) sued Vice President Mike Pence in a last ditch attempt to keep Trump in power, claiming he 'may exercise the exclusive authority and sole discretion in determining which electoral votes to count for a given State'

President Donald Trump (left), pictured returning to the White House Thursday with first lady Melania Trump (right), was reportedly unhappy the Justice Department stepped in on behalf of Vice President Mike Pence to crush a lawsuit aimed at giving Pence the power to overturn the election

The suit named Pence, who has a largely ceremonial role in next week's proceedings, as the defendant and asked the court to throw out the 1887 law that spells out how Congress handles the vote counting.

In a fresh filing Friday afternoon, Gohmert argued that Pence is more powerful than a 'glorified envelope-opener in chief.'

'Under the Constitution, he has the authority to conduct that proceeding as he sees fit,' Gohmert wrote.

'He may count elector votes certified by a state's executive, or he can prefer a competing slate of duly qualified electors. He may ignore all electors from a certain state. That is the power bestowed upon him by the Constitution.'

Texas U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, dismissed Gohmert's lawsuit due to lack of 'standing'

Legal experts have strongly disagreed with Gohmert's assessment.

In the Thursday night DOJ filing, Pence's lawyer, Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Coghlan, pointed out a basic fallacy in this case - in order to sue, the plaintiff and the defendant must be in opposition.

In this case, Gohmert and Pence's interests are aligned.

'The Vice President is not the proper defendant in this lawsuit,' Coghlan wrote. 'The Vice President - the only defendant in this case - is ironically the very person whose power they seek to promote.'

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'A suit to establish that the vice president has discretion over the count, filed against the vice president, is a walking legal contradiction,' Coghlan noted in a Thursday night filing.

The department said, in effect, that the suit objects to long-standing procedures laid out in law, 'not any actions that Vice President Pence has taken,' so he should not be the target of the suit.

'A suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction,' the department argued.

The dismissal of the suit comes amid reports that President Donald Trump was unhappy that the Department of Justice responded on behalf of Pence in the lawsuit.

The New York Times reported that Trump called Pence Friday morning to express surprise at the development. The president was more vocal to others about his displeasure, sources told the paper's Maggie Haberman.

Trump and his allies have filed roughly 50 lawsuits challenging election results, and nearly all have been dismissed or dropped. Hes also lost twice at the Supreme Court.

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On Friday, a number of Michigan's 'alternate' electors filed a brief in the case.

If Trump had won Michigan, these individuals would have been the state's members of the Electoral College.

However, because Trump didn't win Michigan, the state's electors are Democrats - and cast their votes in favor of Biden in Lansing on December 14.

In court documents the rogue electors say that 'with the permission and endorsement of the Michigan Legislature' they cast votes in favor of President Donald Trump 'at the time, place, and manner required under Michigan state law and the Electoral Count Act.'

'At the same time, Michigan's Governor and Secretary of State appointed a separate and competing slate of electors who cast Michigan's electoral votes for former Vice-President Joseph R. Biden, despite the evidence of massive multi-state electoral fraud committed on Biden's behalf that changed electoral results in Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and other states that have also put forward competing slates of Presidential Electors,' the court document reads.

On Friday, Trump continued to push his supporters to come to Washington, D.C. to protest on the day Pence will oversee a Congressional session in which the Electoral College votes are tallied

Trump's White House backed the effort to have 'alternate' electors show up in state capitols to vote on December 14, so that those votes could be used to challenge the actual Electoral College results when Congress meets on January 6

The group did not have the permission of the Michigan legislature - with Michigan State Police blocking their access to the capitol - but they did have approval from the White House.

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On December 14, White House aide Stephen Miller revealed a plot to have separate Republican electors cast votes for Trump in key swing states including Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico.

'As we speak, today, an alternate slate of electors in the contested states is going to vote and we're going to send those results up to Congress,' Miller said on 'Fox & Friends.' 'This will ensure that all of our legal remedies remain open. That means if we win these cases in the courts, we can direct that these alternate electors be certified.'

This is where the Gohmert lawsuit comes in.

The suit argues that the Electoral Count Act, which was passed in 1887, violates the 12th Amendment, which outlines the procedure for electing the president and vice president.

The amendment, which was ratified in 1804, says that the 'President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall be counted.'

While the lawsuit aims to give Pence unprecedented power to choose from slates of electors, lawmakers have the ability to challenge the count, with Sen. Josh Hawley saying he would object to some states' results

The lawsuit argues that the 'President of the Senate,' which is Pence, has the sole authority to determine which votes to count.

'That, with respect to competing slates of electors from the State of Arizona or other Contested States, the Twelfth Amendment contains the exclusive dispute resolution mechanisms, namely, that (i) Vice-President Pence determines which slate of electors' votes count, or neither, for that State,' the lawsuit says.

Legal experts called the reasoning laughable.

Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe tweeted that Gohmert effort 'may be the dumbest law suit of all' adding that it's 'jaw-droppingly stupid.'

'The idea that the Vice President has sole authority to determine whether or not to count electoral votes submitted by a state, or which of competing submissions to count, is inconsistent with a proper understanding of the Constitution,' Ohio State University law professor Edward Foley told The Hill.

Gohmert will also be joining the effort backed by more than 140 House Republicans to object to state vote counts during the Congressional session.

Congress has the power to toss out Electoral College votes - though has never done so.

If a House member and a senator both sign on to an objection, lawmakers debate the merits of that objection for two hours and then vote.

Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, has said he will file objections, but he hasn't said how many states' votes he will protest.

That effort, which could drag out the January 6 session for hours, even days, is doomed to fail, as only a simple majority is needed to knock down an objection.

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With Democrats in control of the House and enough Republicans objecting to the plot in the Senate, Biden's win will get the Congressional seal of approval.
Shops and homes in Warrnambool were inundated by water after a severe stormed lashed the south-western Victorian city on Saturday afternoon.

The State Emergency Service said it received more than 90 calls for assistance after the sudden downpour hit the region shortly after 2pm.

More than 50 millimetres of rain fell in the town over a 30-minute period.

The Bureau of Meteorology said severe thunderstorms were expected to continue into the evening in western Victoria.
What does the future of the evangelical church look like amid intergenerational tensions?

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The mission of the evangelical Christian church going forward is fraught with tense, intergenerational challenges but great opportunity is ahead, according to Presbyterian Church in America leader Bryan Chapell.

In a meeting of the presbytery clerks that was held via Zoom earlier in December, leaders of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) spoke about how God intends to unite the generations amid different experiences and perspectives on how ministry is done.

Citing the words of Francis Schaffer, Chapell, the clerk pro tempore of the PCA, noted that the loss of truth has fundamentally changed the culture, noting that Truth with a capital T, has moved from truth being transcendent to truth with a lowercase t, which may be a relativist "what's true for me."

"Any church that says there is a transcendent truth has become anathema in culture," he said, because such a claim extends to many other realms like marriage, morality, and other values.

Churches have also dealt with significant loss of their youth in recent years, which has become apparent when children leave the home and Christian parents hope to see them live the faith they were raised in during their childhood years but they do not.

The relevant statistical data shows that two-thirds of today's evangelical youth will not continue to attend church after leaving home, he explained. Only about one-third of those two-thirds who have left will eventually return to church, usually when they start having families and children of their own. As Baby Boomers who still attend church in large numbers begin aging out, the statistics portend a "coming cliff."

What has surprised many evangelicals has not been the loss of the younger generation but the loss of the mature, those who have served as elders, Sunday school teachers, and other leaders within congregations are leaving in greater numbers.

"The people you thought would be the foundation of the church are, in fact, departing," he said.

The loss of denominational ancestry has contributed to this phenomenon in the transient culture which is modern America. The vast majority of Bible-believing Christians in PCA churches were not raised in Bible-believing PCA churches, he said.

"Mobility has taken people away from the churches of their childhood," he said. "And so if you are Bible-committed, the primary decision you are making about churches is 1) 'Do they teach the Bible?' and 2) Do they have a worship style that I like?"

Another reason PCA churches lose mature Christians is the lack of family consistency, he said. Though the actual percentage of Christian marriages that break up is debated  whether it mirrors the approximately 50% figure in the wider secular culture or is closer to 38%, which is what groups like Focus on the Family have maintained  there is little incentive for people to stay in their churches when their marriages fail. Most marriages break up within the first five years or when couples become empty nesters, he said.

The mature also leave churches when the activities of their children eclipse regular church attendance.

Many of the two-thirds of youth who leave church upon leaving the home were already not attending church in their upper teen years because of sports, SAT exam preparation, and jobs, all of which are now happening on Sunday mornings, he explained.

"We do not identify them as not attending church because they are still living with their parents, but the reality is that they've already stepped out," Chapell said.

Affluence has afforded many parents the privilege of traveling more, perhaps having a second home and if one is retired that frees up time to be away from church if they choose, he said, noting that many who consider themselves to be "regular" church attenders and members attend services three out of eight Sundays.

The rise of the "nones"  those who no longer identify with any particular religious affiliation  has happened as people emerge from a culture of nominal Christianity. Many nones say they are spiritual but not religious yet still believe in God. This group has grown 1% per year since the year 2000.

Given such rapid demographic changes, the experiences of older and younger pastors are widely disparate and thus present generational challenges when it comes to approaching ministry.



For those ministers over 50, the thinking was Christian majoritarian accompanied by the view that it was their spiritual obligation to take charge of the culture and stop the erosion of morality and ethics by reestablishing Judeo-Christian values through various political and economic means. This meant attempting to stop social ills and liberal causes like abortion, pornography, illegal drugs, gambling, radical environmentalism, and LGBT goals. Such spiritual motivation was bolstered by a prevailing anti-communist ethos that was especially strong in American political culture in past decades.

This way of thinking is increasingly less prevalent if not the opposite among those under 40, whose experiential grid differs vastly from how the older generation was raised, the PCA leader elaborated. The faithful among the younger generation see as their duty to make the Gospel message credible in a largely unbelieving society, which alters how they speak about issues, emphasizing Gospel-based, solutions-oriented approaches to problems instead of moral and political opposition.

The intergenerational chasm proves difficult to navigate, he explained, noting how the older generation accuses the younger generation of moral compromise and capitulating to culture. And the younger generation accuses the older of lacking compassion and hypocrisy.

Yet Chapell expressed optimism in that great opportunity for mission exists amid a culture that is increasingly hostile to Christian faith.

"If in fact you are a young person in the church today ... we probably have the best generation of evangelists in our churches than in any time of our history, because if you're willing to identify with Jesus Christ and the Scriptures in this culture, you are swimming upstream, you have taken a stand, and you actually want to make credible your Gospel to your family and to your friends and to your neighbors."

Being an intergenerational church is "amazingly powerful" for the purposes of God, Chapell said.

While most people come to faith in Christ before age 15, "that also means that the most powerful mechanism for spreading the Gospel is the covenant family. It always has been, it always will be."

"And if we are raising families with an understanding of their dynamics, we will change people, we will change the world. It's what God has called us to do. Outreach in fact occurs when we are able to be generation upon generation, faithful to the Scriptures, dealing with different contexts as we do it," he concluded.




Publican Martin Keane, who is in a legal battle with the council over the market

Publican and hotelier Martin Keane is alleging the move by Lord Iveagh to repossess the Iveagh Market in Dublin's south inner city is "illegal".

The claim was contained in new accounts for the business behind Mr Keane's Oliver St John Gogarty pub, in Dublin's Temple Bar, which show the business continued to produce stellar profits before Covid-19 enforced shutdown of the business.

The new accounts for Mr Keane's Drayton House Holdings Ltd show the group recorded pre-tax profits of 4.9m in the 12 months to the end of last February 28.

The accounts addressed the move by Lord Iveagh to repossess the Iveagh Market.

The market, which was built in the early 20th century by the Guinness family, has been derelict for more than 20 years and the subject of a legal battle between the council and Mr Keane.

Last month, the council confirmed that it was notified by representatives for Lord Iveagh, a member of the Guinness family, that he had invoked the "reverter" clause contained in the original Deed of Conveyance dated July 1906. "Lord Iveagh has, in accordance with the terms contained in the Deed of Conveyance, repossessed the property this morning and notified the Council accordingly," a spokesman for the council said at the time.

In a note attached to the Drayton House accounts, it said a subsidiary within the group entered into a contract with Dublin Corporation to redevelop the Iveagh Market site in 2008. The note said a number of legal title issues relating to the premises and site have been ongoing since and still have not been fully resolved.

"In December 2020, action was taken by a third party attempting to take possession of the property," it said.

"In the opinion of the directors, having taken legal advice, the action was illegal and the subsidiary company is seeking legal redress to correct this situation," it alleged.

The note added: "The directors are confident the company's legal action will be successful and the company will be able to proceed with the proposed development of the site."

The note said the title continues to be held by Dublin Corporation, subject to the assertion of the third party noted above and therefore legal title has not passed to the company and will not do so until such a time as the legal matters are resolved and the development is complete.

Herald

The Jammu and Kashmir police on Saturday said they were investigating the killing of a jeweller by terrorists in Srinagar earlier this week, as leaders across political lines condemned the attack.

On Thursday, 70-year-old Satpal Nischal, who had been running a jewellery shop in Srinagar for at least 40 years, was gunned down weeks after he obtained a certificate under the new domicile law, which allows people who have lived in J&K for more than 15 years the right to purchase property. The Resistance Front (TRF), a new terror group that is controlled by top handlers of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), took responsibility for the attack in a statement. The terror group said the jeweller was part of a settler project and those who obtain the domicile certificate will be treated as occupiers.

For a long time we warned and now the time has come when we shall warn no more. We know your names, we know where you live and we know what you do. We are coming for you, TRF said in a statement.

Police said they have begun an investigation into the case and were looking at all possible angles. We are investigating into the case and are looking at what TRF has said in a Facebook post, sub-divisional police officer Shahjahan Ahmad said.

Originally a resident of Punjabs Gurdaspur, Nischal had purchased two properties after he acquired the domicile certificate, which was provided for after the Centre revoked the Constitutions Article 370 that gave a special status to J&K in August 2019, people familiar with the matter said.

Condemning the attack, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said Nischals killing was an assault on the idea of a unified India.

In India, we embrace all religions but it is a matter of concern and shame that the leaders of self-proclaimed secular parties in Kashmir have once again failed to condemn Pakistan and its proxy TRF, J&K BJP spokesperson Brigadier (retired) Anil Gupta said in a statement.

Taking to Twitter, National Conference (NC) leader and former J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah said that no form of violence can be justified.

Very unfortunate. There can be no justification for this kind of violence. May the soul of the departed rest in peace & may his family find strength at this difficult time, he said.

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti echoed Abdullahs views. Condemn the gruesome killing of an innocent man in Srinagar Violence has no place in a civilised society. Deepest condolences to the bereaved family, she said in a tweet.
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EVA MARIE-WWE, PAIGE STILL STREAMING, TOTAL BELLAS RATINGS AND MORE

Has there been any update on WWE and Eva Marie?

Eva Marie has been regularly traveling to Orlando to prepare for her return to the company. There's been speculation she's the one that Angel Garza has been hinting his roses are for, but nothing beyond that. She is signed to the company and internally listed as a member of the roster.

Why do you think the audiences for Total Bellas have been so poor when the show is probably more serious and stronger than ever?

I think part of it is that the over the top ridiculous tones that usually come with a reality series aren't currently a big part of the series. I have also been told that while the overnights aren't the strongest, VOD and DVR numbers for the series are strong.

Any update on the Zelina Vega situation?

She's under a non-compete until February, so I don't see anything new coming out until then.

Why is Paige still streaming on Twitch if WWE talents aren't allowed to do so?

Thus far, she has bucked the orders. Whether that leads to any fallout similar to Vega, we'll have to wait and see.

It's been well over a decade since the Chris Benoit tragedy. Do you think the passage of time will assist with him finally being honored by the WWE Hall of Fame?

Absolutely not. That is just courting bad publicity. It's never, ever going to happen.

Any updates on Alberto del Rio and Tammy Sytch?

Alberto is slated to stand trial on 1/25. Sytch remains incarcerated in New Jersey and has an active warrant for her arrest in Pennsylvania as well.

If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here!
One of America's most senior government officials says the most 'credible' theory about the origin of coronavirus is that it escaped from a laboratory in China.

Matthew Pottinger, who is President Donald Trump's respected Deputy National Security Adviser, told politicians from around the world that even China's leaders now openly admit their previous claims that the virus originated in a Wuhan market are false.

Mr Pottinger said that the latest intelligence points to the virus leaking from the top-secret Wuhan Institute of Virology, 11 miles from the market, saying: 'There is a growing body of evidence that the lab is likely the most credible source of the virus.'

Matthew Pottinger, who is President Donald Trump's respected Deputy National Security Adviser, says the most 'credible' theory about the origin of coronavirus is that it escaped from from the top-secret Wuhan Institute of Virology in China

He claimed the pathogen may have escaped through a 'leak or an accident', adding: 'Even establishment figures in Beijing have openly dismissed the wet market story.'

The comments, which were made during a Zoom conference with MPs on China last week, come as a team of experts from the World Health Organisation prepare to fly to Wuhan to investigate how the pandemic began.

Critics fear the probe will be a whitewash given China's influence on the WHO.

'MPs around the world have a moral role to play in exposing the WHO investigation as a Potemkin exercise,' Mr Pottinger told the parliamentarians, in reference to the fake villages created in the Crimea in the 18th Century, intended to convince the visiting Russian Empress Catherine the Great that the region was in good health.

Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory Party leader who attended the meeting, said Mr Pottinger's comments represented a 'stiffening' of the US position on the theory that the virus came from a leak at the laboratory, amid reports that the Americans are talking to a whistleblower from the Wuhan institute.

Mr Pottinger (left) told politicians from around the world that even China's leaders now openly admit their previous claims that the virus originated in a Wuhan market are false.

'I was told the US have an ex-scientist from the laboratory in America at the moment,' he said. 'That was what I heard a few weeks ago.

'I was led to believe this is how they have been able to stiffen up their position on how this outbreak originated.'

He added that Beijing's refusal to allow journalists to visit the laboratory only served to increase suspicion that it was 'ground zero' for the pandemic.

'The truth is there are people who have been in those labs who maintain that this is the case,' he said.

'We don't know what they have been doing in that laboratory.

'They may well have been fiddling with bat coronaviruses and looking at them and they made a mistake. I've spoken to various people who believe that to be the case.'

He claimed the pathogen may have escaped through a 'leak or an accident', adding: 'Even establishment figures in Beijing have openly dismissed the wet market story'. Pictured: Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli, who was dubbed 'Batwoman', at the Wuhan lab with a colleague

Sam Armstrong, communications director at the Henry Jackson Society foreign policy think-tank, said: 'With such a senior and respected intelligence official speaking in support of this claim, the time has come for the British Government to seek both answers about and compensation for Covid-19.'

Mr Pottinger, who speaks fluent Mandarin, previously worked as a journalist for Reuters and The Wall Street Journal, including seven years as its China correspondent.

In 2005, he became a US marine and served as a military intelligence officer before being asked to join the US National Security Council in 2017, becoming Asia director before assuming his current role.

His older brother, Paul, is a virologist at the University of Washington.

President Trump last year accused the WHO of being a 'puppet of China' and withdrew funding.

The visit to Wuhan by the WHO team is already mired in controversy after it published terms of reference revealing it will not investigate the Wuhan institute  the only laboratory in China with the highest international bio-security grading  as a possible source of Covid-19.

The world must investigate all the mounting evidence Covid leaked from a Wuhan lab, writes IAN BIRRELL

By Ian Birrell for the Mail on Sunday

It is a year since the world learned of a deadly new respiratory disease stalking the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

Yet we still know little about how and why the virus spread with such devastating consequences.

It can almost certainly be traced to bats. But we do not know how this pathogen  having evolved an extraordinary ability to infect, causing such damage to different bodily organs  made the jump into human beings.

At last, a World Health Organisation investigation is under way into the origins of the coronavirus, but it is accused of meekly pandering to China's agenda by recruiting patsy scientists and relying on Beijing's dubious data.

Now there is growing clamour from experts around the world that no stone should be left unturned during this inquiry  and that it must include one key element of a hunt which has all the hallmarks of a thriller novel.

It is a year since the world learned of a deadly new respiratory disease stalking the central Chinese city of Wuhan, writes Ian Birrell. Pictured: Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli, who was dubbed 'Batwoman', at the Wuhan Institute of Virology

This centres on a cave filled with bats, a clutch of mysterious deaths, some brilliant scientists carrying out futuristic experiments in a secretive laboratory  and a cover-up of epic proportions that, if proven, would have huge consequences for the Chinese Communist Party and the global practice of science.

So what, precisely, is this theory on the origins of this pandemic?

It must be stated clearly that it is just a theory, albeit one based on crumbs of evidence teased out by a few courageous scientists and some online detectives.

New diseases have emerged throughout human history. Most experts believe Covid to be a 'zoonotic' disease that spilled over naturally from animals to humans.

They think it was most likely 'amplified' by an intermediate species  similar to how Chinese people's consumption of civet cats sparked the 2002 Sars epidemic.

Yet at the same time, Beijing's actions from the outset  covering up the outbreak, blaming a wild animal market that it has since admitted wasn't at fault, barring outside investigators, burying data and silencing its own experts  have served to fuel suspicions.

Last week, leaked documents exposed how the Chinese government, under orders from President Xi Jinping, is strictly controlling all research into the origins of Covid while promoting fringe theories suggesting it came from outside China.

And it is an uncomfortable coincidence that Wuhan  a city buzzing once again, with busy shops, packed restaurants and many people without masks on the streets celebrating New Year  is home to the world's top coronavirus research unit as well as ground zero to a pandemic from a strange new strain.

The clues start with an abandoned copper mine in Mojiang, a hilly region in Yunnan, southern China, where bats roost in a network of underground caves, cracks and crannies.

Two weeks ago, a BBC reporter was prevented from reaching this remote site after being trailed by police for miles along bumpy tracks, then blocked by a lorry and confronted by men at roadblocks saying their job was to stop him.

Days after three Chinese miners who had been clearing bat droppings inside caves died, Zhengli went to investigate

The previous month, a team of US journalists had also been tailed by plainclothes police who barred their access.

One research team recently managed to take some samples at the mine, but reportedly had them confiscated.

The reason for such secrecy goes back to the end of April 2012 when a 42-year-old man clearing bat droppings in these underground caverns turned up at a nearby hospital with a bad cough, high fever and struggling to breathe.

Within a week, five colleagues had similar symptoms. Three later died, one after doctors spent more than 100 days fighting to save his life  yet the two youngest spent less than a week in the hospital and survived. Sound familiar?

We have since learned from a detailed masters thesis, which included medical reports and radiological scans, that these miners suffered a viral pneumonia, attributed to Sars-like coronaviruses originating from horseshoe bats.

One leading US health body pointed out last year that they had 'an illness remarkably similar to Covid-19'.

Little wonder a prominent vaccine scientist told me: 'This is about as close to a smoking gun as exists.'

Intriguingly, a second thesis three years later also highlighted these cases.

It was written by a student of Oxford-trained virologist Professor George Gao Fu, who is now head of China's Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, which is leading their response to the pandemic.

So the Chinese authorities must have known about the dead miners.

Yet they quickly tried to blame the wildlife market in Wuhan as Covid's source, until challenged by respected studies revealed in this newspaper.

Following the miners' deaths, Shi Zhengli, a Wuhan-based virologist known as Batwoman for her expeditions to gather samples in such caves and a member of the team that traced the origin of Sars to bats, went to investigate.

'The mine shaft stank like hell,' she told Scientific American magazine, explaining how her colleagues spent a year discovering new coronaviruses in samples taken from the blood and faeces of bats.

The miners, she claimed, died from a fungal infection.

'The mine shaft stank like hell,' she told Scientific American magazine, explaining how her colleagues spent a year discovering new coronaviruses in samples taken from the blood and faeces of bats. The miners, she claimed, died from a fungal infection.

Another expert noted how the miners who died were treated with anti-fungal medications, while those surviving were given other drugs.

'So in addition to the fact that the cases were more Sars-like than fungal-like, this treatment story argues against a fungal [cause],' he said.

'It is very odd that Shi Zhengli would assert these cases were fungal.'

Prof Shi examined samples in her Wuhan lab, a few miles from the infamous market. Studies later found the virus in sewage, but it was not detected in animals.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology is the first laboratory with the highest global bio-safety level in China.

It specialises in the study of bat-borne viruses and is spearheading China's drive to assert itself in bio-technology.

Leaked diplomatic cables reveal that US officials who visited the lab two years ago warned about safety weaknesses and the risks of a new Sars-like epidemic emerging from the site.

The lab's own safety chief also publicly admitted concerns over flawed security systems.

The institute has carried out experiments on bat coronaviruses since 2015  including research that can increase their virulence by combining snippets from different strains.

Some viruses were injected into special 'humanised' mice that had been created for use in labs with human genes, cells or tissues in their bodies.

These controversial experiments artificially force the evolution of viruses so as to boost our understanding of diseases and their transmissibility.

They help researchers develop new drugs and vaccines.

The Wuhan scientists were working with prominent Western experts and supported financially by the National Institutes of Health, the most important US funding body  although this relationship was ended on safety grounds after being revealed by The Mail on Sunday.

Some scientists argue this type of pathogen research is too risky since it could trigger a pandemic from a new disease.

As a result, there was a moratorium on such work by the US for four years under the Obama administration.

Other critics have warned that the Wuhan Institute was constructing 'chimeric' coronaviruses  new hybrid micro-organisms that show no sign of human manipulation.

Now the big question is whether they took samples from the coronavirus that killed the Yunnan miners and, back in their laboratory more than 1,000 miles away, created a new virus that somehow leaked out into their own city.

Leaked diplomatic cables reveal that US officials who visited the lab two years ago warned about safety weaknesses and the risks of a new Sars-like epidemic emerging from the site

As leading experts have suggested, it would have been a logical step to create chimeric viruses by combining properties from different samples.

Many scientific breakthroughs have emerged from such speculative endeavours.

One medical professor suggested to me that the miners may have died after being exposed to very high doses of coronaviruses while working in deep shafts filled with bats and their droppings.

But the Wuhan scientists then struggled to prove causality in their lab as their samples were too weak to infect human cells.

'This would have stopped them publishing a major finding of a new Sars-like virus infecting humans.

The possibility is they might then have tried modifying the virus to make it better able to infect human cells in a bid to establish the missing link.'

This is, it must be stressed, unproven speculation.

And it is understandable why China wants to comprehend as much as possible about bat viruses that emerge in their country.

Yet as experts say, there are many unanswered questions centring on Beijing's reluctance to come clean about the miners' cases, viruses and samples held in their labs.

The Wuhan Institute has even taken key databases offline.

Key to all this is the enigmatic Batwoman, Prof Shi. First, she published a genetic sequence for Sars-Cov-2  the strain of coronavirus that causes Covid-19  which, despite close analysis of other novel features, ignored its most surprising characteristic.

This is 'the furin cleavage site', a mutation not found on similar types of coronavirus that allows its spike protein to bind so effectively to many human cells.

The lab's own safety chief also publicly admitted concerns over flawed security systems

Then, last January, Prof Shi and two colleagues published a paper in Nature that revealed the existence of a virus called RaTG13 that was taken from a horseshoe bat and stored on their premises, the biggest repository of bat coronaviruses in Asia.

This paper, submitted on the same day China admitted to human transmission, caused a stir in the scientific world since it revealed the existence of the closest known relative to Sars-Cov-2 with more than 96 per cent genetic similarity.

It underlined that such diseases occur in nature  yet although closely related, it would have taken RaTG13 several decades to evolve in the wild into Sars-Cov-2 and was too distant to be manipulated in a laboratory.

Other experts wondered why there was so little information about this new strain. One reason soon became clear: the name had been changed from that of another virus called Ra4991 identified in a previous paper  but, unusually, not cited in the Nature piece.

This obscured a direct link to the dead miners, which was only confirmed when Nature sought publication of an 'addendum' following complaints.

The Wuhan team also admitted it had eight more Sars viruses from the Yunnan mine that have not been disclosed.

Some scientists say these new details raise many fresh issues  including a 20-point critique put on her blog by an Indian microbiologist called Monali Rahalkar.

Many high-profile experts, however, still dismiss the idea of a lab leak as a conspiracy theory.

Yet David Relman, one of the world's leading experts in this field, points out that scientists could easily have combined a 'furin cleavage site' from one viral ancestor with the backbone of Sars-Cov-2 taken from another.

'Alternatively, the complete Sars-Cov-2 sequence could have been recovered from a bat sample and viable virus recreated from a synthetic genome to study it before that virus accidentally escaped,' wrote Relman, professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University's medical school, in a recent paper.

The former US government adviser on bio-security told me he raised the issues out of frustration with scientists who seemed discomforted by the idea.

'This perplexing story does not add up  the possibility of a lab accident cannot be discounted,' he said.

There have also been questions over the apparent disappearance of a young woman researcher who worked in the laboratory.

It has been suggested she might have been patient zero of this pandemic, although this has been denied by the Chinese authorities.

Even if the miners' link was eliminated, it would not rule out the possibility of an accident causing this pandemic.

Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, said Wuhan scientists have shown in publications that they have sampled hundreds of bats and people living near bat caves in their search for Sars-related viruses.

'Even if the precursor to Sars-Cov-2 was not from these miners or the Mojiang mine, did they find other viruses that are very closely related that we do not yet know about?' she asked.

It sounds like the plot from a science-fiction film: an engineered virus leaking from a high-tech lab to cause global chaos.

Yet there are plenty of precedents, including two researchers infected with Sars in a Beijing virology lab in 2004.

Studies also show accidents with deadly pathogens are common in labs where people are working with microscopic viruses.

Prof Shi admitted she never expected an outbreak in a city so far from the home of the bats she studied.

She said her first thought on hearing coronaviruses might be the culprit was to wonder: 'Could they have come from our lab?'

She then frantically rushed back to Wuhan to check her records for any possible mishandling of materials  which proves she believed such a leak was a possibility.

There is also another lab in Wuhan with a lower level of bio-security, 500 yards from the animal market.

A study posted by two Chinese scientists in February on a site for sharing research  then pulled two days later  enigmatically claimed 605 bats were kept here, describing how some attacked, bled and urinated on a researcher.

'It is plausible that the virus leaked,' the paper concluded.

Perhaps this theory will unravel as we find out fresh facts.

Or scientists will uncover an alternative explanation for the path of Covid-19 from bats to humans.

Equally, it is possible we may never discover the truth about the origins of this virus.

But at this stage the only certainty is that we all do science  and indeed, investigative reporting  a disservice if this idea is discarded without being properly disproved and devoid of evidence.

We owe this to a world dislocated so terribly by this pandemic.

Charles Tyrwhitt is scaling back shirt-making in China after customers complained about the government in Beijing

By Harriet Dennys, City Correspondent for the Mail on Sunday

British shirt-maker Charles Tyrwhitt is scaling back manufacturing in China after customers said they no longer wanted to buy products from the country.

Founder Nick Wheeler told The Mail on Sunday: 'We are reacting to what the customer wants.

'A lot of customers are telling us they don't want us to make shirts in China. They don't like the Chinese government.'

As well as reducing the number of garments made in China, the company is ending contracts with cotton suppliers in Xinjiang province from July.

Mr Wheeler also cited wider human rights issues for the move, saying: 'There are areas of Chinese manufacturing using forced labour it's so far removed from anything we would ever do.'

British shirt-maker Charles Tyrwhitt is scaling back manufacturing in China after customers said they no longer wanted to buy products from the country. Founder Nick Wheeler told The Mail on Sunday: 'We are reacting to what the customer wants'

Charles Tyrwhitt is just one of dozens of multinationals scaling back manufacturing in China due to such concerns, coupled with steep tariffs on Chinese goods imported to the US.

A study by Swiss bank UBS last year found three in four US firms with factories in China are either moving or considering moving their operations to other countries, such as Vietnam.

They include Nike and Apple, which could shift almost a third of its iPhone production out of China.

Relations between China and Australia are also deteriorating. Beijing has slapped tariffs on barley and wine and is disrupting imports of many other Australian goods.

Charles Tyrwhitt makes all of its shirts overseas  it has factories in Vietnam, India, Malaysia, Italy, Portugal and Eastern Europe.

In the UK, the company makes shoes in Northampton, ties in Essex and suit fabric in Yorkshire.

Mr Wheeler said customers have asked him to make shirts in the UK, but he said higher manufacturing costs would mean he would have to more than quadruple prices, charging about 140 a shirt.
I am accustomed to being called ignorant by readers, sometimes with good reason. But the disdain for my grasp of reality was overwhelming last month when I tried to explain why I thought the best public charter schools were good examples for raising student achievement throughout the country.

Several readers said charters, privately run public schools backed by tax dollars, look good only because they choose the students they admit. Here are sample comments:

"Charters get to follow their own rules and pick their own students."

"Really interesting how the author glosses over the fact that charters get to pick and choose their students."

"Charter schools only accept the very best."

"Charter schools . . ., like private schools, pick and choose which students to take."

Those were thoughtful people, but they were wrong. Cherry-picking by charters is rare, and usually unlawful. Even teacher union ads skewering charters don't accuse them of selecting only the students they want.

Charter enrollment issues require some explaining. Nearly all of the 43 states and Washington, D.C. that have charter schools require that random lotteries be used to select students if there is not room for all that apply. Three states, Arizona, Colorado and Wyoming, don't require lotteries, but even there officials said charters are using either lotteries or other impartial ways of admitting students.

"They can either use a lottery or simply select the next name on the wait list based on the order in which that child got added to the wait list," said Peter Mason, vice president for communications at the Colorado League of Charter Schools. The Arizona law requires "an equitable selection process such as a lottery."

Shaelyn Macedonio, spokeswoman for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said Hawaii requires lotteries at start-up charters but not at regular public schools converting to charter status, since they want to guarantee places for all students already attending the school. Texas requires lotteries at state-authorized charters but not district authorized charters.

So it's wrong to say that charters are allowed to pick whatever students they want. But that's not to say some of them haven't skirted those rules.

In 2016, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and the Public Advocates civil rights law firm found that at least 253 of California's roughly 1,200 charter schools maintained policies that illegally prevented students from enrolling or remaining at their schools.

A school in Hemet, Calif. said that to apply as a sophomore a student "must be earning an 'A' or 'B' in both Geometry and Biology." A school in Redlands said "only students who show steady academic progress . . . will be eligible for enrollment." Within a few months of the report's publication, more than 100 charter schools contacted the authors to say they were correcting their policies to get off the bad list. A state law passed a year later clarified that charters may not have any policies that prevent or in any way discourage high-needs students from attending. I suspect there are gaps in enforcement in many states, but the rule is you can't cherry-pick.

Nationally, many charters are allowed to guarantee admission of any siblings of students already admitted. Some are also permitted to weight their lotteries so that low-income students or students in the school's neighborhood have a better chance of getting in. Many people think charters do better because parents who apply to them are more supportive of their children. Some research contradicts that. The argument continues.

The most powerful influence on who goes to certain charters is not admission rules but the character of each school. Those that set academic standards very high draw more applications from parents who want that. Those that emphasize the arts, or technology, or the education of students with disabilities attract parents who want those features for their children.

Two of the most controversial but successful charter networks are the BASIS schools in Arizona, Louisiana, Texas and Washington, D.C., and the Success Academy schools in New York City. BASIS requires Advanced Placement courses and exams in at least six subjects for high school graduation. Its middle school students must pass comprehensive exams each year to be promoted. Success Academy eighth-graders also must pass comprehensives. Its high-schoolers must pass five external exams, such as Regents, SAT subject tests or AP exams, to graduate.

Critics say such demands restrict enrollment in those two networks to parents and children who can handle the pressure. Other onlookers, including me, say if parents want schools that demanding, they should be allowed to have them. Many of them pay taxes that support charters.

I think charter schools are one of the most beneficial reforms in public education in the last two decades. That is particularly true for charters that have raised achievement rates among low-income students through longer school days and more support for teachers. But I enjoy my discussions with readers who disagree with me about this and other issues. We all want to get at the truth.
People Weve Lost Robert Pollack

94 years old

Born in Philadelphia

A lifelong learner, he had a PhD in biochemistry and nutrition More Memorials

Dr. Robert L. Pollack, 94, of Philadelphia, a scientist, author, Navy veteran, and the former chair of the Department of Biochemistry at Temple Universitys School of Dentistry, died Tuesday, Dec. 1, of COVID-19 at Cathedral Village.

A Navy medic during World War II, a published expert on biochemistry and nutrition, a popular professor and scientific researcher at Temple, and a world traveler, Dr. Pollack never forgot his early days as an ambitious boy on Pentridge Street in West Philadelphia.

First in South Philadelphia and then on Pentridge Street, his father, from Russia, and mother, from Lithuania, worked hard to keep Dr. Pollack and his sister safe and healthy. They spoke Yiddish at home, so he learned English in kindergarten.

He told tales of his mother going without food at the dinner table so that he and his sister did not, and they sometimes had to borrow money for groceries.

I consider myself VERY LUCKY, Dr. Pollack wrote in 2018, an example of the American Dream, in a way, and for that I am truly grateful.

His struggles as a boy in the 1930s and 40s framed Dr. Pollacks caring attitude toward others later in life, said his daughters, Janine and Linda. He was delighted when former students recognized him on the street and proud of how he had helped them. He was always giving back, Janine said.

Dr. Pollack was born in April 1926 and graduated early from West Philadelphia High School. He was drafted into the Navy Hospital Corps during World War II and served stateside caring for wounded and sick soldiers.

After the war, he went to Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Sciences, earning three degrees in chemistry and bacteriology. It was then that he first saw Lydia Aureli, at a New Years Eve party at the old International House, as she descended a staircase. They married in 1952.

A teaching fellowship at the University of Tennessee followed his college graduation, and he added a Ph.D. in biochemistry and nutrition from there. The couple returned to Philadelphia and lived together in Andorra with their daughters from the mid-1950s until Mrs. Pollack died in 1997.

Dr. Pollack first worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But he found real satisfaction and achievement at Temples dental school, now Kornberg School of Dentistry. I loved every day of it, he wrote in 2018.

For a quarter century, Dr. Pollack thrived as a teacher and researcher at Temple. He won grants for amino acids research, wrote numerous scientific papers and articles, authored books on nutrition, and appeared across the country as an expert speaker.

In 1975, he got a scientific research job in Genoa, Italy, and spent eight months there with his wife and daughters, touring Europe on weekends. That led to follow-up lectures in Italy throughout the 1970s and 80s. He retired as professor emeritus from Temple in 1988.

After Temple, Dr. Pollack worked with companies to develop lozenges for colds and tryptophan supplements for a variety of uses. He played the flute, and enjoyed camping, sailing, and opera. He found fellowship at the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Restoration, and he moved to Cathedral Village in 2014.

Annual camping trips along the East Coast were a family highlight. The girls would bundle up in blankets and pillows in the back seat for long car rides to and from. Even in the darkness, by the turns and the timing, Linda could tell when they were close to arriving.

She would pretend to be asleep, and her father always carried her into the house.

That way, she said, I could get one more hug from him.

In addition to his daughters, Dr. Pollack is survived by four grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and other relatives. A service is to be held later.
Soon, thousands of National Guard members will descend upon Washington, D.C. to begin preparing to support the 59th presidential inauguration of President-Elect Joe Biden.

So far, Army and Air Guard commands from nearly 30 states have pledged to support what has become a huge tradition for the citizen soldiers.

"Every four years ... this is the biggest event that the National Guard works," Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Craig Clapper, spokesman for the District of Columbia National Guard, told Military.com.

About 7,800 Guard personnel supported President Donald Trump's inauguration in 2016, but the restrictions under COVID-19 may mean that Biden's Jan. 20 inauguration is a smaller-scale event, Guard officials said in a Dec. 21 Army release.

Read Next: Iran Escalates Threats as Anniversary of Soleimani Strike Nears

But the D.C. National Guard, which is responsible for identifying requirements and requesting support from other states, is planning for all contingencies, Clapper said.

"Right now, we have commitments from multiple states for over 4,000 people, but that could easily go up to 7,000, or it could even decrease just depending on what the inauguration will look like," Clapper said. "At this very moment, we don't know exactly what it's going to look like."

Guard members will assist D.C. Park Police and other law enforcement with crowd management, traffic control, emergency response services and communication support.

"We do street blockings, entry control points for certain areas ... a lot of it is just crowd control," Clapper said.

"Normally for inaugurations, we are there a handful of days before ... we have actually already had some personnel come in."

What's still unclear is if Trump's supporters will stage rallies designed to disrupt the event. Several pro-Trump groups have pledged to protest in D.C. on Jan. 6 -- the day the Congress is set to conduct a formal count of Electoral College votes and officially name Biden as the winner of the Nov. 3 election.

"Threats of violence, ploys to smuggle guns into the District and calls to set up an 'armed encampment' on the Mall have proliferated in online chats about the Jan. 6 day of protest. The Proud Boys, members of armed right-wing groups, conspiracy theorists and white supremacists have pledged to attend," the Washington Post reported.

This summer, more than 5,200 Guard members converged on D.C. to support police as tens of thousands of demonstrators protested the May 25 death of George Floyd, a Black man who died while in custody of Minneapolis police. Many demonstrators became violent, but Guard members mainly were on site to man roadblocks, prevent crowds from trespassing White House grounds and protect key monuments in the city.

So far, Guard officials are not expecting any protests on inauguration day, but troops will be ready, Clapper said.

"We always have the security aspect; if something were to happen in terms of an event that would require law enforcement, we are kind of there in a support role," Clapper said. "[In] no inaugurations past have we had to go into any kind of law enforcement role. With this inauguration, we don't anticipate that either, but we still plan for increased numbers of personnel in the area as a just-in-case scenario."

While the event will no doubt be hectic, Guard members also look at inaugurations as a chance to be part of history.

"We have parts of the parade where we will stand along the perimeter usually when the president drives through to offer the salute ... so normally there is a lot of pomp and circumstance," Clapper said.

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

Related: Thousands of Guard Troops Pull Out of DC as Peaceful Protests Continue
Ukrainians bubble holidays in Sri Lanka By Sunimalee Dias View(s): View(s):

Amidst intense opposition from tourism authorities and no one to take responsibility for lapses, the first of the tourists since Sri Lanka closed the airport for international traffic arrived this week as a pilot project under a travel bubble concept.

Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) Chairperson Kimarli Fernando had stated in her letter dated December 26 that due to a number of issues we should not proceed with this pilot project and instead should speak with the key industry players and arrange a well-designed pilot project in January.

Ukrainian Budget Carrier SkyUp Airlines operated the first charter flight to Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (MRIA) on December 28. The carrier is represented by Acorn Aviation in Sri Lanka.

However, authorities have gone ahead with the plans and as of Thursday it was noted that there were at least five COVID-19 positive cases among the group of 180 Ukranian tourists that arrived in the country on December 28.

Some of the key changes made to the health regulations to welcome the tourists were the reduction of the former mandatory length of stay of 14 days as mooted by the Health Ministry, to seven days quarantine period.

As per Health Ministry guidelines under the previously approved regulations travel agents were required to collect funds for three PCR tests and ensure a COVID -19 insurance is in place.

In her letter she points out that the project promoter, Udayanga Weeratunga, has remained uncontactable to Sri Lanka Tourism and has chosen the social media and print media to communicate.

A project of this magnitude with significant potential social, economic and reputation impact cannot be handled effectively in this way, she notes.

Other lapses noted are that the SLTDA has received emails from Committee 05  Export Development Presidential Task for Economic Revival and Poverty Alleviation unsigned and without an author, the letter stated.

Ms. Fernando also notes that hotels engaged in the pilot project need to formally be Certified Safe and Secure and provide details of bookings and confirmation that they will adhere to Health Ministry Guidelines dated 21/12/2020 and SLTDA guidelines issued in June 2020, including providing daily reports.

However, upon arrival the PCR tests carried out on the tourists at the hotels prior to checking in established that about five had tested positive for the COVID-19 virus.

Moreover, it was found that at least two of the participating hotels, have not been approved by auditor KPMG in order to fulfill the safety requirement. The new health guidelines require tourists to stay at certified hotels.

In fact, travel agents have indicated that the COVID-19 positive persons have expressed regret at being isolated while on holiday. According to the regulations and health authorities these persons have to be isolated and placed in their rooms with regular checks carried out and they would not be allowed to go out.

Moreover, under the previous guidelines where travel agents must inform of their plans and hotels of their conduct of the affairs to the SLTDA, the new regulations call for daily updates to be made to the Health Ministry and the COVID taskforce.

Meanwhile, SLTDA Director General Dhammika Wijayasinghe told the Business Times on Thursday that depending on the requirements of the tourists those that are COVID-19 negative after being subjected to a second PCR test within 5-7 days can tour the country.

Plans are underway to entertain these tourists in locations approved by health authorities like Sigiriya, Yala, Udawalawe, Minneriya and Kaudulla, she said.

Ms. Wijayasinghe noted that the guidelines were developed together with the Health Ministry and signed and issued by the Director General of Health Services.

She also noted that positive persons and first line contacts who health authorities have kept under isolation will not be allowed to go on tours even in the bubble. Those found negative however can go out and even then under strict guidance, the DG said.

Tourists will be taken to the sites only during the designated times given for their visit in a bid to avoid contact with any locals, it was noted.

It is learnt that some in the industry had refused to accept the tourists due to the low-pricing of US$60 per person and US$120 per double, in addition to ensuring the guarantee of tourists.

Meanwhile, Airport and Aviation Services Chief Operations Shehan Sumanasekara explained to the Business Times that they had implemented the guidelines by providing disinfecting the passengers upon arrival before entering the terminal while they were still on the aero bridge.

He pointed out that all were given masks and all of their staff on the ground were also adhering to the rules.

However the mask-less dancers present to perform have now been asked to self-quarantine in their homes since a few tourists were found to be COVID-19 positive, Mr. Sumanasekara said.

More tourists were scheduled to arrive on Saturday as travellers are likely to visit the country until January 19 on charter flights.
Carbon County commissioners closed the book on 2020 Thursday as they continue to deal with COVID-19 issues.

Another 17 employees went for coronavirus testing in the past week, Commissioner Rocky Ahner said. The results were not known, and more details should be available Monday, he said.

In late November, the county closed all of its buildings to the public due to rising coronavirus numbers. About one-third of the countys workforce went for testing and quarantined under Centers for Disease Control guidelines.

The county is also dealing with a significant amount of prison guards out on leave, but the shortage is not all COVID-19 related, he said.

Some guards are out on workmens compensation or family medical leave, while other time off is due to vacations with the end of the year, Ahner said. Some guards must also pull shifts at area hospitals with inmates requiring care, Commissioner Chair Wayne Nothstein said.

Some guards will take on overtime shifts, while others are coming back off vacation to fill any gaps, Ahner said.

We do have a plan in place, he said, adding that the state Department of Corrections has been notified should additional assistance be needed.

Three inmates are also in isolation due to COVID-19, Nothstein said.

In another COVID matter, the last of the COVID-19 relief grants went out this week to small businesses, nonprofits, tourism groups and municipalities.

All of the $5.79 million in CARES Act fund that the county was charged with distributing has been allocated, Ahner said.

Nothstein noted that there is no additional or continued CARES Act funding coming in the latest stimulus package from the federal government.

Were happy that we were able to help as many small businesses as we could, he said.

Closing out the meeting, Nothstein said, Its been one heck of a year, 2020, which was the likes of nothing weve seen before.

The county still managed to accomplish many things, keeping things moving, although there have been struggles with COVID-19, he said.

Considering the circumstance, I think we did alright, Nothstein said, and wished everyone a happy New Year. Hopefully things will gradually get better as we get into 2021.

Other

In other business, the commissioners:
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Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell was one of many Republicans to defy Donald Trump over the two bills ((Susan Walsh/AP)

The Senate wrapped up a rare New Years Day session with Republicans rejecting President Donald Trumps demand for 2,000 dollar (1462) Covid-19 aid cheques and overriding his veto of a sweeping defence bill.

The moves came as an emphatic double rebuke of the defeated president at the end of a chaotic Congress.

Democrats tried a final time to push forward a House-passed bill that would boost the 600 dollar (438) direct aid payments just approved by Congress to 2,000 dollars as Mr Trump demanded for millions of Americans. Republicans blocked a vote, arguing in favour of a more targeted approach.

The rejection of Mr Trumps top priorities, along with the first veto override of his presidency, offered an unusual willingness by the presidents party to confront Mr Trump, now in his final days in the White House after losing the November election to President-elect Joe Biden.

Mr Trump lashed out at GOP leadership on Twitter. Pathetic!!! he wrote.

But Mr Trump appeared more focused on his next battle to overturn the results of the election during next weeks session tallying the Electoral College votes.

Congress is ending a dizzying session, a two-year political firestorm that started with the longest federal government shutdown in US history, was riven by impeachment and a pandemic, and now closes with the GOPs rare rebuke of the president.

Democrats vowed to swiftly revive the plan for 2,000 dollar cheques after the new Congress is sworn in Sunday.

President-elect Joe Biden has made clear that the pandemic relief bill that Congress passed is simply a down payment on the work that needs to continue, said Democratic representative Hakeem Jeffries, the chair of the House Democratic caucus. Were going to continue to fight for a $2,000 direct payment cheque.

Tensions ran high as senators sniped over slogging through the holiday season at the Capitol.

Mr Trumps demands for additional aid upended the year-end Covid-19 relief and federal funding package, forcing his Republican allies to stand alone as Democrats embraced his push for more direct payments to struggling American households.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer tried, as he has all week, to push the proposal for a vote, saying the only thing standing in the way was Republican senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and other Republican senators.

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The second-ranking Republican, Senator John Thune of South Dakota, rose to object, saying the proposal was not an effective way to meet the needs of Americans.

That drew an angry tweet from Mr Trump, who said the states Republican governor Kristi Noem should pose a primary challenge to Mr Thune, who faces a re-election battle.

But presidential tweets that once sparked fear in Republicans may be losing their punch.

Republican senator Lisa Murkowski told reporters she found it very dispiriting at this time, New Years Day, that the president would be working to pit Republicans against Republicans.

Mr Trumps last-minute demands threw Congress into a tumultuous year-end session that deepened the divide within the party between the GOPs new wing of Trump-styled populists wary of defying the president and what had been mainstay conservative views.

Senator Josh Hawley, who has pledged to lead Mr Trumps challenge to overturn the election during next weeks session, was among those senators who also supported Mr Trumps push for Covid-19 aid.

Mr Hawley found himself in common cause with Senator Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, who argued on Friday for a vote.

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The influential Mr McConnell has shown little interest in Mr Trumps push to bolster the 600 dollar relief cheques just approved in a sweeping year-end package, declaring Congress had provided enough pandemic aid, for now.

He dismissed the proposal, as passed by the House, as socialism for rich people who did not need the federal help.

Mr McConnell proposed his own bill, loaded up with Mr Trumps other priorities to rein in big tech companies and investigate the 2020 presidential election. But it was not a serious effort, and he did not push it forward for a vote.

The refusal to act on the cheques, along with the veto of the defence bill, could very well be among Mr McConnells final acts as majority leader as two GOP senators in Georgia are in the fights of their political lives in run-off elections next week that will determine which party controls the Senate.

The 81-13 vote in the Senate to pass the defence bill followed an earlier 322-87 override vote in the House of Representatives of the widely popular defence measure.

The bill provides a 3% pay rise for US troops and guides defence policy, cementing decisions about troop levels, new weapons systems and military readiness, personnel policy and other military goals.

Mr Trump rejected the defence measure last week, saying it failed to limit social media companies he claimed were biased against him during his failed re-election campaign.

He also opposed language that allows for the renaming of military bases that honour Confederate leaders.

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Coronavirus vaccine makers have blasted the EU for being too slow to secure stocks of the jab as pressure mounts on France and Germany to speed up immunisation.

The founder of BioNTech Ugur Sahin warned a 'gap' had emerged after EU leaders bet on other vaccines' approval rather than ordering from those already available.

He told Der Spiegel: 'It doesn't look so rosy right now, a gap has emerged, because there's a lack of other vaccines that have received approval and we have to fill this gap with our vaccine.'

The EU only ordered 200million doses until last week, when a further 100million were secured. But it is not enough to provide the EU's 446million population with a single jab each reported the Daily Telegraph.

The UK, meanwhile, has 30million doses as well as 100million of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, enough to immunise everyone.

The founder of BioNTech Ugur Sahin warned a 'gap' had emerged after EU leaders bet on other vaccines' approval rather than ordering from those already available. Pictured, French President Emmanuel Macron said all who wanted vaccinations would get one

Two shots of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine must be administered to ensure the full level of protection. Margaret Keenan, the first person in the world to receive a Covid-19 vaccine (pictured), received her second jab earlier this week

Margaret Keenan returned to hospital this week to receive her second round of the Covid-19 vaccine, but thousands of other patients are set to see their appointments delayed under a new scheme aimed at getting more people to receive their first dose

President Emmanuel Macron has been under mounting pressure to inoculate medical staff over the age of 50 but so far just a few hundred doses have been administered, reported the Financial Times.

Medical staff aged 50 and older will receive the shots from Monday.

It comes as the situation in the Netherlands was labeled a 'national disaster' as the rollout is delayed until January 8 because a computer system still needs to be set up.

PFIZER HITS BACK AT UK PLAN TO GIVE PEOPLE ONE DOSE NOT TWO Pfizer warned yesterday there is 'no data' to show a single dose of its coronavirus vaccine provides long-term protection after the UK scrapped its original jab rollout plan. The UK medical regulator is now recommending Covid jabs are given in two doses three months apart, rather than four weeks apart, to allow millions more people to be immunised over a shorter time period. The strategy will apply to both Pfizer/BioNTech's vaccine and the newly approved jab by Oxford/AstraZeneca, despite limited data around the effectiveness of the initial doses. It is a direct response to spiking Covid cases and hospitalisations across the UK that are being driven by a new, highly infectious strain that emerged in the South East of England in September. Virtually the whole of England is facing brutal lockdown until the spring, with Covid vaccines the only hope of ending the devastation. Health bosses now want to give as many people as possible an initial dose, rather than holding back the second doses, so more of the population can enjoy at least some protection. AstraZeneca praised the move and revealed it had tested the three-month strategy on a small sub-group of trialists in its studies. But Pfizer said there was 'no data' in its studies to show its vaccine protects against Covid when taken 12 weeks apart. In a thinly-veiled swipe at the UK, the US firm warned that any 'alternative' dosing regimens should be closely monitored by health authorities. 'Data from the phase three study demonstrated that, although partial protection from the vaccine appears to begin as early as 12 days after the first dose, two doses of the vaccine are required to provide the maximum protection against the disease, a vaccine efficacy of 95 per cent,' Pfizer said in a statement. 'There are no data to demonstrate that protection after the first dose is sustained after 21 days.' Advertisement

In Germany, meanwhile, tens of thousands have so far been immunised and in the UK the number of doses given has almost reached a million.

Two shots of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine must be administered to ensure the full level of protection. Margaret Keenan, the first person in the world to receive a Covid-19 vaccine, received her second jab earlier this week.

President Macron addressed concerns in his televised New Year's address, saying he would 'not let an unjustified slowness take hold, because of bad reasons'.

'Every French person who wants to must be able to get vaccinated,' he added.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has not been without criticism, as Germany's health minister Jens Spahn said vaccines were on the way but supplies were 'tight, throughout the world'.

Mr Sahin, however, said the EU was slow to secure the vaccine. 'The process in Europe certainly wasn't as fast and straightforward as in other countries,' he said.

The German government ordered 30million doses after the shortfall was realised, but were quickly blasted by Italy for not following the EU plan to buy the vaccine as a bloc.

Lars Klingbeil, secretary-general of the Social Democrats, told the Rheinische Post: 'The minister had months to prepare the planned start of vaccinations. And he also received all the powers he needed to do it.'

It comes after Pfizer and AstraZeneca rejected Government warnings of months-long vaccine supply gaps, claiming there will be enough doses to hit the UK's ambitious targets.

Thousands of Brits have seen their second appointment delayed so the NHS can focus on delivering jabs to more people.

A total of 944,539 people across the UK had received the first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine by December 27, according to the Department of Health.

In a statement Pfizer hit back at the plans to delay second appointments, saying studies hadn't proven protection from the virus where the jabs were taken more than 12 weeks apart.

It added: 'Data from the phase three study demonstrated that, although partial protection from the vaccine appears to begin as early as 12 days after the first dose, two doses of the vaccine are required to provide the maximum protection against the disease, a vaccine efficacy of 95 per cent.

'There are no data to demonstrate that protection after the first dose is sustained after 21 days.'

The EU has ordered 300million doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine while the US secured 200million.

In the US, 170,000 people in long-term care received the shot by December 30 despite 2.2million being distributed for residents, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Only 2.8million people in the US had received the jab by the end of last month - far short of a 20million people target.

Meanwhile, the approval of Oxford university and AstraZeneca's vaccine has been hailed as a 'game-changer'.

Vaccine firms have rejected the Government's warnings of jab supply gaps lasting months, claiming there will be enough doses to hit the Government's ambitions targets (file image)

Some 530,000 doses will be available by Monday as each batch needs to be checked for safety and quality before it can be released.

England's chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty this week warned that vaccine availability issues will 'remain the case for several months' as firms struggle to keep up with global demand.

Sir John Bell, a regius professor of medicine at Oxford University and member of SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies), has also said that insufficient investment in the capacity to make vaccines has left the UK unprepared.

A further 53,285 people tested positive in Britain on Friday - marking four days in a row with more than 50,000 positive tests announced.

And 613 more people have died with the virus - including an eight-year-old child - taking the total official death toll to 74,125.

The eight-year-old died in England on December 30 and had other health problems, the NHS said.

At least one million Pfizer doses and some 530,000 Oxford doses will likely be given to patients across the country next week, The Daily Telegraph reports.

Earlier this month, AstraZeneca boss Pascal Soriot promised the firm will be able to deliver two million doses a week by mid-January - meaning 24million could be immunised by Easter.
On Election Day, General Paul M. Nakasone, the nations top cyberwarrior, reported that the battle against Russian interference in the presidential campaign had posted major successes and exposed the other sides online weapons, tools and tradecraft.

Weve broadened our operations and feel very good where were at right now, he told journalists.

Eight weeks later, General Nakasone and other American officials responsible for cybersecurity are now consumed by what they missed for at least nine months: a hacking, now believed to have affected upward of 250 federal agencies and businesses, that Russia aimed not at the election system but at the rest of the United States government and many large American corporations.

Three weeks after the intrusion came to light, American officials are still trying to understand whether what the Russians pulled off was simply an espionage operation inside the systems of the American bureaucracy or something more sinister, inserting backdoor access into government agencies, major corporations, the electric grid and laboratories developing and transporting new generations of nuclear weapons.

At a minimum it has set off alarms about the vulnerability of government and private sector networks in the United States to attack and raised questions about how and why the nations cyberdefenses failed so spectacularly.
Two nights after Christmas, 1980, and the American servicemen of Combat Support Group were letting off steam in the early hours at Woody's Bar.

An awards dinner was still in full swing and beer was flowing in the hut at RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk.

No one paid much attention to the white-faced young airman who slipped into the bar and beckoned to his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt.

Halt left the table. The junior officer, Lieutenant Bruce Englund, looked nervous and confused: 'It's back, sir,' he said over the hubbub. 'The UFO  it's back.'

A Vietnam veteran and deputy commander of the camp, Halt was exasperated. Rumours of a bizarre sighting in the woods had been rife on the twin bases at RAF Woodbridge and RAF Bentwaters, near Ipswich, which were shared with the U.S. Air Force.

The men were so puzzled that they didn't think to alert the emergency services. They simply walked deeper into the woods, slowly and warily, like actors in a science-fiction movie

The first he'd heard of it was when he came on duty at 5am on December 27: he walked into his office to hear loud chatter and laughter that stopped abruptly as he entered.

'What's going on?' the 41-year-old Halt snapped. A sergeant answered, with a mixture of embarrassment and bravado: 'Penniston and Burroughs were out last night chasing UFOs, sir.'

Conflicting gossip and tall stories spread all day across the camp. Halt tried not to waste time on them, though protocol demanded that reports were filed.

The excitement was already half-forgotten by that evening . . . and then Lt Englund barged into Woody's Bar.

Halt left the bar to investigate. What he saw changed his life, and everything he thought he knew about the world, for ever.

In Rendlesham Forest, beyond the camp's perimeter, the war-hardened Air Force colonel witnessed something that could not possibly be of earthly origin  and he was willing to stake his entire military reputation on that fact.

'I believe the objects that I saw at close quarter,' he later swore in an affidavit, 'were extraterrestrial in origin, and that the security services of both the United States and the United Kingdom have attempted  both then and now  to subvert the significance of what occurred.'

This was the beginning of the case dubbed Britain's Roswell: an encounter with apparently alien technology so extraordinary that no attempt by sceptics to dismiss it has been able to explain away all the basic facts of the story.

The Rendlesham Forest incident began 40 years ago in the early hours of December 26, 1980, as most of Britain was sleeping off the effects of Christmas Day.

Rumours of a bizarre sighting in the woods had been rife on the twin bases at RAF Woodbridge and RAF Bentwaters, near Ipswich, which were shared with the U.S. Air Force

Airman First Class John Burroughs was on patrol close to the East Gate at Woodbridge when he saw flashing red and blue lights, shining from the direction of the East Anglian coastline.

Burroughs had been standing guard at the camp for 17 months and had never seen anything like this. His first thought was that a light aircraft had come down in the trees.

He alerted his sergeant, Bud Steffens, and the two men reported their concerns before they were joined by another sergeant, Jim Penniston, and his driver, Airman First Class Edward Cabansag.

While Steffens stayed on duty at the gate, the other three took a Jeep into the woods. After about 250 yards, the track petered off and they got out to walk. By now, the lights seemed brighter and more varied  not only red and blue, but white and yellow.

There seemed to be no flames or any other indication of a crash, though. The men were so puzzled that they didn't think to alert the emergency services. They simply walked deeper into the woods, slowly and warily, like actors in a science-fiction movie. A fourth man, Master Sergeant J.D. Chandler, caught up and joined them.

And then all four of the men's radios started to malfunction.

Realising they were cut off from their base, the men backtracked. The found they could still get a signal to the camp from where they had left the vehicle, so Chandler volunteered to stay there.

The others went forward, until they began to lose touch with Chandler. Cabansag agreed to hold back too, as a one-man radio relay station, while Burroughs and Penniston kept going.

Now the atmosphere in the forest had become strange and frightening. Static electricity made the men's hair bristle. Walking became heavy and difficult, as if they were wading through water.

As they approached a clearing, there was an explosion of light. Both men threw themselves to the ground. Burroughs looked up and saw Penniston, silhouetted by the red glow of an object in the open ground.

'The silence was then the most prominent part of it,' Burroughs reported. 'The area or field seemed dead. The air: no sound. No rustling of air or wind, no distant sounds, no animals or nothing.

'A dead silence. A strong static on clothes, hair and skin, being pulled towards the light. Then dissipated.' But Penniston's memory of the events was utterly different.

As the blast of light engulfed him, he saw beyond it a small metallic craft, about 10 ft across and 10 ft high. Roughly triangular, it appeared to be either standing on the ground or hovering just above it.

Dazed, Penniston walked closer. The hull of the object was dark and smooth, and incised with hieroglyphs. He ran a hand over the surface.

'The skin of the craft was smooth to touch,' he said. 'Almost like running your hand over glass. Void of seams or imperfections, until I ran my fingers over the symbols. The symbols were nothing like the rest of the craft  they were rough, like running my fingers over sandpaper.'

Light began to glow at the top of the craft and it lifted off slowly . . . then shot up into the sky and disappeared at what Penniston called 'impossible speed'.

The Rendlesham Forest incident began 40 years ago in the early hours of December 26, 1980, as most of Britain was sleeping off the effects of Christmas Day

Afterwards, it seemed to him that he had studied the object for several minutes  not the handful of seconds that Burroughs perceived passing. Both men were staggered to be told later that they had been out of contact for 45 minutes. More incredible still, both their wristwatches were now three-quarters of an hour slow.

This was the story going round the camp later that day, causing hilarity and incredulity.

In daylight, Burroughs and Penniston took a team of U.S. Air Force investigators to the site and found indentations in the ground, broken branches and scorch marks on the trees.

When the lights returned in the early hours of December 28, Halt took six men to investigate. Among them were Lt Englund and Airman Burroughs. He also took a cassette recorder, which he used to record the team's discussions at the site, and a Geiger counter to detect radiation.

The dark woods were 'strange' and 'eerie', in Halt's words.

His unease was heightened when farm animals began to bleat and grunt in the distance, and something in the darkness started to make sharp, shrieking sounds  possibly a wild muntjac deer.

Then the lights began  beams from airborne objects, 'strobe-like flashes' in the words recorded on Halt's cassette, 'shooting off' so bright that 'it almost burns your eye'. Then a pencil-thin beam hit the ground in front of him.

'We just stood there in awe,' he said later. 'Is this a warning, is this a signal, is this a communication? What is this? A weapon?'

Just as on the first night, a burning red oval light materialised. 'It reminded me of an eye,' Halt said, 'and appeared as though blinking. It manoeuvred horizontally through the trees with occasional vertical movement. When approached, it receded.'

Then the woods exploded in light once more. This time it was Airman Burroughs who felt himself drawn into it, for what seemed like a matter of seconds  though his companions testified he was gone for several minutes.

'I have no recall of it,' he says now. 'I have no memory of what happened.' The team retreated. By the time they were out of the woods and in a meadow (where Burroughs regained his memory), they could see the red oval in the sky.

It seemed to be dropping blobs of light like molten metal over the air bases, before breaking up into multiple smaller white lights and dispersing in all directions.

'I have no idea what we saw,' Halt said, 'but I do know whatever we saw was under intelligent control.'

For the next 40 years, UFO believers and sceptics would argue furiously about what happened on those two nights.

The details did not become public at once, but leaked out slowly.

In October 1983, the now-defunct News Of The World tabloid obtained a copy of Halt's report and published extracts on its front page under the headline, 'UFO Lands In Suffolk  And That's Official'.

Two years later, a sceptical Guardian journalist investigated and concluded that what the airmen had seen must have been the beam of the Orfordness lighthouse, five miles away. Seen from one angle, the light appears to track through the trees, winking at just above ground level. The lighthouse also has two red lights mounted on aerials.

According to this theory, the depressions left in the ground by the UFO's tripod feet were in reality rabbit holes, and the scorch marks on trees were left by foresters.

The malfunctioning radios were put down to ordinary equipment failure and everything else was delusion caused by fear and over-active imaginations.

There is also the suggestive fact that a post-Christmas celebration was going on in Woody's Bar before the second expedition. Alcohol might have been a factor in the sightings and the way they were interpreted.

Other sceptical explanations include collective hallucinations caused by psychotropic drugs which (according to one truly outlandish conspiracy theory) were being administered to personnel at the air bases without their knowledge or consent.

More credible is the suggestion that the lights which Colonel Halt interpreted as 'molten metal' falling from the sky were created by a meteor shower.

But none of this explains the radiation readings on the Geiger counter  which have led some amateur investigators to theorise that there could have been an accident involving a nuclear weapon at the base. That would certainly explain the flash of light, though not why all who saw it survived.

A more feasible, though still highly speculative, theory was floated by ufologist Nick Redfern last year in a book called The Rendlesham Forest UFO Conspiracy. Redfern suggests that the U.S. military was experimenting with ways to harness ball lightning, a natural phenomenon, as a weapon.

Two years later, a sceptical Guardian journalist investigated and concluded that what the airmen had seen must have been the beam of the Orfordness lighthouse, five miles away. Seen from one angle, the light appears to track through the trees, winking at just above ground level. The lighthouse also has two red lights mounted on aerials

The idea of bottled lightning was first investigated by Cold War scientists in the 1950s.

Sometimes this was sheer sci-fi scaremongering: a journalist named D.V. Ritchie published a piece in Missiles And Rockets magazine in 1959, headlined, 'Reds May Use Lightning As A Weapon'.

Other studies had a more serious academic basis. Using a Freedom of Information request, Redfern obtained a document by two scientists called Lyttle and Wilson, who were employed by a military technology company called Melpar Inc, which was listed as 'an American government contractor in the 20th century Cold War period'.

Their paper was titled 'Survey of Kugelblitz theories for electromagnetic incendiaries'. Kugelblitz is German for ball lightning, a sort of levitating ball of fire.

Lyttle and Wilson proposed that if white-hot ball lightning could be generated artificially, laser beams might be used to guide it to targets. Colonel Halt reported seeing pencil-thin beams radiating down from the blinking red oval  could these have been lasers, Redfern wonders?

But perhaps the most entertaining explanation was uncovered by UFO enthusiast Dr David Clarke, after he received a letter from a former SAS trooper three years ago.

Though the government refused to acknowledge the fact at the time, in 1980 RAF Woodbridge was a nuclear site. If the public didn't know that American warheads were situated there, Soviet intelligence certainly did. The threat that enemy spies might penetrate the base was ever present.

To test the vulnerabilities, British special forces made repeated forays into the camp, demonstrating where the weaknesses were in its fortifications. One night, in August 1980, an SAS team performed a daring free fall from a high-altitude plane over Suffolk at night. Their black parachutes were designed to be invisible to the watchers below.

But the American radar equipment was more sensitive than the British had guessed. As the SAS men touched down inside the Woodbridge perimeter, they were arrested and dragged away for interrogation.

So far, so routine. This was meant to be an ordinary exercise, and both sides were carrying out orders. But then it went wrong.

One night, in August 1980, an SAS team performed a daring free fall from a high-altitude plane over Suffolk at night. Their black parachutes were designed to be invisible to the watchers below. But the American radar equipment was more sensitive than the British had guessed

The Americans reacted with unexpected aggression  subjecting the intruders to a brutal beating and 18 hours of questioning. Refusing to believe the parachutists were British military, they repeatedly accused them of being 'aliens'.

The SAS men were not freed until the Ministry of Defence in London demanded their release.

As one special forces trooper, calling himself Frank, told Dr Clarke: 'They called us aliens. Right, we thought, we'll show them what aliens really look like.'

In an elaborate prank, the unit rigged coloured lights and flares around the forest. Black helium balloons were attached to radio-controlled kites and sent buzzing over the treetops.

In the days after Christmas, when the SAS rightly guessed that the mood inside the base might be more relaxed and susceptible, the elaborate jape was triggered.

It proved more effective than the troopers could ever have expected. They hoped to spook a few naive U.S. airmen, jittery at being alone in the ancient woods. In fact, they convinced a Lieutenant Colonel that he was experiencing a 'close encounter of the third kind'.

Even the MoD took the reports seriously at first. But it wasn't long before someone in London remembered that Woodbridge was the scene of the previous summer's embarrassment, when an SAS unit was captured and labelled 'aliens'.

The connection was made. Frank and his friends were 'spoken to'. They admitted they might have indulged in a bit of a joke. Was it their fault if the Americans were so gullible?

Still, the investigation was thorough, and reports went all the way to the top. In 1985, Defence Minister Lord Trefgarne had an off-the-record meeting with Lord Hill-Norton, a former chief of the defence staff, to discuss the incident.

In his briefing notes, the phrase 'no additional action required' is used. And in handwriting on the margin, Trefgarne has written, 'Oh dear'.
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Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-01 23:15:35|Editor: huaxia

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Freight lorries arrive at the Port of Dover in Dover, Britain, Jan. 1, 2021. Roads around Britain's port of Dover remained quiet Friday and largely avoided the previously anticipated confusion and congestion, even though Britain has kicked off a new era outside the European Union (EU). (Photo by Tim Ireland/Xinhua)

LONDON, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- Roads around Britain's port of Dover remained quiet Friday and largely avoided the previously anticipated confusion and congestion, even though Britain has kicked off a new era outside the European Union (EU).

Without signs of delays on surrounding roads, the first drivers that entered Dover from France found themselves at the center of attention as Brexit transition period ended at 2300 GMT on New Year's Eve.

Lower trade volumes on the New Year's Day holiday could mean the full impact of the new regime is yet to be felt, but freight appeared to be moving freely at the borders with Ireland and France under the new arrangements.

Britain's ambassador to France Lord Llewellyn tweeted Friday that things were "running smoothly" as he visited the port at Calais and the Eurotunnel terminal "to see the situation on the ground".

Meanwhile, an official from Dublin Port said there were no delays as the first trucks arrived into Irish ports, the Evening Standard newspaper reported.

However, there are warnings that the situation may change in the coming days as traffic will start to build up after the new year holidays.

Some businesses have intentionally delayed their transportation due to concerns over congestion at the beginning of the year.

Rob Hollyman, director of Youngs Transport and Logistics which is a Britain-based company, told the BBC that he would not run any of its lorries in the first week of January.

"I can't afford to have my vehicles delayed," he said.

"We didn't think that the risk of joining a queue that was two miles long in either direction was a risk worth taking. I'll see how it pans out the first week and maybe get our vehicles across the following week," he said.

Rod McKenzie, managing director of Policy & Public Affairs at The Road Haulage Association London, told Kent online that there could be two types of chaos which may emerge in the coming weeks.

"We could have the kind of visible chaos we had before Christmas with queues of lorries for miles, or we could have invisible chaos with lorries simply not leaving their distribution centers because their paperwork has not been processed online," McKenzie was quoted as saying.

"But it will be a few days yet before we are able to guess what's really happening. No-one really works on New Year's Day, which is why we don't expect miles of queues straight away. Things will pick up from Monday onwards and my best guess is we may start experiencing some sort of disruption then -- which could go on for three months while we smooth out the wrinkles," McKenzie told Kent online.

Kent County Council also warned: "The rules for doing business with Europe have changed. It may take longer to process traffic leaving the UK, causing delays in passing through the border controls."

Meanwhile, police are manning a moveable barrier at the entrance to the Eastern Docks in Dover, checking to see if vehicle drivers and passengers have paperwork to prove they have been tested for coronavirus.

HGV drivers planning to enter France need to take a COVID-19 test at the nearly Manston before continuing to Dover.

Thousands of lorries had been trapped near Dover last month as France shut its border due to concerns over the spread of a new coronavirus variant.

Britain ended its EU membership on Jan. 31, 2020, four and half years after the country voted to leave the regional bloc.

The EU and Britain announced on Dec. 24, 2020 that they had reached an agreement that will govern their trade and security relationship starting from Jan. 1, 2021, after the end of the Brexit transition period.

The deal, which came after nine months of arduous negotiations between Britain and the EU, is the biggest bilateral trade deal signed by either side, covering trade worth around 668 billion pounds (913 billion U.S. dollars).

The EU is Britain's largest trading partner. Britain is the EU's third-largest trading partner in goods, after the United States and China. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-03 00:52:49|Editor: huaxia

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BEIRUT, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Lebanon's parliamentary Health Committee recommended on Saturday a three-week lockdown to curb the unprecedented surge in COVID-19 cases and reduce pressure on the health sector, the National News Agency reported.

Head of the Health Committee Assem Araji emphasized the need to close the country for three weeks as the health sector is on the verge of collapse.

An official decision on a lockdown is expected to be taken Monday. Enditem
Development of major ports and port clusters will get priority in the new master plan for the countrys port system for 2021-2030, Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyen Nhat has said.

Speaking at a conference held by the VietnamMaritime Administration in Hai Phong City on Wednesday, he said the development of a synchronised seaport network would be essential to meet the burgeoning export demand and keep pace with the countrys socio-economic development.

Vietnamlacks a large international standard port while a number of small ones have inadequate infrastructure, resulting in inefficient port operations, according to the deputy minister.

The plan seeks to improve the efficiency of investment in ports, promote marine infrastructure and connectivity with other transport infrastructure and reduce logistics costs.

It targets increasing annual cargo capacity to 1.14-1.42 billion tonnes and passenger capacity to 10.1-10.3 million by 2030, and to fulfil these targets, international maritime gateways in the northern city of Hai Phong, the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau and the central economic zone will be given priority for development of major ports and clusters that can accommodate large container ships.

Nhat called for focusing on Hai Phong and Cai Mep ports and developing them into international standard ports.

The cost of developing a port system is estimated at around VND150-200 trillion (US$6.4-8.6 billion) over the next 10 years without including the cost of specialised ports and berths.

The countrys ports have attracted enormous investment in recent years, resulting in a steady increase in cargo capacity, he pointed out.

Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Vietnams ports handled more than 689 million tonnes of cargo in 2020, a 4 per cent increase from the previous year.

As of 2019, there were 34 ports in the country with 588 berths and a total cargo capacity of 664.6 million tonnes a year.

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One of the stories in Julian Barness A History of the World in 10  Chapters is about an isolated young woman who flees to a remote island because she fears that a nuclear war is imminent. Every night, she has nightmares of being confined in a room where strangers ask uncomfortable questions about her past. What is real and what is not slowly unravels during the course of the telling.

This story is what one is reminded of at the start of Susanna Clarkes haunting and atmospheric Piranesi, her first novel since the fantastical Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell which was published 16 years ago. In style and vision, though, it turns out to be extremely different from Barness work.

The historical Piranesi was an influential eighteenth-century Italian architect and artist known for his etchings of Roman ruins. Among his many admirers was M.C. Escher; there are clear resonances, in fact, between the formers Imaginary Prisons and the latters Relativity, both featuring labyrinthine spaces with infinite passageways.

Its fitting, then, that this is the name of the titular character of Clarkes novel. It is set in a series of interlinked galleries that also happen to be more than a little Borgesian. The fictional Piranesi is trapped in this universe of endless halls filled with massive statues and subject to oceanic tides.

Is this an extended metaphor, a post-apocalyptic fantasy, or a disturbing solipsistic vision? Our guide throughout the book is the naive and trusting narrator who slowly comes to terms with an unfamiliar world. The strangeness of his surroundings is vividly conveyed and the minds eye is kept busy throughout. With many novels, there is a tendency for the middle to sag somewhat; in this one, the narrative thread is taut from first to last.

Piranesi has regular meetings with a person he refers to as the Other, who asks him about his explorations and sends him on further missions. The Other also issues advice and ominous warnings which Piranesi takes heed of and incorporates into his routine.

The rest of his time is spent in catching fish, going on long walks through endless hallways, and navigating rising tides. He examines the magnificent statues (the Gorilla, the Young Boy playing the Cymbals, the Woman carrying a Beehive, the Elephant carrying a Castle, the Faun, the Two Kings playing Chess), and cares for the skeletal remains he comes across (the Biscuit-Box Man, the Fish-Leather Man, the Concealed Person, the People of the Alcove and the Folded-Up Child).

Piranesis frame of mind for the most part is calm and even stoic. The House is valuable because it is the House, he feels. It is enough in and of Itself. It is not the means to an end. Not for him the striving, the accomplishments, and the quest for progress of the outside world.

In his actions, he can be viewed as akin to the Minotaur in The House of Asterion, the short story by Borges which Clarke has said was somewhere at the back of her mind: Sometimes I run like a charging ram through the halls of stone until I tumble dizzily to the ground; sometimes I crouch in the shadow of a wellhead or at a corner in one of the corridors and pretend I am being hunted.

Piranesi sees himself as a natural extension, or even a creation, of the immense dwelling he inhabits. As he puts it: The Beautiful Orderliness of the House is what gives us Life. He regularly writes of his experiences in his journals, and it is when he decides to go through some of his earlier, indexed entries that he senses glimmers of what is actually going on.

In time, he also comes across other characters who offer him further strands of knowledge that he has to piece together. To say more would be to spoil the architecture of the book for those who have yet to read it. It moves beyond binaries of utopia and dystopia, of realism and fantasy.

Within these pages are layers of philosophy, critiques of rationality, and questions about solitude and the way we fashion our sense of self. With its eccentricity, its compelling readability, and its ability to reach a satisfying conclusion, Susanna Clarkes Piranesi is quite simply among the more captivating novels of the quarantined year that we have just lived through.
Syringes to administer the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine are seen at a nursing home in Burgbernheim, Germany, on Dec. 28, 2020. (Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters)

Pfizer, BioNTech to Offer COVID-19 Vaccine to Volunteers Who Got Placebo

U.S.-based Pfizer and its Germany-based partner BioNTech plan to give volunteers who received a placebo in its COVID-19 vaccine trial an option to receive a first dose of the vaccine by March 1, 2021.

All participants aged 16 years and older who courageously volunteered to help make a difference during this pandemic have the option to receive the investigational vaccine while continuing to be part of the clinical trial, the companies said on their website.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and a panel of its outside advisers have expressed concerns over Pfizers unblinding plan, saying it could make it harder to continue collecting data on safety and effectiveness needed to win full FDA approval of the vaccine.

The companies said that trial participants who received the placebo will have two doses of the vaccine reserved for them within the study.

Participants will be given the Vaccine Transition Option, the choice to learn whether they received the investigational vaccine or placebo. Those who find out they received the placebo will be given the option to receive the investigational vaccine while being able to stay in the study.

If they choose the vaccine option, they will receive the first dose by March 1, and the second dose about 21 days later, and follow an updated study schedule that includes follow-up and illness visits.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine received FDA Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) on Dec. 11, 2020. At least five health care workers in Alaska experienced adverse reactions after getting the vaccine, the Anchorage Daily News reported. An Illinois hospital halted vaccinations after four workers suffered adverse reactions.

Britains medical regulator has said that anyone with a history of anaphylaxis, or severe allergic reactions to a medicine or food, should not be given the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

The FDA has said that most Americans with allergies should be safe to receive the vaccine. It said that only people who have previously had severe allergic reactions to vaccines or ingredients in this particular vaccine should avoid getting the shot.

Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDAs Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said at a press conference in December 2020 that a chemical called polyethylene glycol (PEG), an ingredient in the vaccine, could be the culprit.

Pfizer said in a statement to news outlets in December that it was working to learn more details about the reported adverse reactions.

We will closely monitor all reports suggestive of serious allergic reactions following vaccination and update labeling language if needed, a Pfizer spokesperson said. The prescribing information has a clear warning/precaution that appropriate medical treatment and supervision should always be readily available in case of a rare anaphylactic event following the administration of the vaccine.

Drugmakers cannot be sued for monetary damages in court over injuries caused by vaccines or other countermeasures for COVID-19, according to an amendment to the PREP Act.

Common side effects of the vaccine include pain at the injection site, tiredness, and fever, according to the FDA.

Of note, more people experienced these side effects after the second dose than after the first dose, so it is important for vaccination providers and recipients to expect that there may be some side effects after either dose, but even more so after the second dose, the agency says on its website.

The Trump administration in late December purchased 100 million more doses of the Pfizer vaccine for delivery in 2021, bringing the total doses purchased by the government to 200 million, costing a total of $4 billion.

According to the FDA, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine contains messenger RNA (mRNA), which is genetic material.

The vaccine contains a small piece of the SARS-CoV-2 viruss mRNA that instructs cells in the body to make the viruss distinctive spike protein, an FDA announcement reads. When a person receives this vaccine, their body produces copies of the spike protein, which does not cause disease, but triggers the immune system to learn to react defensively, producing an immune response against SARS-CoV-2.

Zachary Stieber and Reuters contributed to this report.
A staunch loyalist of Rajiv Gandhi, Singh was a member of Lok Sabha for eight terms, held several positions in varied ideological dispensations at the Centre and became the Bihar governor in 2004

New Delhi: Prominent Dalit leader of the Congress and former Union home minister Buta Singh, who served under four prime ministers in a political career spanning over five decades, died at the AIIMS Delhi on Saturday morning. He was 86.

Singh was in a coma since October last year when he was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) after he suffered a brain hemorrhage. He died around 7.10 am, his family said.

He was cremated at the Lodhi Road crematorium in the evening. A large number of Congress leaders and workers attended the cremation.

His supporters earlier paid their last respects to the departed leader at his Jangpura Extension residence and at the Sri Nanaksar Gurudwara in Wazirabad, where his body was kept.

A staunch loyalist of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, Singh was a member of Lok Sabha for eight terms, held several positions in varied ideological dispensations at the Centre and became the Governor of Bihar in 2004.

Singh often found himself at the centre of major controversies. He was once excommunicated from the socio-religious order of the Sikhs for his alleged role in the Operation Blue Star, but was pardoned a decade later.

President Ram Nath Kovind, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former prime minister Manmohan Singh condoled his demise.

"In the passing of Shri Buta Singh, the country has lost one of the longest serving parliamentarians with rich administrative experience. He championed the cause of the oppressed and marginalized. Condolences to his family and supporters," Kovind said in a tweet.

Naidu said, "Saddened to learn about the passing away of Shri Buta Singh Ji. He was an able administrator and parliamentarian. My heartfelt condolences to bereaved family members."

The prime minister said Singh was "an experienced administrator and effective voice for the welfare of the poor as well as downtrodden".

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in a letter to his son Arvinder Singh, described him as a leader of "high esteem" who was respected by everybody irrespective of party lines.

Manmohan Singh said, "He was a great Parliamentarian and a distinguished administrator who devoted his whole life to the service of the poor and other backward communities."

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said Singh devoted all his life in the service of the country.

"In the demise of Sardar Buta Singh Ji, the country has lost a true public servant and a loyal leader. He devoted his entire life in the service of the country and the well-being of people, for which he will always be remembered," the former Congress chief said in a tweet in Hindi.

Condoling Singh's demise, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said he "dedicated his life serving poor and downtrodden. He served the nation in several capacities."

Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot and several Union ministers also condoled Singh's demise.

Born into a humble 'mazhbi' Sikh family in Mustafapur in Punjab's Jalandhar district on 21 March, 1934, Singh rose through the political ranks and went on to become the virtual No. 2 in the Rajiv Gandhi government in the late 1980s.

During his tenure as home minister, he oversaw the consecration of bricks for a Ram temple in Ayodhya in 1989 when the site was disputed and faced criticism for the dismissal of many state governments. He was considered a one-man "demolition squad" of Rajiv Gandhi who "axed" many state governments.

Before Rajiv Gandhi, Singh was close to Indira Gandhi and held several positions in her government. He also played a role in selecting the Congress's new poll symbol, the hand, after the party split in 1978.

But, Singh had to pay a price for his close association with the Gandhis and his positions in the successive Congress governments  he was excommunicated from the socio-religious order of the Sikhs in April 1985 for his role in the Operation Blue Star that caused damage to the Akal Takht, the highest temporal seat of the Sikhism.

Nearly 10 years after the events at the Golden Temple, he sought atonement and returned to the Sikh fold. In March 1994, he was granted pardon.

Pictures of him undergoing the punishment of dusting shoes, washing dishes and sweeping floors at the Golden Temple and other gurudwaras, with a plaque around his neck declaring him a sinner, went viral at the time.

In his initial political days, Singh was associated with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). He joined the Congress in the early 1960s. He was first elected to the Lower House of Parliament in 1962 from Punjab. Later, he represented Rajasthan's Jalore constituency in Lok Sabha.

He switched over to the BJP briefly and became the Minister for Communications in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee cabinet in March 1998. But he had to resign soon after following his indictment in the JMM bribery case.

He, thereafter, switched back to the Congress and was made the Governor of Bihar in 2004. He had to quit as Bihar Governor after the Supreme Court was critical of his role in recommending the dissolution of the state Assembly in 2005. He resigned in 2006.

AICC general secretary K C Venugopal attended his cremation. He also laid a wreath on behalf of the Congress family. Wreaths were also laid on his body at the Lodhi Road crematorium on behalf of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

"The party and nation has lost a stalwart leader today," the Congress party said.
The Week

After publicly expressing "grave concerns" over Arizona's audit of the 2020 election results, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) was "stripped" of her ability to "defend election lawsuits" by the state's Republican-led House Appropriations Committee, reported Arizona's ABC 15 on Tuesday. The duty was transferred "exclusively" to Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) through the end of the 2023 fiscal year. Democrats say the move is retaliation against Hobbs' defense of Arizona voters in "lawsuits filed by the State Republican Party and others challenging Arizona's election results," per ABC 15. "It can't be just a coincidence" that Republicans are blocking a "vocal critic of the audit," writes Elvia Diaz for azcentral.com. Democratic State Rep. Randy Friese reportedly called the move "troubling," "disturbing," and "quite nefarious." Furthermore, the Appropriations Committee removed Hobb's "oversight of the Capitol Museum," ABC 15 reports, after Hobbs angered state lawmakers when she "flew a gay pride flag from the building's balcony" in 2019. Katie Hobbs has conscientiously supervised elections in Arizona. Republicans there just stripped her of some powers -- including her ability to litigate election lawsuits. They gave control of that process to the state AG, a Republican. This is how democracy gets dismantled. https://t.co/VamVgXfxgR  Tim O'Brien (@TimOBrien) May 25, 2021 In an article for azfamily.com, Hobbs labeled the entire audit "a political stunt," adding that it is "dangerous to people's safety and to the integrity of our democracy." She later tweeted a photo on Tuesday of a fruit basket sent by Stacey Abrams and Fair Fight, saying that's how "you know you're doing it right." When @staceyabrams, @gwlauren, and their crew at @fairfightaction send you a fruit basket, you know you're doing it right. pic.twitter.com/yQ11UdmXso  Katie Hobbs (@katiehobbs) May 25, 2021 Read more at azfamily.com. More stories from theweek.comBiden says he underestimated Trump's ability to spread 'the big lie'Biden needs some braggadocioReport: D.A. convenes grand jury expected to hear Trump investigation evidence
Herd immunity in China could be realized at end of 2021: expert

A Chinese vaccine expert predicted that China is likely to realize herd immunity by the end of 2021 after up to 1 billion Chinese residents, or 70 percent of Chinese people, are vaccinated.

To reach the goal, China needs to prepare about 2 billion vaccine doses, Tao Lina, a Shanghai-based medical expert on vaccines, told the Global Times on Friday, noting that China's vaccine production capacity could meet the demand, but mass exports could be hard.

China is likely to officially launch a plan for herd immunity in the next half year after the key high risk groups take priority of inoculations first with others being vaccinated later as vaccine production gradually increases, Tao predicted.

China National Biotec Group (CNBG), a subsidiary of Sinopharm, said Saturday that it expects the production capacity of its COVID-19 vaccine to reach 1 billion doses in 2021.

A representative of Sinopharm told the Global Times that local governments in areas across China have been purchasing vaccine doses for key groups. China on Thursday vowed widespread free vaccinations after the country granted conditional market approval for its first homemade vaccine developed by Beijing Biological Products Institute under CNBG.

Chinese health officials said on Thursday that China will ensure the COVID-19 vaccines are affordable to all Chinese residents.

The news of free vaccinations inspired the public as many Chinese netizens expressed willingness to be vaccinated for free. The topic "COVID-19 vaccine is free for all Chinese citizens" has been viewed 290 million times so far.

On New Year's Day, 16 COVID-19 vaccination sites were set up in Beijing's Chaoyang District and the first group of 200,000 people will be vaccinated in the coming days.

Beijing city said on Thursday it will inoculate all key groups with the first dose by mid-January and the second dose after two to four weeks. The first to be inoculated include those working in cold storage food facilities, port quarantine, transportation, fresh food markets, medical workers, and those who are going to study or work overseas.

So far, at least 10 provinces in China, including East China's Jiangsu Province and South China's Guangdong Province, have announced vaccination plans for local residents.

Tao said that nationwide vaccinations for key groups is expected to be completed after the Spring Festival which falls on February 12 and vaccinations for ordinary individuals could start for free in March.
Los Angeles: A monthslong surge of coronavirus cases in Los Angeles County is reaching its grim if inevitable zenith as deaths reach once-unthinkable levels, medical infrastructure is buckling under a flood of patients and officials fear the mortality numbers will only worsen in the coming weeks.

The county recorded an average of 151 people dying from COVID-19 each day in the past week - a figure that's almost as high as the average number of people dying daily from every other cause, about 170 a day. But more recently, those numbers have spiked considerably.

Single-day COVID-19 death records have been broken every day for the last three days of the year, with 242 deaths reported Tuesday, 262 on Wednesday and 291 on New Year's Eve.

On the first day of the 2021, another 207 coronavirus deaths were recorded in the county, making up more than a third of California's new record toll of 585.
US: 1,100 pounds of methamphetamine found in watermelons

Tesla owners will be paid $ 16,000 each due to slow charging

Advisor to Armenia Prosecutor General provides details about incident with Armenian soldier killed in Verin Shorzha

Banksy's painting of punk Lenin sold at auction in Hong Kong for $ 960,000

CSTO Deputy Secretary-General: Escalation on Armenia-Azerbaijan border requires undertaking of urgent measures

Catholicos of All Armenians receives newly appointed Ambassador of Japan

Australia closing its embassy in Kabul for security reasons

Biden to discuss issues related to Belarus and Ukraine with Putin

Armenian acting FM meets with ambassadors of CSTO member states accredited to Armenia

Armenia Ombudsman presents human rights protection in post-war period to CoE Programmes Directorate General

Germany is investigating Google's position in market

France: Sanctions against Belarus will continue

Armenia opposition party MP: Azerbaijan is a terrorist state, negotiations can't be led with such a country

US to reopen its Consulate General in Jerusalem

EU expects to receive over 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine by end of September

Armenian MFA strongly condemns Azerbaijan's blatant armed encroachment on Armenia's sovereign territory

UN still awaits strong evidence that Dubai ruler's daughter is alive

Opposition Bright Armenia Party urges Government to immediately address UN Security Council

Armen Sarkissian receives Russia Ambassador to Armenia

Armenia President, France Ambassador discuss situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border

Overchuk: We hope unblocking of links between Armenia and Azerbaijan is a success

Armenia police officer commits suicide, criminal case launched

Armenia Environmental Protection and Mining Inspection Body has new deputy heads

Zarif, Aliyev discuss railway routes connecting Iran, Azerbaijan and Armenia

EU leaders agree to donate at least 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to poor countries

Armenian serviceman Mher Hovhannisyan fires gunshot at his head, criminal case launched

Soldier who died in Armenia's Verin Shorzha was son of ARF-D member, father of 2

Blinken promises to continue close consultations with Israel on Iran

Armen Sarkissian: Armenia's relevant state institutions need to take the tightest measures

Armenian soldier commits suicide, opposition speaks on tense situation on border, 25.05.21 digest

Yerevan man's body found at Tatul Krpeyan Park

Armenia MOD: Reports about Armenian soldiers being injured in Sisian section of border not confirmed

EU summit calls for rarly implementation of vaccination certificates

Parliament of the Netherlands adopts resolution, EU must demand that Azerbaijan pull out troops from Armenia

Kremlin: Russian and US presidents to meet in Geneva on June 16

Spokesperson of community council of Armenia's Sisian: Men got enlisted and climbed to military posts

Bright Armenia Party: We are not satisfied with CSTO response

EU leaders urge council to review internal border guidelines by mid-June

Armenia MOD: Fixed-term serviceman receives lethal firearm injury in head area

Dollar still stable in Armenia

Armenian Catholic Catholicos-Patriarch passes away

Kathimerini: US seeks to increase military presence in Greece due to doubts about Turkey's reliability

US Congress members call on Biden to suspend all military assistance to Azerbaijan

Armenia acting economy minister receives Montenegro's newly appointed Ambassador

Armenia MOD: Soldier killed during shootings from Azerbaijani side in Verin Shorzha

Russian MP: Azerbaijani leadership interested in Armenia acting PM's victory in snap elections

Armenia MOD reports shooting from Azerbaijani side in Verin Shorzha border section

Armenia opposition MP: Authorities promised to separate business from politics, but they're failing to fulfill promise

There will be post-election processes if authorities try to rig voting, says Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan

CNN: Putin and Biden will meet on June 15-16 in Geneva

Latin America has the highest poverty rate in 20 years

Ex-President Kocharyan on Armenia applying to CSTO: No one will help you if you do nothing to solve your problems

Armenia ruling Civil Contract Party presents list of first 10 candidates ahead of snap parliamentary elections

Armenia acting justice minister discusses broad range of cooperation issues with top CoE official

Armenia former President Kocharyan: This guilt, this criminal article is on these authorities

Man survives after spending 17 days in desert

Azerbaijan continues course towards systematic extermination of Armenian heritage in Shushi

Armenia Syunik Province ex-governor: Azerbaijani soldiers advanced along length of border two days ago

Newly appointed Ambassador of Montenegro presents Letters of Credence to Armenia President

Its about bringing Karabakh issue back to right to self-determination, says Armenia ex-President Kocharyan

Iran FM to arrive in Armenia

Ara Aivazian and Austrian counterpart hold phone talks, focus on Azeri army's infiltration into Armenia's territory

Kocharyan: Elect todays political team if you are ready to live squatting

Jean-Michel Basquiat's painting sold at auction in Hong Kong for $ 30 million

2nd President Kocharyan on Armenia Security Council chief: Do you take that person seriously?

"Key" to settlement of Karabakh conflict cant be in one place, says Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan

Texas may permit carrying of pistols without special permission

Ex-President Kocharyan on Armenia acting PM Pashinyan's high popularity rating: We will wear it down to the root

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Election bloc format must be workable in some logical sense

Attorney: Political persecution against Robert Kocharyan is becoming more noticeable during election campaign

Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan: We must do everything so that our domestic politics is not dictated by Azerbaijan

Armenian acting defense minister meets Russian peacekeeping mission chief

Congress predicts US nuclear spending to reach $ 634 billion by 2030

Russian MP: The effectiveness of military cooperation with Armenia depends on Yerevan as well

Delimitation now may create some problems in Karabakh negotiation process, says Armenia 2nd President Kocharyan

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan on relations with 3rd President Sargsyan: We go our own way they go their own

Judge adjourns hearing over case of Armenia 2nd President and ex-Deputy PM for 3 weeks

Court hearing over case of Armenia 2nd President and ex-Deputy PM

2nd President Kocharyan: Armenia must show that it will not be subjected to such pressures

Kocharyan: You may find yourself in stupid situations if you come to negotiations without any baggage

Armenia Investigative Committee: Criminal case opened into soldiers death

157 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

EU helps UN World Food Programme provide humanitarian assistance for conflict-affected people in Armenia

Yerevan municipal council convenes regular session

Armenia legislature speaker on situation at Syunik Province: CSTO still has procedures

Blinken arrives on his first official visit to Israel

World oil prices going up

Provincial hall issues statement on Tavush section of Armenia border with Azerbaijan

MFA statement: Azerbaijan continues to use Armenian POWs as political hostages

Newspaper: There are last-minute changes on Armenia ruling party electoral list

Armenia parliament starts regular sessions

Newspaper: Armenia 3rd President Sargsyan intensively engaged in election campaign

EU leaders call for ban on Belarus airlines flights to their countries

Quake hits Georgia, also felt in Armenia

2nd President Kocharyan: Process of obtaining Armenia citizenship shall be simplified, shall take only few months

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: Appointments in army were not based on knowledge but on loyalty

Robert Kocharyan: Armenia must not go back to the past and stay there, just like the incumbent authorities did

Armenia 2nd President on recent Karabakh war, consequences and the signed document

Armenia 2nd President: Current authorities don't have remorse, aren't conscious and patriotic

Armenia 2nd President on black PR and management system in the country
Scott Stafford has been a reporter, photographer, and editor at a variety of publications, including the Dallas Morning News and The Berkshire Eagle. Scott can be reached at sstafford@berkshireeagle.com, or at 413-496-6301 and on Twitter at @BE_SStafford.
Israel used the recent visit by Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to pass on several messages to the incoming Biden administration regarding Iran and other regional developments, senior Israeli officials tell me.

Why it matters: Israel is very concerned about President-elect Biden's plans on Iran and the 2015 nuclear deal, but has yet to open direct contacts with the incoming administration. Milley is a potential bridge to Biden's White House because he is expected to stay on beyond the transition.

What they're saying: We wanted to make our case to the new administration on Iran through someone who is still going to be in the room when Biden assumes office and is going to play a substantive role in any policy review that will take place," an Israeli official said.

Driving the news: Milley arrived in Israel last Thursday after visiting several Arab capitals. It was his third visit to the region this year, and came amid fears of Iranian retaliation over the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

Milley met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of Defense Benny Gantz and Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Aviv Kochavi.

Behind the scenes: The main message to Milley from the Israelis was that Biden shouldn't rush back into the 2015 deal but should instead take advantage of the fact that Iran is in a weak position, Israeli officials who attended the talks say.

If Biden doesn't use the leverage the U.S. has accumulated through its "maximum pressure" sanctions regime, the Israelis argued, he'll find it impossible to make a better deal later.

We stressed that the starting point of any talks with Iran is much better for the U.S. today than it was in 2013. What is needed now is to be tough in order to get a better deal," an Israeli official said.

State of play: Biden says he will return to the 2015 deal if Iran returns to compliance and attempt to use it as a platform to negotiate a broader and longer-lasting deal. That would require the U.S. to lift sanctions and Iran to unwind its recent nuclear activities.

Milley made clear that he still hasnt had a chance to speak with members of the incoming administration, but said Biden's national security team has a pro-engagement approach to Iran, according to an Israeli official.

Milley even referenced John Kerry and Susan Rice among those who could influence the administration's thinking on Iran, an Israeli official said, despite the fact that their roles (Kerry as climate czar, Rice running the Domestic Policy Council) have nothing to do with Iran.

The Israelis also told Milley that the incoming administration should be more flexible when it comes to relations with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, despite concerns over their records on human rights, the officials said.

We think it is important the next administration will keep the momentum of the normalization process, and we think that at the current point in time what needs to lead U.S. policy is this historic regional opportunity. So we hope the new administration will look at the complexities and not burn the bridges with those countries," an Israeli official told me.

Whats next: The major policy gaps between the Israeli government and the incoming U.S. administration will likely lead to tensions. Those tensions could increase ahead of Israel's elections, expected in March, if Netanyahu makes his objections to Biden's policies a part of his campaign.
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Melissa McCarthy has been in Bryon Bay with her family while filming her new series, Nine Perfect Strangers, in Australia.

On New Year's Day, the actress, 50, rang in 2021 by showing fans the rainbow that appeared over the rural home the family are staying at.

Shared to Instagram, the photo showed Melissa, her husband and one of their children gazing out over lush green fields to a rainbow in the distance.

Local: Melissa McCarthy (pictured) has been in Bryon Bay with her family while filming her new series, Nine Perfect Strangers, in Australia

She captioned the image: '2021 is already looking up! Heres to love, good health and a million more rainbows!!'

In December, Nicole Kidman announced that she and Melissa had finished filming the Hulu limited series Nine Perfect Strangers in Byron Bay.

The actress celebrated the end of the shoot by sharing a photo of herself with her co-star Melissa.

Gorgeous! On New Year's Day, the actress, 50, rang in 2021 by showing fans the rainbow that appeared over the rural home her family are staying at

The Australian star, 53, wore a white dress with bell sleeves as she sat alongside her American pal in the grass overlooking a view of the ocean.

Both ladies posed with their right arms up in the air showing the peace sign.

'That's a wrap on #NinePerfectStrangers with my co-star @MelissaMcCarthy,' Nicole wrote in the caption.

Done! In December, Nicole Kidman announced that she and Melissa had finished filming the Hulu limited series Nine Perfect Strangers in Byron Bay. The actress celebrated the end of the shoot by sharing a photo of herself with her co-star Melissa. Both pictured

'Sending big love and infinite thanks to all cast and all the crew who made this possible in 2020, WOW. Coming to you in 2021,' she excitedly added.

Melissa, who dressed in a boho floral frock, also shared the same photo on her Instagram account.

The Bridesmaids star joked in her caption: 'Two people, the exact same height, saying farewell to 2020 with a wrap on Nine Perfect Strangers.'
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The situation as U.S. forces leave Afghanistan looks dire for the thousands of interpreters and their families that helped our troops. Read more
NBC News (WASHINGTON)  The U.S. has seen increasing indications that Iran could be planning an attack against American forces or interests in the Middle East, according to a U.S. official.

The U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that reading Irans intentions was difficult and at times unpredictable.

But the indications are being taken seriously, the official said. The one-year anniversary of the U.S.' killing of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani is just days away.

Soleimani was killed in a U.S. dronestrike in Iraq on Jan. 3, 2020, in what the Defense Department characterized as a "defensive action" because it alleged the leader of Iran's Quds Force was developing plans to attack Americans. Iran launched missiles against U.S. forces in Iraq in response to the killing days later.

This week, the U.S. flew B-52 bombers based at a Minot, North Dakota, Air Force base to the Middle East in a "deliberate appearance," U.S. Central Command said, in the second such show of force this month.

The U.S. has recently accused what it said was an Iranian-backed militia of a Dec. 20 rocket attack on Baghdad's green zone, in which 21 rockets were fired. No one was injured or killed.

Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister, in a Tweet on Thursday objected to the B-52 flights and wrote: "Intelligence from Iraq indicate plot to FABRICATE pretext for war."

On Dec. 23, referring to the rocket attack that damaged the U.S. embassy in the green zone, President Donald Trump had tweeted: "Some friendly health advice to Iran: If one American is killed, I will hold Iran responsible. Think it over."

"Wed be happy with de-escalation," the U.S. official said Thursday, adding that amid the uncertainty, the situation continues to be watched closely.

The tensions come weeks before president-elect Joe Biden will be sworn in, and the Iranian regime has sent clear signals that it wants U.S. sanctions lifted  something an attack could jeopardize.

Also on Thursday, the aircraft carrier the USS Nimitz was ordered to return to its U.S homeport after a 10-month deployment to the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, the Pentagon said.

We continue to watch Iran very closely, Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller told NBC News in a statement late Thursday.

While it is my hope that we enter 2021 peacefully and without conflict, the Department is at the ready to defend the American people and her interests, he said.
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(Natural News) Democrat Joe Bidens message of wanting to unify our divided country suffered another credibility blow in the wake of a newly uncovered Democratic memo that warns two-thirds of our country is a bigger threat than China, Russia, Iran and North Korea combined.

A report prepared especially for the (potentially) incoming Biden administration from the Secular Democrats of America PAC provides guidance to boldly restore a vision of constitutional secularism and respect in the land for religious and intellectual pluralism.

And here we thought that after four years of President Donald Trump that his efforts to uphold the right of Christians  and Jews, and Muslims, and whomever else  to practice freely, as outlined in the First Amendment, was him restoring constitutionality.

In any event, the PAC says it represents secular Democratic individuals and organizations while advocating for secular governance as well as the promotion of respect and inclusion of nonreligious Americans, while mobilizing nonreligious voters.

Again, that same First Amendment guaranteeing Americans the right to worship freely also lacks a provision that mandates a religious society or the practice of a certain religion. So  if there can be no forcing of religion on Americans, why does this group think it can force secularism on all of us?

We digress.

Just The News reports that the proposal was formally presented to the Biden team by Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin and Jared Huffman, co-chairmen of the Congressional Freethought Caucus; it was also endorsed by Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney.

Weve offered the new administration a roadmap to restore our basic constitutional values and protect science, reason and public health in American government, Raskin and Huffman said in a joint statement. (Related: Why rioters will eventually turn their rage on Christianity if not stopped.)

The outlet notes further:

The proposal calls for Bidens team to work with Congress and governors to advance a secular agenda at all levels of government, taking into account the current makeup of the federal courts and new, unfavorable precedents that your administration will have to contend with.

In the document, the group argues that Trump has empowered the religious right in ways no other administration has before, making significant advances in enacting their Christian nationalist agenda.

The proposal outlines recommendations for reversing certain policies and proactively implementing new rules that would restore secularism to federal governance and disentangle entrenched religious interests from federal policy.

Again, what is inherently wrong with Trump empowering people of faith within his administration? Understand that this proposal would not have been given to Team Biden unless these three lawmakers had a problem with the empowerment of religious persons within the Trump White House  none of whom were pushing to mandate Christianity across the country.

Only people who do not believe in any religion are suitable for government, according to this PAC.

But it gets worse: These bozos liken Christians with a threat to Americas national security.

The rise of white Christian nationalism is a national security threat, read the document. We recommend you: encourage the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice to dedicate resources to de-radicalization programs aimed at hate groups, including, but not limited to, white nationalists; increase monitoring of such groups, including the online environment, and take action to address increased hate crimes toward minority faith communities; and shift rhetoric to label violent white nationalist extremists as terrorists.

That is outrageous. If there are any threats to Americas national security that emanate from within the country, they are coming from the insane left: Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and burgeoning anarchist organizations on both the left and right.

But you can see what this is really about.

There is no bigger impediment to authoritarian rule than a belief among the populace in something higher and more divine than big government. And what better way to destroy the fundamental right to not only believe in a higher authority but to worship that higher authority than to declare those who do to be our most dangerous threat.

The Marxist Democratic left hates America as it was founded, period. This is just another modicum of proof.

See more reporting like this at BigGovernment.news.

Sources include:

JustTheNews.com

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New Delhi:

In a shocking incident, eight people were killed in a shooting incident, including deputy sheriff in Mississippi of the United States.

The authorities said a suspect has been taken into custody.

According to LA Times, Mississippi Bureau of Investigation spokesman Warren Strain asserted that the shootings took place at three separate homes on Saturday night in rural Lincoln County.

Strain said it is too early to say about the motive of the incident, and the police have not registered any case against the suspect. He said it also not clear that the suspect was already known to the deceased.

Eight people are dead, including deputy sheriff, after shooting in Mississippi, US; suspect in custody, reports AP quoting police.  ANI (@ANI_news) May 28, 2017

Also Read: Separate US shootings in two states leave 13 dead

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A view of Ha Long Bay (Photo: VNA)



Destination known

Da Nang is the perfect example of the spectacular growth seen in local tourism. Twenty years ago, the central city held no position at all on Vietnams tourism map. Today, it has positioned itself in the minds of domestic and foreign visitors, according to Cao Tri Dung, President of the Da Nang Tourism Association.

Le Trung Chinh, the new Chairman of the municipal Peoples Committee, said that tourism has become an important economic sector that makes a considerable contribution to the citys socio-economic development as well as budget funds.

According to the Da Nang Department of Tourism, the sector grew 17.88 percent on average each year in the 2015-2019 period. It welcomed 8.69 million visitors last year, an increase of 85.7 percent compared to 2015, and earned nearly 31 trillion VND in revenue, up 141.6 percent.

Vietnams tourism sector froze this year because of COVID-19, but the country still surpassed many to win the World Travel Awards Worlds Leading Heritage Destination 2020.

Last year, for the first time, the United States Tour Operators Association (USTOA) put Vietnam among its top 10 hot destinations for US travellers, second only to Japan in Asia. Earlier, Australia News said that Vietnam has overtaken Bali to become the most popular destination for Australian tourists, thanks to the high level of safety and security, friendly people, unique culture, and diverse cuisine.

Figures from the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) show that, in 2019, Vietnam welcomed nearly 18 million international arrivals, of which 78.1 percent were from Asia. The number of visitors from Europe rose 5.3 percent and from the Americas 6.2 percent year-on-year.

A place to visit at least once in your life

Along with prestigious awards, Vietnamese destinations have also been named among impressive global destinations or described as a place to visit at least once in your life.

The Golden Bridge in Da Nang was ranked among the top 100 Worlds Greatest Places in 2018 by Time magazine. Kem Beach on Phu Quoc Island, meanwhile, was rated among the 100 most beautiful beaches on the planet by 1,200 global travel experts on Fly Network in Canada.

The Hoang Lien Son mountain range in northwest Vietnam, together with the Guinness record-holding Fansipan Sapa cable network nearby, was named one of the worlds most exciting destinations in 2019 by the renowned National Geographic.

The capital Hanoi was 15th on a list of 25 cities in TripAdvisors best world destinations, overcoming popular names such as Chiang Mai and Bangkok in Thailand, Tokyo and Kyoto in Japan, and Rome.

A photo of the Golden Bridge taken by Jason Goh, a Malaysian tourist, went viral, receiving hundreds of comments like Got to go there, So keen to visit the bridge, and This is the coolest place on earth. Hope I get to visit someday.

Explaining the success Vietnams tourism sector has posted over the last five years, Jyotis, a travel expert from Flight Network, pointed to factors such as the maintenance of its traditional values.

Moreover, she added, Vietnam has always been a safe destination and an inspiring country./.
SACRAMENTO  The effort to recall Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, often seen as a long shot in a deep-blue state, has received a jolt of seriousness in the form of big-dollar donors.

In the past two weeks, a committee supporting the recall, Rescue California-Recall Gavin Newsom, has received $500,000 from a little-known Orange County consulting firm and a contribution of nearly $100,000 from a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and his wife.

Supporters say the cash boost speaks to growing momentum behind the campaign to oust Newsom before the end of his first term, signaling this effort could be more significant than past fizzled attempts.

The frustration has been building for some time, said Anne Dunsmore, campaign manager for Rescue California. Were doing really well.

Organizers said they have collected more than 900,000 signatures on recall petitions. They must submit about 1.5 million valid signatures of registered voters by March 17 to force a recall election, though theyll probably need closer to 2 million total signatures to make up for ones that are invalid.

Conservative media outlets, including Fox News, have increasingly drawn attention to the recall effort in recent weeks.

Dan Newman, a consultant for Newsoms 2022 re-election campaign, said that even with the cash infusion, the recall is unlikely to gain traction because most people want to focus on fighting the coronavirus.

I question if voters will want to waste $100 million of their own money on a special election, mere months before a regular one, instead of focusing our funds and attention on vaccinating and reopening, Newman said.

He said much of the recall money comes from a secretive dark-money group that hasnt revealed its donors, plus pro-Trump, extreme Republicans.

The emergence of large donors isnt quite comparable to the roughly $2 million that GOP Rep. Darrell Issa of San Diego County spent to help recall then-Gov. Gray Davis in 2003, but it is indicative of the growing power of the effort.

So far, two political committees behind the recall effort, Rescue California and California Patriot Coalition, have raised more than $1.3 million combined. More than 1,000 people have contributed, though most of the money has come in five- and six-figure checks.

Here are five of the largest sources bankrolling the effort:

Prov 3:9 LLC

 Amount: $500,000

 What we know: Corporate filings indicate the company is a consulting firm in Irvine formed in 2018. Its manager, Thomas Liu, did not respond to requests from The Chronicle for comment. He told Politico, We have our beliefs in terms of the direction the state needs to go, and we felt that this effort was worthy of our contribution.

The firms name appears to be a reference to the biblical verse Proverbs 3:9: Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops.

No further details about the firm were publicly available. I dont know much about them other than they contacted us and wanted to help, the recall campaigns Dunsmore said.

Doug Leone and Patricia Perkins-Leone

 Amount: $99,800

 What we know: The couple live in Los Altos Hills, and Doug Leone is a partner at Sequoia Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in tech startups. His net worth is estimated at over $5 billion, according to Forbes. Patricia Perkins-Leone is a homemaker, finance reports state.

The couple have contributed about $3 million to state and federal candidates over the past 20 years, according to the Federal Election Commission and state records. Their contributions have primarily gone to Republican candidates and conservative groups across the country, including President Trumps re-election campaign and Republicans in the Georgia runoff elections for U.S. Senate. The couple did not respond to requests for comment.

Susan and Howard Groff

 Amount: $75,000

 What we know: The couple are retirees from Northridge (Los Angeles County), according to finance reports. They appear to be the same Susan and Howard Groff who own Northwest Excavating, a Southern California company that digs utility lines and rents out large construction equipment.

They have given heavily to Republican candidates for state and federal office. The Groffs have contributed more than $12 million to federal and state campaigns, including ballot initiatives, finance records show. They did not respond to requests for comment.

California Revival PAC

 Amount: $60,000

 What we know: The committee was formed this year by GOP operatives, including Tom Del Beccaro of Walnut Creek, former chairman of the California Republican Party and a conservative commentator. Revival Californias website says the groups mission is to recall Newsom and support common sense, pro-growth policies and candidates. Del Beccaro is also chair of Rescue California.

According to finance records, the committee received a $30,000 contribution from International Petroleum Products and Additives Co. and $25,000 from businessman William Timken Jr.

John Cox

 Amount: $50,000

 What we know: Cox, whom Newsom defeated handily in the 2018 governors race, is considering running again and has formed an exploratory committee. Cox is a tax attorney, financial adviser and real estate investor in the San Diego area.

This state right now is in crisis, Cox said in September. The response out of Sacramento (to the pandemic) has been inconsistent.

Dustin Gardiner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dustin.gardiner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dustingardiner
The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) on Saturday conducted a special search and rescue training for some of its personnel, to deepen their competence during combat operations.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the training exercise, code named Taimako Yazo, was conducted on the Kaduna-Abuja expressway.

The Chief of Air Staff (CAS), Sadiq Abubakar, in his address, said personnel readiness was key to the success of any military operations.

Mr Abubakar recalled that in 2019, the NAF had conducted several counter-terrorism exercises in Kaduna, Kano, Niger and Osun.

He said this was in a bid to further develop the capacity of its Special Operations Force, to be better positioned to respond to the various security challenges bedeviling the country.

The overall desire is to ensure that our personnel are trained and equipped to maintain (a) very high level of combat readiness and operational effectiveness.

This aspiration no doubt is in tandem with our yearning to reposition the NAF into a highly professional and disciplined force through capacity building initiatives for effective, efficient and timely employment of air power, in response to Nigerias national security imperatives.

Accordingly, todays exercise which is based on a Combat Search and Rescue situation, is designed to exercise the capacity of our personnel to rescue downed aircrew who have had to eject or abandon their aircraft in emergency situations.

The importance of training to a fighting force like the NAF cannot be over emphasised, as regular purposeful training remains the cornerstone of military combat readiness, he added.

According to Mr Abubakar, this will ensure that NAF personnel are always at top physical fitness level to be able, willing and ready to execute any mission successfully.

It is in realisation of this that the NAF ensures that its personnel are mentally alert and physically fit at all times through regular training and exercises to ensure that we remain continually willing, able and ready to defend the nation, he said.

The Air Chief stated that even with todays modern weapon systems, it is the personnel with competence that would make the difference in any current or future conflict situations.

This philosophy has been incorporated into the NAF policies and regulations to ensure that personnel maintain a high level of combat readiness that would ensure efficiency and effectiveness in conduct of a wide spectrum (of) military operations.

Accordingly, in the quest to achieve professionalism, service members are subjected to excruciatingly difficult training procedures and exposures to various terrain conditions to enable them to achieve and maintain a high level of combat effectiveness.

This, no doubt, will help our personnel perform at the highest standards, throughout their career.

By organising this exercise we are also mindful of the need to sustain professionalism among our personnel, he said.

Mr Abubakar lauded President Muhammadu Buhari for his unflinching support for the growth and development of the NAF.

He reassured Nigerians that the NAF remained fully committed to the successful execution of its constitutional roles and would continue to meet its statutory responsibility of defending the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the nation.

ADVERTISEMENT

Earlier, the Air Officer Commanding (AOC), NAF Special Operations Command, Charles Ohwo, said that the objective of the exercise was to rehearse the tactics and doctrine.

He added that it was also to create synergy amongst first responders for effective combat search and rescue operations of downed aircrew or other NAF personnel.

The AOC said that the ability to rescue crew in hostile environments was particularly important, as it could be adapted in anti-kidnapping operations.

This, according to him, was recently used by the NAF in concert with other security agencies in the rescue of the 344 boys of the Government Science Secondary School, Kankara, Katsina State.

He said the exercise was a deliberate effort to boost human capacity, through robust and result oriented training for enhanced professional performance.

The cliche of sweating more in training to bleed less in battle underscores the essence of this exercise.

Hence, the event will enhance NAF combat efficiency, bearing in mind that combat efficiency is born from the right combinations of man and machine, as well as competent methods.

Even more pertinent is that this event is in consonance with the CAS vision to reposition the NAF into a highly professional and disciplined force through capacity building initiatives for effective, efficient and timely employment of air power, in response to Nigerias national security imperatives.

The timing for this event could, therefore, not have been more apt as the NAF is currently engaged in counter-insurgency and anti-banditry operations in the North-East and North-West of Nigeria respectively.

Notwithstanding tactics and doctrine, the event will enable our personnel to imbibe regimentation and fully appreciate the need for effective Air-Ground Integration, he said.

NAN reports that the exercise was the fifth NAF combat-related event organised since 2019.

(NAN)
CHICO, Calif. - Several reports came into the Chico Police Department during the first hours of 2021 that were similar in nature, from businesses who were targeted for burglary, or attempted burglary.

Sgt. Dane Gregory told Action News Now that several business owners had attempted burglaries in the northeast section of the City of Chico. He confirmed that three cases were reported on Friday morning, but said there have been other incidents as well.

East Avenue was one of the areas involved. Quackers Fire Grill & Bar had items stolen, authorities said. Also, Butte Broadcasting Company, Inc. on Longfellow had a foiled burglary attempt.

Sgt. Gregory explained how the unknown suspects are trying to get away with their burglaries and attempted burglaries. He said they are cutting off power to the businesses, hoping that their security systems will go down, allowing them to take things from the businesses without any alarms or security cam footage.

Sgt. Gregory suggests that people put their alarms and systems on backup batteries to keep their homes and businesses more secure.

He also said they need help to find the culprit or culprits. If you see anyone suspicious, possibly lurking around business electric panels or around businesses at off-hours with all lights off, are being asked to call the Chico police dispatch number at (530) 897-4900.

Sgt. Gregory said if everyone in the Chico area keeps their eyes open, it may be possible for police to catch these suspects who have been trying to prey on small local businesses..
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Janice Johnston often took a bath fully clothed, so that if she had the stroke she feared may be imminent, her dignity would be preserved in front of her children.

It was one of many desperate adjustments she made as she tried to come to terms with having a life-threatening blood cancer which also came with a much higher risk of fatal blood clots and strokes.

'For months, I honestly thought I could drop down dead at any moment,' she says.

In a state of near permanent anxiety, the mother-of-four's fears about the future were compounded by the fact that, as time went on, the oral chemotherapy drugs she had been told she would need to take for the rest of her life were simply not working. Instead, she felt worse with every passing month.

But then the drugs were never going to work  because Janice, from Whitstable, Kent, did not have cancer at all. It is something that would have been clear had consultants undertaken a routine bone marrow biopsy early on.

Instead, for 19 months she lived under cancer's frightening shadow, as well as suffering from spiralling ill health from the increasingly aggressive chemotherapy  weight loss, bleeding gums, thinning hair, nausea and fatigue  which in time forced her to give up the job she loved in a local care home.

Janice Johnson was mistakenly diagnosed with cancer and spend 19 months taking chemotheraphy drugs

Her anxious husband Garth and her daughters, meanwhile, could only look on helplessly as the previously bubbly 53-year-old became increasingly withdrawn and depressed.

It's little wonder that two years after being given the all-clear  or rather, being told the astonishing news that she never had cancer in the first place  Janice is still struggling to come to terms with what happened. 'I'm not sure I will ever get back to being the person I was,' she reflects.

'My daughters and husband tell me I've changed, and I know I have. When you go through something like that it's hard to get over it. It has had a huge impact.'

It's one reason she decided to bring a negligence case against East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust, which in early December admitted liability and agreed to pay her 75,950 damages. It is closure of a sort, although Janice  speaking to me from her homely living room  would give anything to turn back the clock.

'I wouldn't wish what I went through on anyone,' she says. 'For me it wasn't about the money but helping to ensure that hospitals follow correct procedure in the future.'

It would certainly have saved a huge amount of heartache for Janice and her close-knit family  daughters Odette, 31, and Brogan, 26, by her first husband, and Bailey, 23, and 21-year-old Tatum, her children with husband of 20 years, Garth.

The family numbers were swelled by the arrival of Odette's son, Ethan, now five, and Brogan's daughters, Heidi, four, and ten-month-old Phoebe.

Janice was forced to give up a job she loved as a health care worker and has since suffered with PTSD after her ordeal

An active and involved grandmother, Janice, who is also a keen horse-rider, had enjoyed good health aside from a diagnosis ten years ago of secondary polycythemia, a non-cancerous condition which causes the body to produce too many red blood cells.

'I'd been feeling quite sluggish for a while, so I finally went to the doctor and had some blood tests. I was told I had this condition which was considered quite rare and usually affected elderly men,' she recalls. Her doctor told her little could be done other than keeping an eye on it, and that on occasion she might be given a therapeutic venesection  a procedure similar to giving blood, which would help lower her red cell count.

Years passed with no further incident. 'It wasn't affecting my day-to-day life,' she says. But by the end of 2016 Janice had started to feel unwell again, and after what felt like an endless cycle of infections, decided to contact her doctors' surgery, who organised another blood test.

This time she was given a new GP who rang shortly afterwards to say her red blood count was again high, and he had arranged for her to have her first venesection at the hospital.

'He seemed surprised that I hadn't been referred to the hospital's haematology department,' she says. 'Obviously that worried me a bit as suddenly it sounded more serious.'

She was reassured when, following her venesection appointment at a day clinic in January 2017, her doctor phoned to say her red blood count levels had come down again.

Not long afterwards, however, Janice was at work when the room started spinning and she saw flashing lights before her eyes.

'One of the other carers told me to go straight to A&E, where doctors found my blood pressure was sky high,' she recalls. 'It was very scary as it felt out of control, but my blood pressure settled down over the next couple of hours and the doctors told me I needed to go back to my GP and have more blood tests.'

Yet more tests followed, after which her doctor said he had arranged for her to see a consultant at Canterbury's haematology department.

Before that appointment came through, however, Janice received a letter telling her she had been booked for another venesection in the hospital's Cathedral ward which, on Googling, she learned was where chemotherapy took place.

She felt the first of what would be many pricklings of unease. 'I did wonder why they were sending me there', she recalls. 'And when I arrived it was pretty shocking with lots of very ill people undergoing some very traumatic treatment.'

With Garth by her side, Janice recalls wondering out loud what would happen to her blood, as it clearly couldn't be donated.

'The nurse told me that normally they would incinerate it but mine would be sent to King's Hospital,' Janice says. 'I asked why it was being sent there and was it because they thought it might be cancer which was the only reason that I could think of. She said maybe  but I would need to wait for an appointment with the haematologist.'

East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust in early December admitted liability and agreed to pay Janice 75,950 damages

Over the three-week wait for her appointment Janice became so anxious that she had to ask her doctor for tranquilisers. 'I was getting myself horribly worked up,' she recalls. 'The first thing I said to the consultant when I saw him was, 'What's wrong with me?'

The answer was that he wasn't quite sure: while one blood test showed cells that were 'pre-malignant', the results from other blood tests were not ready.

It meant a further agonising four weeks before Janice got the news she had been dreading at a clinic appointment she attended with Garth and Bailey. 'The consultant told me it was a blood cancer called Polycythemia Rubra Vera (PRV). I remember asking if he was sure it wasn't secondary polycythemia as I had been diagnosed with that before, but he said no, it was PRV.'

A disease of the bone marrow that causes the overproduction of red blood cells, Janice knows now that a simple bone marrow biopsy, as well as a scan of the spleen, would have shown this not to be the case. Instead, she was left to confront the reality of a diagnosis which can lead to leukaemia as well as going hand-in-hand with a high risk of having a heart attack or a fatal blood clot.

Untreated, most sufferers will die within three years, although those younger than 60 can have long lifespans with therapy  in Janice's case oral chemotherapy pills she was told she would need to take for the rest of her life.

'I had gone from someone with a manageable, low-level condition to someone with a potentially fatal cancer. It was horrendous. There was no support  the consultant basically shoved some leaflets for Macmillan nurses at me and that was that. We were all in shock.'

Her voice quivers as she recalls returning home, breaking the news to her other daughters. 'It's a call no one wants to make,' she says.

Despite her fears however, it took her four days to take her first chemotherapy tablet. 'I knew it was meant to help but it felt like taking a cyanide pill,' she says.

The side-effects came quickly, with Janice overcome with spells of nausea, dizziness and night sweats, alongside weight loss and receding gums which led to loosened teeth.

'I was also getting every infection going because my immune system was shot,' she recalls.

It meant that by August 2017 she had to give up the job she loved in a nursing home. 'I was so upset as the place was a home from home. I never felt I was going into a job.'

The psychological symptoms were even worse. 'I was really struggling,' she says. 'It was on my mind the whole time and I went into a very dark place. I honestly thought I could die at any minute.'

She recalls her 50th birthday party in a local pub five months after being diagnosed, and her daughter Odette's wedding in June the following year, as particular lows.

'They are such milestones, but at Odette's wedding all I could think of was that I might not see my other daughters walk down the aisle,' she reflects. She even took place in a Race for Life event as a guest of honour, tasked with giving a speech in front of a crowd of 2,000 in which she spoke about her fears and anxieties.

'I was terrified but afterwards the organiser said you could hear a pin drop,' she says. 'Now I feel like such a fraud. There will have been people in that crowd who have lost loved ones  yet I didn't have cancer at all. I just didn't know it.'

Meanwhile, a frustrating pattern started to unfold: at her six-weekly medical appointments, Janice would discover that her blood count levels hadn't gone down, save for a brief period after the venesection procedure she was also booked in for fortnightly.

Instead, with Janice questioning why the pills weren't working, over time her consultants chose to increase the dose. 'I was taking three tablets a day at one point. There were days when I could quite easily stay in bed all day as I was so exhausted,' says Janice. It was equally stressful for her family, in particular her gas engineer husband.

'He had lost both his parents to cancer and thought he was now going to lose his wife, too. It was really hard for Mum as well  she had lost my older brother when he was 24 after he had taken his own life and was terrified she might have to bury another of her children. It affected so many people.'

Not once did it occur to her to doubt the diagnosis. 'Why would I? You trust the doctors, don't you, and I had had endless tests.'

As the summer of 2018 drew to a close however  and feeling increasingly ill  Janice's despair was such that she decided to request an alternative form of chemotherapy. 'I had done a lot of research and learned there was a more expensive, more effective form of chemotherapy which after 18 months I felt I should try.

'I was told that they couldn't prescribe it at that hospital, but I would be referred to another specialist at Guy's Hospital in London. It was the first time in 18 months I felt a ray of hope.'

She could little have expected what she would discover when she and Garth arrived for her appointment in November.

'The consultant said she had looked through my notes and blood results and she didn't think I had PRV at all, although she couldn't confirm it without a bone marrow biopsy or a scan which of course I had never had,' Janice says. 'But her instinct told her it wasn't cancer. I was in total and utter shock. It didn't seem real.'

Nor, despite this boost, could she be sure: it would take a bone marrow biopsy in early December and another agonising four weeks of waiting before, in January 2019, Janice received the call she didn't dare to dream of. 'It wasn't cancer, and never had been' she says.

Instead of relief, however, she felt anger. 'Of course, I was glad  but I'd lost my job and suffered two years of feeling terrible and worrying about dying  all for nothing.'

And of course, something that could have been avoided if basic procedures had been followed  the basis for her negligence claim, as Shantala Carr, partner at Girlings solicitors, which handled Janice's case, explains.

'This is a case where straightforward investigations such as a repeat blood test, ultrasound scan of the spleen and bone marrow biopsy were not carried out, which would have shown conclusively that Janice did not have cancer,' Shantala says.

'Had this negligence not occurred, Janice could have avoided the immense physical and emotional suffering that she went through and continues to go through.'

A spokeswoman for East Kent Hospitals said: 'A misdiagnosis of this kind is exceptionally rare, and we wholeheartedly apologise to Ms Johnston for the omission in her care.'

It is cold comfort for Janice, who is now having counselling for her ongoing anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder in a bid to shake off the underlying fears that still haven't left her.

'I know I am lucky, as some people never get that good news,' she says. 'But I also know I can never trust a doctor again.'
The Royal Navy sent four warships into the English Channel to warn French trawlers to stay away from British fish as the Brexit deal came into force.

Hours before the deal took effect on New Year's Day the boats, armed with cannons and machine guns, left Portsmouth to put a stop to any illegal fishing in UK fishing grounds.

The 100million ship HMS Trent led the mission, flanked by HMS Tamar, HMS Tyne and HMS Mersey - all of which have been assigned to protect the new fishing rights agreed in the trade deal.

Four Naval ships, including HMS Tamar (pictured leaving Portsmouth on New Year's Eve), were sent into the English Channel to put a stop to illegal fishing on UK fishing grounds hours before the terms of the new Brexit trade deal came into force

Boats from France and the EU can still fish in British water but over the next five-and-a-half years a quarter of their quota will be handed over to the UK. Pictured: HMS Tamar leaving Portsmouth on New Year's Eve

This map shows the extent of the UK's Exclusive Economic Zone - the waters Britain will take back control of after Brexit. At the moment the EEZ of every EU member state is merged into one large zone which can be accessed by fishermen from all over Europe

People stood at the port in Portsmouth to wave to the Navy ship HMS Tamar as it set off for the Channel on New Year's Day

HMS Severn was also deployed in the Channel for exercises, The Sun reports.

Under the terms of the Brexit trade deal, boats from France and the rest of the EU can still fish in British water but over the next five-and-a-half years a quarter of their quota will be handed over to the UK.

Talk of naval vessels being dispatched to deal with any clashes in fishing grounds if a trade deal was not agreed with the EU were floated in the run up to New Year's Day and, despite reaching a settlement, the boats still left Portsmouth at the end of 2020.

Earlier this month there were fears the deployment of ships would evoke memories of the Cod Wars of the 1970s - at times the Royal Navy stopped Icelandic boats interfering with British trawlers.

Former head of the Navy Admiral Lord West of Spithead said the decision to send boats into the channel was 'an act of deterrence' and should be seen as a signal that the UK is taking responsibility for its waters.

The Sun reported a defence source said: 'The plan was to have two offshore patrol vessels at sea and two in port and rotate them.

The boats, armed with cannons and machine guns, left Portsmouth on New Year's Eve (pictured) in order 'to carry out routine activity', a MoD spokesman says

Before a trade deal was agreed on Christmas Eve, there had been talk of Navy boats being deployed to deal with any potential clashes over fishing grounds. Pictured: HMS Tamar leaving Portsmouth on New Year's Eve

Despite reaching a settlement, the boats still left Portsmouth at the end of 2020, as Michael Gove had warned in October

The 100million ship HMS Trent led the mission, flanked by HMS Tamar, HMS Tyne and HMS Mersey (pictured leaving Portsmouth on New Year's Eve)

'But for day one of Brexit, the commanders wanted all four ships at sea as a show of resolve.'

A spokesman for the Military of Defence confirmed the four boats had left Portsmouth on New Year's Eve 'to carry out routine activity'.

Mr Gove warned in October that the Navy would be patrolling British waters in the days after the transition period. The Cabinet Office minister said they would make sure no one is abusing their rights when it comes to access to our fishing waters.

HMS TAMAR STATS Displacement: 2,000 tonnes Length: 90.5 m (296 ft 11 in) Beam: 13 m (42 ft 8 in) Draught: 3.8 m (12 ft 6 in) Speed: 24 kn (44 km/h) Range: 5,500 nmi (10,200 km) Endurance: 35 days Capacity: 70 Armament: 1  30 mm DS30B gun 2  General purpose machine guns 2  Miniguns Advertisement

Fishing quotas had been a significant stumbling block in the UK's negotiations with the European Union, with French President Emmanuel Macron refusing to budge, insisting he was unwilling to give up my share of the cake.

The two sides were bitterly divided over how much access EU fleets should continue to have to British waters.

Earlier this month the EU suggested it should continue to enjoy the same access as it does now for at least another year  even if no trade deal was reached - an idea which was rejected by UK ministers.

The Ministry of Defence spent months drawing up contingency plans for a number of outcomes at the end of the transition period on December 31 amid fears a No Deal result could have lead to clashes between rival boats.

It is understood the plans would have see two Batch 1 vessels and two Batch 2 vessels, which are almost 300ft in length and weigh 2,000 tons, deployed.

A government source said the boats would be on hand to support border force and step in if boats in UK waters refused to leave. They were expected to also inspect vessels if needed.

On Monday, Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove insisted the new trade agreement was the 'best possible deal' for the industry as a whole.

He said fishermen will receive 'a major funding package' to help them take full advantage of Brexit.

Fishing leaders have accused Boris Johnson of betrayal for the compromise he struck with Brussels over access to UK waters.

Mr Gove wrote in The Scotsman that it gives the UK 'control over who comes into our territorial waters' and the fishing sector will get a 'major funding package'.

Fishing quotas had been a significant stumbling block in the UK's negotiations with the European Union. Pictured: HMS Mersey leaving Portsmouth on New Year's Eve

Twenty-five per cent of EU boats' fishing rights in UK waters will be transferred to the British fleet over a transition period to 2026 (file image)

But Andrew Locker, of the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations, said the industry would be 'absolutely worse off' after the deal and would receive a fraction of the catch promised.

'I am angry, disappointed and betrayed. Boris Johnson promised us the rights to all the fish that swim in our exclusive economic zone and we have got a fraction of that,' he told Today.

'We are absolutely worse off. When we were within the EU we used to trade fish with the EU.

'We used to swap things we didn't use with fish that they didn't use and that enabled us to put together an annual fishing plan.

'What we have got now is a fraction of what we were promised through Brexit. We are going to really, really struggle this year.'

Speaking about the Brexit trade deal, Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: 'While we do not yet have full details on the nature of the deal, it appears major promises made by the UK Government on fisheries have been broken and the extent of these broken promises will become apparent to all very soon.'
Local leaders and unions had attacked the Government's plan to reopen primary schools in selected areas from January 4 - Tim Goode/ PA

Teaching unions have demanded the closure of every school in the country after Gavin Williamson caved in to pressure to shut all primaries in London.

The Education Secretary was forced into a U-turn after councils threatened legal action over his decision to keep some schools in the capital open.

The move raises the prospect that pupils in other areas could also be kept at home, as a leading union insisted that "what is right for London is right for the rest of the country".

Dr Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said the Government had corrected "an obviously nonsensical position", adding that ministers must "do their duty" by closing all primary and secondary schools to contain the virus. The union is holding an emergency meeting on Saturday to discuss the "chaos which is engulfing our schools".

It left the Government's policy on school reopenings in tatters just two days after Mr Williamson had resisted pressure from Cabinet colleagues to close schools on a region-by-region basis.

The development comes after government scientific advisers warned that the spread of the new strain of coronavirus was unlikely to be halted if schools reopened, while an Imperial College study published on Friday said it may not be possible to "control transmission" if children go back to classes as planned.

There were fresh warnings on Friday night that the closure of schools to all but vulnerable children and the children of key workers will prove disastrous for students' education, with new questions about whether exams will go ahead as planned later in the year.

The Government has attempted to resist calls to close schools in recent weeks after the impact of doing so during the first lockdown was revealed. Analysis by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) charity revealed the decision had wiped out close to 10 years of progress in narrowing the attainment gap in England.

Story continues

Meanwhile, scientists are divided on the impact of closing schools. Prof Tim Spector, the lead scientist on the ZOE Covid Symptom Study app, said children had been affected "the least of all age groups" despite rising cases, adding: "So if you want actions based on science,closing schools is a bad idea."

Labour council leaders in London gloated after forcing Mr Williamson into his latest U-turn. Danny Thorpe, the leader of Greenwich Council, said he was "absolutely delighted" that the Education Secretary had "finally climbed down".

Mr Williamson said the list of local authorities required to keep schools closed was being kept "under review", suggesting pupils' return could be further delayed.

The Government's current policy is to keep primary schools closed in some Tier 4 areas in the South-East, while secondary school pupils in years 11 and 13 will return on January 11 and others on January 18.

Several London districts with high coronavirus rates had been missed off the Governments list of 50 "Covid hotspots" where primary schools were forced to close to most pupils for the next two weeks, as shown in the graphic below.

Eight council leaders in London had signalled that they could mount a legal challenge in response to Mr Williamson's original plan, calling the proposal "unlawful on a number of grounds".

The Education Secretary said expanding school closures had been a "last resort and a temporary solution", with primary schools in the capital now being encouraged to teach most of their pupils online.

But Dr Bousted said: "The question has to be asked: why are education ministers so inadequate and inept? Who is advising them?

"And what is right for London is right for the rest of the country. With the highest level of Covid-19 infection and hospitals buckling under the tsunami of very ill patients, it is time for ministers to do their duty  to protect the NHS by following Sage advice and close all primary and secondary schools to reduce the 'R' rate below one."

Call to extend testing to primaries

Speaking on Saturday morning, she told BBC Breakfast: "It will be helpful with two weeks' Christmas break where there was mixing over Christmas and unfortunately that has raised levels of infection, but you would hope that for a month where there largely has been less mixing, viral levels will go down in the community and they will go down in schools.

"If they haven't, then we're in a really dangerous situation."

Dr Bousted said she hoped schools could implement new measures to help reduce the spread of the virus, with the additional two weeks as well as setting up testing in secondary schools, which she called to be extended to primary schools.

She continued: "Education is really, really important... but you're not going to get that education if this virus gets out of control in the community because schools will have to close then for a longer period of time."

Research from Imperial College into the new "mutant" Covid-19 variant found it was directly affecting a greater proportion of those aged under 20. Axel Gandy, the chairman in statistics at Imperial College, said infections of the new variant would probably have tripled in two to three weeks under November's lockdown conditions.

"Overall, we've been able to determine that the new variant increases the reproduction number, so that's the number of people infected on average per infected person in the future, by about 0.4 to 0.7," he said. "That doesnt sound like much, but the difference is quite extreme."

The Department for Education has said it will review the decision on school closures in the hotspot areas by January 18, but Boris Johnson has suggested this could be pushed back if coronavirus cases surge.

The decision to shut primary schools across London is the latest in a series of U-turns from Mr Williamson, including on exam results and face coverings in schools. It came after the eight London council leaders wrote to him to say they were "struggling to understand the rationale" behind a move that ignored "the interconnectedness of our city".

They said they had received legal advice that omitting some authorities from the list of areas told to take teaching online "is unlawful on a number of grounds and can be challenged in court".

The leaders of the Labour-run boroughs of Islington, Camden, Hackney, Lambeth, Lewisham, Greenwich, Haringey and Harrow all signed the letter, and Mr Thorpe said: "This is a decision that vindicates our safety-first approach we took at the end of the last term in the best interests of Greenwich. Faced with an exponential growth in Covid cases, we were clear immediate action was required.

"There remain huge questions to answer about how they ever came to this decision in the first place, and we will continue to push for those answers."

Kate Green, Labour's shadow education secretary, said: "This is yet another Government U-turn, creating chaos for parents just two days before the start of term. Gavin Williamson's incompetent handling of the return of schools and colleges is creating huge stress for parents, pupils, and school and college staff and damaging childrens education."

Ms Green called on Mr Williamson to "clarify" his position on schools in Tier 4 and set out the criteria for reopening.

It comes amid suggestions that the Government is considering making masks compulsory in secondary school classrooms. Schools Week reported that Department for Education officials had told a briefing on Wednesday evening that it would act to ensure teachers and pupils in Year Seven and above wear face coverings in class settings.

Sage advised ministers to extend the use of masks to "settings where they are not currently mandated, such as education, workplaces, and crowded outdoor spaces". The advisers also recommended "specifying higher performance face coverings and masks".

Are you a teacher or parent? Have your say in the comments section below
A highlight of the Winter Carnival is an open stage with the World Natural Heritage Site of Ha Long Bay in the background where more than 100 cruise ships parading back and forth.(Photo: VNA)

Quang Ninh  Thousands of visitors flocked to Ha Long City in the northern province of Quang Ninh on the New Years Day (January 1) for the Winter Carnival, the first of its kind held in the province.



One of the events highlights was an open stage with the World Natural Heritage Site of Ha Long Bay in the background where more than 100 cruise ships parading back and forth. In addition, the audiences were also thrilled by performances of helicopters, seaplanes and paragliders in the sky overhead.



The carnival parade featured six performance sections, expressing the theme of Ha Long  the aspiration of flying dragons, during which performers in winter festival costumes showed off their Ha Long samba dance moves.

The carnival parade features six performance sections, during which performers in winter festival costumes show off their Ha Long samba dance moves. (Photo: VNA)

Visitors were also wowed by a wide range of performances which showcase the typical cultural and tourism attractions of the northeastern province, along with sampling delicious cuisine and discovering interesting tourism products at the carnival.



Organised by the Tuan Chau Group, the carnival aimed to offer visitors a new experience in Ha Long and help persify tourism products in the province during the off-peak season.

Performers take to the street during the carnival parade. (Photo: VNA)

Total visitors to Quang Ninh, a tourism magnet in Vietnam, this year are estimated at 8.8 million, down 37 percent from 2019. Of these, some 536,000 were foreigners, a year-on-year decline of 90.7 percent.The province is looking to attract about 10 million visitors in 2021, according to the provincial Tourism Department.
One of the strangest things about our recent national madness has been the role of Professor Neil Ferguson, the physicist who has somehow come to dominate Johnsons Covid policy.

Physicist? Yes, that is his main academic discipline. He doesnt even have a Biology O-level, as he himself cheerfully admits. But thats no odder than his repeated record of wild predictions of vast numbers of deaths, for a variety of diseases from foot-and-mouth to mad cow, which can kindly be described as exaggerated.

And then theres his complicated private life, which resulted in a pretty clear breach of the miserable restrictions he had helped to impose on the rest of us. As with all such cases, I dont blame him for breaking the stupid rules. I despise him as a hypocrite for supporting them and then thinking they didnt apply to him.

Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, said at the time that it was just not possible for Ferguson to continue advising the Government. But this was not true. The professor was said to have resigned from the SAGE advisory committee. But did he? Not really. A current State website lists him as a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG). Minutes suggest he was only ever away from that for a few weeks. But this is small potatoes, set beside an amazing admission by Ferguson in a recent interview with the semi-official newspaper The Times. Here, Ferguson spoke of SAGEs growing admiration for Chinas tyrannical attempts to contain Covid.

Professor Neil Ferguson (pictured) has made several predictions that have turned out to be wildly inaccurate and doesn't even own a Biology O-level

To begin with they thought  with good reason  that the dishonest and repressive Chinese state was covering up the truth about the Wuhan outbreak. I am sure they still are covering it up.

Last week, after a trial of a few hours, Zhang Zhan, 37, a Chinese former lawyer and citizen journalist, was sentenced to four years in prison. She was originally arrested in Wuhan in May for picking quarrels and provoking trouble  a non-crime often alleged against dissidents in China. Then she was charged with disseminating false information about Wuhan.

She went on hunger strike against her treatment. But this was China, not a free country. Her lawyer says (and I dont doubt it) that she had a feeding tube forcibly inserted and her arms restrained to stop her pulling it out. Those who managed to see her in the courtroom before she was condemned and sent off to Pekings Gulag say she appeared there in a wheelchair, her hair cropped.

China is a police state that only last week sentenced a citizen journalist to four years in prison

Modern China is a horrible place, cruel, ruthless and unembarrassed. But for some reason SAGE came to like Pekings Covid strategy. Ferguson told The Times that as the data accrued it became clear it was an effective policy.

Id be interested to know how the SAGE geniuses evaluated data from this police state, which lacks a free press or independent universities. But there.

Even so, they hesitated. As Ferguson says: Its a Communist one-party state, we said. We couldnt get away with it in Europe, we thought.

Arent those words we couldnt get away with it interesting? Is this the way in which public servants in a free country think of the normal limits on what they can do? I can only hope not.

But Ferguson and his friends then saw what happened in Italy, where a formerly free country reached for the weapons of repression and mass house arrest. And the rule of fear was so great that they got away with it. So we were next. Or, as Ferguson puts it: And then Italy did it. And we realised we could.

They could. But they did not have to. They chose the Chinese way. And so they got away with beginning a disaster which still continues. There is still no evidence that any of this Chinese-inspired repression has worked.

Every country that has locked down has failed to control the disease and keeps doing the same thing over and over again in the hope of getting a different result.

If lockdown is an effective policy, then the guillotine is a good cure for a headache (except that the guillotine probably does cure a headache).

The shame of it is that the lockdown fanatics did get away with it, and continue to do so. That is, quite simply, because most of the responsible people in our society did not stand up for wisdom and freedom but allowed themselves to be swept away in a flood of State-sponsored fear, like so many pawns.

Yes, the NHS beds crisis does sound familiar

Read this news report: Many A&E units have been severely overcrowded in recent days, with patients lying in corridors and ambulances queuing outside.

Hospitals have already been forced to cancel tens of thousands of operations and NHS chiefs fear things will only get worse On Tuesday, hospitals were ordered to cancel up to 55,000 non-urgent operations and put patients in mixed-sex wards to create more room.

Sound familiar? But actually its three years old, from the Daily Mail of January 6, 2018, under the headline Now the NHS tells us: Dont get ill.

If you look back into the archives of any newspaper or TV news station, you will discover that the NHS has a winter crisis thanks to overloaded intensive care wards, year after year.

But nobody ever thought before that this could be solved by strangling the country and forbidding grandparents to hug their grandchildren.

I do not doubt that our intensive care units are overloaded now.

But it is odd, since this was so foreseeable, that the huge new Nightingale Hospitals have been so little used to deal with this.

Why were they built at huge expense, if not for this moment?

One day last week, BBC Radio 4s self-important Today programme played a recording of President Franklin Roosevelt rallying his people against the Great Depression in 1933. It was thrilling to hear. He said: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself  nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

It was an admirable thing to say. But who in our government or the BBC could now say such a thing, having themselves made such shameless use of nameless, unreasoning, unjustified fear, so they could get away with behaving just like, well, Chinese dictators and their hired mouthpieces?

Let us pray  for better TV

Atheists and liberals love nuns  that is, they love sex-mad nuns who go crazy, or who have been forced to take the veil, or who abandon their vows, or all three

Atheists and liberals love nuns  that is, they love sex-mad nuns who go crazy, or who have been forced to take the veil, or who abandon their vows, or all three. Since Denis Diderots 1792 novel Memoirs Of A Nun, they have rejoiced in such stories.

I can think of no other explanation for the BBCs weird drama Black Narcissus, starring Gemma Arterton, pictured right  a TV remake of an extremely peculiar cult nun movie of the 1940s.

Can anyone possibly have watched this for pleasure? It is expensively filmed with lots of music to tell you how to feel. But why bother?

Meanwhile, mysteriously, the BBC will not explain why it will not make available its brilliant 1970 drama series Roads To Freedom, which we know still exists. Perhaps the Corporation doesnt want to be reminded of the days when it did its job properly.

If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens click here
About 5:30 p.m. on New Years Eve, University Health made an announcement people across the region had been waiting for:

COVID-19 vaccinations no longer were limited to front-line medical workers, nursing home residents and others at high risk. Starting Monday, the public hospital system would vaccinate anyone 65 or older, as well as younger people with chronic health conditions.

People rushed to University Healths online portal to book appointments.

In less than five hours, all 17,280 slots had been taken.

On ExpressNews.com: Delays, confusion mark Texas COVID vaccine rollout

Registration now is closed on the website, WeCanDoItSA.com, but people will be able to schedule appointments when more doses of the Moderna vaccine arrive.

University Health officials said they dont know when that will be.

We really had no idea how quickly these slots would fill, spokeswoman Shelley Kofler said. We appreciate everyones patience as we await the arrival of additional vaccine.

On ExpressNews.com: How and where to get vaccinated in San Antonio

Those hoping to get vaccinated can check back on the website, or monitor University Healths Twitter feed, @UnivHealthSA, to see when appointments will be available again.

We think scheduling people to come at specific times is a more efficient approach than just lining up people as they arrive, which potentially results in their waiting for hours in a crowded situation, Kofler said.

Those who were able to make appointments will receive their doses starting Monday on the lower level of Wonderland of the Americas shopping mall.

University Health plans to vaccinate about 1,000 people a day there.

On ExpressNews.com: COVID by the numbers in San Antonio, in Texas and across the U.S.

The Moderna vaccine is given in two doses 28 days apart. People will schedule an appointment for their second dose during their first visit.

The vaccine is being made available to most of those in Group 1B of the states inoculation plan.

That group includes people 65 and older and those 18 and older who have chronic medical conditions: cancer, chronic kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart conditions, obesity, sickle cell disease and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Pregnant women and recipients of organ transplants also are eligible.

The only people from Group 1B who are not included in University Healths vaccination drive are 16- and 17-year-olds with chronic conditions; they should call 210-644-1960 to schedule an appointment to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at a different location.

On ExpressNews.com: Burnout, trauma, disillusionment  COVIDs toll on hospital workers

As of Wednesday, 73,050 vaccine doses had been distributed in Bexar County, the Texas Department of State Health Services reported. The San Antonio Metropolitan Health District said about 31,000 doses have been administered.

The long-awaited vaccines reached San Antonio in the midst of a frightening surge in coronavirus infections.

The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 has more than doubled over the past six weeks and now exceeds 1,100, Metro Health reported. For weeks now, more than 1,000 new coronavirus infections have been confirmed each day.

Since the pandemic began in March, 115,685 San Antonians have contracted the virus. Bexar Countys COVID-19 death toll stood at 1,538 as of Wednesday.

San Antonio is a community that is ready to get vaccinated, Precinct 2 County Commissioner Justin Rodriguez said. And were going to be waiting for some additional shipments to come in, hopefully.

Commissioner Trish DeBerry, newly elected to represent Precinct 3, agreed.

Im glad to see people were taking advantage of the vaccine, she said Friday after being sworn in for a four-year term during a ceremony at the Bexar County Courthouse. It shows that theres a tremendous need and tremendous desire in the community to get the vaccine.

To newly elected Commissioner Rebeca Clay-Flores, who represents Precinct 1, it was no surprise vaccines have been in short supply.

Of course theres going to be issues, she said. This is something thats never been done before.

Area report

Comal County reported 127 new coronavirus cases Friday, bringing its total to 6,375 since the start of the pandemic.

The county has 708 active cases, including 55 patients in hospitals, 16 in intensive care and 14 who need the support of ventilators to breathe.

Comal County reported five additional deaths.
A man is being quizzed by gardai after an assault in Limerick City prompted a massive response by emergency services.

An injured man was rushed to hospital last night as numerous Garda cars as well as the armed support unit were tasked to Lord Edward Street at 11pm.

Read More

The victim, a man aged in his 40s, was brought to University Hospital Limerick with non-life threatening injuries.

Another man, in his 30s, was arrested at the scene in connection with the alleged assault and is being held at Roxboro Road Station.

A Garda spokesperson said Gardai responded to reports of an alleged assault at a residence on Friday, January 1 at approximately 11pm.

"One male, aged in his 40s, was taken to University Hospital with non-life threatening injuries, the spokesperson said.

A second male, aged in his 30s, was arrested at the scene and taken to Roxboro Road Garda Station and detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984.

Gardai added: Investigations are ongoing."

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Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-03 04:33:04|Editor: huaxia

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ANKARA, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- At least two Turkish nationals were killed and three others were wounded after a suicide bomber targeted the workers of a Turkish company in Somalia's capital Mogadishu on Saturday, Turkey's Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said.

"We continue the treatment of 14 injured people, three of them Turkish, in our Mogadishu Recep Tayyip Erdogan Hospital. Our injured citizens do not have a risk of death," the minister tweeted referring to a hospital named after Turkey's president.

The attack killed at least five people and injured 14.

Meanwhile, the Turkish foreign ministry condemned the attack which targeted employees of a Turkish company that undertook the Mogadishu-Afgoye road construction. In a written statement, the ministry noted that the company's work "contributes to the development and prosperity of Somalia."

The construction project is funded by the Qatar government and carried out by a Turkish company. Al-Qaida affiliated group al-Shabaab in Somalia claimed responsibility for the attack in a post by its Shahada News Agency. Enditem
President Donald Trump took some time on the first day of the year to make baseless claims about the integrity of Georgias electoral system in a move that will no doubt concern Republicans who are trying to get voters to turn out for the runoff elections Tuesday that will decide which party controls the Senate. Trump tweeted that next weeks Georgia runoff elections are both illegal and invalid mere days before he is scheduled to go to the state to campaign for the Republican candidates.

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Trump began his series of Jan. 1 tweets by once again baselessly claiming there was massive corruption in the November election and he actually received far more votes than is necessary to win all of the Swing States. The president went on to specifically mention Georgia and its consent decree, which he decried as unconstitutional. That decree meant that the states two Senate races, as well as his loss to President-elect Joe Biden, were not valid, he said. The decree Trump is referring to was agreed to between Democrats and Republicans in the state to come up with a way to allow voters to fix absentee ballots that have a problem with their signature. Trump and his allies have repeatedly argued the decree was illegal because state legislatures are the ones that have the power to regulate congressional elections. But many have pointed out that the Supreme Court has made clear that legislatures can hand that power over to state officials.

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Before even discussing the massive corruption which took place in the 2020 Election, which gives us far more votes than is necessary to win all of the Swing States (only need three), it must be noted that the State Legislatures were not in any way responsible for the massive....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2021

....is therefore both illegal and invalid, and that would include the two current Senatorial Elections. In Wisconsin, Voters not asking for applications invalidates the Election. All of this without even discussing the millions of fraudulent votes that were cast or altered!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2021

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Trumps latest tweets come amid concerns by Republican leaders that the presidents repeated attacks on the voting system could end up depressing turnout in the critical Georgia runoffs. The questions about the integrity of the election may help explain why it seems that Democrats far outpaced Republicans in early voting in the state. A record three million voters in Georgia cast their ballots early for the runoffs. The early voting period ended Thursday and no votes will be counted until polls close Tuesday but data shows more votes were cast in areas that tend to favor Democrats. That means Republicans need to come out in large numbers on the day of the election in order make up the difference.

Beyond his attacks on the integrity of the elections, Trump has also been blasting Republican leaders, a move that has also concerned many in the GOP who worry that frustrated allies of the president may decide to skip the runoffs entirely. In a another tweet Friday, Trump called Republican Senate leaders pathetic for not coming through on $2,000 stimulus checks and failing to repeal legal protections for social media companies.
In April 2019 Patently Apple posted a report titled "Oprah teams up with Britain's Prince Harry to Deliver a Painfully Honest yet Empowering Apple TV+ Documentary for 2020." Oprah Winfrey announced a documentary about mental health in development with Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex. We posted a follow-up report in September 2019 titled "Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, is Hopeful that Next Year's Apple TV+ Series With Oprah Winfrey 'Could Save Lives.'" The documentary that was due for 2020 has now been pushed into sometime in 2021 and hopefully this spring.

The UK's Daily Mail is reporting today that "Prince Harry's mental health documentary series with Oprah Winfrey has 'stalled', after facing several delays, according to insiders.

The Duke of Sussex, 36, who is currently living in his $14 million mansion in California, announced he had been working on the Apple TV documentary series for 'several months' with the media mogul, 66, in April 2019.

According to The Sun, the documentary was due to be released last autumn, but sources have now said Covid-19 restrictions, Harry's exit from the Royal Family and move to the US with Meghan Markle, 39, have slowed down production.

The multi-part documentary series, which the pair worked on for 'several months' last year during a number of 'secret meetings in London', will focus on both mental illness and mental wellness, and aims to inspire viewers to have an honest conversation about the challenges they face.

Filming schedules are believed to have been changed by the upheaval, with the documentary now not set to arrive until spring 2021.

The Duke said at the time: 'I am incredibly proud to be working alongside Oprah on this vital series which we have been developing together for several months.

'I truly believe that good mental health  mental fitness  is the key to powerful leadership, productive communities and a purpose-driven self.

'It is a huge responsibility to get this right as we bring you the facts, the science and the awareness of a subject that is so relevant during these times." For more on this, read the full Daily Mail report.

Archive: Apple TV News
Source: Xinhua| 2021-01-02 07:51:12|Editor: huaxia

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Students wearing face masks attend class at a school in Bangalore, India, Jan. 1, 2021. The southern state of Karnataka on Friday opened schools for students of grade 10 and 12 after a gap of more than nine months. (Str/Xinhua)
Through the mist of time and hills of tea country By Yomal Senerath-Yapa Many are the tales that centenarian Gilbert Theophilus David Navamanie delights in sharing View(s): View(s):

Gilbert Theophilus David Navamanie is a child of camellia sinensis. Almost unwittingly, he was to spend most of his 100 years in upcountry tea estates, first as the progeny of a chief clerk, and then as a chief clerk himself. It was in the golden valleys of Bogawantalawa, Bandarawela and Agrapatna- classic tea country that he did his bit to put those misty hills and the golden brew they yielded on the map.

Having celebrated a charmed centenary (with just slight diabetes and a few complaints) on Thursday, December 31, Mr. Navamanie is still dapper, just as he would have been on Victory Day in 1945, when he, though only a young private in the British Army had the privilege to watch, from the main dais, many foreign contingents marching before Lord Mountbatten of Burma at the Galle Face parade.

Seated in his Moratuwa house next to a glittering Christmas tree and the pudding being mixed on a table, his cat Bullet darting in and out of his legs, Mr. Navamanie can reach any obscure nook of his well-archived memory. Ranjana, his youngest daughter, just has to prompt him for the recollections to begin.

The Navamanies, part of the 19th Century tea exodus were from South India, a middle class Madras clan. Gilberts parents came over to Ceylon to work in estate administration. The young couple, Manickam and Daisy were at High Forest estate, Kandapola, shrouded in the cold wilderness, snug but isolated where leopards would come prowling to hunt estate dogs at night.

Gilbert and siblings schooled in Madras in the school where their grandfather was headmaster and he remembers the long passage of coming over to Ceylon for the holidays. Leaving the sultry dog days in Madras, they travelled in small ships from Dhanuskodi to Talaimannar, from there taking the train to Nanu Oya. From Nanu Oya, the bullock carts carried them swaying up those winding roads with bends and the dark montane forest looming around them. When the bullocks had to be rested (it was an eight-hour climb) the carters would unpack a generous picnic for the children. At High Forest Daisy and Manickam would wait with high tea (cucumber sandwiches to kalu dodol and patties), blazing fires and the promise of many a ramble down dark glades.

The schools the seven children attended were the Wesleyan Methodist School and Pope Memorial High School, Sawyerpuram.

In 1931 at 11, Gilbert fell ill with typhoid. He would fitfully drift in and out of consciousness for three months. When he recovered, it was to find that his grandfather had died of pneumonia and that coffins had been ordered for both of them.

The greatest regret of Gilberts life remains having to leave university at year one, his dreams of being a doctor in shambles when his father lost his job.

Medicine being ruled out, it was halfheartedly that Gilbert took up the family profession- as a clerk at Nayabedde, which with its salubrious air, green hills and cosy bungalows was soon to become his favourite place anywhere. He soon proved his mettle displaying that dexterity when his pen would move down the column without a pause as he did additions and he could carry on a conversation while typing a letter.

Nonetheless there was an interlude in the Nayabedde spell when he decided to serve the country. The Easter Sunday Raid (1942) had grazed Colombo badly making the dangers of the Second World War to the island real and imminent.

Gilbert joined the Ceylon Medical Corps (CMC) of the British Army. He was assigned to the typing pool of the British wing in the Indian General Hospital which had taken over Holy Family Convent, Bambalapitiya. He impressed the chief clerk Major A. J. Z. Navaratne by typing 200 letters in record time and was allowed to answer all the letters himself.

The British while in the army were friendly and nice, probably, he says, because the CMC was mostly doctors. A British sergeant, handling the clerical work of the RAF, was given to shivering whenever he heard an aircraft overhead so Gilbert was apportioned his work as well.

He also had a brush with the Commander of the Ceylon Army, Roderick Sinclair- the Earl of Caithness. The chief of the Sinclair Clan, was so gargantuan that he had to be accommodated on two beds  one for his body and one for his feet. Gilbert was given the task of monitoring the earls breathing. He was personally thanked later by the booming giant who Gilbert says towered over the late D. S. Senanayake.

It was after the war that he gatecrashed the dais at Victory Day when his erstwhile senior Major Navaratne was commentating to get a birds eye view of the historic parade.

The Colombo Gilbert remembers was a shady, quiet place with flamboyant and other avenue trees.

While at the army, everyone was given compulsory leave of one week three times a year topped by rations including 14 lb. of corned beef with rice, eggs and other necessities. The monthly pay was 40 Rupees, and other rationed items could be had for free in the NAAFY shops on the barracks.

Following the war Mr. Navamanie was back in his beloved Nayabedde. In 1947, he married Therese Violet Canagasabey, his cousins girlfriends sister he met inadvertently at the pictures. It must have been the Regal or the New Olympia in Colombo and the movies title is hazy. The family joke is that he was so impressed by Therese, nothing else registered and the elephants memory failed for once. Ranjana adds that Gilberts best man was his friend from the army Victor Wanigaratne.

After the 47 nuptials, at St. Anthonys Cathedral Katugastota, Gilbert and Therese had had three children- Ronald, Indira and Ranjana.

Now also grandfather to four and great-grandfather to three, Mr. Navamanie still enjoys doing the Sunday crosswords and Sudoku and tends to himself, up to keeping his moustache spruce.

Longevity seems to run in the family with three siblings of Gilbert in their 90s. Abstinence has its benefits as must long walks in the hills.

And they drank tea- at least eight to nine times a day, says Ranjana, very strong tea as Gilbert remembers an old barrack joke.

Every Thursday there was a drinking party. Ill go to the table first, pour myself ginger beer (and pretend its alcohol), then they will come and say, adoh bugger, dont drink plain, add some ginger beer and pour more ginger beer to the glass.

He has many tales to share when surrounded by his grandchildren and his many nephews and nieces.

Unfortunately COVID has been harsh on someone who relishes laughter, chatter and youthful high spirits around him. As Marsha, his American daughter-in-law says, the family spread around the globe will miss the centenary celebrations dearly as they will the twinkling eyes of a gentle, soft-spoken man who once could not sleep for four nights because he accepted the army rations of cigarettes for a brother-in-law who pleaded for them. The good do live long.
Amazon is full of products that can have you browsing for days  especially if you have no idea what to buy.

That may be the case even more during this time of the year, when Amazon gift cards are a common holiday present to give and receive.

Although the e-commerce giant is routinely offering daily deals, theres always the option of using a gift card on one of Amazons popular subscription services if youre stumped on what to buy.

Heres how to use an Amazon gift card to buy an Amazon Prime membership, Kindle books and other popular items.

Amazon Prime

If youve been wanting to give Amazons popular delivery service a try, new members can use a gift card to sign up here for a 30-day free trial. After the 30-day free trial ends, a membership costs $13 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.

If youre already a Prime member and want to use your gift card to renew, there is a way: You have to literally give yourself the Gift of Prime, which is the Amazon Prime version of a gift card. Use your actual Amazon gift card to purchase a Gift of Prime, and then enter your own email as the gift recipient at checkout.

Kindle books

If your 2021 resolution is to read more, you can purchase Kindle books, which are digital titles, with an Amazon gift card. Simply enter the code from your gift card at checkout. You can browse titles starting at 99 cents here.

For access to over 1 million books, magazines and audiobooks, there is a 30-day free trial for Kindle Unlimited. It costs $10 a month afterward, but Amazon gift cards cant be used to pay for this service.

Amazon Video

Use your Amazon gift card to buy or rent movies without committing to Prime Video. Simply enter the code on your gift card at checkout.

If you want full access to Amazon originals, and other popular shows and movies, sign up for an Amazon Prime 30-day free trial here.

Prime Wardrobe

Hesitant to hit the mall dressing room during the coronavirus pandemic? Prime Wardrobe allows you to try on clothes at home.

You choose up to eight items and then only pay for what you keep. Amazon offers a large selection of clothes and features big-box brands such as Adidas, Calvin Klein, Champion and Levis.

To get the service, sign up here.

Amazon Music

A new year means new music. Amazons music platform lets you stream 2 million songs across thousands of stations. It also includes playlists, offline listening, unlimited skips and hands-free listening with Alexa. To get the service, sign up here.

For even more music (60 million songs) check out Amazon Music Unlimited, which is currently free for the first three months. After the free trial, it will cost $10 a month. Amazon gift cards, however, cant be used to pay for this service.

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Nicolette Accardi can be reached at naccardi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter: @N_Accardi. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips
Four year old Emma Sophia Ryan, from Kinsale Co Cork is walking on air following a beautiful performance of the song "Walking in the Air" in the Cork Opera House for their annual Christmas Concert.

Emma Sophia was accompanied for the performance by the Orchestra of the Cork Opera House and is the youngest performer ever to be accompanied by the orchestra in the stunning Opera House.

Her mother, Mary, originally from Blackrock performs with the orchestra and described it as magical to be part of her little girl's debut stage performance. The concert was streamed for three nights, and due to popular demand, has been extended for a further 4 nights, finishing on Christmas Day. Other performers included renowned soprano Majella Cullagh, Carlingford-based tenor Gavan Ring, soul divas Karen and Christiana Underwood and Ciaran Bermingham of The Young Offenders.

The Cork Opera House described Emma Sophia as 'an absolute star in the making' following her performance and Emma Sophia is thrilled with all the lovely comments she has been receiving! Despite the size of the venue and the volume of the orchestra, Emma Sophia wasn't fazed in the slightest and, coming off the stage, said she wished she could do it every day!

Emma's adventure started back in March, when she was still only three. Her parents uploaded a video of her singing a rousing rendition of the whole of Ireland's Call, with a message at the end to the people of Ireland: "Come on Ireland, it's in our hands!"

The reaction was incredible. It was shared all over the world and picked up on by the Irish Post and Irish TV. Across social media platforms, it got over a million views.

With all Mary's performing work wiped out and playschool shut, the Ryans decided to focus on music and singing as a lockdown project. They devised a kids show called The Emma Sophia Show which was hosted by Emma Sophia and her mum. It ran every Wednesday for 8 weeks and included jokes, weekly coronavirus advice, challenge of the week, a zoom interview with a musician, shout outs and a song. She learned a new song every week for the show and over the 8 weeks, these included 'Isle of Hope', 'Somewhere Out There', 'I'll Tell Me Ma', 'Halfway Down the Stairs', 'Tale as Old As Time', 'All Kinds of Everything' and 'True Colours'. Not songs you would expect a three year old to be able to learn and sing. She built up a loyal following with fans all over the world, and even raised 1,000 for Barnardos with her music video for "Somewhere Out There".

The Argus
Jamshedpur:

Tata Steel employee Hemant Gupta, who was steadily progressing towards the summit in his Everest expedition, has conquered Mount Everest on Sunday morning.

The 27-year-old Hemant completed his B. Tech in Metallurgical Eng & Material Science from IIT Bombay in 2011 and joined Tata Steel as a management trainee in Tata Steel's new plant in Kalinganagar Orissa.

As a MT, he had undertaken TSAF Outdoor Leadership Course in Uttarkashi Himalaya. His first tryst with adventure came through his successfully completing the one month Basic Mountaineering Course from the National Mountaineering Institute in Manali.

TSAF then included him in the TSAF organized Chamser Kangri Expedition in which he reached upto 21100 ft. His love for adventure made him join the Adventure Programme Dept. in September 2013.

Since then he has climbed Mt Aconcagua (22860 ft) - highest peak of America (one of the seven summits) in 2015, Mt Bhagirathi II (21310 ft) in Gangotri region, Climbed Island Peak (20400ft) in Nepal, Mt Kanamo (19600ft) in Spiti Valley.

Payo Murmu, another employee of Tata Steel, who was also on this expedition with Hemant was not able to make the final attempt towards the summit due to inclement weather. Both the Mountaineers are expected to be back at base camp by Monday.

At the start of the expedition, Bachendri Pal, Chief Adventure Programme, Tata Steel had said, "Everest has always represented the epitome of challenge of human endeavor, of leadership, of knowing one's strengths and weaknesses, of being humble in one's approach and of testing one's capabilities.

"All the skills learnt not only help one in surmounting mountains in Himalaya but also in their real life, thereby making them better individuals benefitting them and the organisation or community they work for."

ALSO READ: Historic Hillary Step of Mount Everest destroyed, confirms mountaineers

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Actor Vijays Tamil film Master has become the first film of 2021 to get a Twitter emoji ahead of its release in theatres on January 13. This will be the third Vijay film to get a Twitter emoji after Bigil and Mersal.

Master will become the first major pan-Indian release of the year when it hits the screens for the Pongal festival. The film, directed by Lokesh Kanagaraj, will release in four languages - Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi.

Master features Vijay in the role of a college professor with a violent past. It also stars Vijay Sethupathi as the antagonist.The film, which also stars Malavika Mohanan, Shanthanu Bhagyaraj and Andrea Jeremiah, has been produced by Xavier Britto. It marks the maiden collaboration of Vijay and director Lokesh Kanagaraj.

Also see: Ananya Panday shows off lean beach body in a bikini on Maldives vacation, Suhana Khan loves it

The makers recently clarified multiple times that the film wont skip its theatrical release and make it to any OTT platform. A couple of months ago, reports emerged that Master was offered a Rs 125 crore deal by Amazon Prime for an exclusive release. However, this report was eventually put to rest by the films executive producer Lalit.

Recently, talking to reporters in Coimbatore, Lokesh said that Master will release in theatres and there will be no change in that.

This was the third time someone associated with the Master team has clarified about the films release. In July, producer Xavier Britto said that he has no plans to release Master on any OTT platform and only prefers bringing it to cinemas.

Follow @htshowbiz on Twitter

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Auburn, IN (46706)

Today

Partly cloudy skies early then becoming cloudy with periods of rain late. Low 64F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early then becoming cloudy with periods of rain late. Low 64F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
EDITOR'S NOTE The Midland County Historical Society is partnering with the Midland Daily News for "A Window to Midland's Past," which will feature historical pieces in print and online at ourmidland.com. This particular piece was compiled by retired historical society director Gary Skory from the 1884 Biographical Album. It was originally published on June 30, 1996.

Egbert Bradley, farmer, section 27, Midland, is the son of Joseph and Mary (Emmons) Bradley, the former a native of Connecticut and the latter of New York, who emigrated to this state in 1842, settling in Livingston County where she died in June 1844. He afterward removed to Ionia County, Michigan, where he died Sept. 19, 1880.
New Delhi: Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan arrived at Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) hospital here on Saturday to review the dry run of administering the COVID-19 vaccine.

The dry run will be conducted by all the States and Union Territories governments from Saturday.According to the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW), the objective of the dry run for COVID-19 vaccine introduction is to "assess operational feasibility in the use of COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network (Co-WIN) application in a field environment, to test the linkages between planning and implementation and to identify the challenges and guide the way forward prior to actual implementation".In Delhi, the drive is being conducted at three locations -- the Daryaganj primary health centre, the government-run Guru Teg Bahadur hospital, and the private Venkateshwara hospital.



Preparation is underway for the dry run of administering the COVID19 vaccine at Area Hospital, Nampally in Hyderabad.





In Maharashtra, the dry run of administering the COVID19 vaccine will be conducted at District Hospital in Pune.





"Data of healthcare workers from Maharashtra has been uploaded on CoWIN," said District Civil Surgeon.

The first round of the dry run was conducted in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Punjab on 28-29 December 2020 in two districts each where five-session sites with 25 beneficiaries each were identified. No major issues were observed in the operational aspects during this dry run. All states expressed confidence in the operational guidelines and IT platform for large scale programme implementation.
Classes in the Wilkes County Schools will start on Aug. 23 and end on May 25 in 2021-22 as a result of a calendar approved by the Wilkes Board of Education on Feb. 1.
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Eminent lawyer Ujjwal Nikam spoke to Republic Media Networks Executive Editor-Legal & Governance Rhythm Anand Bhardwaj spoke about his journey fighting the landmark 26/11 case, 1993 Mumbai Blasts case, and other top cases.

'RDX used in India for the 1st time in 1993 blasts'

While speaking on the involvement of Pakistan in orchestrating the 1993 Mumbai blasts, Ujjwal Nikam said, "I was a public prosecutor for Jalgaon district for 28 years. After 1993, I was called by Mumbai Police to represent the state in the blasts case. This was the first time I appeared in such a mammoth historic trial. I am glad to say that I got this opportunity and I proved how the serial blasts had taken place on March 12, 1993."

"This was also the first time RDX was used in India. It is highly explosive and was carried out through a criminal conspiracy in Dubai. Three of those in Dubai were from Pakistan. Dawood Ibrahim also attended the conspiracy meeting. People were also sent to Pakistan to attend the training for the blasts. Dawood had provided his channel to smuggle RDX. Immigration formalities were also avoided since they were from Pakistan. Pakistan had given logical support to terrorists," he said.

While speaking on the 'human rights activists' that rose up against the death penalty of Yakub Memon he said, "I still remember the day of the death penalty of accused Yakub Memon and his mercy petition was rejected. Somebody someday said he has surrendered and the death penalty should not be awarded to him. He (Memom) had never taken this stance. But some people, human activists raised their voice. This is a false and deliberate propaganda. Some people want to divide our community, that is why they took this stance," he added.

On Ajmal Kasab & human rights organisations

Drawing parallels of the human rights organisations and their portrayal of 26/11 convict Ajmal Kasab, Ujjwal Nikam spoke about how his last wish of 'mutton biryani' was twisted to paint a humane image of the terrorist. "Ajmal Kasab was a well-trained terrorist he was taught how to behave. He knew since day one that you can't try this matter, I am a juvenile. When he lowered down his head during the trial, some media persons said that he was weeping because he was repenting over his crime. He knew the whole media was paying attention to his behaviour. An emotional atmosphere was created," he remarked.

He also spoke about how the hand of Pakistan was finally established in 26/11. While speaking on Pakistan's lack of action against terror-accused Hafiz Saeed.

"Myself and 3 officials of the government went to Pakistan to visit their Home Ministry and their Army people for 8 days. We tried to convince them about his criminal conspiracies being hatched in Pakistan. Ajmal Kasab himself told us that how they were trained in firing attack under Hafiz Saeed. We told them this but they said no give evidence," he said.

Read: Justice RS Sodhi Shares His Passion For Criminal Law; Discusses Jessica Lal, Bofors Case

Read: KTS Tulsi Speaks On His Journey In Law & Why Liberty Is Most Precious Aspect Of Democracy
Comb of a lifetime: a new method for fluorescence microscopy

Fluorescence microscopy is widely used in biochemistry and life sciences because it allows scientists to directly observe cells and certain compounds in and around them. Fluorescent molecules absorb light within a specific wavelength range and then re-emit it at the longer wavelength range. However, the major limitation of conventional fluorescence microscopy techniques is that the results are very difficult to evaluate quantitatively; fluorescence intensity is significantly affected by both experimental conditions and the concentration of the fluorescent substance. Now, a new study by scientists from Japan is set to revolutionize the field of fluorescence lifetime microscopy. Read on to understand how!

A way around the conventional problem is to focus on fluorescence lifetime instead of intensity. When a fluorescent substance is irradiated with a short burst of light, the resulting fluorescence does not disappear immediately but actually "decays" over time in a way that is specific to that substance. The "fluorescence lifetime microscopy" technique leverages this phenomenon--which is independent of experimental conditions--to accurately quantify fluorescent molecules and changes in their environment. However, fluorescence decay is extremely fast, and ordinary cameras cannot capture it. While a single-point photodetector can be used instead, it has to be scanned throughout the sample's area to be able to reconstruct a complete 2D picture from each measured point. This process involves movement of mechanical pieces, which greatly limits the speed of image capture.

Fortunately, in this recent study published in Science Advances, the aforementioned team of scientists developed a novel approach to acquire fluorescence lifetime images without necessitating mechanical scanning. Professor Takeshi Yasui, from Institute of Post-LED Photonics (pLED), Tokushima University, Japan, who led the study, explains, "Our method can be interpreted as simultaneously mapping 44,400 'light stopwatches' over a 2D space to measure fluorescence lifetimes--all in a single shot and without scanning." So, how was this achieved?

One of the main pillars of their method is the use of an optical frequency comb as the excitation light for the sample. An optical frequency comb is essentially a light signal composed of the sum of many discrete optical frequencies with a constant spacing in between them. The word "comb" in this context refers to how the signal looks when plotted against optical frequency: a dense cluster of equidistant "spikes" rising from the optical frequency axis and resembling a hair comb. Using special optical equipment, a pair of excitation frequency comb signals is decomposed into individual optical beat signals (dual-comb optical beats) with different intensity-modulation frequencies, each carrying a single modulation frequency, and irradiated on the target sample. The key here is that each light beam hits the sample on a spatially distinct location, creating a one-to-one correspondence between each point on the 2D surface of the sample (pixel) and each modulation frequency of the dual-comb optical beats.

Because of its fluorescence properties, the sample re-emits part of the captured radiation while still preserving the aforementioned frequency-position correspondence. The fluorescence emitted from the sample is then simply focused using a lens onto a high-speed single-point photodetector. Finally, the measured signal is mathematically transformed into the frequency domain, and the fluorescence lifetime at each "pixel" is easily calculated from the relative phase delay that exists between the excitation signal at that modulation frequency versus the one measured.

Thanks to its superior speed and high spatial resolution, the microscopy method developed in this study will make it easier to exploit the advantages of fluorescence lifetime measurements. "Because our technique does not require scanning, a simultaneous measurement over the entire sample is guaranteed in each shot," remarks Prof. Yasui, "This will be helpful in life sciences where dynamic observations of living cells are needed." In addition to providing deeper insight into biological processes, this new approach could be used for simultaneous imaging of multiple samples for antigen testing, which is already being used for the diagnosis of COVID-19.

Perhaps most importantly, this study showcases how optical frequency combs, which were only being used as "frequency rulers," can find a place in microscopy techniques to push the envelope in life sciences. It holds promise for the development of novel therapeutic options to treat intractable diseases and enhance life expectancy, thereby benefitting the whole of humanity.

###

About Tokushima University, Japan

Established in 1949 by merging multiple education facilities into one, Tokushima University has grown to become one of Japan's most prestigious universities. Its current vision is the search for truth, the creation of knowledge, and the development of eminent sciences and cultures with a spirit of independence and autonomy, all for the peaceful development of humanity and the solution of social issues. Tokushima University counts with seven faculties, eight graduate schools, and an institute of liberal arts and sciences distributed across three main campuses, serving 5,900 undergraduate students and over 2,000 graduate students. The university also counts with over 200 international students from 29 countries. Tokushima University is open to the whole world and works hard to create a rich and peaceful society for the future.

Website: https:/ / www. tokushima-u. ac. jp/ english/

About Institute of Post-LED Photonics (pLED), Tokushima University, Japan

This institute was established in Tokushima University in March 2019 to open a new field of invisible next-generation light, i.e., deep ultraviolet, infrared, and terahertz. Research in pLED includes development and application of the practical light source in that wavelengths. pLED also develop innovative medical techniques by combining optical science with medical science. All researchers with different expertise carry out cutting-edge optical science, while sharing the same vision and direction. pLED will develop interdisciplinary research beyond one specialized field through close communication and interaction between researchers with various backgrounds.

Website: https:/ / www. pled. tokushima-u. ac. jp/ wp-content/ themes/ plp/ pdf/ pamph_english. pdf

About Professor Takeshi Yasui from Tokushima University

Prof. Takeshi Yasui graduated from Tokushima University, Japan, in 1992 and proceeded to get two doctoral degrees: one in Engineering from Tokushima University in 1997 and one in Medical Science from Nara Medical University in 2013. Since 2019, he has been Director of Institute of Post-LED Photonics (pLED), Tokushima University. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers and is currently interested in research on optical frequency comb, terahertz instrumentation, and nonlinear optical microscopy.

https:/ / femto. me. tokushima-u. ac. jp/ eng/ index. html

Funding information

The study was supported by grants for the Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (ERATO), Japan Science and Technology Agency (MINOSHIMA Intelligent Optical Synthesizer Project, JPMJER1304), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (18H01901, 18K13768, 19H00871), Cabinet Office, Government of Japan (Subsidy for Regional University and Regional Industrial Creation), Nakatani Foundation for Advancement of Measuring Technologies in Biomedical Engineering, and Research Clusters program of Tokushima University (1802003).

This story has been published on: 2021-01-01. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
(Alliance News) - London schools will remain closed next week as the UK prepares to ramp up its coronavirus vaccination programme.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson on Friday confirmed that all London primary schools will remain shut next week as the capital battles with high levels of coronavirus infections.

But while the move was welcomed as the "right decision", the government was also accused of making another U-turn just days after it told some schools to reopen for the new term.

Labour shadow education secretary Kate Green said the last-minute nature of the government's decision had caused "huge stress" for pupils, families and staff.

She said: "This is yet another government U-turn creating chaos for parents just two days before the start of term."

The row comes as new figures showed a further 53,285 lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK as of 9am on Friday, with another 613 deaths within 28 days of a positive test.

This is the fourth day in a row daily cases have been above 50,000, with a new record high of 55,892 cases reported on New Year's Eve a the highest since mass testing began in late May.

NHS England also said that a further 420 people who tested positive for coronavirus had died in hospital in England, including an eight-year-old child with an underlying health condition.

Separate figures published by the UK's statistics agencies for deaths where Covid-19 has been mentioned on the death certificate, together with additional data on fatalities that have occurred in recent days, show there have now been 90,000 deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK.

The UK is also preparing to send out the new Oxford University and AstraZeneca PLC vaccine with 530,000 doses available for rollout from Monday.

The Times reported that a member of the Oxford/AstraZeneca team had said two million doses of the Oxford vaccine are due to be supplied each week by the middle of January.

It comes after the UK's chief medical officers warned on Thursday that vaccine shortage was a "reality that cannot be wished away".

Rollout of the Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE jab began almost a month ago but second doses of either vaccine will now take place within 12 weeks rather than 21 days as initially planned.

More than a million people have received their first coronavirus vaccination but in a joint statement England's chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, and his counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland said the public will "understand" and "thank" them for the plan to give first jabs as a priority, delaying the follow-up vaccination for others.

David Salisbury, a former director of immunisation at the Department of Health, said he backs the revised Covid-19 vaccine strategy.

The associate fellow at the Chatham House think tank told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Of course I accept it is inconvenient and isn't helpful to have to change appointments and explain to people [about the delay in receiving a second jab], but the reason for doing this is to save lives.

"We know how many have been vaccinated, and across the whole country it isn't all that many, but every time we give a second dose right now, we are holding that back from someone who is likely, if they get coronavirus, to die, and much more likely to die than somebody who has already had a single dose."

Williamson said the decision to close all London primary schools had been a "last resort".

Under the government's initial plan, secondary schools and colleges were set to be closed to most pupils for the first two weeks of January, while primary schools within 50 local authorities in London and the south of England were also told to keep their doors shut.

But in a change to those primary school proposals, Williamson said: "As infection rates rise across the country, and particularly in London, we must make this move to protect our country and the NHS.

"We will continue to keep the list of local authorities under review, and reopen classrooms as soon as we possibly can."

The decision comes after leaders of eight London boroughs asked Williamson to reverse the decision, pointing out that some areas on the closure list had lower infection rates than those where schools had been told to reopen.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan welcomed the U-turn and said: "This is the right decision."

Meanwhile a senior medic told the PA news agency that people needed to follow guidance on handwashing, social distancing and face coverings to stop the "entirely preventable" spread of coronavirus

Adrian Boyle, vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said staff are tired, feel helpless and at risk of burnout.

He told the PA the idea that coronavirus cannot be controlled just "doesn't wash".

Dr Boyle added: "We are worried about staff burnout, staff are tired, they have worked really hard over the summer, they have put up with a lot of disruption.

"This time people are frustrated, this is now an entirely preventable disease, we know what we did in spring made a lot of this go away. There's also now a vaccine.

"The idea that we are dealing with something that can't be controlled doesn't wash, this is a preventable disease and we need to be preventing it."

Boyle said washing hands, wearing face coverings and keeping your distance from others stops the spread of the infection, and he also thanked people for not partying on New Year's Eve.

By Joe Gammie, PA

source: PA

Copyright 2021 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Egypts former top diplomat Amr Moussa, 84, tested positive for the coronavirus. He is receiving treatment at home while self-isolating.

Moussa served as Egypts foreign minister from 1991 to 2001 before becoming the secretary-general of the Arab League for the following 10 years. Moussa also contended for presedential elections in 2012 and lost as the majority of votes went to Mubarak's former prime minitser Ahmed Shafik and the Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi.

In remarks to the Arabic daily Al-Ahram newspaper on Friday evening, Moussa said his health condition is stable and is in no need to be transferred to a hospital.

He noted that many doctors are following up on his condition remotely and that he is following their advice.

Moussa urged the people to strictly abide by the preventive measures against the coronavirus and asked everyone to pray for his speedy recovery.

Many Egyptian public figures have tested positive for the deadly virus over the past days, including renowned actress Yosra, 65; actor Karim Fahmy, 38; and journalist and TV presenter Wael El-Ebrashy, 57.

Short link:


Mali's former prime minister Modibo Keita has died at the age of 78, interim premier Moctar Ouane said Saturday, the latest in a string of deaths of high-profile political figures in the West African country.

Ouane did not specify the cause or time of death for Keita, who served as prime minister from 2015 to 2017.

On Twitter, Ouane paid tribute to "the memory of a great servant of the state and of a man steeped in our ancestral values of integrity, honour and dignity".

The announcement came just a day after the funeral of veteran opposition leader Soumaila Cisse, who died of coronavirus in late December.

Former president Amadou Toumani Toure died in November, while ex-dictator Moussa Traore passed in September.

Modibo Keita was one of six prime ministers to serve under president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who was ousted in a coup in August.

From 2014 until his appointment as prime minister, Modibo Keita had been the president's representative for peace talks between the government and Tuareg rebel groups waging an insurgency in the country's conflict-ravaged north.

Despite a 2015 peace deal, the region has remained in crisis, a jihadist campaign spreading to the centre of the country and over the borders with Burkina Faso and Niger.

The violence has killed thousands since 2012.
Taormina:

US President Donald Trump on Saturday said that hell make a final decision on whether the US will stay in the Paris climate agreement next week.

Trumps surprise announcement, in the form of a tweet on the final day of his lengthy international trip, comes after Trump declined to commit to staying in a sweeping climate deal, refusing to give into intense international pressure. Earlier on Saturday, the other six members of the G-7, a group of some of the worlds wealthiest nations, voted to abide by the Paris climate agreement, according to a person familiar with the talks said.

Trump was cajoled for three days first in Brussels at meetings of NATO and the European Union, then in Sicily for G-7 but he has to make a decision.

Under the deal, the Trump administration will be given more time to consider whether it will remain committed to the 2015 Paris deal to rein in greenhouse gas emissions. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter before the formal announcement.

Backing out of the deal had been a central plank of Trumps campaign and aides have been exploring whether they can adjust the framework of the deal even if they dont opt out entirely.

ALSO READ: US Prez Donald Trump says his budget will create millions of new jobs



Other G-7 nations leaned heavily on Trump to stay in the climate deal, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel saying we put forward very many arguments.

His views are evolving, he came here to learn and get smarter, Gary Cohn, national economic council director, said yesterday of the presidents thinking. Trump, who will return to the White House under a cloud of scandal, started Saturday at the second day of the G-7 summit in Sicily, bringing to an end a nine-day trip that started in Saudi Arabia and Israel before moving on to three European stops.

The trip has largely gone off without a major misstep, with the administration touting the presidents efforts to birth a new coalition to fight terrorism, while admonishing partners in an old alliance to pay their fair share. Big G7 meetings today. Lots of very important matters under discussion, Trump tweeted between events. First on the list, of course, is terrorism. #G7Taormina. Trump also touted a renewed commitment by NATOs member to spend more on defense.

Many NATO countries have agreed to step up payments considerably, as they should. Money is beginning to pour in-NATO will be much stronger, he said. Trump was referring to a vow by NATO countries to move toward spending 2 per cent of their gross domestic product on defense by 2024. Only five of NATOs 28 members meet the target: Britain, Estonia, debt-laden Greece, Poland and the United States, which spends more on defense than all the other allies combined.

ALSO READ: Trump's revised travel ban blocked; fight headed for US Supreme Court



There is no evidence that money has begun to pour in and countries do not pay the US or NATO directly. But Germany, for instance, has been increasing its defense spending with the goal of reaching the 2 percent target by 2024.

But after the pomp of presidential travel overseas, Trump will return to Washington to find the same problems that have dogged him.

As a newly-appointed special counsel is beginning his investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, Jared Kushner, the presidents son-in-law and close adviser, has become a focus of the probe, according to The Washington Post. His lawyer said Kushner will cooperate with investigators.

James Comey, the former FBI director leading the Russian probe until Trump abruptly fired him, is still expected to testify before Congress about the memos he kept on conversations with the president that involved the investigation.

The search for a new FBI director continues. And Trumps policy agenda has run into problems. The GOP health care bill that passed the House faces uncertain prospects in the Senate, after a Congressional Budget Office analysis that it would leave 23 million more Americans uninsured by 2026. The presidents budget was widely criticised for deep cuts to safety net programs. And some are starting to question the chances for tax reform.

But first Trump has to finish the day in Sicily, which includes a meeting with small African nations and a G-7 leader lunch. After the summit, the president will address American troops on an Italian base before departing for home. Not yet on the agenda: a news conference.

If that holds, Trump will break with presidential precedent by not holding at least one lengthy question-and-answer session with the press while abroad. Anxious about Trumps tendency to make things worse for himself with unscripted remarks, the White House staff has kept the president a safe distance from journalists for most of the trip.

Trump was warmly welcomed in the Middle East, but in Europe hes faced a far cooler reception. Hes been willing to risk disapproval, engaging in an extraordinary scolding of close allies over their responsibility to pay for mutual defense.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
China has categorically dismissed Taiwans offer to have meaningful talks and accused the islands government of engaging in cheap trick and provocation by seeking confrontation at several instances, international media outlets reported. In her New Years address, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on January 1 said that the nation is willing to have peaceful talks with China as equals as long as Beijing is ready to put aside confrontation. As Taiwan offers another olive branch to China, Beijing has continued to claim that Taiwan is its own territory and terms it breakaway province and has even ramped up military activity near the island.

While China has said that it is responding to collusion between the US and Taipei, Tsai, speaking from the presidential office said that Beijing has threatened the peace as well as stability in the Indo-pacific region. Taiwan President said that if China is willing to defuse antagonism and improve the relations, the island will also reiterate similarly hostility. However, China's Taiwan Affairs Office in a statement late on Friday reportedly said that there was no way of avoiding the reality that Taiwan belongs to the mainland.

"I want to reiterate, that when it comes to cross-strait relations we will not advance rashly and will stick to our principles," Tsai said.

"As long as the Beijing authorities are determined to defuse antagonism and improve cross-strait relations, in line with the principles of reciprocity and dignity, we are willing to jointly promote meaningful dialogue," she added.

Read - 'China Town' Malayalam Movie Cast: List Of All The Actors And Characters Played By Them

Read - Taiwan President Maintains Cross-strait Tensions With China A Matter Of Global Concern

Tsai to China: 'Taiwan can help'

Tsai was heard echoing similar remarks she made in October in her national day speech, China cut off all formal talks mechanism in 2016 after Taiwan President won the office. Beijing has repeatedly rejected Tsais advances throughout the years and has said that Tsai has to first accept the island as a part of China. However, Tsai has refused to do the same but has offered to 'help'.

"We have shown again and again that 'Taiwan can help'. As a force for good in the world, we will continue to be an indispensable member of the international community, both now and into the future," said Tsai.

Read - India Calls On China For Urgent Assistance To 39 Stranded Indian Sailors In Chinese Waters

Read - Indian Army To Procure 12 Patrol Boats For Surveillance Of Pangong Lake Amid China Faceoff
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Gibraltar on Saturday imposed a second lockdown to slow soaring rate of virus cases, just days after a landmark deal to ensure post-Brexit fluidity along its border with Spain.

The measure, beginning at 10:00 pm (2100 GMT) Saturday, will remain in force for 14 days meaning Gibraltar's 34,000 residents can only leave home for essential shopping, to work, exercise or for medical reasons.

Over the past month, the number of cases in this tiny British enclave at the southern tip of Spain has more than doubled, rising to 2,304, up from 1,035 cases on December 2, Chief Minister Fabian Picardo said.

"The numbers of new infections with COVID-19 in our community are remarkably high and concerning," he told a news conference, saying the virus was spreading "more quickly than we can control it".

Officials are concerned that the soaring rate of infections may be linked to the new coronavirus variant which emerged in the UK in November although so far, Gibraltar has only confirmed one such case.

"The behaviour of the virus with such massive infectivity suggests that we are seeing the new, more infectious variant at play here. But we cannot confirm that genetically," Picardo said.

Gibraltar only registered its first death from COVID-19 on November 11, but that figure has now risen to seven.

Despite its proximity to hard-hit Spain, which has counted nearly 2 million cases and over 50,000 deaths, Gibraltar has not imposed any restrictions on its border which is crossed daily by 15,000 workers.

Although the frontier will remain open, movement will be restricted to essential work or medical reasons.

Gibraltar is set to roll out its vaccination programme on January 9 using the Pfizer vaccine.

The lockdown came two days after London and Madrid reached an agreement that will see Gibraltar included in the European Schengen zone to keep movement fluid on its border in a landmark deal just hours shy of the final Brexit deadline.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

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Amid ongoing controversy over SP chief Akhilesh Yadav's "BJP's Covid-19 vaccine" statement, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah tweeted, "I dont know about anyone else but when my turn comes Ill happily roll up my sleeve and get a Covid-19 vaccine. This damn virus has been far too disruptive and if a vaccine helps bring about a semblance of normalcy after all the chaos then sign me up."
New Delhi:

"Open-minded discussions" are welcomed to end hostilities between the administration and students who have been accusing the varsity of framing "anti-student" policies, JNU Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar said on Friday.



The VC said he preferred to have discussions and not arguments with students to find solutions to contentious issues. "The Objective of a discussion is to find what is right, whereas in arguments, the objective is to point out who is wrong," Kumar said.



Arguments that hold on to a single point of view will not lead to solutions, especially when the administration is focussing on creating more facilities for students and faculty besides "working to excel academically" with limited resources, he added.



Students and teachers have been protesting against the administration in the recent past over multiple issues -- such as the disappearance of JNU student Najeeb Ahmed, seat cuts for M.Phil and Ph.D programmes and allegations that minutes of the 142nd Academic Council (AC) meeting, held recently, had been tampered with.

ALSO READ: JNU entrance exams to be shifted from May-June to December: VC Jagadesh Kumar



The latest to protest was an Assamese student, who rapped a song expressing dissent. The video with the song went viral on the social media. Speaking on a range of issues, Kumar asserted that all procedures were being followed in AC meetings.



"All the procedures, including seeking views from every member, are followed in a professional way. There is no tampering done and all the minutes are made public once a particular meeting has been concluded," he said.



He added that in an institution such as JNU, it was "quite natural" that some people might not agree with certain decisions. "But ultimately decisions are taken keeping in mind what is good for the varsity in the long run," he said.



Referring to seat cuts, he explained that the regulation of the University Grants Commission had to be followed by the varsity for improving the quality of research work. "Comparing seats allotted for M.Phil and Ph.D programmes in the previous years with the present year is not a fair one.



We cannot have 60 students under one professor and make it look like a classroom," Kumar said, pointing out that the top institutes had a better student-teacher ratio. Responding to allegations of being inaccessible to students, he said he was available - without appointments - to all students on the first Monday of the month, and to faculty on the third Thursday every month.



"A lot of students do meet me on these days, apart from those who interact with me seeking appointments," he said. Reacting to the appointment of V K Saraswat as new Chancellor of JNU, Kumar said that the former DRDO chief would be able to guide the university and provide it with inputs for moving forward.

ALSO READ: Najeeb Ahmed case: JNU students welcome HC order, want independent inquiry

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui

Indias street food vendors are among the communities and economic units worst hit by COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdowns. Overnight their businesses came to a standstill, many were forced to trudge their way back home to villages, and those who stayed back in cities saw the supply-demand equation of their fragile businesses crumble.

The gradual opening up of the economy did not translate into customers flocking back; even aficionados of street food are wary of the COVID-19 cloud hanging over. However, as the annus horribilis closes, theres news that should help urban Indias vast street food community  and government  see a glimpse of a promising future.

Good news trickled in that Singapores iconic hawker culture  its community of street food vendors who cook and sell appetising and affordable meals in more than 110 designated centres  was honoured with UNESCOs esteemed tag of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Offering a mind-boggling spread of Chinese, Malay and Indian fare, the pre-dominantly non-vegetarian hawker centres are a gourmands delight and must-stop on a tourists itinerary. Thirty-three of these stalls made it to the prized Michelin Bib Gourmand List last year.

COVID-19 did not spare Singapores hawker culture. Restrictions meant they could not have diners, only takeaways were allowed; and, business dropped to an all-time low. Many stalls remained shut till an online no-profit enterprise emerged to support the hawkers. Now, the UNESCO tag adds to the romance of a unique Singaporean experience.

The romance and legends around street food in Indian cities are historic too. From Delhis chaat and momos, Mumbais bhelpuri and vadapav, Lucknows kebabs and nihari-kulcha, Jaipurs pyaaz kachoris, Kolkatas puchkas and kathi rolls to Madurais mutton kari dosa and jigarthanda, parotta and beef fry or puttu-kadala curry anywhere in Kerala, Ahmedabads jalebi-fafda among other cities, India is a street food lovers delight. Knocked out by COVID-19, the industry went under. A combination of government and private initiative has seen the first stirrings of revival in large metros.

The Narendra Modi government unveiled the PM-SVANidhi  Prime Ministers Street Vendors Atma Nirbhar Nidhi  to offer street vendors a loan of Rs 10,000 and COVID-19 training. Major food delivery apps such as Swiggy and Zomato rolled out options to take vendors on board, helped conduct training sessions for digitising the mom-and-pop businesses, and assisted with COVID-19 sanitisation protocols. The National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI) held online training courses and supplied hygiene kits. However, these initiatives are not nearly enough; they offer a silver lining for vendors to bounce back, but do not go beyond.

The COVID-19 rupture offers a unique opportunity to both the government and the street food entrepreneurs to reorganise  streamline the scattered commerce in a structured and hygienic manner, cover legal bases and ensure that street food areas are built into urban design  while keeping the romance of street food alive. Singapore shows how to, though its numbers are fewer than Indias.

This calls for official recognition of street food vending as entrepreneurship and its role in urban Indias social economy. The poorest live off it, those without kitchens subsist on it, migrants and commuters are comforted with it, and the indulgent revel in it. Of the street vendors  10-14 million in 2014, according to the central government; nearly 40 million now, according to National Hawkers Federation (NHF)  nearly half are into selling food. This can be fruits, vegetables and juices, or pre-cooked food at stationary or mobile stalls, or freshly-cooked food where street-side cooking is possible.

The aggregated value of the business would run into lakhs of crores of rupees, but its scattered and small-value transactions makes the scale invisible. The informal nature of the trade, lack of rights and land titles, susceptibility to bulldozers and bribes, inaccessibility to formal credit, all add to make this a precarious business, and one without safety nets. The NHF, comprising 1,200 unions in 28 states, estimates that all hawkers in India suffered Rs 49,000 crore losses during the first lockdown. SVANidhi will, however, help only a fraction of those affected because only licensed or registered vendors are eligible for the loan.

Barely three of every 10 street food entrepreneurs have licenses; the rest exist to fill an urban need though they may be illegal. The law on street vending which came into force in 2014, after a decade of struggle and court cases, is yet to see serious implementation across Indias cities. Even when implemented, it's likely to leave out lakhs of entrepreneurs.

But beyond the legal and commercial nitty-gritty, the revival in Indias street food has to do with how and where city design, or urban planning, integrates this vital part of urban life, and how the government imagines the role of street food in a citys character.

Street food is Indias cultural heritage, too.
Twirling above a strip of land at the mouth of Rotterdams harbor is a wind turbine so large it is difficult to photograph. The turning diameter of its rotor is longer than two American football fields end to end. Later models will be taller than any building on the mainland of Western Europe.

Packed with sensors gathering data on wind speeds, electricity output and stresses on its components, the giant whirling machine in the Netherlands is a test model for a new series of giant offshore wind turbines planned by General Electric. When assembled in arrays, the wind machines have the potential to power cities, supplanting the emissions-spewing coal- or natural gas-fired plants that form the backbones of many electric systems today.

GE has yet to install one of these machines in ocean water. As a relative newcomer to the offshore wind business, the company faces questions about how quickly and efficiently it can scale up production to build and install hundreds of the turbines.

But already the giant turbines have turned heads in the industry. A top executive at the worlds leading wind farm developer called it a bit of a leapfrog over the latest technology. And an analyst said the machines size and advance sales had shaken the industry.

The prototype is the first of a generation of new machines that are about a third more powerful than the largest already in commercial service. As such, it is changing the business calculations of wind equipment makers, developers and investors.

The GE machines will have a generating capacity that would have been almost unimaginable a decade ago. A single one will be able to turn out 13 megawatts of power, enough to light up a town of roughly 12,000 homes.

The turbine is capable of producing as much thrust as the four engines of a Boeing 747 jet, according to GE, and will be deployed at sea, where developers have learned that they can plant larger and more numerous turbines than on land to capture breezes that are stronger and more reliable.

The race to build bigger turbines has moved faster than many industry figures foresaw. GEs Haliade-X generates almost 30 times more electricity than the first offshore machines installed off Denmark in 1991.

In coming years, customers are likely to demand even bigger machines, industry executives say. On the other hand, they predict that, just as commercial airliners peaked with the Airbus A380, turbines will reach a point at which greater size no longer makes economic sense.

We will also reach a plateau; we just dont know where it is yet, said Morten Pilgaard Rasmussen, chief technology officer of the offshore wind unit of Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, the leading maker of offshore turbines.

Although offshore turbines now account for only about 5% of the generating capacity of the overall wind industry, this part of the business has taken on an identity of its own and is expected to grow faster in the coming years than land-based wind.

Offshore technology took hold in Northern Europe in the last three decades and is now spreading to the East Coast of the United States as well as Asia, including Taiwan, China and South Korea. The big-ticket projects costing billions of dollars that are possible at sea are attracting large investors, including oil companies like BP and Royal Dutch Shell, that want to quickly enhance their green energy offerings. Capital investment in offshore wind has more than tripled over the last decade to $26 billion, according to the International Energy Agency, the Paris-based forecasting group.

GE began making inroads in wind power in 2002 when it bought Enrons land-based turbine business  a successful unit in a company brought down in a spectacular accounting scandal  at a bankruptcy auction. It was a marginal force in the offshore industry when its executives decided to try to crack it about four years ago. They saw a growing market with only a couple of serious Western competitors.

Still, GEs bosses figured that to become a leader in the more challenging marine environment, they needed to be audacious. They proceeded to more than double the size of their existing offshore machine, which came to GE through its acquisition of the power business of Frances Alstom in 2015. The idea was to gain a lead on key competitors like Siemens Gamesa and Vestas Wind Systems, the Danish-based turbine maker.

A larger turbine produces more electricity and, thus, more revenue than a smaller machine. Size also helps reduce the costs of building and maintaining a wind farm because fewer turbines are required to produce a given amount of power.

These qualities create a powerful incentive for developers to go for the largest machine available to aid their efforts to win the auctions for offshore power supply deals that many countries have adopted. These auctions vary in format, but developers compete to provide power over a number of years for the lowest price.

What they are looking for is a turbine that allows them to win these auctions, said Vincent Schellings, who has headed design and production of the GE turbine. That is where turbine size plays a very important role.

Among the early customers is Orsted, a Danish company that is the worlds largest developer of offshore wind farms. It has a preliminary agreement to buy about 90 of the Haliade-X machines for a project called Ocean Wind off Atlantic City, New Jersey.

I think they surprised everybody when they came out with that machine, said David Hardy, chief executive of Orsteds offshore business in North America.

As a huge buyer of turbines, Orsted wants to help establish this new platform and create some volume for GE so as to promote competition and innovation, Hardy said.

The GE turbine is selling better than its competitors may have expected, analysts say.

On Dec. 1, GE reached another preliminary agreement to provide turbines for Vineyard Wind, a large wind farm off Massachusetts, and it has deals to supply 276 turbines to what is likely to be the worlds largest wind farm at Dogger Bank off Britain.

These deals, with accompanying maintenance contracts, could add up to $13 billion, estimates Shashi Barla, principal wind analyst at Wood Mackenzie, a market research firm.

The waves made by the GE machine have pushed Siemens Gamesa to announce a series of competing turbines. Vestas, which until recently had the industrys biggest machine in its stable, is also expected to unveil a new entry soon.

We didnt move as the first one, and that of course we have to address today, said Henrik Andersen, chief executive of Vestas.

To pull off its gambit, GE had to start pretty much from scratch, Schellings said. The business unit called GE Renewable Energy is spending about $400 million on design, hiring engineers and retooling factories at St. Nazaire and Cherbourg in France.

To make a blade of such extraordinary length that doesnt buckle from its own weight, GE called on designers at LM Wind Power, a blade maker in Denmark that the company bought in 2016 for $1.7 billion. Among their innovations: a material combining carbon fiber and glass fiber that is lightweight yet strong and flexible.

GE still must work out how to manufacture large numbers of the machines efficiently, initially at the plants in France and, possibly later, in Britain and the United States. With a skimpy offshore track record, GE also needs to show that it can reliably install and maintain the big machines at sea, using specialized ships and dealing with rough weather.

GE has to prove a lot to asset owners for them to procure GE turbines, Barla said.

Bringing out bigger machines has been easier and cheaper for Siemens Gamesa, GEs key rival, which is already building a prototype for a new and more powerful machine at its offshore complex at Brande on Denmarks Jutland peninsula. The secret: The companys ever-larger new models have not strayed far from a decade-old template.

The fundamentals of the machine and how it works remain the same, said Rasmussen, the units chief technology officer, leading to a starting point that was a little better than GEs.

There seems to be plenty of room for competition. John Lavelle, chief executive of GEs offshore business, said the outlook for the market gets bigger each year.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Chandigarh: Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar today said the lackadaisical approach by the Modi government to deal with the ongoing farmer protests in the country will dent Indias credibility internationally.

Ahead of the scheduled visit of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson as chief guest for the prestigious Republic Day parade in the national capital on January 26, the state congress chief said even Boris Johnson will now be in two minds before coming to India on the occasion.

Sunil Jakhar

The Congress Punjab president, who sat on a dharna at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi in solidarity with farmers cause while seeking a special session of the Parliament, on Saturday said there is a rousing sentiment from Indians settled abroad as well as from the international community in support of peacefully protesting farmers braving the bone-chilling winter months in the open on the streets in protest of the three black farm laws.

While Sunil Jakhar held that the issue of farmer protests should be kept free from any international influence and interference, he asked Prime Minister Modi to find a solution expeditiously to the logjam that has now persisted for over 100 days.

Sunil Jakhar

He also asked PM Modi to rein in motormouth BJP leaders who come out with irresponsible statements that a solution to the crisis will be found before January 23. How insensitive can that be. Does the BJP want farmers, many old and ailing, to be sitting in the cold until January 23? Its inhuman and insensitive the way the government is handling the farmer issues, Mr Sunil Jakhar said, while appealing to PM Modi to make all out efforts not only to break the ice with farmers but also to protect the countrys image internationally.
Missionary Sean Feucht faces opposition over LA New Years events

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Missionary and activist Sean Feucht, who has been at the center of several large health mandate defying Christian gatherings since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, is now at odds with religious and nonprofit leaders in Los Angeles who oppose his two-day New Years worship event that kicked off on Skid Row.

Local activists like Jenna Kyle with the Poor Peoples Campaign called Feuchts services a super spreader event.

Theyre coming in with no masks, no social distance. They havent done either in their past events. Chicago tried to shut them down. New Orleans put out a statement that they regretted that they ever allowed the event to occur, Kyle said.

Worshipers gathered on Skid Row on Wednesday to sing praises and distribute meals to the homeless. Feucht said they were assaulted with smoke bombs, pepper spray & death threats.

The world will tell you to not push in, not minister, not gather. But JESUS pushed in, He ministered, He gathered. Dont be discouraged. FOLLOW JESUS! he wrote on Facebook.

Those who gathered for worship  some with masks and some without  were met by a blockade of cars and others opposed to the outdoor event.

We made it clear, if they want to come to this community with masks on, were OK, said Pastor Stephe "Cue" Jn-Marie, who founded The Church Without Walls, according to CBSLA.

Southern California extended its stay-at-home order due to an unprecedented surge in cases and hospitalizations. While people are ordered to remain home and not mix with other households, outdoor activities are allowed for places of worship and political expression.

Were just coming, and were just praising, Hina Sheik told CBSLA. Were not doing anything thats illegal, were not doing anything thats harming anyone.

Feucht has been leading Let Us Worship events across the country, calling out abuses of religious liberty amid the pandemic and calling on the Church to rise up. He led an event in New Orleans last month that attracted thousands of people who mostly did not wear masks or practice social distancing, according to CBS Los Angeles.

Pete White, executive director of the L.A. Community Action Network, argued in a statement that Feuchts religious/political concerts target movements for racial justice, namely Black Lives Matter, while attempting to persuade his followers that pandemic related public health restrictions are nothing more than the persecution of Christians."

White said that nearly four houseless people die each day and that theyve created hand washing stations, secured masks and other protective gear, provided covid 19 education, secured partnerships with nonprofit health providers for rapid testing, created a mutual aid network that provided food and tools to shelter in place. This work was done to save lives because Los Angeles most vulnerable community had been abandoned.

He contended that Feuchts event on Skid Row was particularly egregious because its a predominantly black community experiencing structural and institutional racism, injustices that rival conditions found in Third World countries.

After the outcry, Feucht pushed back against his critics.

The CBS LA NEWS did a hit piece on us tonight (not surprised) and they had a pastor on that raged against me and actually said this line: I dont think you need to be living Jesus in LA right now. What professing Christians are saying right now against believers doing the things Jesus told us to do is mind-boggling! GOD, WAKE UP THE CHURCH IN AMERICA!! the 37-year-old worship leader declared in a statement on social media.

The Los Angeles event continued on Thursday at Echo Park, where people prayed for revival, and is scheduled to move to Azusa Street and later, Higher Vision Church. The church has clarified that the Feucht-led event is not a function of the church but that it is merely providing an outdoor venue. While asking those who attend to take necessary precautions to protect themselves and others, the church added, We refer those who are objecting to the United States Supreme Court, which has already made it very clear that the freedom of worship remains a protected right even during a pandemic.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti warned that there should be no large or small gatherings on New Years Eve.

We will enforce the public health rules, Garcetti warned in a Deadline report, noting that residents should not be mixing with people outside their households. We will have the LAPD patrolling the city to stop large gatherings.

When asked specifically about Feuchts events, he said: I would encourage him, first of all, not to do it. If you care about human lives and what God has given us  this human life  dont do it.
Blanca Guerras body was found on a back porch in Arlington, Texas after she was mistakenly shot

A New Years celebration turned deadly in Arlington, Texas as a woman was killed by a gunshot that reportedly came from her boyfriends gun.

WFAA reports that the gun went off as the boyfriend was trying to shoot celebration fire into the air.

According to investigators, the woman, identified by Arlington police as Blanca Guerra, was with her boyfriend, Mario Alanis, as he was attempting to shoot his gun to the sky to ring in the New Year in the neighborhood.

Mario Alanis is suspected in the New Years Day accidental killing of his girlfriend Blanca Guerra. (via Arlington Police Department)

READ MORE: U.S. serviceman charged in Illinois bowling alley shooting that killed 3, critically injured others

Alanis, 34, allegedly threw his gun to the ground after it didnt go off. As he was trying to re-load, the gun apparently went off, pointed in the direction of Guerra, 39. KDFW reports that they were in the yard of the residence and the bullet struck her in the head.

Police responded to the incident at 12:25 a.m. to find Guerras dead body on the back porch, WFAA reports. Police Lt. Christopher Cook stated that Alanis was not at the scene when authorities arrived. He explained that Guerras sister informed authorities that Alanis called her after the incident, telling her that he and Guerra went in the backyard, they were going to shoot a gun off to celebrate, and the gun accidentally went off and struck my sister.

Sounds like they were, again, going to try and celebrate New Years somehow with the firearm, and something terrible went wrong, Cook said.

Later Friday, police confirmed that Alanis was arrested in South Arlington and booked into jail. He is facing manslaughter charges.

READ MORE: Atlanta police name suspect in fatal shooting of 7-year-old Kennedy Maxie

Guerras death was one of several shootings reported by WFAA that occurred in Arlington on New Years Day. One includes an unnamed woman who was shot in the leg by gunfire, also by her boyfriend. Another incident was the death of a four-year-old boy, Messiah Taplin, who also was allegedly shot in the head via accidental gunfire.

Story continues

I dont ever recall a New Years Eve like this, Cook told the outlet. You will always run to some fireworks calls. Youll run to some shots-fired calls. But typically, what we worry about is intoxication manslaughter cases and fatality crashes.

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Sand mining wreaks havoc in Wanathawilluwa Text and pix by Hiran Priyankara Jayasinghe View(s): View(s):

Due to irreparable damage caused by sand mining,Mee Oya Wanathawilluwa Divisional Secretary Chathuraka Jayasinghe has instructed the Geological Survey and Mines Bureau to suspend licences issued for sand mining.

The Divisional Secretary said the decision was taken due to the damage done to the Mee Oya by the mining activities. He also said vehicle movements have totally destroyed the main road to several villages in the Wattalanda area.

Area residents said sand mining in the river had deepened the river and huge Kumbuk trees had also fallen down due to the excavations.

The residents complained that the mining was often not only carried out illegally, but also had devastating consequences on the environment that could endanger their lives. They also said sometimes conflicts arose when illegal miners and authorised licensed miners confronted each other.

Those who obtain a licence were permitted to carry out sand mining in the Mee Oya,and they were allowed to use only one ferry for sand mining, but sometimes they used two or three.

Meanwhile, the residents also said miners were allowed to transport only 21 cubes of sand each month, but with one licence they were transporting more than 100 cubes. Illegal sand smugglers were transporting even more sand cubes, they said.

However, sand licence holders and illegal sand smugglers had told the media they were extorting sand by bribing top officials in Wanathawilluwa.

Speaking further the residents said the destruction had taken place because the Police and other respective officials continuously issue permits without conducting any investigations regarding the sand mining.
A Chinese paramilitary soldier secures an entrance of Jingxi hotel where the fourth plenary session of the CCP is being held in Beijing on Oct. 28, 2019. (Nicolas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images)

Chinas Honey Traps Target US Politicians, Experts Say

'Americans should be on guard'

Popular outrage in response to the recent case of Christine Fang, a Chinese national who gradually gained political access and power through romantic or sexual relationships with at least two mayors, indicates that many Americans are unaware that this is a common tactic used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The term for this is honey trapping, which may sound like something from a Hollywood spy movie, but is a well-developed espionage strategy used widely by the CCP.

Honey traps are a serious risk with regard to the loss of sensitive or classified information, and particularly its use for blackmail. American politicians in different positions of power, including those in the intelligence community and especially members of Congress, are all prime targets, experts say. The prevalence of such incidents is believed to be underreported due to their sensitive nature.

According to Axios, which broke the story on Fang, she was believed to have helped place unwitting subagents in local political and congressional offices, but it was unlikely that she herself received or passed on classified information. Nonetheless, she collected private information about U.S. officials. Fang also targeted Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and appeared to have became close with him before federal investigators alerted Swalwell to their concerns in a defensive briefing.

The honeypot tactic is the oldest trick in the book, Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) told The Epoch Times.

Swalwells gullibility and recklessness should disqualify him not just from a seat on the House Intelligence Committee, but also from being a member of Congress as well, he said.

And its not just happening in the United States. There are purported CCP honey traps in the United Kingdom as well.

Chen Yonglin, a former senior diplomat at the Chinese Consulate in Sydney, Australia, who defected in 2005, claimed China was operating a network of over 1,000 Chinese secret agents and informants in Australia.

Sex and money are often used as bait, he says. The honey trap is a favorite tactic of Chinese intelligence to try to compromise an official. Chen says that while he was in office, one Australian official on a visit to China was detained by authorities after he was caught having sex with a minor girl. They released the man, keeping evidence of his affair, after he offered to work for the regime, similar to an agent, Chen says.

They Warned Me

Honey trapping is just one tool in a broader arsenal used by the CCP to politically influence the United States and gain intelligence, according to Timothy Heath, senior international defense researcher at RAND Corp.

We know it is a tactic that is used by Chinese intelligence agencies, Heath told The Epoch Times. To obtain both intelligence and political influence and access to political intelligence. It could be used for a wide range of purposes.

Heath was previously a senior analyst at the China Strategic Focus Group at U.S. Pacific Command.

Ive heard American scholars and others who visited China have been approached by attractive young women and solicited, he said. In most cases Im aware of, these Americans received briefings from intelligence warning them about this.

CCP agents, for example, might use a honey trap to seduce a U.S. intelligence official or some other official into providing sensitive information, Heath said. The CCP agents would then turn around and blackmail the victim to get more.

While its nearly impossible to pinpoint the exact number of honey traps that could be occurring in the United States, an unnamed former defense and intelligence operative told Fox News it could be well into the hundreds, if not thousands.

More than a decade ago, Ian Clement, the former deputy mayor of London, warned the public about the tactic after he himself fell victim to it.

When Clement traveled to the Beijing Olympics in 2008 as Londons deputy mayor, he had been briefed by Britains intelligence service. But he failed to take heed.

They told me about honey traps and warned me that the Chinese secret service often use women to entice men to bed to get information. I didnt think for one minute that I would fall for it, Clement told the Mirror.

Clement said an attractive Chinese woman he met at a party likely spiked his drink. After hed passed out, she went through his room, collecting information about Londons operations and business dealings.

While I was in Beijing, I was making planning decisions from my BlackBerry. Were talking major, major decisions, he told the outlet. They wanted to know which businesses I was courting.

And in one case in 2011, South Korean authorities revealed that more than 10 South Korean diplomats working in China had sexual relations with a Chinese woman called Deng Xinmin, who was able to extract key intelligence information from them.

Chinese Hotel Rooms Monitored

Nicholas Eftimiades, a former senior U.S. intelligence official and author of the book Chinese Intelligence Operations, told The Epoch Times that Beijing is investing significantly in long-term espionage operations to infiltrate U.S. politics.

Eftimiades said the Christine Fang operation was beautifully handled in the way it combined both intelligence gathering and political influence. Its a strategy that can really be devastating to another country.

Congress members, who are entitled to access classified information but arent required to have security clearances, have been particularly vulnerable to covert influence and spying efforts for decades, Eftimiades said.

A former Chinese official who later defected to Canada said the CCP uses a number of tactics to gather intelligence. Guangsheng Han, who spent 14 years as head of the Public Security Bureau and another five years with the Judicial Bureau in China, said that all over China, there are hotels designated for foreigners to stay.

For these designated hotels, there are certain rooms that have monitoring capability, he told The Epoch Times. So when guests who have certain identities check in, they were put in these rooms.

Hunter Bidens Sensitive Material

Hunter Biden, son of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, said on Dec. 9 that he was being investigated by the U.S. Attorneys office in Delaware over his tax affairs. He didnt elaborate on the nature of the investigation, but its been widely reported that some of his Chinese business dealings and other transactions were under scrutiny by the Justice Department.

In October 2020, lawyer Rudy Giuliani alleged that there was sensitive material on a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden, including pictures of minor girls. Giuliani told Newsmax he had turned the laptop over to the authorities.

Giuliani also said the CCP had seen the Hunter Biden material, telling Steve Bannons War Room: Pandemic podcast that everything Americans have seen, Chinas been looking at for a long time.

If the Chinese government doesnt have these photographs, theyre not really a rival, Giuliani said.

According to Seamus Bruner, a researcher who focuses on government integrity and who was provided access to emails between associates of the Bidens, Hunter Biden was viewed as a pipeline to the administration by the associates. The Bidens have denied any wrongdoing.

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe wrote in a Dec. 3, 2020, op-ed in The Wall Street Journal that in 2020, China engaged in a massive influence campaign that included targeting several dozen members of Congress and congressional aides.

I briefed the House and Senate Intelligence committees that China is targeting members of Congress with six times the frequency of Russia and 12 times the frequency of Iran, he wrote, referring to influence operations in general.

If I could communicate one thing to the American people from this unique vantage point, it is that the Peoples Republic of China poses the greatest threat to America today, and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom worldwide since World War II.
After a campaign that lasted two years and ten months, a new bill which criminalises the distribution of intimate images without consent passed all stages in the Oireachtas and was signed into law by President Michael D Higgins.

The Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Bill (Coco's Law) was originally introduced by Wexford TD Brendan Howlin in 2017 and its awareness grew after he met with Jackie Fox, mother of the late 'Coco' (Nicole Fox Fenlon), who lives in Courtown.

Ms Fox began a nationwide campaign following the loss of her daughter through suicide in January of 2018. She organised marches, rallies and spoke in public and private to policy makers in her efforts to spark change.

Justice Minister Helen McEntee paid tribute to the dedication of both Ms Fox and Brendan Howlin. 'The new legislation will make the sharing of intimate images without someone's consent a crime. It is abuse and should never be tolerated. It's up to all of us to call out and report this kind of behaviour when we encounter it,' the Minister said.

Jackie Fox has thanked everyone who supported her on this unforgettable journey.

'When I started this campaign, I was in survival mode and it's hard to describe how I feel now. There's relief and happiness but it's bitter-sweet, as I'm starting the grieving that I've been avoiding.

'I know if Nicole was sitting beside me now, she would be so proud. Especially how I fought and didn't give up, she'd be mortified as well having her name everywhere as she was quiet and shy too,' she said.

Jackie said that she never lost hope along the way despite some set backs in the campaign, but she got more than she ever asked for when she met with the Justice Minister.

'When the law is completed you can look it up just by searching 'Coco's law' or 'Nicole Fox' so it'll be in the Irish Statue books long after we're gone - her name is still going to be there'.

The details of the law will mention Nicole as well as 'her mother's determination to honour the memory of her daughter'. As well as this, the Department and DCU will assist Jackie in setting up the Coco Foundation, an educational programme to help Jackie continue her activism, such as speaking to schools and colleges about online bullying.

'When I had the meeting with Helen McEntee this month, she gave me more than anything I could have asked for of Nicole's legacy. It's all different emotions in one, as the amount of messages I've got from parents that just wanted this law in as their sons or daughters were going through the same thing as Nicole was. I sometimes felt useless as I couldn't help but now that we have the law, I get so many messages of hope'.

Ms Fox thanked everyone that got behind the campaign, along with her family and March for Justice Ireland.

'I couldn't believe the amount of support I got. I would have done this until my last breath and never given up and I never lost hope but I did have knock-backs that deflated me a bit. These were when the government broke up, Covid-19 but that changed March For Justice got behind the campaign and picked me back up'.

Deputy Brendan Howlin, who has been there since the early days of the campaign, said that the bill will make the internet a safer place.

'We all know the often tragic consequences of online harassment and image based sexual abuse and the passage into law of this important Bill will ensure that the perpetrators of this vile abuse will be brought to justice.

'I would like to pay tribute to Jackie for her advocacy and tenacity in ensuring that this Bill was kept on the political agenda,' he said.

The new law includes two new offences to deal with the non-consensual distribution of intimate images, and those found guilty could face an unlimited fine and/or up to seven years imprisonment.

Gorey Guardian
UK to Close All London Primary Schools Amid CCP Virus Surge

All primary schools in London will remain closed next week, when the new term was originally scheduled to begin, in light of the rising infection rates of the CCP virus, the British government announced on Friday.

From Jan. 4, all London primary schools will be required to provide remote learning to all children, though vulnerable and children of critical workers will continue to attend school, the government said in a statement.

The government said it was expanding the education contingency framework across London as a last resort to help suppress the spread of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which caused the COVID-19 pandemic.

Childrens education and wellbeing remains a national priority. Moving further parts of London to remote education really is a last resort and a temporary solution, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said.

As infection rates rise across the country, and particularly in London, we must make this move to protect our country and the NHS [National Health Service]. We will continue to keep the list of local authorities under review, and reopen classrooms as soon as we possibly can, he said.

Williamson announced on Wednesday that the reopening of Englands secondary schools, universities, and some primary schools will be delayed to stem the spread of the virus.

Though most English primary schools will reopen on Jan. 4 as planned, he said school reopening will be delayed until at least Jan. 18 in some tier four areas, where the infection rates are highest, which included some but not all London boroughs.

But the government said on Friday it had added all remaining London boroughs to the list in light of Covid case rates rising rapidly across the capital and ongoing engagement with London leaders and the evidence submitted.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan welcomed what he called the right decision, saying on Twitter that the government had finally seen sense and u-turned.

The National Education Union, which represents teachers and education professionals in the UK, said the government must delay school opening nationwide to reduce transmission.

The government put more areas under tier four, the strictest COVID-19 restrictions, on Wednesday. Three-quarters of Englands population are now under effective lockdown.

Also on Wednesday, the UK approved the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, which was hailed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson as a triumph for British science.

But on the downside, Johnson said, the new strain of the CCP virus is spreading much faster and surging across the country.

Lily Zhou contributed to this report.
have been complaining for years about the way the state funds its K-12 education system. The poorest local systems have the most reason to complain; they have extra-large burdens, but they dont receive any extra help from Harrisburg. Joe Gorham runs one of those poor districts, the Carbondale Area School District in northeastern Pennsylvania. He thinks the state needs a complete overhaul in the way it funds public schools. A year ago, Gorham thought meaningful change might be on the way: A new governor had just taken office promising to make school funding a top priority.But for six months (from July through the end of December), no lifeline had come from Harrisburg. Instead, a protracted budget fight between Democrats and Republicans at the state capitol choked off state funds for schools starting in July and nearly forced the Carbondale schools to shut down. As 2015 trudged to a close, Gorham couldnt help wondering whether the same event that gave him hope -- the arrival of a new governor -- had instead added to his districts troubles. The state didn't start cutting checks for schools until a partial budget passed in late December. Even with the stopgap measure in place, the prospects of a major school funding overhaul are still very much in doubt. But what is certain is that just having the conversation exacted a heavy toll on schools.Pennsylvania offers proof that states are not immune from the partisanship that has crippled Congress and the federal government. Just as in Washington, lawmakers in Harrisburg last year strained to keep the governments lights on and the bills paid. And just as in Washington, the forces that led to gridlock are deeply ingrained and unlikely to disappear soon. Its not a comforting prospect for those dependent on the state for crucial assistance, particularly schools, which are at the heart of the recent impasse.Tom Wolf, the states new Democratic governor, campaigned in 2014 on the idea of taxing companies drilling for natural gas and using the money to reimburse school systems , which experienced big cuts under the previous administration. But Republican lawmakers, emboldened by new leadership and the biggest legislative majorities for either party in Pennsylvania since Dwight D. Eisenhower was president, balked at the energy production tax. The result was an inability to produce a state budget and a partial shutdown of state government after the July deadline.With no budget in place, Pennsylvania stopped sending money to support school districts. That put Carbondale in a tight spot. The district didnt have a lot of money to begin with, and it had already depleted its reserves to cope with state budget cuts after the Great Recession. So Carbondale borrowed $1 million to make payroll while the fight in Harrisburg continued. In the second half of the year, the district skipped all payments to its teacher pension fund and withheld contributions to a local charter school. Still, the districts cash balance dipped at one point to just $11,000. Gorham weighed the idea of shutting down Carbondale schools one day a week to save on utility costs. He considered a one-day systemwide protest closure to bring attention to the dire financial straits the district found itself in. But ultimately he decided that those moves would be too disruptive. These funding stalemates not only affect our students and our teachers here on the campus, Gorham says, but they also have a greater impact on the community at large, because this is the main employer.By October, 27 school districts had borrowed a total of $431 million from banks and other sources to keep their schools open during the standoff. Hard-hit districts like Carbondale became the poster children of the budget crisis early on. But dozens of other districts reported that they, too, would have to resort to borrowing if state money didnt start flowing by November. Even with the added pressure on lawmakers and the governor to reach a deal, it wasn't until after Christmas that the first break in the impasse came. Wolf allowed most of a partial budget to become law, even though he called the legislation garbage. He vetoed many provisions to force lawmakers to return to the negotiating table. The governor said the budget falls short, in part because it does not include enough new money for schools. But the agreement does mean that schools will finally start to get money, as will many other organizations that had borne the brunt of the gridlock.The budget stalemate has squeezed more than just schools. Counties, which rely on the state for as much as 40 percent of their budgets, have scrambled to deal with the revenue loss. Several stopped paying vendors. Others cut programs, laid off staff, depleted reserves and borrowed money. As wards of the state, Pennsylvanias counties have been malnourished and mistreated this year, wrote Charlie Ban of the National Association of Counties. Whats more, both the state and county have depended on nonprofit safety net providers to continue offering social services. The effect of the impasse hit close to home for legislators, too. The state Senate had to take out a $9 million loan from PNC Bank so it could pay legislative staff during the shutdown.in part, from the fact that Pennsylvania voters are themselves deeply divided. Wolf, a wealthy businessman and former state revenue secretary, won the governorship handily in 2014 over the unpopular incumbent Republican, Tom Corbett. It was a stinging rebuke for the GOP, marking the first time a sitting governor of either party had lost a re-election bid since the state constitution was changed to allow two-term administrations in 1968. At the same time, however, voters increased Republican majorities in the legislature. The GOP lawmakers elected in 2014 and in the previous 2010 midterm election are to the right of their own party predecessors. In one sign of the philosophical shift, GOP senators chose more conservative leadership following the elections. You have two sides of an issue, says Terry Madonna, the director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College. They both think theyre right, and they both have a mandate to do what they think is right.In short, the 2014 election gave both sides little incentive to compromise on the most important issues. Besides education and energy taxes, the two parties clashed over myriad things, such as how to offer property tax relief, whether to privatize some or all of Pennsylvanias state-owned liquor business and whether to shift state employees from traditional pensions to 401(k)-style retirement plans. But most, if not all, of those questions divided Harrisburg well before Wolf took office. The difference in 2015 was that both sides knew the deal they struck in the governors first year would set the tenure for the rest of his term. That emboldened Wolf to refuse to sign a stopgap measure in the summer that would have kept the state running as normal while its leaders negotiated. It would have come as a relief to some of the states strapped agencies and programs, but it would have taken pressure off Republicans to strike a permanent deal. Both sides also dismissed overtures from each other that they saw as insignificant. This budget really matters, says Stephen Herzenberg, executive director of the left-leaning Keystone Research Center. It matters partly because of whats specifically in the budget, but it also matters to the nature of the political process in Pennsylvania for the next three-plus years.The deadlock of 2015 was by no means the first long-delayed budget for Pennsylvania. In the 1960s, budgets were chronically late: An epic showdown in 1969 lasted 247 days (although the state operated on stopgap budgets in the meantime). Pennsylvanias last Democratic governor, Ed Rendell, went into overtime negotiations three times in his eight-year tenure. In fact, Madonna says, many Pennsylvania governors have begun their terms with budget fights that initially damaged their popularity, only to see their standing rise in time for re-election.But the most recent budget crisis does stand out. Unlike the others, it came on the heels of a deep recession that left localities and social services agencies ill-prepared for another financial hit. As a result, the consequences have been significantly worse.Gorham, the Carbondale superintendent, worried as the stalemate dragged on that the struggle to reach a budget deal would suck the oxygen out of Harrisburg for solving longstanding problems, including one that forced the standoff. My fear is that well pass a budget, and everybody will forget about the main issue, he says. The main issue is that schools are not fully and fairly funded across the commonwealth. That should not continue."